Page 6 of The Pakhan’s Bride (Mafia Bosses #3)

ZOYA

I slide into the chair opposite the stranger, keeping my back to the wall. Tucking my hair behind my ear, I smile shyly, somewhat out of my element beside a man this handsome. "You seem very certain of your wine preferences."

He signals the bartender without looking away from me. "Some certainties are worth having."

His watch catches the flitting light—an Audemars Piguet Royal Oak.

It sits incongruously against the worn cuff of his black shirt.

A man comfortable with contradictions. The bartender brings a bottle at his signal, presents it with theatrical flourish.

I don't look at the bottle, even when the stranger nods, waits as our glasses are filled.

The wine is the color of garnets, also my birthstone.

I lift it, inhale. Earth and oak, aged over two decades.

"What do you think?" he asks when I sip.

"You were right." I allow a small smile. "Chateau Margaux, ninety-six." His eyebrow lifts, just slightly. I set my glass down. "My drink was just fine, but this has more structure."

A microscopic shift in his posture presents itself in the form of surprise, but it’s quickly masked. His fingers tap once against the rim of his glass, a tell I file away. "Most tourists can't tell the difference between French wine and California knock-offs," he says.

The corner of my mouth tilts. "Do I look like a tourist to you?"

"You look like someone playing a part." He leans back, studying me with new interest. "Not very convincingly."

I switch to Russian, let my natural accent flow. "And what part would that be?"

His lips curve at the language shift. He responds in the same tongue, his accent heavier but entirely competent. "The lonely and lovely girl in a foreign city. The woman with no past and no future. Just the present moment, a glass of wine, and a stranger's company."

He understands Russian. Interesting. Not just understands. He speaks it with the cadence of someone who learned on Moscow streets, not in classrooms. I revert to English, softer now. "Perhaps I simply enjoy good wine and intelligent conversation."

"Perhaps." He matches my English, his Southern American drawl lending an unusual texture to the words. "And perhaps I'm just a businessman enjoying an evening in Paris."

"Are you?"

"No." His directness catches me off guard. "Just as you're not a mere tourist with too much money to spend."

My heart stutters, but my expression remains unchanged. I've had years of practice keeping fear from reaching my face. "What makes you think that?"

"The way you scan the room every forty-five seconds.

The way you positioned yourself with sight lines to both exits.

The way you touch your hair when deflecting a question.

" He gestures to my hand, which I realize is doing exactly that.

I force it down to my lap. "Whoever taught you was good, but there are tells they couldn't eliminate. "

I should leave. Now. This man is dangerous, though not in the way my father's associates are dangerous, with their obvious threats and displays of power.

Mentally, I calculate the distance to the door, the number of people between us and it, the likelihood that he would follow.

He's still watching, so I take another sip of my wine as I think of what to say. "You haven't asked my real name."

"I won't." Something shifts in his expression. "Names are overrated. Actions matter more."

"And what action should I take now? Since you've so thoroughly dismantled my evening plans."

His laugh is unexpected—short, genuine, a break in his careful control.

It transforms his face, revealing a glimpse of someone surprisingly youthful beneath the watchful stranger.

"Finish your wine. Walk with me. The night's still young, and Paris deserves better than to be experienced from inside a bar. "

Caution wars with curiosity in my chest. Seven days of freedom shouldn't include taking chances on unknown variables. And yet… "I have conditions," I say, reverting to Russian with its hard edges. "No questions about my past. No photographs. No exchange of contact information when we part ways."

He nods once. "Agreed." A minute later, a lopsided grin appears on his face. "What would you like me to call you?"

I consider the question for a heartbeat. "Sofia," I settle on. "And you?"

"Markov," he replies easily, his voice dark and soft.

We finish the bottle in contemplative silence.

He pays in cash, leaving generous gratuity, and leads me out with his hand on the small of my back.

By now, Paris has transformed into a watercolor of amber lights and blue shadows.

Lanterns glow in shop windows along narrow streets, winding through the city.

