Page 21 of The Darkness is Calling

But lethal.

Something, however, made me stay away. Made me avoid crossing his path, even though, for a moment, I caught him watching me with unsettling intensity.

He was probably curious, seeing me beside Mikhail.

But his connection to my brother was not a good thing at all. And today, I understood why.

Because of those eyes, the ones I could only truly observe up close today.

The ones that made shivers run down my back for the first time in my life, as if they were meant to reflect the soul of a devil hungry for blood.

Artem Voron Koronov.

I grew up among the most dangerous men in Bratva, but I never once felt real danger around them. Because of my father’s reputation, those monsters smiled in my presence. They respected me, and they knew my father would be very displeased if any of them so much as looked at his daughter the wrong way.

And he was not the only one who made sure I was treated like a princess. My brother did too, showing his potential as a future leader of the organization since he was little.

I did not feel safe surrounded by the worst criminals, but I was not afraid of them either.

I never had been, even when perhaps I should have been.

Until today.

None of them ever made my blood frozen the way the man with those magnificent, mismatched shades of gray and brown did today.

His gaze made me feel like prey.

One he would stalk in silence only to destroy slowly.

Painfully.

Whatever rumors I may have heard about him, I am beginning to think they underestimated him. “Miss, are you alright?”

I startle when I hear the man’s voice in the room, and my gaze immediately flies to the powerful body of my new guard. I hadn’t even realized he was still here.

“I thought you’d left.”

“I was thinking we should finish the tour.”

From the moment I saw the piano I felt an almost hypnotic need to take refuge in its music for a few moments. I needed a break from everything happening around me, even if I was in the middle of the tour Dima was giving me through the house, right after we left my luggage in the immaculate bedroom.

“Yes, of course. I’m sorry,” I say quickly, with a polite smile, and I rise from the bench at once, following him farther.

After a complete tour, during which I meet Polina, the warm-smiling cook who resembles a caring mother to everyone here, as well as two other people busy with household duties, I return to the elegant bedroom in shades of cream and brown.

I slowly sit on the edge of the bed and take in the situation I am in.

This is a cage.

A golden one, but still a cage, surrounded by strangers who won’t even let me drive my own car.

And not just any strangers, but some of the most unhinged members of the organization.

Their reputation has reached my ears, of course.

The Angels of Death.

The three brothers who became famous for their bloody methods.