Page 6

Chapter 6

Signed in Blood

Galina

T he deals at the bar make my skin crawl.

Every envelope slipped under folded napkins, every coded glance passed between weathered businessmen and too-young girls is another scream swallowed by the bass and the bourbon. Three nights here, and I’ve already started to map the underworld choreography—the subtle signals, the palm-pressed promises, the weight of silence bought with cash. A hundred ways to say “how much” without speaking at all.

Jaromir looms near the bar, a statue cast in smoke and expensive fabric. He doesn’t move much. He doesn’t have to. His presence is enough to sour the air, to stain the space with the stink of authority and something more dangerous—compliance. Everyone bends around him, like he’s gravity.

I watch him while pretending not to.

The floor supervisor’s ledger looks pristine, of course. Color-coded columns. Clean lines. But beneath the surface? Rot. I’ve started picking at the cracks, peeling back layers of numbers that don’t add up. There’s a rhythm to the corruption, a beat beneath the books. White powder shuffled through VIP rooms. Flesh, money, favors. Vasiliy’s name isn’t on any page, but his fingerprints are everywhere.

His empire grows like frost on a window—beautiful, silent, and merciless. He doesn’t conquer. He consumes.

My grip tightens around the tray of empty glasses, knuckles straining to hold back the tremor crawling up my arms. Another envelope slides across the bar. Oksana—blond, blank-eyed, perfect—steps forward to collect the buyer. She smiles the way a doll might, nothing behind it but habit. Then she leads him toward the door.Thatdoor.

The one they all disappear through.

I know what’s on the other side. I always did.

This club used to be my father’s legacy. Every flickering light, every velvet-draped corner whispers his name. I grew up in this place. Played games in its corridors. I thought I was just a little girl chasing shadows.

Turns out, I was always running from monsters I already knew.

The key pressed against my ribs feels heavier tonight. I tucked it beneath the lining of my dress, where brass bites into skin like a warning. I stole it before the world unraveled—before the padded rooms, the pills, the exile. Not because I needed it.

Because it was the one thing they hadn’t taken.

If Vasiliy hasn’t changed the locks—if some part of this place still remembers me—then I have a way in. A wayunderneath.

If not?

Then I’m out of time.

“Getting curious, princess?”

The voice slithers across my spine like ice, tightening every muscle in my body.

Jaromir.

He doesn’t touch me. He doesn’t have to. His voice alone feels like fingers dragging down my back. The predator who never blinks. Who sees too much. Who feeds information to Vasiliy like a loyal dog with blood on its muzzle.

I don’t need to turn around. I already feel him watching.

Waiting.

Stalking.

“Just minding my business,” I say, steady. I force a smile over my shoulder, teeth bared like I mean it.

But I hear the thin crack in my voice.

And judging by the glint in Jaromir’s eyes, so does he.

His gaze drags over me, like he’s peeling back skin to see what I’m hiding underneath. “Funny thing about curiosity,” he murmurs, his voice all silk and switchblades. “It tends to end badly. For pretty little things especially.” His finger skims the edge of my tray, a slow circle that feels more like a noose tightening.

“You always seem to linger where the money moves fastest,” he adds, eyes narrowing. “Like you’re counting more than just tips.”

A chill slides down my spine. Every instinct screamsdon’t engage, but I can’t afford silence. Silence makes me prey.

I let out a laugh, brittle and too sharp. “If I could handle math, I wouldn’t be slinging cocktails in stilettos.”

The lie curdles on my tongue.

Because I’ve already memorized the numbers. I see the gaps, the phantom transactions, the weight of cash that disappears in places no camera watches. My father trained me for this. Not with kindness, but with precision. Numbers don’t lie, he used to say. People do.

Jaromir’s smile stretches, teeth gleaming like he smells the lie too. “That mouth’s going to get you in trouble.” He leans in, close enough for his breath to brush my cheek. “Clients like sass on a leash. I’m not as forgiving.”

I tighten my grip on the tray, fingers digging into cheap plastic, trying to hide the way they tremble. He hasn’t touched me, not really, but his presence is a hand on my throat just the same.

I force a shrug, even as nausea curls in my stomach. The key against my ribs burns like it’s alive. “If I wanted trouble,” I say dryly, “I’d ask you to join me for a drink.”

His laugh is low and cruel, amusement laced with warning. But he doesn’t step closer. Not this time. His gaze lingers for a beat too long, like he’s cataloging every fracture in my mask, then he turns and strolls toward the bar as if I’m nothing more than a passing curiosity.

I let out a breath through clenched teeth, the release jagged and laced with bitter relief.

But it’s a mistake to think the danger passed.

