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Chapter Thirteen

Petyr

S pring had come to Leningrad. Outside, the snow had melted into oily puddles that reflected the crooked skyline, and the chestnut trees along the avenue were waking up slow and reluctant, as if they knew better than to trust warm weather this early.

Inside the factory, the mood had shifted. The workers were laughing again, trading off-color jokes and singing half-remembered folk songs above the thrum of the looms. Someone had brought in a flask of something sharp and liquidly illegal, and the air reeked of booze and mischief.

But to me, it still felt like the heart of winter. The kind that sat heavy in your chest and made you forget the smell of grass.

Dimitri worked beside me at the loom, eyes trained on the green wool streaming through the machine like it was the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen.

His dark hair had grown out just enough to curl at the nape of his neck, and every time he shifted, I caught the faintest whiff of him.

It made my ribs ache like I’d been punched.

It had been almost a month since our night at Sanctuary.

Since I felt his hands on my face, his breath in my mouth, that sacred silence afterward when we’d just held each other and said nothing, because nothing needed saying.

At the time, I’d thought that meant something.

I’d thought I’d glimpsed the truth of him.

But now?

Each time I asked to see him, his excuses grew thinner, more practiced. A wall was growing between us, brick by brick, and I couldn’t figure out why.

I adjusted the tension dial on my loom and pretended I gave a damn about it. The thing had been running smoothly all morning, better than usual, but I needed an excuse.

I yanked a thread from the shuttle and jammed it deliberately. The machinery hiccupped, stuttered, then gave a mournful clunk before falling silent.

“Damn it,” I muttered, loud enough for the few nearby to hear, but not loud enough to sound suspicious. I leaned toward Dimitri. “My loom’s acting up again. Always when I’m on shift, never when Rolan’s on it. You’d think it’s in love with him.”

Dimitri glanced over. His brow furrowed, lips parting like he might say something useful. Then his expression fell back into neutrality—the kind that said I’d like to care, but I’m tired. Still, he leaned in to look.

He crouched beside the machine and stared at the tangled mess I’d made. His hand reached for a lever, hesitated, then pulled back. “I’m not a mechanic,” he said.

I leaned in close, perhaps a little too close. My voice dropped to a whisper. “Then pretend. Follow me.”

He blinked. For a second, just one, something flickered in his eyes. Surprise. Hesitation. And then, light. That spark I remembered from our one night together. The one that used to look at me like I was something worth ruining a life for.

Without another word, I crossed the factory floor. The surrounding looms kept their grinding chorus, drowning out the sound of my heart slamming against my ribs. I approached our supervisor, a round man with a wheeze like a broken accordion and a laugh that always came two seconds too late.

“Comrade Baranov,” I said, keeping my tone even, “we’ve got a jam on Loom 14. Looks like the feed shuttle’s bent again.”

Baranov peered at me like I’d interrupted a nap he wasn’t supposed to be taking. “You know where the spares are.”

“I do, but…” I tilted my head toward Dimitri, who stood a respectful step behind me, his hands folded like a good factory boy. “Dimitri’s a mechanical wizard. He knows these looms better than I do. We’ll be back before anyone notices we’re gone.”

Baranov narrowed his eyes, like he was weighing the lie against his desire not to get involved. Finally, he waved us off with a grunt. “Don’t dawdle. And if the Ministry calls for a production report, you were both on the floor, understood?”

“Of course,” I said, already moving.

The stairwell to the basement groaned under our boots, each step down colder and darker than the last. You could feel the air shift as we descended, damp and thick, full of brick dust and the ghosts of moth-eaten wool.

The overhead light flickered as we reached the concrete landing, and then the door creaked open to reveal the storeroom.

Stacks of unused spools lined the walls. Old looms, half-disassembled, hunched like broken horses in the shadows.

Dimitri leaned against a brick column and let out a soft laugh. “Me, a mechanical wizard?”

