Page 13 of The Darkness is Calling

“Voron, you are responsible for Ekaterina Borislova’s safety. Recently, suspicious people have been seen near her house, and we consider them threats. After the funeral, I want her to stay in your house until the wedding. It is the safest place for her until we find out where the threat is coming from.”

His voice hardens.

“Do not forget: this wedding must happen.”

Chapter 4

Artem

I take a deep drag from my cigarette and absently exhale the toxic smoke toward the immaculate window of my office.

I stare into nothing, but the point I’m fixed on is a stone that has slipped out of the landscaped area and landed on the paved driveway where the cars pass.

In my mind, I can see how one simple stone can trigger a chain of unpleasant events. If it is sharp enough, there is a good chance it could cut a tire. A flat follows, then the inconvenience of changing the wheel. Or worse, the cut goes unnoticed at first, but slices deep enough into the rubber to make it give out while the vehicle is traveling at high speed, leading to an accident that could have fatal consequences.

Everything starts with a stone that is not where it belongs.

Just like the creature I am waiting for, the one due to appear any moment now.

The stone whose danger I did not understand until I realized who she truly was.

When my father told me about Vor’s daughter’s wedding, something clicked inside my mind, but the conversation continued and dragged me too far from that memory for me to make the connection.

The revelation came during the night, a few minutes after I had gotten into bed, after a tense day that had, fortunately, ended with a successful transaction and no incidents.

I was going through my ritual of reviewing the day’s most important moments when everything lit up, and for the first time in my life, I jumped out of bed as if it were burning beneath me. I went to the window, ran my hands through my hair several times, then drank water from the bottle on the nightstand beside my bed.

And, also for the first time, I smoked in my bedroom.

Contrary to what one might expect, I hate when certain things smell like tobacco, no matter how much I prefer losing myself in this vice.

My bedroom is my pure sanctuary, dominated by a scent completely different from the filth that surrounds me in the warehouses where most of my meetings with various business partners take place.

It’s the place where no one enters except to clean, though my brothers do occasionally stick their noses in. But even they have learned not to cross the threshold, even though we live in the same house. It is a lesson our men know as well, the ones who never go upstairs and who leave quickly after the meetings we hold in my office.

Which is precisely why the situation becomes even more complicated now, when a stone is moving into the house.

I take another drag, then put out the cigarette, burned almost down to my fingers, in the nearby ashtray. The last trace of tobacco spreads around me with the strong scent of something scorched just as a car turns onto the driveway.

Mercedes S-Class. Latest model. Tinted windows.

A muscle jumps in my cheek.

It stops in front of the house, parking slowly, and a solid man in a black suit gets out from behind the wheel. An almost identical copy of him climbs out of the front passenger seat. The second man opens the rear door, but no one gets out.

I wait.

Apparently, so does he.

He bends down and speaks to the person in the back seat, then I see the exasperation on his face when he glances at his colleague.

I stop myself from raising an eyebrow, intrigued by whatever is happening, because I have no reason to react to her.

Especially when I know exactly who is supposed to get out of that car and is stubbornly refusing to do so.

I rub my forehead with two fingers and exhale quietly, though a little too sharply.

What were the chances that the woman I have to shelter inside my own house would be the exact woman I saw half a year ago at a Christmas party, the one I wanted to...?