Page 80 of The Pakhan's Captive
It’s a low, melodic sound that vibrates through the air and settles in my marrow. It’s the sound of a woman who isn’t afraid. It’s the sound of the woman I want—the one I’ve made impossible by being the man I am.
“And then,” Theo says, waving a plastic raptor in the air, “the dragon flew all the way to the moon!”
“To the moon?” Lena asks, her voice full of wonder. “That’s a very long way, Theo. Did he have a snack for the trip?”
“He had a cookie,” Theo says solemnly. “A chocolate one.”
Lena smiles, and it’s like a knife to my gut. She looks beautiful. Not the cold, sculpted beauty of a Pakhan’s wife at a gala, but a raw, radiant loveliness that is entirely focused on the child in front of her.
I stay there for an hour.
I watch her help him build a tower. I watch her read him a story about a little bear lost in the woods. I watch her kiss the top of his head when he gets sleepy, her lips lingering there for a beat longer than necessary.
She knows I’m here. I can tell by the way her shoulders stay slightly braced, the way she never quite turns her back to the door. But she refuses to give me the satisfaction of an acknowledgment. She is showing me what I’m missing. She is showing me the life that exists just out of my reach, a life that I can protect, but never truly join.
I am the guardian of the garden, but I am the one who is barred from the gate.
I think about St. Petersburg. I think about the way her skin felt against mine, the way her breath hitched when I touched her. I realize now that she wasn’t just forgetting in that bed she was escaping. She was using me as a way to burn away the reality of her life.
And now that the fire is out, all that’s left is the ash.
I turn away from the door. My chest feels tight, as if the Kevlar vest I wore in the car is still strapped to my ribs, suffocating me.
I walk down the hall to my study. The room is dark, smelling of tobacco and old paper. I sit behind the massive mahogany desk, the seat of power. I look at the computer screen, the data, the maps of territories that belong to me.
I have everything. I have the money, the men, the fear of my enemies.
But as I sit in the dark, the sound of Lena’s laughter echoing in my mind, I realize that I am the poorest man in Moscow.
I pick up the phone. I have a head to collect. I have a message to send to the North. I have to be the monster again. Because if I can’t have the love of the woman in the next room, I will damn well make sure she stays safe in the cage I built for her.
“Lyosha,” I say when he picks up. “The Petrovs. Start with the oldest son. I want it done before dawn.”
I hang up. The silence of the study is absolute.
I am the Pakhan. I am the strongest.
And I have never felt more like a ghost.
24
LENA
The digital clock on the bedside table is a taunting neon pulse in the dark.3:14 a.m.
I am lying on the very edge of the mattress, the “Republic of Lena” reduced to a narrow strip of silk and shadow. My body is a coiled spring, every muscle vibrating with a restlessness that feels like it’s scraping against my bones. Beside me, the vast expanse of the king-sized bed is empty, but the ghost of Razvan’s presence is everywhere.
For three days, I have been a ghost in this house. I have perfected the art of the blank stare. I have looked through him during dinner, ignored his questions about my day, and moved through the hallways as if he were nothing more than a structural pillar of the estate.
I expected a explosion. I expected him to snap, to grab my chin and force me to look at him, to remind me with a roar or a threat that he is the Pakhan and I am his property. I wanted the monster. Ineededthe monster. If he’s a monster, then my hatred is a righteous shield. If he’s a monster, then the way myheart stutters when I hear his boots on the stairs is just a survival instinct.
But he hasn’t reacted. He’s been…patient. He’s been quiet. He hasn’t forced a single word or a single touch since we returned from St. Petersburg. And that patience is the cruelest torture of all, because it makes me remember the man who stood between me and a hail of bullets. It makes me remember the man who holds Theo as if the boy is made of glass.
“He killed your father,” I whisper into the dark, a mantra to steady my soul. “He kept you in a dungeon. He forced a ring onto your finger while your father’s blood was barely dry on the floor.”
But then my traitorous mind flashes back to the hotel. To the way he looked at me when I was naked and shivering in his arms. To the way he growled“zayka”against my skin as if I were the only thing keeping him tethered to the earth.
Why won’t my body get the memo? Why does the scent of his sandalwood cologne lingering on the pillows make my stomach flip with a sickening, honeyed heat?
