Page 19 of The Pakhan’s Bride (Mafia Bosses #3)

We leave the holding site shortly after.

The air outside is glass, so cold it cracks when you breathe.

The three of them wait in the lobby, Zoya with Lev on her lap and Galina beside her, hands folded as neat as a corpse's.

I'm last out, carrying a folder thick with signatures and witness stamps.

The vehicle is a black BMW X7, windows tinted so dark you can't see the faces inside.

Lev curls in the middle seat, legs tucked to his chest, awake and curious.

Galina rides shotgun, rigid, eyes fixed straight ahead.

Zoya sits behind me, arms around Lev, jaw set.

I drive the first stretch myself. The city is waking up, headlights snaking through the frost. We pass three police roadblocks in ten kilometers. Each time, I see the recognition in the officer's face, the snap to attention, the slow pivot of the gun barrel away from our plates.

It's silent inside except for Lev's breathing and the faint click of Zoya's teeth.

The cityscape slips by, a new development where the old factory used to be, a cluster of prefab towers looming like tombstones.

Every so often, I catch Zoya watching me in the rearview, eyes narrowed to slits.

I look back just long enough to remind her who holds the wheel.

At the ring road, the convoy merges with two more black SUVs.

They follow at perfect distance, never overtaking, never lagging.

The choreography is military. Zoya clocks this, of course.

She notes the radio traffic, the change in pace when we near a tunnel, the way the rear vehicle drifts left to block any tail.

I can feel her running the scenario, calculating escape vectors.

She won't find one.

As we close on the center, the skyline brightens.

The old Baranov banners are gone, replaced with the Vetrov double-wolf in silver.

We take the embankment road, then a right onto Komsomolsky.

The traffic thins. The estate looms above, walled in steel and stone, a fortress disguised as modernism.

The gate opens at our approach, no ID required.

The driveway is heated, snowless. Cameras follow us, automated and constant.

I stop at the entry portico. Two guards in suits open the doors, one for Galina, one for Zoya and Lev.

Zoya lifts Lev in her arms. He blinks in the daylight, confused, then burrows against her.

I escort them in, up the marble stairs and into the grand foyer.

The house is enormous, but the footprint is all vertical, atriums, balconies, glass catwalks with sight lines that would make a sniper drool. The staff bow their heads as we pass.

Zoya's eyes flick around the space, cataloguing everything—four exits, three security cameras, two servants, one way out through the garden if you cut left at the first staircase.

She notices the anti-tamper plates on the doors and the absence of family photos on the walls.

She's looking for weakness, for a story behind the veneer.

I lead them to the second floor, where the family quarters are.

This wing holds a suite, a guest room, and a few other rooms, including a separate room of my own.

The suite I've assigned for Zoya is larger than her childhood home's entire upper level.

Silk carpets. Polished mahogany. Bed the size of a raft.

There's a balcony, but it's locked. At least for now.

Zoya sets Lev on the bed. He bounces once, then collapses into the duvet, face lost in the pillow. She looks at me, waiting.

"Galina's room is next door," I say. "Lev can sleep with either of you, but he also has his own room which we're fixing. It's the small attached room to the north of this suite. It connects directly. Should be ready by the weekend. Breakfast is at seven. If you want anything, you ask for me."

I pause for a breath. "He's going to need a nanny."

"No such thing," she fires back immediately. "He has Galina."

Fair enough. I dip my head in acknowledgment. "Fine. We'll enroll him in a private school. I'll forward the files of the best ones this side of town. Take your pick. He'll start Monday."

She nods but says nothing. I start to turn when I hear a small voice from the bed.

"Do I get toys here?" Lev asks, muffled.

Zoya stills. Slowly, she looks to me. So does he, blinking up from the folds of the duvet like a rabbit too tired to run. I crouch beside the bed. "You'll have as many as you want."

His face doesn't change, but his voice lifts slightly. "Do you have cars? The ones with lights that blink when you press the hood?"

I nod. "A whole box of them."

He considers this, then adds, "And the game with fish. The one that spins and opens its mouth."

"I'll find it."

He watches me like he's trying to decide something important. Then, without looking away, he whispers, "Mama cries when she thinks I'm sleeping."

Zoya sucks in a breath. I don't respond right away.

I just look at him. His hair is a mess, and his nose has the faint red scrape of a child who's been sleeping in cars and cabins and strange beds.

He has her mouth, her chin, her eyes. My boy, my boy .

My heart does this painful thing, and I realize I can't hang back without embarrassing myself, so I stand up. "She won't cry here," I say.

Lev shifts, turning to face the ceiling. "Okay."

I turn to leave. As I step out, I hear her voice, quiet and stripped of irony. "Thank you."