My heels click against cobblestones as we walk, the sound syncopating with his steadier footfalls.

I keep space between us, but not enough to suggest fear.

Sofia would walk closer, maybe brush her arm against his occasionally.

I am not Sofia, but neither am I entirely Zoya here.

I exist in the liminal space between identities, between truths.

"You're very good," he says eventually. "Most people would never notice that you're constantly checking your reflection in shop windows to adjust your appearance. That you never fully relax, even when you laugh."

I intentionally touch my hair, teasing. "Perhaps I'm vain."

"Perhaps you're a ghost." He stops, turns to face me fully under a wrought-iron lamp that casts his features in sharp relief. The intensity returns to his gaze. "You don't belong here."

The words are an observation delivered with the certainty of someone who recognizes his own kind.

Someone who himself doesn't belong anywhere.

I look up at him, at the nighttime city reflected in his eyes.

For one reckless moment, I let my mask slip, not to show him who I am but to show him that the mask exists at all. "That's the point," I answer.

An hour passes easily, and before I know it, after he says goodbye, I'm returning to the hotel well past curfew.

The lobby is mostly dark, lit only by a single table lamp near the reception desk, casting long, tired shadows across the tiled floor.

The night clerk glances up from his crossword, offers no greeting, no judgment.

He's seen worse from strangers with less to lose.

I remove my shoes just outside the door to my room.

The soles of my feet ache with a kind of good pain, the kind that comes from walking too long.

My fingers are cold, my movements quiet.

I ease the door open, prepared to slip into the dark like a thief returning from some trivial crime.

The light is already on. Dimitri sits in the armchair by the window, one ankle resting on his knee, arms crossed over his chest. The book on his lap is closed. He is not reading. He has been waiting. I pause just inside the doorway, uncertain whether to speak first or simply face the inevitable.

"You're late." His voice is quiet, alert, edged with disappointment he doesn't bother to hide.

I shut the door behind me. "I know."

"You had four hours."

"I lost track of time."

Dimitri leans forward, setting the book aside.

The lines in his face are deeper tonight, and for once, he doesn't seem like a soldier in a tailored coat.

"I watched the clock, Zoya," he admonishes.

"Every minute past twelve, I thought of how I'd explain it to your father if something happened. How I'd explain it to myself."

I move slowly across the room, shrugging off my coat and draping it over the back of the desk chair. "Nothing happened."

"Yet."

He stands, not quite angry, not quite calm.

His height is always impressive, but he doesn't use it against me.

"I wasn't careless," I tell him. "I was just…

somewhere I wanted to be. Somewhere I needed to be, even if only for an hour.

Isn't that the point of this trip, Dyadya ?

If I'm on curfew and being watched all the time while I'm here, I may as well be back at home.

And you can call me ungrateful." I pause to swallow the lump forming in my throat.

"But I sure as hell won't leave Paris feeling like I didn't do everything here that I wanted to. "

Dimitri sighs, rubs a hand over his face. "I gave you space because you appealed to the father in me. But Zoya… I am still responsible for you."

"I know," I say. "And I'm grateful. Truly." But I refuse to back down. "How many times have you seen me do something careless? And before you remind me of that incident, let me remind you that I stabbed that asshole in Barcelona to protect myself."

Dimitri has gone quiet, so I push on. "I know how to take care of myself in the dark and the light, Dyadya . All those years of judo and target practice weren't for show. You trained me yourself. You know exactly what I'm capable of.”

That earns a small smile from him, but it vanishes as quickly as it came.

He's softening, but he's still angry. I can take that.

I walk to the window where the curtain is half-drawn.

The streetlights blur against the glass like melted stars.

Far below, a couple laughs too loudly on the sidewalk.

They hold hands like it means nothing at all.

"When I was younger, you used to sneak me out of family parties for fresh air," I murmur. "Do you remember? You'd say my father never saw the use in letting me breathe, although he did it to protect me. But you did."