I rolled my eyes, but the corner of my mouth tugged up without permission. “You’re a man of many talents, Dimitri. Deception might be your finest.”

He looked at me for a long beat. Not at the floor. Not at the wall. At me. And it nearly undid me.

But before I could say anything foolish, I turned, led him between two dusty shelves, and stopped at a narrow alcove where the light barely reached. I stood close, close enough that I could hear the soft inhale of his breath. My fingers twitched at my side.

“I thought you were avoiding me,” I breathed.

His shoulders tensed. “I wasn’t… ”

“Don’t lie.”

He looked away. The silence pressed in around us, thick as the wool upstairs, heavier than any winter snow.

“It’s just been… complicated,” he said finally.

I let out a bitter laugh. “Everything is complicated. Life is complicated. Wanting you is complicated. But I’m here, anyway.”

His jaw clenched, and I could see the war behind his eyes—between fear and desire, between duty and whatever we had forged, between blankets and longing.

I stepped closer. “Dimitri. That night… was it just the one night for you?”

His eyes snapped to mine, and for a moment, all the noise in my head stopped. There it was again—that look. And the sound of swirling strings began to play in my imagination.

“No,” he said, hoarse. “It wasn’t.”

“Then why the walls?” My voice cracked. “Why do you keep shutting me out?”

He didn’t answer. Not with words.

I grabbed him by the collar. “I thought you were avoiding me,” I said, the words catching in my throat, coming out harsher than I meant.

He didn’t flinch. “I had to. My father…”

“Shut up,” I whispered, my voice tight. “Just kiss me.”

Dimitri’s mouth crashed into mine like a dam breaking, all hunger and heat and desperation.

His beard was rough against my lips and jaw, scraping deliciously against skin I didn’t know could ache.

I gasped, and he took the sound into his mouth like it was air he’d been starving for.

My hands buried themselves in his coat, clutching hard enough to wrinkle the fabric. I didn’t care.

He slammed me back against the brick wall, knocking the breath from my lungs. And I loved it. The press of his body, and smell of his sweat clinging to his skin, made me lose all inhibitions.

“Fuck, I missed you,” he muttered against my throat, his lips trailing down, nipping, biting. “I missed you so much, it made me sick.”

“Shut up,” I said again, this time softer, my head tipping back. “Just... keep kissing me.”

He growled low in his chest and gave me a kiss that rearranged my insides. Then his hand was there, squeezing the throbbing cock straining against the front of my pants. I gasped, clutching at his shoulders, grinding up into his palm without shame. It was too much, and still not enough.

I was ready to let him do whatever he wanted. Right there, against the shelves of dusty spools and rusted screws, when we both froze at the unmistakable sound of footsteps thudding down the stairs.

We tore apart like schoolboys caught in the pantry. My breath was ragged, my lips bruised, my heart doing triple time in my chest. I spun toward the shelves, snatching the first part I could see, something round and metallic, maybe a belt tensioner, maybe a goddamn soup can. I didn’t care.

The janitor, a man with a broom and an expression so bored it bordered on offensive, ambled in, picked up something from a nearby crate, and shuffled out again without so much as a glance in our direction.

I looked at Dimitri, ready to grab him again, but we heard another creak from above. Someone else was coming.

“Shit,” I hissed. “We can’t stay down here.”

Dimitri nodded, adjusting himself subtly while I held the spare part like it was the Holy Grail. We climbed the stairs two at a time, still flushed, still electrified. My heart hadn’t slowed, not even a little.

Back on the factory floor, the drone of the looms swallowed us whole again. Nobody even noticed we’d been gone. Life was spinning along just as before.

But then I saw it. Just below Dimitri’s jawline, right where the stubble gave way to skin. A purplish bruise blooming. Small, but too damned visible.

“Stop,” I said, grabbing his arm. He looked at me, startled.

“What?”

