My forehead rests against hers for a moment, and we just exist in that space, the space between everything we are and everything we're pretending to be.
"You're going to be the death of me, aren't you," I say quietly. Then I stand, pushing her off me gently but firmly, needing distance before I change my mind about letting her leave.
She backs away, keeping her eyes on me, and I see her mind working. Trying to process what just happened. Trying to understand what this means.
I reach into my jacket, and she tenses like she's expecting a weapon. Instead, I pull out an envelope. Thick. Heavy with fifteen thousand dollars, give or take.
I hold it out to her. "Take it."
She takes the envelope, peeks inside, then looks up at me with confusion written all over her beautiful face.
"Call it a tip," I say. "Or call it an investment. Call it whatever you want, but take it and use it to do what you need to do."
"Why?" she asks.
I can’t help but smile. "Because sometimes the best thing you can do for something is to let the people who want to destroy it have their way. Because I've been bored, and you're interesting." I adjust my still-hard cock in my pants, letting her see what she does to me. "Because your sweet little pussy just came all over me and I can't wait to do it again. But next time, I'll be inside you." I walk past her to the door, then turn back. One more thing she needs to understand. "Oh," I say, "if you do manage to accomplish what you want, if you manage to actually go through with it, there will be consequences. There will be people who come after you. People who won't be forgiving and who won't give you a chance to explain yourself."
"I know," she says.
"Do you?" I ask. "Do you really understand that the moment you do this, everything changes? That you can't undo it, can't take it back? That you still have to live after? After your very purpose for living no longer exists?"
"Yes," she says. "I understand."
She's lying. I can see it in her eyes. She hasn't thought past killing the Pakhan. Hasn't considered what comes after. What she'll do when the rage that's been driving her for ten yearssuddenly has nowhere to go. But that's fine. I've thought about it. I've thought about what comes after.
What comes after is me.
"I think you're both brave and dumb," I say, shaking my head. "And I'm not sure which one worries me more." Then I leave before I do something idiotic like tell her I'm in love with her, that I'm going to make sure she survives this. Or that after she kills the Pakhan, after the rage burns out and the dust settles, I'm going to be there.
I walk out of the club into the night air, my cock still hard, my heart still racing, my mind already planning the next steps. I just funded a vendetta that will tear apart the organization I've spent fifteen years building. I just committed treason for a woman I've known for less than a week. And I'd do it again in a heartbeat. Because she's mine. Was always meant to be mine. And I'm not letting anything—not the Pakhan, not the Bratva, not even her own desire to kill me—take her away from me.
I climb onto my bike, starting the engine and thinking about the way she looked when she came. About the sounds she made and how she's going to look when I finally get her underneath me, on her knees before me, on top of me. I shake my head to clear the lusty thoughts.
I now know I have a new purpose in life: I'm going to spend the rest of my short life making sure she never has to be afraid again. Even if that means destroying everything I've ever known.
I drive into the night, already counting the hours until I can see her again.
CHAPTER 5
Sofiya
SONG: WICKED GAME BY CHRIS ISAAK
The daysafter Volk's visit blur together, distinct shapes dissolving into something I no longer recognize. Training becomes rote. My body moves through combinations I've drilled ten thousand times—jab, cross, hook, slip—but my mind circles elsewhere. Orbits around his words, his kiss, the X tattooed beneath his eye like an accusation. Like a mirror of the one carved into my back.
At the club, I dance. Gather information from conversations I'm only half-listening to. Smile at the right moments, laugh when expected, let my body move in ways that keep men's eyes on everything except my face. Something fundamental has shifted. A bone set wrong that now aches with every movement, every breath.
I catch myself staring at nothing. At the heavy bag swaying slightly from my last punch. At my reflection in the dressing room mirror. The plan I've carried for ten years—the architecture of my entire life—now feels slippery. Like the foundation is crumbling.
Would I actually feel better after I kill Father?
After I kill Volk?
The question haunts me during a lap dance. Some banker's breath is hot on my neck and all I can think about is a set of different hands, a different mouth. In the dressing room, my hand freezes, eyeliner suspended midair. In the shower at dawn when cold water pounds against the X on my back, I remember his fingers touching dangerously close to it. I have no answer. Only the certainty that asking the question at all means I'm already lost.
Angel notices. Of course she does—she notices everything, reads people the way I read threats and exits. She says nothing, which is somehow worse than confrontation. Her eyes track me differently now, careful and assessing. Sometimes I catch an expression on her face that might be understanding. Might be pity. I can't decide which would destroy me faster.
"You're distracted," she says one night, three days after the last time I saw him. We're in the dressing room, the shift over, both of us wiping away the glitter and lies. "Dangerous thing, in this business."
