"Okay?" Her laugh is brittle, sharp. "We just got chased by whoever they were. Nothing about this is okay."
"You're alive. That's okay enough." I glance at her, taking in the fear beneath the bravado. "Welcome to my world, Mrs. Orlov."
She stares at me, blue eyes wide and dark. Then her gaze drops to her lap, where her dad's lighter gleams against cream silk. She picks it up, thumb working the mechanism.Click snap.Click snap.
"We can't go back for my things," she says quietly.
"I'll send someone. Tomorrow, when it's safe."
"And tonight?"
"Tonight you learn what it means to be married to The Wolf." I reach over, covering her hand with mine, stilling the lighter's anxious rhythm. Her skin is cold. She’s trembling. "I'll protect you, Izzy. That's the deal."
She looks at our joined hands, then up at me. The fear in her eyes melts into determination or maybe just acceptance.
"Then protect me," she whispers.
The rain gets harder. I drive us toward Brooklyn, toward the fortress I've built, toward whatever comes next.
Behind us, the city bleeds into grey nothingness.
7
Izzy
"Those weren't my enemies.They were yours."
The words land like a slap. I'm still white-knuckling the door handle, rain hammering the SUV roof, my pulse doing its best impression of a cardiac event. Sergei's eyes don't leave the road—scanning every car, every shadow, like he's cataloguing which ones are here to kill us.
"Mine?" The word comes out strangled. "What the fuck are you talking about?"
"Those men weren't Bratva." Another turn. Smooth. Controlled. Like we're not fleeing armed pursuers. "Wrong suits, wrong approach. They wanted you scared, not bleeding out in Midtown. If they wanted you dead, you wouldn't have made it to the car."
His casual certainty makes my skin crawl. "How do you know?"
"Because I've done both." Flat. Matter-of-fact. Like he's explaining why the sky's blue, instead of his extensive murder résumé. "This was theater. A message."
"From whom? Uncle Matthew? Cal fucking Reznick?"
"Could be. Could be both." He glances at me, and there's something dark in his expression. Knowledge. "You showed up at my office, married The Wolf, told Manhattan's elite to go to hell. People who wanted you compliant just got a very clear answer. They're not happy about it."
I'm gripping Dad's lighter so hard, the edges bite crescents into my palm. "So marrying you painted a target on my back."
"You already had a target on your back,kotyonok. I just gave you someone who shoots back." His hand closes over mine, prying the lighter free before I draw blood. "Better armed than compliant."
The stalker. Two years ago. I'd been in the shower—oblivious, vulnerable—when the man broke in. Didn't hear the lock being picked. Didn't know I was thirty seconds from being another Upper East Side headline, until Sergei appeared like something out of a nightmare.
Efficient. Brutal. Over before I could scream.
He'd saved me then, without hesitation. Just doing his job.
Except now it's not a job.
"I remember that night," I say quietly. "The stalker. The way you—you didn't even blink."
"Violence doesn't scare me." Both hands are back on the wheel. "It should scare you."
"It does." I look at his profile—all hard angles and barely controlled danger—and mine for the next however long this arrangement lasts. "You don't, though."
