14
Lev
She takes the last of the bread without asking, and I let her, because I’d let her take most things at this point, and I’m not going to examine that too closely.
We’ve been at the dacha since yesterday morning. I drove us out before sunrise, two hours through fields and pine that got thicker the farther we got from the city. She slept most of the way with her cheek against the window and her shoes off on the seat.
Polina didn’t ask where we were going. She trusted me with the route, which is more than I’ve earned, and I spent the better part of that drive more aware of her breathing than the road.
The place belongs to a contact who owes me a favor and knows better than to ask why I need it. It’s quaint and simple, with wood floors and a stone fireplace, and she made herself at home before I finished bringing in the bags. She found the kitchen first, and by the time we sat down to eat, the dacha felt less like a hideout and more like somewhere we’d chosen to be.
I’ve spent two years watching her from a distance, and I still wasn’t prepared for what she’s like when she isn’t performing anything for anyone.
“You’re staring,” she comments without looking up from her plate.
“I’m aware.”
“It’s impolite.”
“I’ll work on it,” I reply with a smirk, though I have no intention of doing so.
She looks up, and the corner of her mouth does what it does when she’s trying not to be amused. She tears the piece of bread she took earlier and holds half across the table toward me. I already have bread, but I take it anyway, and she watches my hand before looking back down at her plate, and my cock stirs like I’m seventeen years old.
I don’t know what to do with her, which is a new problem for me. I’ve been around women I wanted, and people I respected, but this is the first time those two things have shown up together.
I catch myself doing things I can’t justify, like refilling her glass before she asks, putting myself between her and the door, and listening for the sound of her moving through rooms I can’t see her in. When she laughs genuinely at something I say, I lose track of whatever I was saying.
I’ve spent years building loyalty through competence and fear, and here I am, completely undone by a woman who steals the last of the bread.
Ruslan would have a lot to say about all of this, but Ruslan is in Moscow. Not here.
She’s wearing my sweater because she packed light and gets cold at night. I’ve been trying not to stare at her in it for the last hour. The sleeves hang past her wrists, and she keeps pushing them up. Every time she does, I want to put my mouth on the inside of her wrist and work my way up from there.
Polina has her knees pulled up on the chair and her wine glass balanced on her knee, and she looks nothing like the woman who runs a trauma bay at Moscow General. She looks like herself, which turns out to be considerably more dangerous.
She looks at me over the rim of her glass, and for a second, her face is unguarded in a way she doesn’t usually allow, and then she looks away first, which rarely happens. She sets her wine on the arm of the chair and seems to be deciding something. I’ve learned not to push her.
“My parents died when I was sixteen,” she says. “Car accident. Black ice, according to the official report.” She takes a slow sip. “I never believed it.”
I keep my face neutral. “Why not?”
“Because it wasn’t cold enough for black ice to form that day.” She shrugs, and her eyes stay on the fire. “My mother wasn’t Bratva. She came from outside, married my father, and spent the rest of her life being treated like an outsider. She had knowledge of both families just from living in our house. She knew too much about both organizations simply from living in our house. For years before she died, powerful men considered her a liability.”
I say nothing, because there’s nothing safe to say. I know all this from my findings, but I can’t tell her that her suspicions are spot-on without betraying my family.
“I spent two years after it happened pulling every police document I could get my hands on. I tracked down three witnesses and spoke to all of them. But I was eighteen.” She pauses to clear her throat. “Then I stopped. Not because I changed my mind about what happened. I stopped because I was old enough to understand that whoever ordered it was still operating, and asking too loudly would put me in the ground next to them.”
I reach forward and set my glass on the table, mostly so my hands have somewhere to go.
Polina sets her wine down as well and bites her bottom lip, looking at me expectantly with her stunning brown eyes. “You’re not saying anything.”
“I’m listening.” My mouth is dry from the oversimplification. Iamlistening, but I’m also drowning in guilt.
“Does it bother you? Talking about things like this that are so personal?”
“No. Of course, not. They were… I mean, theyareimportant to you. Tell me what they were like.”
She checks my face once, the way she does when she’s deciding whether someone means what they say. Then she does.
