1. Natalya

Chapter 1

Natalya

P laying piano naked is weirdly liberating.

I didn’t start the day thinking I’d strip and start hammering at the keys. No, I woke up, desperate for a little optimism. It’s been a really hard, isolating year, and I told myself I was going to finally get my shit together instead of moping around inside. This morning, I stared at the ceiling of my tiny Paris apartment and thought: now’s the time to get out into the world and to stop being so depressed .

Then I made breakfast on my tiny single burner and fell into my old routines instead.

Running away to Paris sounds glamorous. At least, it did when I bought the plane ticket, desperate to escape from the man I was supposed to marry.

Valentin Zeitsev, the pakhan of the Zeisev Bratva, isn’t such a bad guy if you can get past the whole vicious mobster and emotionally stunted psychopath thing.

However, I couldn’t, and so I made a very stupid choice.

I disappeared to Europe. I rented out a little flat from an old Parisian man that rolls his eyes whenever I speak English, which is all the time since I don’t know much French, and begged him to leave the ancient upright piano in the living room. I spent a week wandering the city feeling lonelier than I’ve ever felt before in my life, on my own for the first time ever, disconnected from family, friends, any semblance of normalcy, adrift and terrified that I’d be discovered at any second.

Then a week turned into a month, which turned into six months, and now I’ve been here for over a year with nothing to show for it except a slightly better grasp on the local language and a serious addiction to espresso.

I have no friends. I talk with Jacque, my landlord, maybe twice a week at most. Sometimes the old woman that lives below me bangs on the ceiling and shouts at me in French to stop playing the piano so loudly and so poorly.

Otherwise, my days are the same. I wake up, tell myself I’m going to get out and do something with my life, only to fall deep into the same gray-and-numb depression I’ve been trapped in for a while now.

Which is how I find myself here, naked, unless the panties make me somehow dressed which I think is debatable, playing a song I’ve been working on for the last week.

It’s a slow, pretty melody, the sounds that come into my head whenever I force myself to walk down the street to get some coffee.

The music of deep isolation, even surrounded by people.

Sweat rolls down my back. It’s summer in Paris and my apartment is on the third floor, which means it’s brutally hot in here during the day. I spent all my extra money on a window AC unit, but that broke down last week, and until I work up the nerve and the energy to earn some money to replace it, I’ve just been spending the sunlight hours without any clothes.

I’m so intent on my playing, and so deeply wrapped up in my own misery and my crippling loneliness, that I don’t even notice when a man enters my apartment.

Playing piano is the only pleasure I have these days, and the funny thing is, this piano sounds like crap. I don’t think it has ever been tuned, not like the gorgeous little baby grand in my father’s house, the one my mother bought for my older brothers. But they never played much, too busy with their boy things, and so the piano was passed to me.

Now here I am, sweating, mostly naked, and bashing at the keys of this beat-up old beast. This morning it sounds like a bomb’s going off over the strings, the thing’s playing so loud.

Which is why I almost don’t hear the man in my apartment when he says my name.

But then he says it again, and I slowly realize there’s a person behind me and my brain’s not just malfunctioning at the moment.

I cut off my playing and whirl around, my arms flying to cover my breasts.

And there he is, standing in the hallway, the last person in the entire world I’d want to walk in on me right now.

“I haven’t heard you play in years,” Alex says. He leans against the wall and crosses his arms, which has the effect of making his already impressive biceps even more incredible.

I have about a second to enjoy his physique before I shriek and look around for my shirt.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” I say, snatching it up from the back of the couch and cover myself with it. I’m still in just panties at the moment, but that’s like being in a bathing suit, right? That’s not such a huge deal?

Except for the way he’s looking at me.

I’ve known Alexander Sorokin for a very long time. He’s been best friends with my oldest brother Stepan since they were little kids, and I practically grew up with Alex constantly lurking around the house.

Brutal, vicious, handsome Alex, the shining star of the Bratva, the man with such a bright future ahead of him.

Hating his stinking guts has to be one of my oldest memories.

Where I was never good enough, Alex was pure perfection.

“That’s not such a nice way to greet an old friend,” he says, gaze burning into me. It’s making me deeply uncomfortable in a way I can’t even begin to describe, let alone examine, probably because I’m not used to having humans around much less ones that speak my language natively.

Much less ones that look like Greek gods in sleek black suits with perfectly defined muscles and cheekbones straight from a fashion magazine.

Alex has always been handsome, but age has only made him even more beautiful, like the moment he crossed into his thirties he suddenly took on that masculine, hardened look, and it’s really, really working for him.

This man is downright sinful.

