It was supposed to be simple. A sit-down with Feliks Zhirkov, one of the mid-level operators who runs distribution through the eastern ports. Routine. Numbers, schedules, a handshake, and done.
But Feliks brought his nephew. Loud, twenty-something, all swagger and no sense. The kind of man who carries a gun because he thinks it makes him intimidating. He started talking before anyone asked him to, throwing around names he had no business throwing around, making promises he couldn't keep, and when I told him to sit down and shut up, he put his hand on the table like he was reaching for something.
He wasn't reaching for anything. He was posturing. But my body doesn't distinguish between posturing and a threat when the adrenaline is already running.
I had him against the wall before Feliks could open his mouth. My forearm across his throat, his feet barely touching the floor, his eyes wide and stupid with shock. He swung. Caught me across the jaw. His ring split the skin above my cheekbone and I felt the blood before I felt the pain.
I hit him once. He dropped.
Feliks pulled his nephew off the floor, apologized three times, and left. The meeting was over. The numbers didn't getdiscussed. The schedule didn't get confirmed. And I'm driving home at half past nine at night with blood drying on my face and my knuckles swelling and a fury in my chest that has nothing to do with Feliks or his idiot nephew and everything to do with the fact that I am so goddamn tired of being pushed.
By the council. By the men who work under us. By every person in this world who looks at the Orlov name and sees something to test.
I park in the drive and sit in the car for a minute. The house is lit up. Every window warm. She does that now. Turns on every lamp on the ground floor before dark so the house glows when I pull in through the gates.
I get out. Walk to the door. My jaw is throbbing, and when I touch my cheek, my fingers come away sticky. The cut is still seeping. I should have cleaned it before I drove home, but I wasn't thinking about the cut. I was thinking about how Gregor sent a message through Feliks's nephew, because that's what this was. A reminder. A prod. The council letting me know they're still watching.
I open the front door and the house hits me like a wall. Warm air. The smell of something slow-cooked, rich and savory. Clean floors. Fresh flowers on the hall table, something white and small that she might have cut from the garden. Music playing softly from somewhere in the back of the house, something classical and low.
Three days and she's turned my house into something I barely recognize. Something I don't want to admit I look forward to walking into.
I hear her before I see her. Footsteps in the kitchen. The soft clink of a pot lid. Then she rounds the corner into the hallway, wiping her hands on a dish towel, and stops.
Her eyes go straight to my face. The cut. The blood. I watch her gaze track down to my hands, the swollen knuckles, the split skin. She takes all of it in without a word.
I wait for the flinch. The questions. The wide-eyed horror that a normal woman would show when her husband walks through the door looking like he's been in a bar fight.
She doesn't even twitch. She folds the dish towel over her shoulder, steps toward me, and says, "Sit down."
"I'm fine."
"You're bleeding. Sit down."
There's a note in her voice I haven't heard before. Not sharp exactly, but firm. Like she's not asking and she has removed any room to argue.
I do as she asks because I am tired.
She disappears and comes back in under a minute with a bowl of warm water, a clean cloth, antiseptic, and a small case I recognize from the bathroom cabinet. My own first aid kit. She's already found it. Already knows where everything is.
She pulls a chair close to mine and sits down in front of me. Eye level. Close enough that I can smell her. Something soft, honey maybe, under the warm kitchen smells clinging to her dress.
"Hold still," she says.
She lifts the cloth to my face. Dabs at the cut with careful, practiced strokes. Her fingers are light. Steady. She doesn't hesitate, doesn't fumble, doesn't wince at the blood. She just works, quiet and focused, cleaning the wound with the same calm efficiency she brings to everything else in this house.
"It's not too deep," she says as she turns my face toward the light. "But it'll scar."
"I know."
She applies antiseptic. It stings, and I must tense, because her free hand comes up and rests against the other side of my face. Holding me steady. Her palm is warm and soft against my jaw.
"Almost done," she murmurs.
I stare at her while she works. This close, I can see the faint freckles across her nose. The way her lashes cast shadows on her cheeks when she looks down. The small crease between her eyebrows that appears when she's concentrating.
Once she has applied butterfly strips to the small gash on my cheek, she moves to my hands. Takes my right one, turns it over, examines the knuckles. Cleans each split with the same careful attention. Then the left.
"You should ice these," she says.
