Page 1 of Conceal

Prologue

Tatiana

Ilove love.

I know that sounds childish and naïve, but the idea that there’s some invisible force, powerful feeling, or I don’t even know what, that brings two people together in a way that goes beyond reality is addictive. It’s a myth, or urban legend, that I’ve never felt before. I’ve watched Disney movies about romantic love, read Shakespeare about tragic love, and I have a platonic love for my best friend that is bone deep. And I love my brother as much as I can. Our age gap meant that by the time I wanted to chase him around and hang out with him, he was being trained by our father to take over the family business.

I don’t know if it’s a childhood fantasy or internalized misogyny, but I’m convinced my life will start once I fall in love.

And I’ve been trying.

The moment two people lock eyes across a crowded room and share some internal knowing.

The passionate make-out sessions where you can’t keep your hands to yourself.

The grand gestures and beautiful weddings where you declare your loyalty to each other in front of everyone you know.

I paint lovers holding hands beneath cherry blossom trees. I collect dog-eared romance novels. I can quote half the lines from You’ve Got Mail and Sleepless in Seattle. Somewhere between Disney princesses and Shakespearean tragedies, I became convinced that love was the most powerful force in the universe.

Growing up the daughter of the Maryland Bratva and second to the Pakhan means every boy in our world stayed as far away as they could. High school was a humiliation ritual of fake friends and awful rumors. My parents enrolled me in a private school, but being close to DC meant that the kids there were diplomats’ and politicians’ kids, or trust fund nepo-babies. While my family’s “official” line of business is “imports/exports”, everyone in three states knows what the Chernov last name really means.

Being the daughter of the Maryland Bratva’s Pakhan isn’t exactly conducive to a normal upbringing. Some people wanted to be my friend because they thought I was rich.

Others avoided me because they thought my father would have them killed if I wanted him to.

In either case, I usually ended up alone.

Except for Mikhail. He’s been my constant companion since we were kids, and I found him hiding in a dark alley between two restaurants in Baltimore.

He was about my age, but his baggy clothes were torn and dirty, and he was as skittish as a mouse. He still had dried blood caked around his ear, and I knew he was mine.

It took some convincing, but my father never really paid me any attention, and my mother is drunk or on some cocktail of downers more than she’s not, so they let me drag this random boy home with us.

Dr. Morozov checked him over and determined he had partial hearing loss from a fractured skull, thanks to his drunken father. We’ve been best friends ever since.

But a best friend doesn’t fill that hole in my chest. I want to feel what falling in love feels like. I want someone to fall in love with me. I want that happily-ever-after.

Which is why it’s so disappointing when I walk in on my boyfriend having sex with someone else.

Chapter one

Tatiana

The feminine moans coming from my boyfriend’s bedroom definitely aren’t mine. I pause in the entryway of his apartment and listen, praying I didn’t hear what I think I heard. But then there’s another exaggerated moan and a thump as a headboard hits a wall.

I sigh.

I take a moment to decide what to do. If I leave and text him that it’s over, he’ll want to know why. I’ll tell him he cheated, and he’ll deny it. Or try to flip the switch and gaslight me. If I go in there and catch him in the act, there’s no denying what he did, and we can end it now.

I search my body for pain or anger, but I’m more annoyed than hurt. We’d been set up by my mother in her string of attempts at pairing me up with someone “worthy”. I don’t hate my mother, but her definition of “worthy” just means wealthy. But she’d married my father for money and now spends most of her life trying to escape that reality.

Leo was fine in the beginning. Charming, charismatic, he knew how to give me the attention I craved without smothering. He was complimentary, sweet even.

But this? He knew I was coming to his apartment. He’d asked me to check a book out of the library for him and drop it by his apartment. I hadn’t thought twice about it. Isn’t that what good girlfriends do?

Which means he must have known he’d be walked in on. Which is more confusing than anything. If he wanted out of the relationship, why go to these extremes? Just break it off. Over text, even, I don’t care. I do care that I wasted a month of my life giving time and attention to someone who would try to hurt me like this.

I close the door and walk down the short hall to his bedroom.