Page 5 of The Pakhan’s Bride (Mafia Bosses #3)

ZOYA

N ext morning, I watch Moscow recede through polarized glass, my reflection faint against the clouds beyond.

This isn't a commercial flight. It's Baranov property, fitted with cream leather seats and dark mahogany panels, tailored for men who double as rulers.

The family insignia is stitched in silver thread across the cashmere throw folded beside my seat, as discreet as a signature in blood.

Dimitri, Papa's zamestitel , had been summoned to supervise.

His orders are clear—do not let Zoya vanish.

Escort her to Paris. Return with a report.

And yet, when he meets me at the station, there's a warmth in his smile that doesn't belong in a bodyguard's dossier.

He calls me devochka under his breath and offers me a wrapped piece of cherry candy before the porter appears.

I have known Dimitri since I was small enough to hide beneath my mother's skirts during council visits.

He once lifted me out of a fountain after I tried to catch a goldfish with my bare hands.

He once broke a man's wrist for touching my arm in a ballroom. He has never called me by my title.

"You've packed light," he observes, adjusting the strap on my second bag.

"Paris isn't for armor," I respond.

We land about four hours later, and I'm promptly escorted into a cab by Dimitri.

As part of my requests for the week, I'm allowed to choose my own form of travel, and gratitude sits easily on my chest. The hotel stands in the 6th Arrondissement, nestled between a centuries-old fromagerie and a shuttered perfumery whose sign still smells faintly of lavender and musk.

The cab turns off Boulevard Saint-Germain, tires rattling over cobblestones.

Above, the buildings lean inward as if conspiring in whispers.

Below, the pavement gleams like glass where the last rain has dried unevenly.

"This is it?" Dimitri asks with a grimace as the cab stops and we get down, glancing at the address again.

"I wanted charm," I say, stepping out beside him onto the street.

And it is charming. Not in the gilded, slap-in-your-face way the Ritz can be, but in the way real things are.

The windows wear lace curtains. The courtyard has ivy climbing up its flanks like a lover unwilling to let go.

Even the brass doorknob feels warm, sweet.

Dimitri snorts softly, but he doesn't protest. He tips the concierge more than necessary and makes a show of checking exits, inspecting the elevator, speaking briefly to the man behind the desk.

His job is to shadow, protect, report. But when he follows me upstairs, he grumbles, "At least the croissants had better be good. "

The room itself is modest, with parquet floors and white linen sheets.

A wrought-iron balcony opens to the street below, where café tables have already begun filling with early diners and young lovers who speak French too quickly and kiss without shame.

From my window, I can see them all. The man in the blue coat rolling a cigarette with one hand while his date leans in laughing.

the girl in the red scarf writing something in a notebook and sipping from a glass of wine.

It feels so perfect, this life that I cannot have, save for a taste.

An hour bleeds into two, and soon, I'm restless.

Dimitri sits in the corner chair, polishing his watch.

He has not changed from his travel clothes.

His coat lies neatly folded, his bag unpacked.

He doesn't move like a tourist. He moves like a man who's never truly off-duty.

I stand at the window, bathed in that perfect golden-pink hue Paris gifts to the willing.

My hand curls around the iron of the balcony rail. "I want to go out," I say finally.

He lifts one brow. "Okay, I'll just?—"

"Alone."

His silence says more than words. Finally, he exhales through his nose. "Zoya…"

"I know the rules," I interrupt softly. "I know the risks. But it's my one week. My last week. Let me have this, Dyadya ."

He looks at me a long time. His face is hard to read, but the corners of his mouth soften. Maybe he's remembering the girl who once tried to barter her tiara for ice cream in St. Petersburg. "You'll be back in three hours," he says with a sigh.

"Four," I counter, my heart already skipping a beat. "I'll answer your call. I'm not running, I promise. What's the point, anyway? I'll always be found."

He quirks a brow at me. "Is that such a bad thing, Zoya? You speak like someone who has lived far too long in luxury to understand what true pain looks like."

His observation lands on me like needles pricking into skin, but I know he speaks out of love for both me and the family. "I?—"

Instead of letting me finish, he raises a hand and silences me. "Go, but give your name to no one."

I nod quickly. "I'm not stupid."

The corner of his mouth lifts. "I didn't say you were."

I blow him a kiss and slip into my coat before slipping out, and then, the streets welcome me like an old friend as Paris unfolds in front of me like a living poem.

Streetlamps cast halos onto the wet stones.

Music spills from a saxophonist on Rue de Buci, notes curling like cigarette smoke around lovers slow-dancing in the shadows.

The breeze smells of butter and wine, rain and roasted chestnuts.

No one looks at me twice. My heels click softly as I pass bookstores with sleeping cats in the windows, wine bars where patrons lean into each other's laughter, bridges with lovers' locks glowing faintly in the moonlight.

I walk with no destination. Past the Seine, where the river glimmers silver.

