Chapter 34

KSENIA

Walking into the apartment, my entire body pauses. It halts in the middle of the foyer. I didn’t think I would ever use that word when describing a place I’d be living in ever again, but this is definitely a foyer, not just a doorway or an entryway.

“I can’t stay here,” I whisper, mainly to myself, but also to Grisha.

He grunts as he hauls my bags through the room, unceremoniously dumping them in the middle of the pristine white carpeting in the living room. I gasp, opening my mouth to tell him to move my bags, because no doubt the wheels on my suitcase are going to ruin that floor.

But he doesn’t give me the chance. He marches toward me, gathers the grocery bags from my arms, and walks away with them. Licking my lips, I think about moving my luggage, but then decide to follow him instead.

I freeze once again when I step into the perfect kitchen. It doesn’t look like it’s ever been cooked in before and I wonder who the hell lives here and why they would let me stay in their absence?

“You need to tell me what I’m doing here,” I demand.

He stops unpacking the grocery bags, then turns to me, his eyes slowly finding mine. He leans his hips against the edge of the countertop, his gaze focused on mine and unmoving. He clears his throat, then lifts his arms and crosses them over his chest.

“I already told you more than I should have or planned on telling you. What more do you want, Ksenia?”

Taking a step backward, I press my lips together and realize that he has. Granted, it’s been a while since I’ve been around him, but he was never open or forthright with information when we were together.

Him even telling me why he wants me to go with him, why he wants me here, that my father has escaped, it does speak volumes. But it doesn’t tell me how in the fuck he got access to a place like this for me.

“What kind of friend of yours has a place like this that they’re willing to let a stranger live in it for an undetermined amount of time?” I ask.

Grisha’s gaze narrows on me and he lets out a heavy sigh. “A friend, dusha moya, and that is all you get to know.”

“Why?” I ask again, knowing that I’m pushing my luck with him and his patience.

His arms drop to his sides, and he marches forward. Lifting one of his hands, he wraps his fingers around the back of my neck and forces me forward roughly. My entire body lurches toward him as I tilt my head back to look up at him.

“Yobany urod,” he hisses.

I try to ignore the fact that he’s just called me a fucking bastard, and assume that he’s just saying the words, and not directing them toward me entirely.

My lips are parted as I wait for him to say something else. I’m not backing down from this. I know that he’s told me more than he would have a decade ago, but all of this concerns me.

“Because if you know who, you’re a liability. If Makar gets to you, what’s he going to do first, huh? He’s going to ask who fucking helped you.”

“You care about this person, your lover?” I ask on a whisper.

Why it physically pains me to say that, I don’t know. It shouldn’t. But it does. I want him to only care about me, it doesn’t matter how much time has passed, I want him to want only me. Not that he did ten years ago.

He tugs me back by my neck sharply, as if my body touching his has burned him somehow. He releases me and I stumble backward, embarrassingly landing on my ass in the middle of the kitchen.

“Who I fuck is none of your business, never was, especially not now,” he states. The hardness is back in his face, and it’s tripled.

Oh, how could I have so easily forgotten this? How could I have let this slip past my memory banks? This is why I stayed away, this among a dozen others this is why I ran and kept running. He’s a gigantic asshole.

“No, you’re right,” I say from my place on the floor. “I remember now, clearly. Everything.”

The images of the dozens of women’s faces flash in front of my face. And those are the ones that I know about, I’m sure there were more. We may have only lived together for two years, but Grisha made no secret about the other women he fucked.

He has the nerve to look taken aback by my bitter tone, but he doesn’t try to rectify anything. Instead, he nods his head once, then he takes a step backward. “Good. Now, go ahead and unpack your shit. You can use any room you want,” he calls out, turning to unpack the rest of the groceries.

I’m thankful that he’s turned his back to me, that he’s allowing me the ability to get off of the floor with at least a modicum of dignity.

Standing to my feet, I walk out of the kitchen and head toward the white carpets, no longer giving a shit if my suitcase wheels leave black marks or not. Fuck him and fuck whatever bitch he’s sleeping with. He would bring me to the house of some woman he’s fucking and make me sleep in the bed they used.

God.

He would do all of that.