I reached up, fingers trembling, and tugged the collar of his shirt higher. “You’ve got a mark,” I muttered. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do it that hard.”

His mouth curled up slightly. “I liked it.”

“Dimitri, this isn’t a game.”

“I know,” he said. But his voice was light, teasing, like he didn’t. Like he thought this was just another stolen moment.

I wanted to kiss him again. I wanted to scream that he was mine. That I didn’t care if the Party came, if the whole damn world burned. I just wanted him.

But I didn’t.

I wasn’t strong enough.

So I stepped away and went back to my loom.

And I worked like nothing had happened at all.

* * *

The factory whistle blew, long and hollow, like it hated us as much as we hated it.

The looms shuddered to a stop, and the air filled with the collective exhale of the workers.

They shrugged off the day’s labor like a bad dream, pulling on scarves and coats and raising their voices in easy laughter.

But I wasn’t in the mood to laugh. I wasn’t even in the mood to talk. The bruise on Dimitri’s neck had faded beneath his collar, but the ache in my chest had not.

We filed out into the late afternoon sun, the light soft and golden, bouncing off the cobblestones like it was showing off.

The city had the gall to be beautiful. The air smelled of wet stone and thawing dirt, like spring was trying too hard.

People were already making plans for their evenings.

Beer, sausages, radio music loud enough to drown out politics. It felt like the world was waking up.

But inside me, it was still the end of February. That stretch of bitter nothingness between what was and what could never be.

Dimitri walked beside me, close enough that our shoulders brushed now and then, but not close enough.

“Good day,” Vera called, falling in step with us from behind, all lipstick and windblown red curls. She leaned in and kissed me on the cheek like we were something out of a Parisian film. “You smell like a soggy blanket.”

I smirked despite myself. “It’s called ‘factory chic.’ Very in season.”

She turned to Dimitri. “And you. You’re not saying much.”

He gave her a polite nod. “Tired,” he said, eyes darting sideways at me. Not tired. Guarded.

Then I heard it: the cough and rattle of an ancient Lada engine. The blue Samara pulled up to the curb like some cursed chariot, and my stomach dropped. Again. That damn car haunted me.

Dimitri’s father sat behind the wheel, jaw tight, expression unreadable. Always the same look, and he was always watching.

“Your ride’s here,” I said, voice sharper than I meant.

Dimitri glanced at me, then at his father, and I saw it. The flicker of guilt, of the apology he wasn’t allowed to speak.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I mumbled, already hating how pathetic it sounded.

He nodded. Not a word. Just got in the car and shut the door. The Samara pulled away, trailing exhaust and something worse—resentment, frustration, the awful weight of could-have-been.

I stared after it, my fists clenched in my coat pockets, until I felt Vera’s hand curl around my arm.

“Walk?” she asked, her tone too casual to be innocent.

I nodded, grateful. The weather was too nice to get on the train and sulk.

We walked in silence for a while. Past street vendors packing up boiled corn and pirated cassette tapes, past peeling posters and cracked walls with slogans long since meaningless. Leningrad looked tired, but there was beauty in its defiance. I used to feel the same way, but I didn’t anymore.

A few blocks in, Vera said quietly, “You’re really depressed.”

I didn’t answer.

“It’s because of Dimitri, isn’t it?”

I grunted something that might have been a yes, or a groan, or a sigh through my teeth.

She didn’t let up. “Is it because he’s been distant?”

“No,” I said flatly. “It’s because his fucking father never lets him out of his sight.

Ever since Sanctuary, it’s been the same thing.

He drops him off in the morning, then he picks Dimitri up at night, like he’s thirteen years old with a bedtime and a curfew.

” I looked up at the sky, as if it might explain anything.

“It’s like the man knows. Like he’s doing it on purpose. ”

Vera stopped walking so suddenly I nearly yanked her forward by accident.

I turned, confused. “What?”

She was staring at me, her lips twitching with the beginnings of a wicked smile.

“I have a plan.”