Page 1 of Kissed By Shadows

CHAPTER ONE

“CAN YOU HOLD ME” BY NF, BRITT NICOLE

IRIS

Iwalk down the clean street towards our beautiful mansion in Holland Park, London, sipping on my favourite hot chocolate from the small Italian cafe just off Kensington High Street. It’s January, but the sun is shining today, hardly a cloud in the sky, and the birds are singing in the trees. The promise of spring is just around the corner, but all I feel…is restless.

I have everything a girl could want. It’s been a little over six months since I graduated with honours from Wyndham’s Finishing School for Young Ladies, and I celebrated my nineteenth birthday in style with twenty of my inner circle at Escargot, a top-end French restaurant in the city, then at a private club night in central London.

My new, beautiful Kneed handbag—one of my favourite sustainable fashion brands—hangs from my shoulder, alongwith several garment bags from a new boutique that specialises in British-made clothes.

And yet, the winter sunshine can’t seem to lift my mood. I feel lost, cast adrift, and unsure about what happens next. Even the cute Italian barista who made my hot chocolate couldn’t shake me fully from my funk. Though, given my lack of experience having spent the past few years at an all-girls school in the middle of the countryside, I’m more likely to blush at any attention from the opposite sex than anything else.

I’m highly trained to be the perfect hostess, the perfect housewife to some lucky, wealthy businessman or aristocrat—or so they kept telling us at Wyndham’s, but I can’t help wondering if there’s more for me than that. If I’m meant to do more than come up with the best menu for an intimate gathering of the rich and elite.

Maybe it’s because Dad is acting weird, hardly spending any time with me in the past few months even though we’ve always been inseparable. Ever since Mum left when I was five, it’s just been him and I. I’ve never felt the lack of only having one parent because he’s lavished me with his attention and affection, dropping all his work just to spend time with me when I was home for the holidays. He always took me on trips around the world, bringing me gifts from his business travels, and making a point of eating dinner with me every night when I was at home no matter what else was going on.

But lately, he’s been so distant, his brows deeply etched as he pours over papers in his home office into the early hours. I know he’s up so late because I’ve been struggling to settle myself, this damn restlessness making my skin itch, even after a day at my favourite spa in Wiltshire.

We’ve always had money, I’ve never wanted for anything and have never had to watch my spending. My father is very good at what he does, and although some may criticise his connectionsto certain organised crime groups, I know he’d never do anything bad. He’s a good, kind-hearted person who loves me and places my comfort and happiness above everything. It’s why his behaviour has been so unsettling.

Sighing, I reach into my bag to grab my key out, juggling my shopping and the hot chocolate as I fish around. Finally grasping it, I open my front door, blinking in the slightly darkened interior.

“Dad, I’m home!” I yell just as my phone dings. Dropping the key back into my bag, I hunt around, trying to find the damn device, sighing with joy at how fucking lush and buttery-soft this bag is.

Our mansion is just down from the beautiful Holland Park—my home since I was a small child—and is full of wonderful memories, photos of our many trips abroad, and Christmases at home lining the walls. The last rays of the winter sunshine are dying behind me as I finally grasp my phone, the latest version that Dad gifted me on my birthday, one of many presents. Pulling it from my bag, I frown when I get the screen up to my eye level.

Dad

I’m so sorry, darling. I had no other choice.

I fumble with the device, rereading the message and my brows lower further. My chest tightens as one thing becomes obvious. My father, the man I have looked up to my entire life, who has put me first in all things, has done something that’s about to affect me and not in a good way. He wouldn’t be apologising, by text, if it wasn’t something cataclysmic. Right?

“Dad?” I murmur, my eyes still locked on the screen as I will the words to make more sense. My heart begins to pound when the click of footsteps sound down the tiled hallway, my stomachclenching as some part of me knows that it’s not my father or any of our staff. I know the tread of his footsteps and theirs, know the way they sound as they move about our house, and it’s Beatrice’s—our housekeeper and chef—day off.

These footsteps coming towards me sound familiar, but I can’t quite place who would be here if not my dad.

Dragging my eyes away from the screen, it’s as if every molecule in my body is fighting not to look up, like time is standing still. But my limbs are frozen, my breaths short as I lock eyes with the strange man in front of me.

No, that’s not quite right; he’s not a complete stranger.

“Mr Petrov?” I rasp out, my fear ratcheting up a notch and leaving me with a heartbeat that thrashes in my ears.

Sergi Petrov is the leader of the Russian Bratva here in London, and my father has been doing business with him for many years. Sergi and his son, Nikolai, have spent many an afternoon here, and although my father seemed to be happy to host the Russian, to do business with him, he always warned me that Sergi was not a man to cross. That we needed to be cautious around him and Nikolai, which I always scoffed at because Nikolai was my friend. My childhood crush if I’m being completely truthful.

I was never really privy to what sort of business my father did with the Russians, only really learning how dangerous they were after I went to Wyndham’s and overheard some of the other girls gossiping about it. I was angry at first, because how dare they talk so harshly about my dad, but as I stood outside the French doors that led to one of the drawing rooms and listened to the rumours they’d heard about what happened when you angered Sergi or tried to take my father on, unease crawled up my spine, leaving me nauseous.

If the leader of the Russian Bratva is here instead of my father, something is terribly wrong.

I had no other choice…

Those were the words my father used, and something tells me they have everything to do with me, given that I am here and he is not.

“Good afternoon, Iris,” he replies, his Russian accent thick and his slow grin like that of an evil villain, ready to devour all good from the world. The door slams behind me and I jump out of my skin, my precious handbag and garment bags dropping to the floor with athudalong with the cup of hot chocolate. I can’t look down to see the fate of my belongings because I can’t tear my gaze away from the grinning man in front of me. I have to lock my knees at the predatory gleam in his dark eyes, swallowing hard so that I can speak.

“T–to what do I owe the pleasure?” I ask, falling back on the years of fucking tedious etiquette training I’ve had. I suppose that I should be thankful now, but there was never a class on what to do when you find yourself alone with Russian mobsters. I almost laugh, but the mirth soon dies at the way he watches me like a snake about to strike. I know who the apex predator in the room is, and spoiler alert, it’s not me. I swallow hard again and will the trembling in my hands to cease, gripping my phone tightly.

He laughs, and it’s a cruel, cold sort of sound, like glass that has been shattered and lies ready to cut you into ribbons. “It is I, or more precisely, Nikolai, that will be having all the pleasure.” The smile is still there, but there’s a tension when he says his son and heir’s name.

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