Jaromir doesn’t forget. He files things away. And if he caught even a flicker of unease, Vasiliy will hear about it by sundown.

I glance toward the hallway, toward the place where Oksana disappeared moments ago. The door that used to lead to my father’s office.

There’s no more time to hesitate.

Vasiliy’s patience wears thin, and whatever’s left of my leverage slips further with every second I stay frozen. The key burns hotter now, like it knows the clock is running out. Like it remembers this place better than I do.

I can still hear my father’s voice in my head, stern and steady, reminding me what power looks like. This club was his kingdom once.

And now, it’s my battlefield.

I steel myself and take a step toward the door.

My heels echo across the floor like a countdown—too loud, too exposed—but it’s too late to stop. If Vasiliy changed the locks, it won’t just be the end of this plan.

It’ll be the end of me.

I need the ledgers. I need the truth. I need to see how deep Vasiliy’s venom has soaked into the bones of this place—how much of my father’s empire he’s turned into rot. Every step I take feels heavier, like I’m carrying the weight of everything he claimed as his.

The tray in my hand rattles with each tremor in my fingers, glasses clinking soft warnings into the quiet hallway. But I keep moving.

The coat check girls don’t spare me a glance. Too busy whispering about whatever storm is brewing back near the bar. I catch only slivers of sound—raised voices, sharp tension—but none of it matters. Just another drunk with a black card and a God complex throwing a tantrum because someone told him no .

Good.

Let the distraction hold.

My window is small—an hour, maybe less, before the floor swells with bodies and appetites and eyes that don’t miss a thing. One hour to get in, get what I need, and disappear before the beast notices I was ever there.

My heels strike the floor again—too sharp, too loud—and I curse under my breath. Heads swivel. A few eyes drag across me, but none linger. Just another pretty shadow in Vasiliy’s playhouse of sin.

And that’s the part that cuts the deepest.

This used to be mine. These floors, these walls. I ruled them in heels sharp enough to draw blood and dresses tailored like armor. Now I’m just background, just another girl fetching drinks and counting quarters between shifts.

The taste of freedom is sour. Like spoiled wine and old regret.

But I’ll choke it down if it gets me one step closer to reclaiming my crown.

The key slides free from beneath the neckline of my dress, warm from my skin, heavy with history. I press it between my fingers, ready to?—

“I wouldn’t if I were you.”

The voice slices through the silence.

Cold.

Familiar.

I turn.

Raffe leans against the wall like he’s grown from it—solid, unreadable, arms crossed. His body is relaxed, but there’s nothing casual about him. Not really.

His eyes hold too much.

“Planning to tell him?” I ask, forcing a smile that feels like it might cut my face open.

He snorts. It sounds like gravel and memories. “Do I ever?”

No. He doesn’t. Not when I used to sneak vodka out of the VIP lockers. Not when I slipped upstairs with boys I was too young to understand. Not when I came home with smeared lipstick and lies on my breath. Raffe never said a word.

Not then. Maybe not now too.

“You shouldn’t go in there.” Raffe’s voice drops—quieter now, rough around the edges. Not a threat. A warning. Maybe even a trace of concern.

He’s not stopping me.

Because he knows exactly who I am.

What I’ve always been.

And what I came here to do.

“Funny,” I mutter, jaw tight. “Different stage, same script. At least we’re consistent.”

The silence between us stretches taut, ready to snap.

Finally, his shoulders drop, just a fraction. A flicker of something worn and human pulls at the corner of his mouth.

“If this goes bad—and it will—I won’t be able to help you.” He pauses. “Good luck, solnyshko . You’re gonna need it.”

Then he’s gone. Just the soft fade of footsteps and the ghost of a nickname that used to mean something.

Now it feels like an epitaph.

One breath. Two. Three. I smooth my hands down my dress, fingers brushing the outline of the key. The anxiety tightens, coiling like wire beneath my skin, but I don’t let it win. By the time I press the door open, I’ve locked it down. Shoved the panic deep beneath muscle and grit.

The office is a different kind of violence.

Where my father’s space was all old-world opulence—rich wood, leather, and a constant haze of cigar smoke—Vasiliy’s is sterile, controlled. A study in precision. Every object is curated, nothing accidental. A perfect replica of a man who turns ruthlessness into art.

His desk gleams. His books are arranged with military discipline. His wealth whispers instead of shouts.

And somehow, that makes it worse.

His monitor glows faintly. Screensavers cycle through—black-and-white cityscapes, sharp cliffs, still water. Images of solitude. Distance. Survival. What is he trying to hold on to? Or forget?

I don’t let myself spiral.

