He pauses. Just half a second. Long enough to feel like he noticed it too.
“Where are my roses?” he asks as he glances around the room.
“Trash bin,” I answer. His jaw ticks. I should feel smug not guilty about tossing out his gift, but I’ve never received flowers before. The first ones I get just had to come from a ruthless mobster and were apparently meant as an omen of my death. Or my brother’s.
My mouth goes dry as we stand there facing off after that truth, all alone in the penthouse since the guards were too chicken-shit to follow him inside.
“Dominik’s not here,” I blurt out before I can stop myself. It sounds both like a warning and an invitation, and I’m annoyed that it can even be both. “He should be back any second,” I add, and the lie tastes like acid. I have no idea where he is or how much longer he’ll be out.
“Yes, of course,” Gavriil replies sarcastically as if he tastes my lie.
“You should give him a call,” I say because I know being alone with thePakhanis not a good idea. I don’t know what all he’s truly capable of, and I’d rather not find out all on my own.
“Ah. I would, but Dominik has decided to ignore my calls today.” His gaze takes in the room; nothing is admired, everything is assessed. When his eyes land on me again, they rest there, and lines of chill bumps raise along my arms.
“What do you want?” My voice is steadier than the rest of me, which is shaking on the inside.
“A conversation with you,” he says. His jaw tightens, not like a man issuing orders, but like one stopping himself from saying something he shouldn’t. “A short one.” He moves closer, slowly, like an animal polite enough to ask permission before it eats you alive. “I wondered about something.”
“Wondered,” I echo, because the word coming from his mouth feels wrong. He doesn’t seem like the type of man to waste time wondering about anything.
“Yes, about whether my brother’s poor judgment lately is a choice,” he says, “or a sickness he can’t see.”
Anger flares, quick and useful. He means me. I’m the poor judgment he’s talking about. “You should ask him that.”
“I did,” he says. “He told me to judge him by his results.” A sliver of a smile touches his mouth and dies there. “He’s been taking his time.”
“He’s been working on getting all the guns and money while suffering from a gunshot wound. He’ll meet your deadline,” I sayin a rush. He doesn’t get to criticize Dominik behind his back when he’s the one making things unnecessarily difficult for him.
Gavriil studies me like he can see through me, underneath my skin. “Do you really believe that?” he asks, curious and cruel. “Or do you need me to believe you do?”
Both. Neither. “Dom…he doesn’t make promises he can’t keep.”
“Dom,” he repeats, mocking the way I say the shortened version of his name. He steps into my space, his cologne becoming all-too familiar. “Dom promised me one week. In that week I have received a shooting, a public mess, a hole in him, barely half of my stolen guns, and a sad sack of money he did not deliver himself, but notyou.”
The last word is soft and dangerous. I try not to move.
“I didn’t ask to be here,” I say.
“No,” he agrees. “You were taken because you were to be leverage.” His eyes hold mine with a steadiness that makes me want to blink and not give him the satisfaction. “But leverage becomes liability when the person holding it grows attached. You see my problem here.”
Heat floods my face so fast it feels like a betrayal. “He’s not?—”
“Attached?” His brows lift by a hair. “My brother, who never refuses me anything, refuses to hand you over when I ask. He places you behind his body when I enter a room. He threatens men whose names he will need tomorrow because their eyes linger on your pretty mouth.” His gaze flicks to my lips and then back to my eyes, a scythe disguised as a glance. “If that is not ‘attachment,’ then my English translation has clearly failed me.”
The floor pitches like an elevator starting too hard. I swallow. “What do you want me to say, Gavriil?”
He smiles again, not kindly when I use his name. “Nothing. I just want you to listen.” He tilts his head; this close, I see thesmall scar near his temple, a pale line that reminds me he’s not perfect after all. “You can end all this.”
I stare. “End… what?”
“The week,” he says. “The pressure. The dangers of a man trying to protect too many things at once.” He takes one slow step closer. If I leaned forward an inch, my shirt would brush his jacket. My throat locks. He wants me to cower, to back down. I don’t. “Walk out the door with me now. Willingly. No scene. No shouting. You give Dominik back his focus. I tell our people that his judgment is intact. I call off certain debts. I keep your brother alive and well. I can do all this with a single word.” He holds my gaze so long my pulse feels like it has to ask permission to continue. “All I require is another word. From you.”
No.It forms. It struggles. It runs straight into the memory of Archer’s voice the last time we spoke—thin, scraped, trying to be brave knowing he’ll never come up with the full amount of money he stole. It collides with the knowledge that Dominik is still bleeding from a gunshot wound because my brother betrayed him twice.
“You’re lying,” I say, and the line sounds childish even to me. “You can’t guarantee any of that.”
He shrugs one shoulder, elegant, controlled. He may look too polished to be violent, but the slight weight in his suit jacket says otherwise. A gun is nestled inside, close enough to draw without thinking. “Very little in our world is guaranteed,” he replies. “But my will, Alina, is a strong substitute.”
