73

Oleg
I wake to find Story gone.
I fly out of the bed and pound down the hallway in my boxer briefs and t-shirt. The living room is bright with daylight.
Fuck. Did I lose time again? How much?
Vaguely, it comes back to me that I slept through the afternoon and evening. Story stayed with me, playing her guitar softly and moving about the room. I vaguely remember Sasha inviting her to eat-I don’t know if it was lunch or dinner. Maybe both.
That must’ve been yesterday.
“Hey, big guy. How are you feeling?” Nikolai asks from the couch. He’s eating donuts from a box on the coffee table.
I throw my arms in the air in frustration, demanding to know where Story went.
“Relax.” Maxim emerges from the kitchen drinking a glass of grapefruit juice. “Story’s up on the roof with Sasha.”
The roof. I shake my head, already reaching for the door.
“They’re safe up there-you think I would allow it if they weren’t? There’s no clear shot onto that roof from any direction. I promise.”
I relax my grip on the door handle slightly, debating if I should go put on pants before I storm up there, since it’s not an emergency, when I hear screams and the sound of bullets piercing metal from the rooftop.
Everyone in the penthouse flies into action. I fling open the door, running. The footsteps of my brothers pound behind me, Maxim at my neck. Pavel and Nikolai are further back, both with guns drawn. I take the stairs three at a time and throw open the door to the rooftop with a whack. Sasha and Story crouch together in the hot tub, covering their heads.
“They’re shooting at us!” Sasha yells to Maxim in Russian.
Maxim whirls, checking the buildings around us, calming the women at the same time. “It’s all right,” he tells them. “There’s no clear shot. I promise you. The places where there might be, we put up bullet-proof glass.”
I want to kill Maxim for letting Story out of his sight, but I struggle to let his words seep in. They really aren’t in danger.
Ravil and Dima arrive on the roof, also with pistols in hand. A few more shots are fired, I see Maxim was right. They hit the tall HVAC unit, bounce off the bullet-proof windows below.
“Over there.” Ravil points to the building beside us that has one of the windows removed. “Get a team in that building now,” he barks.
I can’t think of anything but getting to Story. I jog to the hot tub and pick up one of the towels lying over a chair to hold out to cover her. She’s in nothing but her panties, and I want to murder every one of my bratva brothers for glimpsing her tits, not that they’re looking.
She scrambles out and jumps on me, straddling my waist, arms around my neck, soaking my clothes with the hot water. I wrap the towel around her back, holding her tight.
Maxim pulls Sasha out of the tub and into his arms.
I’m still not breathing. Not able to stop the terror rushing through my veins.
“It’s a message,” Ravil says grimly. “Someone’s trying to scare you.”
I’m going to kill all of them. Every last person who threatened Story’s life. I turn and stalk off the roof, carrying Story like she’s the only thing keeping me alive.
“I’m okay,” she murmurs in my ear, even though she still clings to me as tightly as when she flung herself into my arms. “It just scared us. We didn’t know we couldn’t be hit.”
My swallow. I never want to put her down again. I carry her into my bedroom and pace in a circle with her.
“I’m okay,” she repeats. She leans her cheek against mine. “Your fever broke. Are you feeling better?”
I pace another circle.
“Put me down, big guy. I need to get dressed. Of course, I have no clothes to wear.”
I set her gently on the dresser and fish out a long-sleeved t-shirt for her to wear as she peels off her wet panties. She pulls the shirt over her head. The sleeves drape down over her hands, making her look like a rag doll. She laughs and takes her arms out of the sleeves, then pushes them up through the neck hole, bringing it down below her shoulders. She then ties the long sleeves under her breasts, creating the appearance of a strapless shirt-dress. It’s bohemian and beautiful. I gather her back up in my arms and kiss her forehead.
“I’m all right,” she says again. “Come on, let’s get back out there to talk about this.”
I know she’s right, but I’d rather keep her locked in my bedroom.
Indefinitely.
I’m also extremely distracted knowing she’s wearing no panties beneath my t-shirt. My hand covers her ass as we walk out together, my fingertips tracing the curve of her buttocks.
She tips her head up to me and gives me a secret smile.
