Page 8 of The Pakhan’s Bride (Mafia Bosses #3)

The cobblestones beneath our feet are still damp from afternoon rain, releasing the scents of dust and stone and age.

Distant laughter drifts from the square, the sound of people enjoying an ordinary evening.

His palm is warm against the small of my back, his chest solid when a misstep brings me against it.

For a moment, just a moment, I let myself lean in.

The music ends. We don't immediately separate.

His eyes search mine for something I'm not sure I possess.

I look back, searching too, wondering what mask he wears, what face lies beneath.

When I return to the hotel post this dance, something in me has changed completely.

If Dimitri notices, he says nothing and takes me out to dinner.

We talk about other things—the weather, Papa's childhood in Prague, cats, and how pistachio and Maldon salt elevate chocolate ice-cream.

I know how charitable this is for a man who could be destroyed by my father if he found out what I'm doing here.

And I'm grateful.

The Seine at night is a ribbon of black silk embroidered with gold—reflections of streetlamps, boat lights, the illuminated monuments that define Paris for those who've never truly seen it.

Markov and I walk along its edge after dinner at a small restaurant where he spoke to the owner in flawless French and I pretended not to notice how the staff tensed when he entered.

Three nights with this man, and I know both everything and nothing about him.

I know how he takes his coffee (black, no sugar), which shoulder he favors (the right, an old injury he doesn't mention), how his eyes change color depending on his mood (darker when he's assessing, lighter when he almost laughs).

I know he's dangerous in the same way I am.

What I don't know is why I'm still here, still walking beside him, still playing this game that feels less like strategy and more like falling with each passing hour.

Our shoulders brush occasionally, not accidental on either part. Each contact sends a current through my skin The night wind carries the scents of river water, stone, and the faint sweetness of his cologne. "You're quiet tonight," he says.

"I'm always quiet." I look out across the water rather than at him. Safer that way. "You just talk enough for both of us."

He laughs, and a delicious shiver runs through my core. "Is that what you think? That I talk too much?"

"I think you say exactly enough to seem forthcoming while revealing nothing."

"Like recognizes like," he murmurs.

We pass a couple leaning against the stone balustrade, lost in each other, oblivious to the world continuing around them. I envy their oblivion, their certainty. I've never been certain of anything except my name, and even that feels tenuous now after days of being Sofia.

Four days left of freedom. Four days before I return to Moscow, to duty, to the life laid out for me before I was born.

The thought sits like ice in my chest, spreading coldness through my limbs.

His hand catches mine suddenly, pulling me sideways into a recessed doorway set into the ancient stone wall lining the riverbank.

The alcove is deep, shadowed, the kind of architectural detail that exists only in cities that have survived centuries.

His body blocks the entrance, not trapping me but creating a pocket of privacy in the public space.

"What—" I begin, but the word dies when I see his expression. Gone is the careful amusement, the carefully arranged charm. The replacing intensity is enough to take my breath away. "I won't ask your name," he says, voice deep. "I promised that. But I want to know the truth."

"About what?" My pulse accelerates, not from fear but from something more complicated.

"About why you're hiding." His fingers still hold mine, his thumb tracing unconscious circles against my skin. "About who you're running from."

I study his face in the half-light—the sharp angles of his jaw, the faint scar near his hairline, the eyes that see too much.

For three days I've maintained Sofia's persona, kept Zoya locked away.

For three days I've measured every word, every gesture, every reaction. The constant performance exhausts me.

What would it feel like to tell someone? To say my name out loud, to admit what I'm escaping, to speak the truth for once without calculating its impact? The temptation burns in my throat like unshed tears.

My free hand rises without conscious decision, fingers curling against the lapel of his jacket. The fabric is smooth beneath my touch, expensive despite its casual appearance. Everything about him is like this, quality disguised as ordinary. Danger masquerading as charm.

"Why do you want to know?" I ask, buying time.

"Because you're not what you pretend to be." His other hand comes up to brush hair from my face, the gesture oddly tender from someone so controlled. "Neither am I."

An offering of symmetry, if not specifics.

I hesitate, torn between caution and something deeper, something I've denied myself for years. Connection. Truth. The possibility of being seen, really seen, not as a Baranov daughter but as myself.

But truth is a luxury I can't afford, not with my father's men searching the city, not with my future already mapped in contracts and alliances, not with my family's empire resting on choices that aren't truly mine to make.

"I can't give you both," I say finally, my voice quavering. "Truth or this moment. Not both."

He considers, and then, at the same moment as I rise on my toes, he leans down, capturing my mouth with his.

His mouth finds mine, firm and warm and devastatingly sure.

His hand slides into my hair, not just cradling but gripping, anchoring me to him like he's afraid I'll vanish.

The first brush of his lips is a spark. The second is fire.

His exhale is hot against my cheek, like he's been holding something back longer than I knew.

I make a sound and he drinks it in, deepening the kiss until it's no longer something gentle or tentative but something that pulls from the gut, the spine, the place where control unravels.

My fingers fist in his jacket, hauling him closer.

He lets me take as much as I want, then answers by sliding an arm around my waist and pulling me flush against him.

Every inch of me is pressed to every inch of him in that space where there is nothing but heat and the sharp, staggering knowledge that I've never been kissed like this.

Not by a boy, not by a man, not by anyone who knew how to make it feel like this is how I was meant to be kissed all my life.

Around us, Paris continues. Boats glide on the Seine, tourists stroll along its banks, life moves in its ordained patterns.

No one notices two figures melded in shadow.

No one cares about this moment that feels like it’s fracturing and fusing simultaneously.

We are invisible here, irrelevant to the city's ongoing story.

And yet, I feel the significance of this kiss like a physical ache.

When we finally break apart, both breathing harder, he doesn't immediately step back.

His forehead rests against mine, his eyes closed as if memorizing something.

His hands remain at my waist, at the nape of my neck, holding me in place.

Holding me together. "That wasn't an answer," he murmurs, eyes opening to meet mine.

"It was the only one I can give."

A muscle in his jaw tightens. I watch the calculation happen behind his eyes—push further or accept the boundary?

He chooses the latter, stepping back just enough to let cool air slip between us.

His thumb traces my lower lip once, a gesture that feels more intimate than the kiss itself. "For now," he says.

The words carry a promise or a threat, I'm not sure which.

Perhaps both. I feel the future crystallizing around us, paths narrowing toward an inevitable collision.

This man, whoever he is, will cost me. I will cost him.

There is no version of this story where we walk away unscathed.

And still, I take his hand when he offers it.

Still, I step out of the alcove beside him.

Still, I choose this moment over caution, knowing exactly what I risk.