This makes me pause at the door. I want to say you're welcome. I want to say more. But I just nod, then close the door behind me. In the hallway, I lean against the wall, let the cold marble seep through my shirt. This was never what I wanted , I remind myself.

But it's what I've got. I breathe in, count to ten, then go back to work.

She doesn't leave the suite for the first six hours. I know this because I watch her on the split-screen, three angles at once—bedroom, living room, balcony. She moves with the awareness of a cat in a new house, testing every edge before putting weight on it.

First, she walks the perimeter. Thirty-two paces, stopping at each window to test the latch.

The locks are magnetic, silent and secure.

She tries the balcony, finds it sealed. She checks the bathroom—marble tile, gold fixtures, a tub big enough to drown in.

She fills it, just to watch the steam curl.

She plunges her arm in up to the shoulder, then yanks it back, as if the heat burned away years of dirt in a single shock.

She dries her hand on the silk towel, then stands in front of the mirror. The face that looks back is leaner than the Paris version, cheekbones cut down to the quick, eyes ringed in gray. She stares for a long time. I wait for her to cry. She doesn't.

After the bath, she wraps herself in the robe I had sent up. It's thick white terry with her initials embroidered in the corner. A minor touch, but she notices. She runs her finger over the thread, then lets it go.

She checks on Lev, sprawled on the rug in Galina's room, surrounded by a neat scatter of new toys that I sent up, wooden blocks, a red fire truck with a working ladder, a plush wolf with mismatched button eyes.

He's on his knees, guiding the fire truck across the floor with noisy enthusiasm, narrating under his breath.

She steps closer, and he looks up, face flushed with excitement.

"Mama! Look what Papa gave me. This one makes a siren sound.

Listen!" He presses a button, and the truck lets out a wail that startles Galina in the corner.

She looks up, then smiles, lowering her knitting to her lap.

It isn't lost on me that Lev calls me Papa, although I never explained what I am to him. Either Zoya or Galina explained, or the child knows more than he lets on. "I see," Zoya says, crouching beside him. "Did you build that station for it?"

"Yes," he says proudly. "It has a jail inside. For bad guys."

She leans in, brushes his hair back from his forehead. "You're very clever."

He beams. Then, without a word, he tilts forward and kisses her cheek.

His small hand cups her jaw as he does it, unselfconscious and sure, like he knows exactly what she needs.

Galina sits in an armchair by the bed, knitting what looks to be a scarf.

Then Zoya stands and walks out, closing the door behind her.

Next, the search for bugs. She starts with the light fixtures, then the bookshelves, then the seams of the carpet.

She finds the one behind the vase in five minutes.

She doesn't touch it. She finds the audio pickup in the desk lamp, and the second one in the smoke detector.

She doesn't touch those, either. She just sits at the desk and writes her name on the notepad, over and over— ZOYA VETROV, ZOYA BARANOV, ZOYA .

Then she tears off the page, shreds it, flushes it down the toilet.

At dusk, she steps to the balcony. The lock disengages at my command.

She gives a tiny smile, as if she knew I was watching.

She leans on the rail, surveying the grounds.

There are eight guards within view, plus the cameras, plus the tripwire on the perimeter wall.

I see her lips moving, counting seconds between patrols, measuring distances with her thumb and knuckle.

She stays out until the cold turns her lips blue, coming inside only when Lev reappears in the room, eyelids drooping with sleep.

I watch her carry him to the bed. He's asleep before she lays him down.

She then sits cross-legged on the floor.

She opens the closet, rifles through the clothes, then picks a dress—navy blue, high-collared, severe.

She sets it on the chair, stares at it, then folds it back up.

She sleeps for an hour, then wakes and paces.

I watch, waiting for the moment she cracks. But she never does.

At midnight, I go to her suite. I stand outside, hand on the knob, listening. She's awake, sitting on the balcony again. I open the door, and she looks up, the storm in her eyes matching the questions in my own.

"It's late," I point out.

She shrugs. "I know."

"Can't sleep?"

She frowns then, looking around her. "Too much comfort. I'm not used to it."

I stand beside her, close enough to feel the heat from her skin.

She looks out at the city. "Is this really necessary?"

"Yes," I say. "It's the only way you stay alive."

She turns, eyes like twin wounds. "You know I'll try to kill you."

I nod. "I expect nothing less."

She laughs, and for a second I want to kiss her. After a minute, she says, "I'm not your prisoner."

"No," I agree. "You're the woman who'll be my wife."

She sighs softly, and the sound is swallowed by the night's breeze. "We'll see."

I leave her there, shivering in the cold, eyes never leaving the horizon. Back in my office, I pour a glass of vodka, neat. I watch her on the screen, alone in the dark.