Page 4

I sat on the couch in the dainty living room, Arlo standing beside me and Kristian and Vasili by the door. Everything was more her than Oliver: the colors, textures, and smell. She owned the space, and her composure and confidence were the indicators.

Placing the basketball cake on the center table, she took the seat opposite mine, crossing her legs with elegance and chewing her bottom lip with her nerves all over the place.

Raising her head, she looked me in the eyes—a sparkling pair of blue eyes that reminded me of the reflection of clear skies on the vast ocean. She was not tall, but when she squared her shoulders in a feeble attempt to appear fierce, her height edged upwards.

“You claim that you’re my father’s friends, and yet, I don’t even know your names.”

I shouldn’t have been surprised that she wanted an introduction. She looked like the type, anyway.

“Timur Yezhov. Not exactly pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Serena Skye, given the circumstances.”

“Arlo.” Arlo raised a hand.

“Kristian.”

“Vasili.”

The two men echoed their names from the back.

She ignored them, keeping her focus on me. Her lips moved, perfectly proportioned and full. “What is it that you want?”

Lush blonde hair, the color of the warm sun shining over a meadow, fell below her shoulders, matching the vibrant yellow striped on black on her pajamas. Thick, dark lashes curled above her eyelids.

So fucking cute and soft. Probably too soft for her own good.

Women like these needed more armor to survive in a world like ours. Being fragile and driven by your petty sentiments wasn’t going to cut it.

Like now.

I adjusted my sleeves, and briefly, her eyes flitted to the inked designs around my fingers. Cautiously, her throat bobbed before her eyes found mine again.

“We are here because of something very important. Something that concerns your father, Oliver.”

Tentatively, and with her fingers clasped over her knees, she watched me but didn’t bat an eyelash, her emotions well hidden underneath a placid expression. But the eagerness in her eyes meant she waited for a full explanation.

I kicked a leg out, flexing my jaw. There was no cute way to put this. “You see, many years ago, specifically four years ago, your father needed my help. And I helped him.”

“When you say help…?”

I held her curious gaze. “It means he needed a huge amount of money, and only I could give him it.”

The placid expression wobbled, and her eyes were downcast. “Great, a loan,” she murmured under her breath before her eyes rose up again, the confidence waning as she nibbled her lower lip. Softly, she asked. “So, you’re loan sharks?”

“Loan sharks,” Arlo scoffed, earning a chuckle from the men by the door. “As if. Hey, can we get some of that? It’s looking scrumptious.”

Narrowing my eyes, I glanced over my shoulder to see Arlo pointing at the cake on the table. He ignored me because he knew if he glanced my way, he was going to have more than a piece of cake to worry about.

“Sure, but not yet.” I looked back at her and found her smiling sweetly, more at the cake than at Arlo. “It’s my brother’s birthday today, so we can’t cut it until he gets here.”

“That’s why we’re here,” I interrupted, bringing the focus back to the business of the night. Glaring at Arlo, he got the message and backed off with raised hands.

Her brows creased. “The cake was the reason you came here?”

“Don’t be stupid, Pchelka . We came here for your brother.”

Little Bee , I’d called her. It just slipped out.

Something fierce crossed her eyes, replacing the mask of anxiety and indifference with arched brows and a ghastly frown on her lips—one I recognized too well. The heat that burned in her chest had burned in mine when Byrd cursed at my family, and she mirrored the need that arose in split seconds.

Protection.

Before she blinked, Arlo placed the four-year-old document on the table beside the cake, smoothening the crinkled edges.

“What is this?” she asked, gingerly picking it up.

“A contract.”

Her eyes skimmed through the lines, her fingers curling into the edges as her gaze traveled from black ink to black ink. “What is this?”

“ A contract ,” Arlo repeated on my behalf, but she didn’t look up. Just kept reading while he did the talking. “Your dear father made a blood contract with the Bratva after he took a debt.”

Quietly, she mumbled, tears quickly springing to her eyes. “The Bratva. Fifty million— my God .”

“The summary of the terms stated is that if Oliver can’t repay the debt in a certain period of time, five years specifically, his life belongs to us, and our boss here has the discretion to keep him alive or harvest his organs to regain the money he owes.”

“Harvesting his organs?” Her disgust was on full display when she shook her head. “Tell me you’re joking.”

“We aren’t.”

“This…this is outrageous!” Waving the paper midair, eyes zeroed in on me, glaring with instant anger. “My dad died last year, so you can’t get anything from him.”

“We are well aware of that because he stopped paying last year.” Eagerly, Arlo gestured toward the contract. “Read the last line.”

She did.

And she jumped to her feet, red-hot with anger. She was trembling with tears, the prickly pines emerging from within as she got ready to defend her home and her brother with everything. “No.”

I sat back, assessing her while she faced my underboss.

“Technically, yes. Oliver signed that contract.”

“And I don’t care! You…you guys can’t do this. It’s evil. How can his debt pass on to his male blood relative? It was his debt, and we knew absolutely nothing about it. Jay doesn’t know a thing. Please, I’m begging you. He’s only seventeen. He’s still a child.”

“Child, my fucking foot. I cut a man’s finger off at fifteen. Your brother’s already fucked a woman, and you wouldn’t even know.”