Top drawer—clean. Corporate camouflage. Expensive pens, imported whiskey, meaningless clutter. But the second drawer?—

My breath catches.

Color-coded files. Exactly like my father used to keep. Blue for financials. Red for personnel. Black for operations. I recognize them before I even read the tabs. The system is muscle memory, burned into my childhood like lullabies no one should have to learn.

And then—there. Tucked behind the folders, the soft glow of a lockbox pulses once, then fades.

That’s it.

My fingers close around the edges just as footsteps echo in the hall. Heavy. Familiar.

Shit.

Panic slams into me like a fist.

I jerk back from the drawer, adrenaline turning my limbs to liquid. There’s no time to slip back out the way I came—no time to be clever. I spin toward the back exit, the one built into the bones of this place. A Prohibition relic, the bolt-hole my father once called “insurance.”

My hand finds the panel. I press.

Nothing.

Try again. Still nothing.

No movement. No hiss. No sweet click of escape.

Vasiliy found the old triggers. Changed them. Blocked the exits. Because of course he did.

Footsteps stop outside the door.

And then?—

It slams open.

Vasiliy fills the threshold like a storm about to break. His presence swallows the room, fury radiating off him in heatwaves, thick enough to choke.

I freeze, fingers still hovering near the drawer.

His eyes lock on mine, and in that breathless space between heartbeats, the game changes.

I might not make it out of this room whole.

He doesn’t speak.

He moves.

Three strides, and I’m caged between him and the wall, my back slamming into the cool paneling, breath stolen from my lungs. His hands grip my waist, strong and merciless, lifting me like I weigh nothing. My heels lose contact with the floor. Then his hips slam into mine—heat, pressure, command—pinning me in place with nothing but his body and the sheer will behind it.

And then his mouth is on me.

It’s not a kiss—it’s a claiming. A punishment. A war cry dressed as intimacy.

Teeth scrape. Tongue invades. It’s too much and not enough, wild and desperate and so brutallyhimthat my mind blanks, wiped clean of everything but the taste of Vasiliy Volkov.

I moan into his mouth, humiliated by the sound, by the way my body arches into his like it’s remembering what my brain is trying so hard to forget. My hands find his shoulders, curl into the thick muscle there, holding on like he might let me fall when we both know he won’t.

He devours me.

Every pass of his tongue reminds me of that night—of Moscow, of marble and madness and my body bent beneath his. The kiss deepens, turns cruel, and my blood ignites.

He pulls back just enough to breathe. “ Lisichka ,” he growls, low and rough, and it nearly unravels me.

I hate that name. I hate that I love it on his lips.

My heart slams against my ribs. My thoughts scatter. The rational part of me begs for distance. But my body?

My body wants war.

God help me, I want him to take me right here—against this wall, on his desk, on the floor—I don’t care. I want to feel the brutality of his desire carved into my skin. I want him to mark me, wreck me,ownme.

And I despise myself for it.

The calm I walked in with has shattered completely. All I know is the weight of his body pressing into mine, his breath hot at my ear, his cock hard against my stomach like a loaded weapon with my name on it.

He could destroy me. Snap his fingers and have me erased. Dump what’s left of me in East River and go about his evening like I never existed.

And the worst part?

I’d die with his name on my lips.

His grip shifts—one hand still anchoring me, the other dragging slowly, possessively up the side of my thigh, under my dress, like he’s reacquainting himself with a territory he never relinquished.

“You really think I don’t know what you’re doing?” he rasps into my ear, voice like gravel dragged across silk.

I gasp, legs trembling around his hips. “P-please…”

The word slips out, soft and strangled, and I hate how easily it falls from my lips.

But he hears the surrender in it.

His fingers trail up my throat, linger there. A possessive touch. A warning.

“You’re begging to be punished,” he breathes, lips brushing my jaw. “Tell me, lisichka …which part of you should pay first?”

Every nerve screams.

His presence overwhelms. The scent of him—clean and dark, all sharp spice and command—wraps around me. My gaze flicks to the drawer.

The lockbox.

The ledgers.

What I came for.

So close, and yet impossibly out of reach. He knows. Of course he knows. Maybe he’s known from the start.

This wasn’t a stumble.

It was a setup.

A trap lined with silk and sin, and I walked into it like the fool he thinks I am.

Still, I can’t stop. Won’t stop.

Because whatever this is—violence, addiction, vengeance—it’s the only thing I have left.

“Anything you want,” I whisper, broken and breathless, already arching into him.

And even as I give in, even as my body sings for him, one thought claws its way to the surface:

This might be the most dangerous transaction in that entire ledger.

And I just signed it in blood.