I mean, why wouldn’t he? I walked in on him fucking a few of his whores in the bed we shared, so it’s basically the same damn thing. All of the memories of the really bad times come flooding back and I build up that wall, that guard, all over again.

Yeah.

Fuck Grisha Antonov.

GRISHA

I DID EXACTLY what I swore that I would not. I reverted to the man that I was with her, adding a bit of physical reaction that I did not need to give her, nor did she warrant receiving. I hate myself for it the moment she stands and leaves the room, but I can’t allow Holland to be in any more danger than she already is just by being her, just by being Danill’s wife.

If Makar knows who owns this apartment. Who is giving Ksenia refuge, he will kill her, but after torturing her first, then he will kill Ksenia. I’m trying to protect everyone from him. I care more for Ksenia than I do any other person on this earth, but I know that Danill feels the same about Holland.

It’s better not to have any women in danger, but at the end of the day, it comes down to the fact that Holland is a Bratva wife and Ksenia isn’t anything at this point. She was mine for a long time. I should have married her, but I didn’t have to, because I owned her.

Why marry property?

Once I have the groceries unloaded, I take my phone out of my pocket and send Danill a text.

WE’RE IN. THANKS AGAIN.

DANILL: NO PROBLEM. TELL KSENIA HELLO FOR ME. IT HAS BEEN TOO LONG.

WILL DO. I lie.

I won’t tell her shit, not only because I don’t want her to know that this is Danill’s place, but also because they always had a special relationship. Something that I never quite understood. It wasn’t sexual, they were very close in age, but it was something that Ksenia and I never had together.

My next call is to Tasha. I should not call her at all. I should not tell her shit, but I do know that she has been worried about Ksenia these past years and I’ve kept a tight lid on where she is and what she’s been doing.

“Do you have a job for me? I want those shoes Holland had on her wedding day for payment,” she announces as her greeting.

Clearing my throat, I chuckle slightly. “No job, Tasha.

But I wanted to let you know that you can’t see her yet, but

I have Ksenia.”

“No shit,” she screams.

I’m doing the exact thing I said that Ksenia is not allowed to do. I’m creating a liability, but I know that Tasha would want to know this and she would be fucking pissed if she found out from anyone other than me.

Holding the phone away from my ear, I wait until she’s finished with her girl screaming thing before I attempt to speak to her again. I can hear her panting in the phone and I almost laugh, but instead I ask her if she’s calmed down.

“I’m calm,” she says, though she still sounds anything but.

Chuckling, I look at the hallway and wonder which room she took. I would assume the master bedroom, but with her, I don’t know. She tends to always surprise me in one way or another.

“Okay then, she is with me, but until I get a few things handled, you cannot see her. I am only telling you because I’ll need your help at one point. And if I do, I want to ensure

that I can indeed depend on and count on you.” “Have I ever let you down?” she snaps.

Natasha hasn’t ever let me down, but I’ve never given her the opportunity to either. I don’t tell her that. Instead, I change the subject, mainly because I don’t want to fucking answer that shit.

Not now, not ever.

I need to learn when and how to keep my fucking mouth shut. Something I haven’t figured out yet when it comes to Ksenia.

Ending the call with Tasha, I promise to let her see Ksenia soon, then I go in search of my once lover, once possession. Once the woman I shared my bed and my heart with. Though she would never know the latter. Because I am not the man who would ever tell her.

Not then, not now.

Making my way down the hall, I don’t bother walking toward the master bedroom, I don’t think that she’s in there. Though it’s where she should be, especially since neither of us knows how long she’ll be here, I know her stubborn ass.

Turning to the right, I push open the guest bedroom door. There she is. The room itself isn’t a whole lot smaller than the master but the closet is a quarter of the size. Holland turned one of the bedrooms into her closet somewhere along the way as she lived here. It’s massive.

“You can stay in the master. The closet is huge, the bathroom a lot nicer. It was remodeled and this one is the way it’s always been,” I say, making sure to keep my voice soft, trying to lose my edge.

I don’t want to get into a bigger argument over nothing. What I want to do is get her settled in, maybe get a blow job or something, then head out to attempt to find her father. In that order. I need her mouth on my body, it’s been too fucking long. Being around her, this close to her, it’s got me craving her touch, her feel—just her.