He’s too attractive, too masculine. The energy rolling from him is pure intensity and domination. If I didn’t know him so well, I might be afraid.

Embarrassment flows through me in heavy waves. I’m absolutely mortified—how long as he standing there and how much did he see?—and I don’t know how to handle it.

Heat fills my cheeks, and he won’t stop looking. Shouldn’t he turn away? Give me some privacy? The bastard broke into my apartment, and now he’s staring at my body like he wants to own it.

It’s like he can’t help himself.

I swear, growing up, he never once looked at me this much. It was like we were opposing magnets, forcing each other away. When I walked into the room, he hurried to get the hell out of there, and vice versa.

Now though, we’re in my cramped little Parisian apartment, I’m mostly naked, dripping with sweat, and my brother’s best friend is looking at me like he wants to destroy me.

“Alex, I’m going to ask you one more time. What the hell are you doing here? And how did you get inside?”

“Picked the lock,” he says dismissively. Classic Alex, treating me like I don’t have any worthwhile thoughts in my head. “And your father sent me to find you.”

I open my mouth to tell him off—but come up short.

My father sent him?

It’s been over a year since I ran away from home and I haven’t heard a word from my family.

Not a call, not a text, not an email, nothing at all.

Aside from the initial threats and rage-messages, but after a few days, even those dried up. My allowance still appears in my bank account which is the only way I’ve survived for this long, and I assume that’s the only way they know I’m alive. Since I’m spending his money.

Something feels deeply wrong.

“Why you?” I ask, inching toward the couch. I can see a pair of shorts on the floor near there, and if I’m careful, maybe I can grab them without giving him too much of a show. “And seriously, would you stop looking at me?”

“Can’t help myself,” he says, his voice low and warning. I freeze in my tracks as a jolt of strange excitement runs down my spine. “What were you playing just now?”

“Some song I made up,” I answer, rattled. What the hell is going on? I’m thrown by Alex’s sudden appearance, but even worse by my intense vulnerability.

I’ve never once cared what this asshole thought about me.

So why does the way he’s looking at my body right now feel so exhilarating?

“I want to hear more.”

“You want to—“ I stop and clear my throat. “How long exactly were you listening?”

“A few minutes.” He’s fighting a smile. I know that freaking cocky grin better than anything in the world. It’s boyish and charming, and I can only guess at how many women have melted over that look.

It only pisses me off even more.

“You could’ve said something. You know, instead of watching me like a fucking creep.”

“I wasn’t exactly quiet.”

“I was playing loudly.”

“Not that loudly.” He nods at the piano. “Play more for me.”

I let out a bitter, exasperated laugh. Who the hell does this guy think he is, breaking into my apartment, peeping on me while I’m mostly naked, and now commanding me to play?

And the sickest part of all this is, this is the best conversation I’ve had since coming to France.

“Let me get dressed at least,” I say through gritted teeth, shaking my head at the sheer balls on this guy.

“Go ahead.”

“Look away, asshole.”

“I just spent the last five minutes studying your naked body. What’s it matter?”

Five minutes? Jesus fucking H Christ. I turn red with mortification, which only makes him grin even more.

Screw it. I pull my shirt on, aware that he’s getting a nice show of my breasts, but at least I’m totally covered now. I grab the shorts and yank them on, making sure to face him so he doesn’t get to ogle my ass while I do it.

Dressed, mostly, I feel more emboldened.

Though I’m way too aware of my extremely hard nipples. And Alex is too—his eyes move to my chest and he doesn’t look away for several long moments.

“I want to know why my dad sent you,” I say finally, awkwardly crossing my arms.

He turns his gaze back to the piano. “And I want to hear you play more.”

“What is with your obsession right now?”

“It was sad,” he says and looks like he wants to say more, but stops himself.

I feel stunned and raw. I don’t know why—it’s not like he offered up some deep and moving interpretation of my music—but for some reason, those simple words threaten to break me.

Because he’s right.

I am sad.

Not in some facile, childish way.

But a deep, terrible sadness, a gray and empty and cold sadness. The sort of sadness that makes everything feel slow, lifeless, and boring.

Except for music.

And except for the way he’s looking at me right now.

Maybe I’m desperate for human interaction, or maybe the last year in relative isolation has totally and completely broken my brain, but I walk over to the bench and slowly sit back down.

“After I’m done, you’re going to tell me why you’re here.” I put my fingers on the keys.

“I’ll tell you,” he agrees, and moves closer. “After you finish.”

There’s a promise in his voice—and a strange little threat.

But screw it. He already saw me naked. It can’t get any worse than this.

I do as he says, and I start to play.