Page 64 of Arranged for the Russian Pakhan

Chapter 23 - Darya

I’m not asleep when the tires screech up the driveway.

I’ve been trying to change that status of awakeness for the better part of two hours, but I’m not particularly keen on dozing my sweet fetus with over-the-counter sleeping pills either. I haven’t checked with Yulia or my OBGYN, but I have a feeling it wouldn’t be advised.

I’ve been lying in my childhood bedroom with its rosebud wallpaper and its window seat, watching the bare black branches of the garden trees move against a sky that can’t decide if it wants to be dark or just grey, and thinking about the Madonna in my atelier. About gold leaf lifting away from a surface it was never going to be able to hold onto, once the adhesive beneath it had failed.

When the sound slices through the nighttime hush, my heart leaps to my throat. The shriek of tires on the wet drive that registers first as a threat, the way every loud and sudden thing registers in this house, in this family, before it registers as anything else. I’m upright before I’ve decided to be, my feet on the cold floor, my hand already reaching for the handgun I keep in the nightstand, because I am a Yuri and we don’t go to bed unarmed.

I’m at the bedroom door before I hear the voices starting up downstairs.

I recognize them immediately. I’d recognize them in a burning building, in a hurricane, in any state of consciousness or none at all. That’s Trifon. That’s Valentin. That’s Iosif, who must have stayed the night again, because his voice doesn’t have the slightly delayed quality of a man who’s just been woken up and dragged into something. A quality Trifon’s voice absolutely has when he grouses, stomping around.

But everyone else fades to the periphery in a flash of an instant, because there’s a man in the foyer whom I’ve been dreaming of for days—and I almost can’t believe he’s here, and he’s real. Or I wouldn’t, if he didn’t look like hell warmed up. Even his typically golden coif has been reduced to a limp, straw-colored mess.

I stop in the middle of the hallway. My heart stops in my chest.

“You have about thirty seconds to tell me what the hell you’re doing here before I shoot you myself,” Trifon growls, and I can hear from his voice that he’s in the entry hall, which means Anton has actually made it through the front door. Or through a door. Knowing my brothers, they may have opened it specifically to have more room for what comes next. They may not have been raining questions down on me, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have them. Or that they don’t want a pound of flesh for the tears they’ve seen remnants of in my eyes.

“I’m here for my wife. Obviously.” Anton’s words are frank and matter-of-fact. Completely, almost insultingly casual.

“Your wife,” Valentin repeats, and the way he says it tells me exactly what expression is on his face. I suspect that click was from his gun.

“Yes.” A pause. “I’d appreciate it if you could lower that.”

“I’d appreciate a lot of things,” Valentin says. “Life’s full of disappointments.”

“Val.” That’s Iosif, and his voice has the particular quality it gets when he’s trying to be the reasonable one, which happens rarely enough that everyone always notices it. “Let him talk.”

“He can talk with a gun on him,” Trifon says. “No one’s put the barrel in his mouth.”

“Yet,” Valentin adds.

I cover my face with my hand, fighting a laugh despite myself.

“That sounds like a euphemism. I thought it was Leonid I was meant to be on the lookout for,” Anton says. And God help me, there’s something about the fact that he’s cracking jokes—inside jokes, between us, with my brothers—that is infuriatingly sexy. I have to press my hand over my mouth to keep the sound I make from being audible from the staircase.

There’s a beat of silence.

And then, “Darya’s not here,” Trifon lies through his teeth.

“Yes, she is,” Anton replies, as if disagreeing with an opinion.

“And you know that how?” Valentin challenges.

“Her security detail’s car is parked at the end of the drive with the lights off,” Anton says astutely. One point for Zakharov. “She always keeps them close, but not visible when she’s somewhere she considers safe, even with the mole situation. It’s one of the smarter protocols I’ve seen. I’d have implemented it myself if I’d thought of it first.” A pause. “I should also mention that I’ve been standing in your driveway for several minutes, and no one came out to meet me until I rang the bell. Which means whoever’s on watch tonight is either very well-disciplined or very cold. Either way, they let me ring the bell. I have to believe that means someone in this house decided to let this play out rather than have me removed at the gate. I’d like to think that was her.”

It wasn’t, actually.

It was Trifon, I’m almost certain, which means my eldest brother has more complicated feelings about this situation than he’s been letting on.

“What do you want?” Trifon asks, his tone anything but amused.

“I want to speak with my wife.” Another pause, and this one has a different quality—an earnestness that catches me off guard just hearing it. “I want to bring her home.”

“She is home,” Valentin says.

“Valentin.” Anton’s voice is still controlled, but it costs him more this time. I can hear it. I’ve gotten very good at hearing the things Anton doesn’t say out loud. Not that it was enough, in the end. “I understand that you love your sister. And I’m glad for it. I don’t technically have a sister, but if I did, I’d want her to be this loved, which is how I understand that your instinct right now is to keep me on the wrong side of every door in this house until I give up and leave. I want you to know that I’m not going to do that. I can’t. I’m not leaving without her—or at least talking to her. You can shoot me if you’d like. I’d rather you didn’t; mostly it will start a series of shit on top of shit to have a dead Pakhan amidst already raging discord and chaos.”