Chapter Twenty-Seven
The gates clanked shut behind them — a small, practical sound that felt larger than it should have. For the first time in days, Anika let herself exhale.
The dogs were quiet. Ghost rested by the hearth now, not chained, not barricaded — just lying there like a wrong turned slowly right. He watched the room with gold eyes that were no longer flat and hard; trust hadn’t returned, but curiosity and recognition had. He was home.
Nikolai lingered at the edge of the room while she sank to her knees beside Ghost. Her ribs ached with each movement; her shoulder bled faintly through the taped dressing, a dark stain growing on the cotton sleeve of her shirt. She brushed her fingers through the dog’s coarse neck, feeling the rhythm of a heartbeat she had thought she’d never hear again.
“He hasn’t eaten,” she murmured.
“He’ll come around,” Nikolai said. His voice was softer than his face. “Like you did.”
She looked up at him quick, suspicious. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He didn’t smirk. No tease, no challenge — just a shrug that carried more than it should. “You fight to stay distant,” he said. “Then you let me in anyway.”
“I didn’t let you in,” she shot back. “You just… broke your way through.”
“Doesn’t change that I’m here.” He offered her a glass of whiskey; she took it, because some rituals soothed the raw edges of a long night.
The fire cracked. For a beat they only listened to the house breathe.
“You need your stitches checked,” Nikolai said, voice low. “You’re bleeding through the gauze.”
She lifted her chin against him. “I’ll deal with it.”
He stepped in front of her, blocking the hallway. “No. You won’t.”
Her eyes narrowed, but before she could argue, he was already dialing.
“You won’t need to,” he added, calm and unrelenting. “He’s already on his way.”
She arched a brow. “He?”
“My medic. Ex-Spetsnaz. No paperwork. No questions. Just results.”
A black SUV rolled in thirty minutes later. The man who stepped out was tall, broad, and wore war like a second skin. Mid-fifties, scar down one cheek, a haunted look in his eyes. The kind of man who had seen too much.
Nikolai spoke to him in Russian, then turned towards Anika to translate. “He says—”
“YA ponimayu,” she interrupted automatically. (I understand.) The Russian fell easily from her tongue. Nikolai blinked, then raised an eyebrow, both impressed and amused.
“I understand better than I speak….Tell him I don’t want painkillers,” she added before Nikolai could speak.
The doctor muttered a string of expletives in Russian.
“He says that’s—”
“Stupid. I know,” she snapped. “Tell him I’m stubborn.”
Nikolai chuckled softly. “I was going to say that myself.”
When her fingers trembled against the hem of her top, Nikolai stepped closer.
“Let me,” he murmured, voice dropping low as he reached for the fabric.
She stilled—but didn’t stop him.
Carefully, he helped her peel her shirt over her head, mindful of the fresh bruises along her ribs, his fingertips skimming her skin like a secret. The intimacy wasn’t rushed. It wasn’t sexual. But it was charged.
When her shirt was gone, he took a slow breath.
“One of these days, malyshka” he said quietly, “I’ll be undressing you and it won’t be to patch you back together.”
Her head tipped slightly, the ghost of a smirk at the edge of her mouth. “Careful what you wish for...”
But her voice was softer than usual.
They worked in the soft light of the command room. The medic’s hands were efficient, measured: cleanse, debride, deeper sutures where Nikolai’s hurried knots had only grazed. It stung in honest, hot little bites; she didn’t flinch outwardly, but the skin of her face tightened. Nikolai crouched close, one hand steadying her knee, the other lingering like a promise.
One of the medic’s needles found a tough edge and she gasped low, then settled again. The stitches were deeper now, tied with clean technique, the edges seated so they would heal straight. Nikolai’s jaw eased a fraction. The medic cleaned, bandaged, and stepped back.
“She needs rest. Watch for infection, watch for fever. Call me if there are any issues” he said in Russian to Nikolai as he headed for the door.
Anika reached for a clean shirt from the chair beside her, but Nikolai was already holding it out.
As he pulled the shirt over her head and gently guided her arm through the sleeve, his hands brushed her ribs, his knuckles skimming the line of her waist. She flinched—not from pain, but from how careful he was.
And how much that care was starting to undo her.
When she met his eyes, she saw something there that scared her more than any bullet or raid.
Devotion.
Quiet, lethal, and absolute.
Later —
Anika didn’t remember falling asleep.
She only realized it when she woke before dawn, curled in the recliner with a blanket draped over her shoulders. The war room glowed with dim amber light. Screens flickered softly. The dogs were quiet.
And Nikolai sat at the far end of the room, still awake. Still watching.
He hadn’t left.
His jacket was off, sleeves pushed up again, collar slightly open. He was typing something on a sleek tablet, speaking Russian quietly into a comm.
His voice was commanding. Precise. Cold. Efficient.
Bratva.
Anika sat up slowly, the blanket falling to her lap. “You didn’t sleep.”
He didn’t look up. “Didn’t need to.”
“You’re not just a businessman.”
He finally met her gaze.
“No.”
She swallowed hard. “How much power do you actually have?”
He stood and walked to her, eyes unreadable. “Enough to end this if you let me.”
She didn’t respond. Couldn’t.
“You could have left,” she whispered.
“I know,” he said. “I could have but I didn’t.”
“Why not?” She pressed.
He met her eyes. “Every time you push me away I want to see what happens if I don’t let go.”
He’d stayed because something about her pulled at him like gravity—dark, reckless, irresistible.
She was fire wrapped in ice.
And she was his.
He knew it now.
Not in words. Not in contracts.
But in the way she breathed a little easier when he was near. The way she leaned ever so slightly into the touch she pretended to ignore.
He wouldn’t demand anything from her. Not yet.
But he would protect her.
And when the time came, she’d know who she belonged to.