Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 85156 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85156 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
“Are you coming?” I ask, looking over my shoulder.
Eva doesn’t answer but trots to catch up, as if she expects me to lead her into a trap I’ve set.
Instead, I lead her to a carved, locked door.
“What’s in there?”
When I glance over my shoulder again, Eva’s expression is pinched, her full eyebrows drawn nearly together.
I chuckle. “What are you expecting?”
She sinks her top teeth into her bottom lip, and a faint blush appears on her cheeks. She doesn’t need to tell me for me to know she’s imagining a room of mafia horrors, whatever that might be.
I can’t help chuckling again as I enter the PIN on the keypad, and the door unlocks with a soft click. My amusement turns to pleasure when the lights come on and Eva gasps.
She stands frozen in the doorway, mouth parted, eyes wide as saucers as she takes in the room’s contents.
“Is this all yours?” she finally manages.
Her breath is barely above a stunned whisper, as if anything louder would disturb the books lining the floor-to-ceiling mahogany shelves that cover every inch of the large room’s walls.
“Yes. My private collection.”
Eva takes a few slow steps into the room, turning to drink it all in. “This is incredible.”
The massive collection has always been my pride and joy, but Eva’s obvious delight and wonder make it doubly so.
“Many are first editions. I keep the oldest books in that case, climate-controlled so they don’t degrade.”
With a wave, I indicate a shelf with titles in Cyrillic lettering along their spines. “And this collection was saved from the Alexander Palace during the Revolution.”
“How did you get them?”
“Many I bought through private auction. Other members of my family saved some before fleeing Russia for France.”
“Did they work in the palace?” Eva asks, distracted as she runs a finger down the spine of a book and traces the gold-foil lettering.
“No. They were Romanovs. Distant cousins, of course, minor cousins, but Romanovs.”
That finally gets Eva’s attention. She turns her head slowly, as if she thinks she misheard. Her eyes widen again when she sees no hint of a joke in my expression.
“Romanovs?”
“Yes. My mother was a Romanov.”
“Were you born in Russia?” she asks, eyes scanning the titles on the high shelves.
“I was not, and my father was born in Paris, but many of the Kucherov Bratva were. Vasya was. But becoming a bratva member is less about nationality and more about agreeing to the laws of the brotherhood, or the vory v zakone.”
Eva looks at me. “Thieves-in-law?”
“Yes,” I reply. “It is what we in our world call the brotherhood, the set of laws, expectations, and hierarchy that make up what Westerners call the Russian mob.”
“Oh.”
I look down at her. She’s so close her arm brushes my sleeve, and when she feels my eyes on her, she tilts her head up. It’s so easy to lean down, my gaze skimming over the almond shape of her eyes, the soft glow of her skin, the perfection of her lips that part slightly as though in invitation.
Warmth settles in the center of my chest, a heat that has nothing to do with the stirring of attraction in my slacks. It is a sentiment I have never felt for anyone else, and it frightens me more than any threat of a war between bratvas.
Eva rises on her toes, and our lips meet. What starts as a soft exploration soon explodes, and I’m devouring her, my arms circling her and pushing her back, crushing her against a shelf of books. But Eva doesn’t seem to care, one arm winding around my neck, the other hand cupping my face.
The scarred side of my face.
I pull away, breathless, panic rising in my veins like a flame overtaking the desire.
“I’m sorry,” she says quickly. “Did I—”
“I have to go.”
Confusion mars Eva’s expression, her chest rising and falling rapidly, her cheeks still flushed. “Oh. Okay.”
We both know it’s a cover, but I flee anyway. I run from Eva and my unprecedented feelings. My path takes me straight to the rest home in the hills, with carved white columns, ivy-covered colonnades, and a guard at the gate.
A lifetime of service for the Kucherov Bratva does not go unrewarded.
Despite the late hour, the old man sits in his room by the window, looking out at a slice of the valley lit by a carpet of glittering lights.
“Ivan.”
The old vor turns slowly, squinting with watery eyes at me. “Evgeny? Why the late visit?”
I sit in the chair opposite, a ritual comforting in its familiarity.
“Did something else happen with that bastard Tsepov?”
“No.” I’m not here for business, and a slow smile tugs at the old man’s mouth.
“Ah. This is about the woman Vasya has spoken of, is it not?”
Of anyone alive, Ivan has known me the longest. At the core of our relationship, he is the closest thing I have to a father, the one I go to for advice on many matters. I don’t need to force out the words that are so difficult to form, because he understands.