Page 11 of Arranged for the Russian Pakhan

There’s always more work to do at the atelier. Spending the better part of two hours on the phone with my sister renders time liminal, and we chatter as I run through a series of tasks. I can only assume she misses me, too, if she can keep herself from getting antsy for that long.

Eventually, though, she runs out of steam. At least that’s what I’m going with, since I’ve got less than no interest in interpreting the sounds after I heard her husband return home from his day.

I’m not bothered by the silence after we hang up. I treasure it after a bout of its absence.

Honestly, sometimes, I question whether I show up back at the family estate so often because I’m getting too used to the quiet cocoon of this life I’ve fashioned for myself. It’s a life I enjoy. I like it. I like the work I do, and I like that I’m spectacular at it. I like the trappings of the atelier itself that I chose, every detail of it, painstakingly particular, with no one around to call it overkill.

I even enjoy that, of all three of the security guards who’ve been tasked with following me around, one always steps forward to carry my purse, and then all of them fall in line, matching my gait step for step, all the way to the Cadillac Escalade parked at the curb. And I enjoy every second of the drive back to my pre-war townhouse in Beacon Hill, which I purchased with my own dime.

Not being let into the grim intricacies of Bratva business has its perks. I can tell myself that, and have it be the truth.

Yes, it bothers me that my brothers are all in on it. That most of them have partners to go to bed with, and I wonder sometimes if they share as much with them as Viktor Zakharov does with Nadya.

Yet, in the absence of answers, I still can’t wait to walk through the door and let my housekeeper, Vera, take my coat for me. Waiting for me is a stew to warm my belly with, because that is what I asked for before I left in the morning. I may not be privy to clandestine words around a breach in security, but neither are there any words for how forward I look to taking a wineglass of scrumptious red to the hot bath I’ll soak my body in tonight. That isn’t nothing to me.

Life is a game of odds that way, I find.

Every step up the stairs to my stoop, I remind myself of it.

I’m a little too entranced by my own train of thought, apparently, to do anything but half-listen as I enter my home. I’m caught up in the tirade in my head, which trips over something Vera says, registering with a delay.

“—your visitor in the sitting room. I offered tea, but he—”

I balk.

“My what?”

Vera blinks at me, color high in her cheeks. She’s worked for me for the past four years, and I know her not to get easily flustered. Yet that’s exactly how she looks. “Miss, he—” she clears her throat, soothing her somewhat high-pitched words. “He arrived twenty minutes ago. I did try to call—”

I snatch my phone out of the pocket of my coat, where I’d tucked it before leaving work. There are no missed calls from anyone but, yes, Vera. My family always calls before showing up. They know better than to surprise me. I stare at the clock on the screen.

There’s no good reason anyone would show up here past 10 PM. I find nothing delightful after 9.

Vera squeaks, “I can—”

I shake my head. Absolutely not. “It’s okay. I’ve got it, Vera, thank you,” I say curtly, not happy that she’s just allowed someone in.

I cut a sharp, irate path towards the sitting room to find out just who that someone is. It’s a path that falters when he steps out into the foyer to meet me halfway.

Oh, I think. My breath stalls in my lungs, leaving them to burn from the lack of air. Still: Oh, my brain says. Stupidly. That’s all I can think of at the sight of him, taking up space in a doorway, his broad-chested body making me feel narrower than I know I am.

It happens so swiftly, my nervous system seems to glitch. One moment, I am mired in indignation. In the next, only shock reverberates through me. The only small comfort at my disposal is the certainty that ire isn’t likely to be far behind.

It never is when I’m confronted by Anton Zakharov.

Chapter 4 - Anton

Today, more than ever before, Darya looks like she’s made to be touched. She’s as close to unkempt as she could ever get—which is to say, her raven-black curls are windswept, a few stray tendrils fallen out of the half-up style she’d secured them in, and her face is flushed. Her lipstick is gone from the center of her mouth, leaving an inner circle of slaughterhouse pink where red used to be.

It looks like the innermost part of a rose petal.

In this moment, I almost forget that it was only last night that someone set fire to multiple warehouses—both Zakharov and Yuri—at the same time. The mole, whoever this motherfucker or motherfuckers are, is getting bolder the more we hunt for them. I almost forgot the furious back-and-forth between Trifon and me for an hour after.

I wonder if I look as wrung out as I feel.

For her part, I’ve never seen this woman look so shocked. I suspect a feather could really knock her over. Having to catch her could be as good an excuse as any to touch her.

For the sake of some fucking self-preservation, I stuff my hands into the pockets of my slacks instead.