Over the past few days I had learned the names of everyone coming in and out of the house, and of those who remained. I filed them the way I had once filed case studies at university. Methodically. Without letting on.
Ruslan was his closest advisor—the one Vadim listened to, which made him the most important man in the building after Vadim himself. Bogdan and Tikhon were the Pakhan’sbyki, present and armed at all hours, rotating in and out with the quiet efficiency of men who had been doing this long enough to make it invisible.
Konstantin I already knew by reputation. All of Chernograd knew Konstantin. The question I had turned over several times was why a man of his capability had never moved beyond krysha and torpedo—enforcer and killer, the positions he had held for years. The answer, I suspected, was that he didn’t want to. That he enjoyed the work too much to trade it for a captaincy and the politics that came with it.
Valentin. He dressed differently to the others—not as dark, lighter in colour if not in substance—but he was cut from the same cloth as the rest of them. He moved through the house with the careful precision of someone who understood exactly what everything was worth. I did wonder what his function was within the Bratva.
Grigori I knew through my father. The only captain the new Pakhan had retained from the old guard. I hoped my father found that decision galling. I had left my entire life and walked into this one so that Vadim Dragunov could consolidate his empire, and the least the universe could do was ensure Leonid Kozlov was irritated by at least one small element of the outcome.
The domestic staff didn’t speak to me beyond what was necessary. The housekeeper gave instructions. The cook produced meals at appointed times. The maids moved around me like I was furniture that hadn’t yet been assigned a room. They followed my requests as long as those requests didn’t conflict with the Pakhan’s preferences, and the Pakhan’s preferences, it turned out, covered a significant amount of territory.
Spartak and Radovan—my shadows—had developed a specific expression for when I asked questions. Apprehensive was the right word for it. The expression of men caught between two sources of authority and acutely aware of which one had the longer reach.
I was surrounded by people at all hours and entirely alone.
Someone cleared their throat behind me.
I startled badly enough to take a step sideways.
Radovan. The elder of my two bodyguards, thirty-three years old, dark hair, blue eyes, the kind of face that gave nothing away as a matter of professional habit. He was looking at me with the patience of a man who had been watching me loiter outside the Pakhan’s office door for longer than was advisable.
“Move along,” he said.
“How else am I supposed to learn anything?” I muttered, but shifted past the door.
I hesitated and glanced over my shoulder.
“I don’t suppose—”
“Everything gets reported to the Pakhan,” he said, cutting me off before I had finished forming the question.
“Mudak,” I hissed, but walked up the hallway.“I’m going for a walk and I don’t want you following me.”
I retrieved my coat, gloves and boots from my room, and by the time I reached the front door, Spartak was already there, waiting, his own coat on. Twenty-six years old. Clean-shaven. He had the slightly pained look of a man who had been assigned a duty he hadn’t anticipated.
“Keep your distance,” I said as he opened the door.“I’d like to pretend I have some privacy.”
He said nothing. He was good at that.
The cold hit me and I stopped on the step and breathed it in. Clean air, properly cold, carrying the smell of frozen ground and pine from somewhere beyond the walls. After days of white corridors and controlled interiors and the staleness of a house that ran on surveillance rather than warmth, it felt like the first honest thing I had encountered since arriving.
I had started with the balcony. The view of the grounds from there had pulled me downstairs and outside, and the walks had become the one part of the day I could call my own. Around the perimeter of the house, along the garden paths, past the dormant flowerbeds and the walls of the compound just visible through the bare trees. Exercise, yes. But also the only space where the ceiling wasn’t watching me.
The first day I had spent unpacking. Carefully, methodically—clothes hung, shoes arranged, accessories sorted. The money from under the bed at my parents’house had survived the transfer in the toe of a boot with a sock stuffed inside it. It sat there now, in my wardrobe, in the same hiding place it had always occupied. A different house. The same instinct.
I had the monthly stipend too, per Clause 3. Eight thousand dollars, first day of each calendar month, conditional on compliance. I had no intention of spending it. Every dollar—or rouble, depending on how Valentin chose to disperse it—would go into the boot alongside the rest. Quietly. Without announcement.
If this arrangement didn't work out then I needed a contingency plan.
How low I’d fallen, anticipating his money.
I walked a little faster.
Spartak would appreciate the exercise.
When I went back inside, I noticed Bogdan standing in front of Vadim’s door. Radovan was a dirty little snitch.
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