Everyone’s in the living room when we get there. Sasha has also changed into her clothes, and Lucy’s standing with baby Benjamin over her shoulder, patting his little diapered butt. Her expression is tight. I’m sure the high-strung lawyer doesn’t like any of the bratva violence coming close to her child. It was the reason she tried to hide her pregnancy from Ravil in the first place. Ravil only won her over after abducting her and holding her as his prisoner.
“We were too late. The team found the office building they were shooting from, but the shooter had already escaped,” Maxim reports to me.
Fuck.
I catch Sasha’s eye and finger Story’s makeshift dress and then point to her with a questioning face.
“Story needs some clothes!” Sasha guesses. She beckons to Story. “I meant to get you some when we got out. Come with me.” They disappear into the bedroom together, and when they emerge, Story has a pair of leggings underneath my shirt and a pink cropped hoodie sweatshirt to cover her arms. She looks every bit the rockstar she is.
“Listen, I’m going to need to go and get some things if I’m staying here all week,” Story says.
Over my dead body she leaves this place. I shake my head.
Maxim and Ravil exchange a look. “It’s not a bad idea,” Maxim says, appealing to me. “We just bump up the plan by going to her apartment. It would be easier to control things there versus at a nightclub.”
Story looks at me.
I shake my head at her.
“Story wouldn’t necessarily have to go. The two of you could stay here, where they can’t touch you. We send a crew to her apartment to get her things. If we see anyone, we take them,” Ravil says.
I nod. I’ll agree to any plan that doesn’t involve Story. I pick up the paper and pencil still on the counter from before and write, It’s hard to see how that would work without me there. I hand it to Ravil.
He reads it aloud. “True. Then you come. We leave Story here. You’re the bait. It’s far more simple. We need to get this thing resolved immediately.”
“I would like to go, though,” Story says. “You know, to figure out what I need.”
I shake my head.
“Oleg, you’re being irr-”
I cut off Story’s argument with a slam of my fist to the wall beside me. I didn’t mean to show my aggression, but she’s had a gun pointed to her head and now bullets fired at her. There’s no fucking way I’m letting her walk into danger again when she doesn’t have to.
“Hey,” she snaps, her eyes flashing. Clearly she’s not afraid of me, which is a relief. In fact, she gets right up in my face-well, as close as she can get to my face considering how much shorter she is than I am-and points her finger. “Don’t do that again.”
I blink at her. I know I should apologize, but I also can’t promise it won’t happen again. I am fucking irrational when it comes to her safety.
“She has more guts than I do,” Pavel mutters.
“Right?” Dima answers.
“As if he’d ever hurt her,” Sasha scoffs. “You two? You’re a different story.”
“Story stays.” Ravil’s authority cuts across any more arguments. “Oleg comes. Maxim, arrange for back up. We’ll leave in one hour.”
“Not you,” Lucy warns, wide-eyed from the corner.
Ravil hesitates, his gaze flicking to his baby boy and his mother.
“Pakhan stays,” Maxim says, as if he’s the boss rather than Ravil. He knows Ravil wouldn’t choose to protect himself, though, and his marriage depends on sheltering their family from bratva violence.
I hate myself for bringing this violence upon them.
If I had any decency, I’d leave. Walk out alone, offer myself up to the thugs who want me and free everyone else-especially Story-from the danger I’m dumping on them.
But leaving Story feels like an impossibility. My life began the night I took her home. I woke up from the dead. Wanted to connect. To share.
And so I’m trapped now, between the need to keep Story and the need to protect her.
Story
I make a list of things I want from my apartment, and the guys leave.
I’ve seen some crazy shit in my life. I’ve watched my parents have the kind of fights that involved flying dishes and broken furniture. I’ve had to check my mom in and out of mental hospitals. I held my brother while he was on a bad drug trip. In middle school, my best friend slit her wrists, and I sat beside her at the hospital.
I consider myself resilient. It’s why I didn’t totally freak when I found Oleg shot and bleeding in my van. Or when I watched him kill my three attackers. I’ve built a high tolerance for trauma.
But right now, I’m about as keyed up as I’ve ever been. My stomach’s up in my throat, and I’ve never felt so helpless. The idea of anything happening to Oleg terrifies me.
I pace the length of windows that look out over the lake in the penthouse living room, too keyed up to even put my thoughts together.
Sasha watches me with sympathy. “He’ll be all right. They all will.”