Past the bouquinistes whose green boxes have been shut for the night but still smell of old ink and stories.

I pause on the Pont des Arts, hand resting on the cool railing, watching the lights ripple on the water.

A barge passes below, strung with fairy lights, and a girl in a white dress lifts her arms in delight as someone spins her in a waltz.

The ache in my chest is sweet. Like a wound that doesn't hurt anymore, only lingers.

I buy a crepe from a man whose cart smells like sugar and cinnamon, and he hands it to me wrapped in brown paper. His smile is lined with years. He says something I don't catch, and I laugh anyway, nodding like I understand.

In that moment, I almost do.

I sit on the steps of a closed chapel, knees tucked beneath my coat, and watch the world unfold.

Strangers drift past me in constellations.

Some hold hands. Some sing softly. A boy carries a bouquet of violets.

An old woman smokes alone. Paris doesn't ask who you are.

It only asks if you're listening. Getting up, I turn the corner past the shuttered chapel, its stone archways still catching the last lavender-gold light.

A pair of pigeons scatters from the stoop.

Behind me, the iron gates creak in the wind, and further back still, the glow of the hotel fades from sight.

I check my phone. Two hours gone since I slipped out.

Two more remain before I'm due back. It vibrates a second later.

Dimitri .

I answer with a small smile. "I'm still breathing."

"I never doubted it," he replies, though his voice is tight, careful. "You're not going to make me regret giving you space, are you?"

"Not unless you count spending too much on pastry."

"You're your mother's daughter." A pause. "You're close by?"

"Still walking distance. Rue de Lappe, I think. Maybe Rue de la Bastille next."

"Zoya," he says, voice quieter now. "I know I gave you space. But be responsible with it, dorogaya . Your father's trust comes at a high cost. Don't waste it."

I smile a little guiltily. "I won't."

"You call if anything feels wrong."

"I promise." With a soft goodbye, I end the call.

My languid walk takes me past a shop window filled with hand-bound journals and antique pens, a man smoking out on his balcony, and a cat curled on a shutter ledge, blinking at me like I've interrupted a dream.

The cobblestones shine faintly in the low light, uneven beneath my feet.

I take a left on Rue Saint-Antoine. Then a right.

I don't need my dossier to know where I'm going.

I've studied this neighborhood, memorized its corners, traced this route with red ink under lamplight.

But nothing prepared me for the way the city would actually feel.

Then I see a bar tucked between a bookshop and a closed florist, looking just like the kind of place someone could live their whole life walking past and never notice.

Its windows are glowing, low and amber. A chalkboard outside lists wine specials in slanted cursive.

Narrow entrance. Kitchen exit likely in the back.

Everything in me pauses, telling me that for some inexplicable reason, I must go in.

Gut instinct pulls me forward, and the bell chimes as I step inside.

A warm drift rushes to meet me, carrying scents of wine and garlic and old wood polished by countless elbows.

The ceiling hangs low, crossed by rough-hewn beams. Edison bulbs in iron fixtures cast intimate pools of light over mismatched tables.

A dozen conversations blend into comfortable background noise.

No one turns to stare at the newcomer. I'm unimportant here.

The thought makes my lips curl into a real smile, the first in days, the first that doesn't feel rehearsed.

I move to the bar, perch on a worn leather stool, and order a glass of Bordeaux in perfect French.

The bartender—gray-haired, hands gnarled from decades of opening bottles—gives me a nod of approval at my choice before bringing me my drink.

The wine tastes like berries. I let it linger on my tongue, savoring the moment, the place, the feeling of being untethered from my name.

"There are better wines." The voice comes from my left—American accent, a slight Southern drawl softening the edges of his words.

I turn. He sits alone at a corner table, a glass of amber whiskey cradled in long fingers.

His face holds shadows and angles that the dim lighting can't soften.

Dark hair cut military-short. Eyes that miss nothing.

A day's stubble on his jaw. He wears faded jeans and a black shirt rolled to the elbows, revealing forearms corded with muscle and a watch worth more than this entire bar.

Suddenly, every nerve ending of my body is far too aware of the heat in his voice, the way it drags like velvet over gravel, the slow trace of his eyes across my collarbone.

I clutch my drink tightly to ground myself.

The stem of the glass is cool against my fingers, but my mouth is dry.

My stomach's fluttering, and it has nothing to do with nerves.

"You make a habit of analyzing women's drink orders?

" I ask, and my voice comes out a little lower than I meant it to.

His eyes are a kind of blue that doesn't belong to any sky I've ever seen. They rest on my mouth when I speak, and then he grins. This is a man who knows exactly what his smile does. "Only when they are this beautiful."

The bar fades around us. I can hear the rain slicking down the windows. The hum of a record player in the back. But it all feels far away, like I've stepped into a slower current. Like I'm not drowning, but the undertow's real.

"Care to join me?" he asks in an irresistible baritone, rich and full-bodied. And like a moth drawn to a flame, I leave my glass behind and step toward his table.