There was a cook in my house for a reason.
Radovan:I don’t know. Sorry. Shall I ask her?
Me:Never mind.
If she was still in the kitchen by the time I got home, there would be hell to pay. The memory of her insolence was still fresh in my mind.
??????
Spartak was cleaning his gun in the hallway when I got home. With a flick of my wrist Bogdan and Tikhon moved on.
“Where is she?” I murmured.
Spartak lowered the barrel and pointed toward the kitchen with his thumb.
“Kitchen, Pakhan,” he said, but I was already walking.
Radovan was in the doorway, straightening when he saw me approach.
“I tried to tell her—”
“Leave,” I said, cutting him off.“Don’t let anyone into the kitchen.” I handed him my coat without breaking stride.
I smelled it before I saw her.
Baked bread and sweet fruit—the warmth of the oven rolling out into the hallway, domestic and entirely out of place in my house. I stopped in the doorway.
Iskra was bent over the oven, pulling a tray ofpirozhkiout with both hands. She set it on the counter and began transferring them to a cooling rack with her oven mitts, working with the focused concentration of someone who had no idea she was being watched.
Her hair was piled high on her head, a few strands escaping at the nape of her neck. The russet sweater had slid off one shoulder. My eyes moved down to the black Lycra that clung to every curve below it.
She had been cooking in my kitchen in her off-shoulder sweater and form-fitting leggings, apparently indifferent to the message sitting on her phone.
She glanced at that phone now, sitting on the counter beside her.
“Damn,” she muttered to herself.
I smiled.
Too late.
I reached past her and slapped the oven door shut. It sprang up with a sharp crack and she startled hard, spinning around.
“Wait,” she said, one hand raised between us.
I waited.
Her eyes moved behind me—calculating, assessing, measuring the distance to the door.
Then she ran.
I lunged sideways and hooked my arm around her waist, hauling her back against my chest before she made it two steps.
“Why must you insist on disobedience?” I murmured into her hair.
“Vadim,” she breathed my name in a single syllable.
“Da?” I asked, slipping my hands beneath her sweater.