I look over to see if she’s trying to convince herself. Her fingers are intertwined tightly and she’s also standing aimlessly.
But she says, “These guys are badass.”
“Yes.” I remember how efficient and skilled Oleg seemed to be at Rue’s. He knows what he’s doing, and he’s not alone.
“Do you like to play music when you’re trying not to think about something?”
“Yeah.”
“Want to get your guitar?”
“You don’t mind?”
“Are you kidding? I need the distraction, too.”
“What about the baby?” I ask.
Sasha waves her hand. “Oh, we have him trained to sleep through anything.”
I go to Oleg’s room and get my guitar. When I bring it back, I tune it and strum my fingers without thinking. “What’s your favorite?” I ask Sasha.
“Oh, stupid stuff. Top forty. You play what you like.”
I play through the Storyteller’s entire album on autopilot, just trying to get through it.
“Is that all original music?” Sasha asks when I finish.
I nod, absently. The noise in my head is so loud.
“Do you guys have a manager?”
I laugh. “Yeah, me.”
“No, you need a real manager. Someone who will pimp you hard. Get you booked outside of Chicago. If you broaden your reach, I’ll bet you could get a recording deal. Seriously.”
I’m saved from deflecting her well-meaning advice by the door opening. Oleg comes through first, and I almost fall down with relief.
I drop the guitar, run right over the top of the sofa-one foot on the cushion, the next on the back-and divebomb him, wrapping my legs around his waist.
He catches me and spins me around and pins my back against a wall, claiming my mouth with an intensity that makes my toes curl. When he pulls away, I don’t let him, chasing his lips with mine for more. I use my tongue, hoping it won’t bother him that he can’t use his back. It doesn’t seem to. He palms my ass and drops my hips lower, so he can grind the bulge of his erection between my legs.
“They were there, but they caught sight of the rest of us and sped off,” I hear Maxim telling Ravil. “Pavel and I chased their car, and we got a plate number. It will be a rental, but maybe Dima can track them.”
“Already on it.” Dima has somehow teleported to his workstation where his fingers fly across the keys.
Oleg puts me down and carries my things to his room, then we return to the living room, where I curl up on Oleg’s lap on the large red sofa. The television gets turned on to Netflix, and Nikolai picks Arrested Development. The relief of doing something normal, of having Oleg back, the way he quiets the noise for me is so great that I almost fall asleep.
“Well, I found something. There’s a three million dollar reward for bringing Oleg in alive posted on the dark web in Russia,” Dima says. “Looks like it might be from another bratva cell.” He reads aloud, Subject: Bratva Enforcer with Ravil Baranov’s cell. Residence: well-guarded bratva stronghold, likely impossible to penetrate. Is known to frequent a bar called Rue’s Lounge, with a possible love interest there. And there’s a photo of Story on Oleg’s table.”
A muscle tics in Oleg’s jaw.
Dima lifts his head. “I say we turn him in and collect the reward.”
Oleg stiffens, head jerking up.
“That’s a joke.” Dima sobers. “Gospodi, Oleg, do you really think we’d sell you out?”
“Put up a notice,” Ravil says. “Oleg belongs to me. Anyone who attempts to touch him dies. If anyone wants the information in his head, it’s for sale. They can talk to me.”
Oleg doesn’t seem to be breathing.
“Is that okay?” I murmur for his ears only.
He swallows then nods.
“Put up a notice,” Dima mutters, but his face is on the screen, fingers flying over the keys. “That’s not exactly how it works, but I understand.”
Ravil looks at Oleg. “I already had a call from Kuznets in Moscow. He wants names. Do you have them?”
Oleg shakes his head.
“No names at all? Not a single one?”
He shakes his head again.
“Only faces?”
Oleg nods.
“And it’s been years. That’s not going to be useful to anyone. Can you put that up on the dark web?” Ravil asks Dima.
Dima snorts but keeps typing. “I’ll put up a notice,” he says sarcastically, but he’s also bobbing his head, as if he will do whatever he can.
“Will that keep Oleg safe?” I ask.
Ravil nods. “I’ll take care of it. No one will touch him without my say-so, which means no one will touch him.” A shiver runs up my spine because I can practically feel the danger radiating from Ravil. At least he’s on Oleg’s side. I’d hate to be on the wrong side of the guy.