Realizing the gravity of our presence in her home and our identities, her eyes widened in shock. She stuttered, her hand to her chest. “ Jesus.”

I signaled for Arlo to step back. I was taking over this conversation and would make it clear that they didn’t have an option. I was fucking leaving here only after I got what I wanted. Her father knew how to make deals. My father taught me the roughest and most wicked ways to execute them.

“Listen to me . ” The sound of my voice slowly reeled her gaze toward me. “I understand that your brother is young and probably inexperienced. But a contract is a fucking contract. Oliver left an outstanding of twenty million, and I can’t just let that slide. It has to be recovered somehow. And your brother is the fucking way. I have better plans for him than selling his liver and kidneys. All he’d do is dedicate his life to working for me, for the Bratva.”

She shook her head, more tears spilling down her cheeks. “Says a man surrounded by men who cut off fingers at the age of fifteen. You can’t possibly have better plans for my brother than I do. You don’t have to do this; I can pay you back. I’ll sell whatever I have to—why are you smiling?”

Beside me, Arlo sighed, and I chuckled, aggravating them even more.

Rising to my feet, I stepped closer, eliminating the distance until all that stood between us was the darn center table and the cake on top of it.

“But you can’t, can you?”

Her eyes traced my movement, rising from my feet, past my torso, and then to my face, her lips parting but no words coming out.

“I…I don’t—”

“You can’t pay me back, even if you sold your entire fucking house or gave me your earnings for a year. You wouldn’t be able to pay me back. It’s twenty fucking million dollars. Not two million, two thousand, or two fucking hundred. Where are you going to get that kind of money? Answer: nowhere. The only worthy substitute is a soul.”

Her lips wobbled. I was right, and she knew it. There was nothing else she had to offer except her brother. Nothing of value except him.

I took another step closer, and my lips hovered close to her ear. Vanilla and milk wafted up to my nose, and I didn’t have to go any closer to know where the scent of temptation and promises came from. Her entire body grew rigid, and her breath seized.

“Prepare him before this time, next week. Noon. I won’t have it any other way. Going to the police will be an utter waste of time. You can try, if you want. Just know, I don’t make idle threats, Pchelka .”

Like opposite poles of a magnet, I lingered by her side for a moment before walking away.

“Noon, this time, next week,” Arlo reechoed before shutting the door behind us.

From a near distance, a black truck rolled down the road. Headlights flashed, and boys howled into the cold night, laughing as if nothing else mattered more than the present moment.

Kristian stepped forward, and Vasili positioned himself behind us. Beside me, Arlo folded his arms across his chest, relaxing his shoulders and kicking his leg out, and when the car pulled up on the pavement, neither of us was surprised to see a tall, lean boy stagger out with a knapsack and a cheesy grin smacked on his face.

That was until he saw us.

The boys in the car peeked through the window with curious gazes before shifting gears and speeding down the asphalt, leaving the boy on the mowed lawn.

Jayden.

He had brown hair like Oliver and his sister’s eyes, but even under the streetlight, I could feel the energy radiating off him, the mature seventeen-year-old. Unlike his sister, there was nothing calm about this one. Where the little bee and I were opposite magnets, with him, there was an immediate repulsion. A familiar kind. My kind.

He reminded me of my younger days, the darker times, when I’d stand by the door of my father’s study, watching the unending flow of red splashes on the walls in coral artistic sprays.

I wasn’t allowed to flinch or blink.

And even now, as I walked up to the boy’s side and placed a hand on his shoulder, he didn’t blink, just watched me intently, confusion settling between his eyebrows. He was going to make a good workforce, and if he was as diligent and vibrant as I perceived him to be, he could climb up the ranks in a matter of months.

My father liked to commend that I was a good judge of character. I could sniff out the good ones from the bad ones. Intuition, or whatever they called it, hadn’t failed me in years.

Jayden Skye was mafia material.

I tapped his shoulder once and headed to the car. Arlo took the wheel, with Kristian in the passenger seat and Vasili in the back, seated beside me.

I was still deep in thought, considering how to start off Jayden’s training, when Kristian’s heavy voice floated into the bubble.

“Can’t remember the last time I had a pure one.”

“The innocent ones are always best. They end up knowing how to serve better,” Vasili chimed in, his sight locked on the view outside the window.

I met Arlo’s watchful gaze through the rearview mirror, silence holding steady between us like he had something to say. I waited, and nothing.

Then, I immediately caught on.

It turned out that the little bee hadn’t only caught my eyes. My men got stung, too, injected with her beauty that managed to spread through the mind like quick poison.

My jaw flexed, kicking against the idea of them talking about her—strange, considering I’d never minded what the men thought about the women we’d encountered.

When we’d gone full throttle with the car to Oliver’s house, it was with every intention to show guns at the door and force the young one into immediate submission. I was prepared for chaos. If I had to drag the boy out myself, I would have.

What I hadn’t expected was to be momentarily defenseless against the rays of blonde hair, innocent blue eyes, and black-and-yellow striped pajamas that imprinted themselves in my mind like a hot, searing trademark.

Next time—and that was if they forced me to return to that doorstep—I was bringing a fucking bulletproof vest.