My blood runs cold.
Aleksander stands across the table, his gaze fixed on me, tension thrumming through his frame. “Bella, it’s not important.”
I snap, voice shaking, “Not important? You’re getting messages about me—about my child. Who is S?”
He looks away, jaw tight. “It doesn’t concern you. Just give me the phone.”
I shove it across the table. “It concerns me if people are watching us. If you’re planning things behind my back, Aleksander. I deserve to know what’s going on!”
He sighs, eyes darkening. “It’s not what you think. Just trust me, Bella. This isn’t the time?—”
I cut him off, louder now. “Stop telling me to trust you! You keep saying you’ll explain, but you never do. I’m done being left in the dark.”
He steps closer, trying to lower his voice, but the anger is there, simmering. “You want me to protect you or not? Because this is how it’s done.”
“I never asked for this!” My hands clench. “I never asked to be dragged through airports and into hotels and lied to about what’s really happening!”
He closes his eyes for a moment, struggling for patience. “If I told you everything, you’d be in even more danger. I’m doing what I have to.”
My chest aches with frustration. “That’s not your choice, Aleksander. It’s mine. You don’t get to decide what I can or can’t handle.”
For a long moment, neither of us speaks. The city glows outside the windows, but inside, the air is sharp and thin.
He looks at me finally, a raw edge in his voice. “I just want to keep you safe.”
“Tell me the truth,” I say. My voice comes out thinner than I want. “Not the version you think I can handle. The actual truth.”
He looks at me for a long second, as if he’s deciding whether this is the moment he loses whatever control he still has over the situation.
Then he nods once.
“My name is Aleksander Antonov,” he says.
He says it plainly, no flourish.
I stare at him, trying to keep my face neutral, trying not to show how fast my heart is beating.
“My family is…known,” he continues. “In Saint Petersburg, in Moscow, in places you don’t read about. My father built something there. Power. Money. Fear. People did things because he asked. Sometimes because he didn’t have to ask.”
He pauses, not for effect. Like he’s choosing his words carefully.
“I was born into it. I didn’t join. I didn’t get recruited. It was already in my blood before I understood what it meant.”
I swallow hard. This is not a movie. This is a man in front of me, in a Boston penthouse, speaking like he’s reciting a fact that has been true longer than he’s been alive.
“The Bratva,” he says, and watches my face as if gauging whether the word lands. “That’s what it is. That’s where I come from.”
For a second my brain refuses to cooperate. My mouth does something stupid and I laugh. It comes out sharp, disbelieving, the sound you make when the truth is too big to fit in your head.
“You’re…what,” I manage. “You expect me to believe you’re Russian mafia.”
He doesn’t flinch. “Yes.”
I shake my head, still half laughing because it feels safer than falling apart. “Aleksander, that’s insane.”
“It’s not,” he says, calm and firm. “It’s just not your world.”
I stop laughing. The steadiness in his voice kills the humor. There’s nothing theatrical about him right now. No charm. No flirtation. He looks tired, and not the kind of tired you fix with sleep.
