Page 34 of The Darkness is Calling

“Good. Then it’s settled. If you get sleepy, you don’t need to wait for me.”

He turns to leave, but I stop him.

“I need an exact time frame. I have no way of knowing you won’t take advantage of this situation. It is quite unpleasant for me, a woman who is supposed to marry another man in a month. What would he say if he found out you were forcing me to sleep in your bed?”

For the first time, I see a muscle in his jaw tick, but more important, his gaze turns colder, harder. In this second, I can swear he has the power to freeze the air around him until my heart becomes a snowball he is preparing to crush in his fist.

“That sounds like a threat,” he says, dangerously calm.

“It’s just reality.”

There is a huge satisfaction in my heart, because I know how to recognize a victory. And this time, I am truly convinced I have made it out from this confrontation with some advantage.

“Three days,” he says shortly. “And your room will be completely cleared. You have my word.”

For an ordinary man, that would not mean much. But for a Pakhan, a given word is sacred.

I nod.

It is a small victory compared to the fact that I have to stay in his room, but it is only the first day, and I have already been one step away from losing my life several times. I also realize that things could have been worse, but also that Artem is a sensitive psychopath who can make my life even more complicated during my stay in his house.

How exactly he will do that, I don’t know yet.

What I do know is that the ghost of those eyes follow me even when I sit at the piano and begin to play again.

I don’t need the sheet music in front of me, because I know the piece very well, but I know I need to practice more for the concert I have in three weeks.

Well, that truly gives me both anxiety and a pleasant kind of emotion at the same time. But fear is what takes hold of me now, because I have not performed a recital in front of an audience in almost two years. Even though I have been asked to play countless times during this period, I refused.

I simply did not want to.

Or I could not.

Every time I thought about being in front of those people – those strangers – the air seemed to grow heavier with every breath, and disappointment consumed me completely. A series of unpleasant memories resurfaced, and I found myself wanting to abandon the performance altogether.

All these traumas began with the recital I gave on the day I found out my mother had died. But I visibly broke during my last public performance, two years ago, when I found out my father would not be coming. At first, I thought something had happened to him, but his right-hand man called me and told me a problem had come up in the organization, one more important than the concert I was about to perform at Royal Albert Hall, right here in London.

It had been my dream to be there, reaching the height of my career, beside the man who had guided me toward something I never believed would become such a beautiful part of my life.

The piano.

But Bratva had always been more important, and that day, he had been forced to remain in Moscow.

The truly traumatic blow came the next day, when I learned that my father had actually been attacked before boarding the plane and had been seriously wounded. Fortunately, he had survived and had given orders that I not be told until after the concert, which he knew meant so much to me.

That was also the day I met Oliver Prescott III, the son of an important British lord and Member of Parliament. Like a prince, he greeted me after the recital, which I had shortened by two pieces because of the storm inside me, with an enormous bouquet of red roses.

He had no idea that red reminded me of the death I had seen far too many times.

But my hesitation that day did not stop him from continuing to court me, even though I always felt his affection was also connected to my family’s roots. Or perhaps the ties between our families formed afterward. To be honest, I don’t know. What is certain is that, even now, I do not fully understand how the hell I ended up engaged to him.

Was it pressure from my father? Oliver’s sweet attempts to be a proper partner, always attentive and affectionate with me?

My relationship with him is strange. We don’t speak every day, and we rarely go out, because most of the time he is away from the country for matters related to his business, importing materials for construction, as well as deals he has with his father, which he does not tell me about.

He is twenty-nine and one of the most desirable bachelors in Great Britain, both because of his father’s influence and because of his pleasant appearance. He has the face of a good man, with light brown hair, brown eyes, and a few freckles across his nose and cheeks.

His smile caught my attention the first time I saw him, full of warmth and sincerity.