Chapter 34

KSENIA

“Nobody,” I snap. “I don’t know anyone to send money to. I haven’t talked to my brother since I left you, not for lack of trying. He won’t return my calls, ignores me. I don’t even know where he is anymore. There is nobody. Life is just expensive.”

He grunts, then he opens the car door and I watch him unfold. He makes his way around the hood of the car until he’s right next to me. When the car door is jerked open, I shift my legs over, but I don’t stand, not yet.

“Grisha?” I call out. “I’m serious. I don’t have any money to send to anyone.”

“I believe you,” he murmurs.

The only reason he probably believes me is because he’s probably already researched this and knows exactly what I do and don’t do with my money. Maybe he was trying to trip me up, maybe he was trying to see if I was hiding something from him.

Doesn’t he realize it was never me hiding anything from him? It was, and probably always will be the other way around.

Grisha grips my hand tightly and turns my head to look up to him. He gives me a small grin and I see that part of him. That part that I absolutely love. The kindness, the good man that lies inside of him. It’s there and damn, but it’s beautiful.

“I am here for you, Ksenia. No matter what. I have your best interest in mind, even if you do not like how that plays out.”

I don’t say anything, I nod, unsure of what to actually say exactly. I want to demand things, but it’s not only not my place, this isn’t where I should be demanding anything. Flicking my gaze over his shoulder, I wrinkle my nose at the store behind him.

“Seriously though, this is just a waste of money, Grisha. It’s so expensive.”

A smile lifts on his lips and I watch as it reaches his eyes. My breath hitches at the sight. Simply put—beautiful. Though that is simply put, just Grisha to me. He has always been gorgeous, beautiful, too handsome for his own good and he has always known it, too.

“Maybe so, but I care for your health, Ksenia.”

“And you don’t think I’ve been eating healthy? Are you saying I’m fat?” I snap.

He lifts his hand to his mouth and lets out a cough, his smiling eyes finding mine. “Never. Nothing about you is fat, never has been, never could be. I just know that looking around your apartment, you’re not eating the foods that you should. That processed shit, that’s not how we were raised, yeah?”

He’s bringing up Russia again.

No, we were not raised on processed shit. We were raised on fresh foods. When the weather was good the women who worked for us bought food and canned it for the winter. Nothing was ever purchased, especially processed foods.

The first time I was even allowed to have a candy bar was after arriving in the United States. Not because we don’t have access to them in Russia, but because my father would not allow it. In his house, beneath his rule, you ate what he served, and he only served traditional old-school meals that his mother made. We had cooks who used only my grandmother’s recipes.

Nothing else.

So maybe I went a little crazy when I was finally able to eat and do what I wanted. I try not to overindulge too much, but I do eat far more junk than I should. It’s just so freaking good.

“Okay, Grisha. Let’s get some healthy shit.”

Grisha lets out a bark of laughter, then he does something that he hasn’t done in years.

He takes my hand.

Together, hand in hand, we walk through the parking lot and toward the store’s entrance. It’s the most surreal, odd sensation I’ve had in a long time. It’s also the most comforting feeling I’ve had wash over me in a decade.

GRISHA

KSENIA AGONIZES over every single purchase. I watch her pick things up, look at the ingredients, then the price, and place it down. When she does this, I take the item and throw it in the cart. Then she hisses at me and tells me to stop.

I don’t stop and by the time we leave the health food grocery store, I’ve spent eight hundred dollars. I also don’t feel like I’ve bought eight hundred dollars’ worth of food though. Ksenia was right, this place is expensive as fuck.

“I told you that place was too expensive,” she mutters as I start the engine of the car, after unloading the contents into the back seat.

I hum, then head toward the apartment. I know without a doubt that she is going to lose her shit when she sees Holland and Danill’s apartment in Santa Monica.

It’s on the beach, literally. She will have beach access, although it will piss her off because I won’t let her go down there without me. But for my little beach baby, it will be at least tolerable.

“Where are we?” she asks as I drive toward the beach and closer to the apartment.

“Santa Monica. The complex is just up the road here.”

“This is all too much, how did you get this place?”

Shrugging a shoulder, I pull into the designated parking spot, looking up at the building. It’s fucking fancy as shit. My house is nice, it’s worth a few million dollars, but this building is legit. Ksenia lets out an exhaled breath and I look over to her and watch as her eyes visibly widen before my own.

She turns slowly, her gaze finding mine. “You can’t mean that I’ll be living here? Whose place is this?” she asks again.

I give her a grin. “A friend. It’s yours, fully furnished. Everything has been cleaned and washed by maid service, but they will not be allowed back in so it’s up to you to keep it up, yeah?”

Ksenia rolls her eyes, then her gaze finds mine. “I know how to keep house,” she mutters.

I don’t respond to that. I am sure that she does, her old apartment was downright sparkling. She may not have known how to take care of things when I had her, not that she had to or anything, but she has learned a few things along the way the past decade.

It’s good.

It’s all fucking good.

“Let’s go ahead and head inside. I’ll show you around.” Unfolding from the car, I walk around the back of the SUV and start to gather her two bags of luggage. Ksenia meets me at the back and starts to grab the grocery bags. Together, we’re able to get it all in one trip and I’m glad we don’t have to come back down.

She doesn’t say anything as we walk through the building. I have to show the man at the front desk my identification, since we were added to the list, well I was. I didn’t want Ksenia added at all. I don’t want her leaving without me anyway.

“Wow there really is security here,” she whispers as we drag our shit into the elevator.

I think about the past and how the front desk person was bought off and Holland was almost really fucking hurt because of it all. I don’t tell Ksenia that though. The staff that’s here now is Bratva.

Danill only bought Holland’s apartment, but then he talked to the company that was hiring people for the front desk, and now he’s in charge of who works here. I’m glad for it too, especially right now.