Page 18 of The Russian's Innocent Prey
“For tonight,” she said finally, her thumb tracing my jawline. “I’ll stay for tonight.”
“Tonight isn’t enough.”
“It’s all I can promise right now,” she said softly. “Is that okay?”
I pulled her closer, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “Yeah. It’s okay.”
It wasn’t a promise of forever. But in a world where I’d learned that forever was a lie anyway, tonight felt like everything.
Chapter 4 – Anya
The first thing that pierced through the haze of sleep was the buzz of my phone—sharp, insistent, and completely unwelcome. I blinked against the unfamiliar shadows dancing across an unfamiliar ceiling, my body registering warmth and weight and the lingering scent of something distinctly masculine before my mind caught up to where I was.
Lev’s bedroom. Lev’s bed. Lev’s arm draped across my waist like he owned me.
The phone buzzed again, and reality crashed over me like ice water. I slipped out from under his arm, careful not to wake him, and wrapped the sheet around myself like armor. The silk felt foreign against skin that still tingled from his touch, still bore the invisible marks of everything we’d done in the dark.
My dress lay crumpled on the floor beside his discarded shirt, evidence of the moment I’d let my carefully constructed walls crumble. I grabbed my phone from where it had fallen, the screen showing three missed calls and two text messages, all from the same name that made my stomach drop.
Maxim.
I tiptoed out of the bedroom on unsteady legs, closing the door behind me with the kind of care reserved for defusing bombs. The hallway stretched before me like a gauntlet, all dark corners and the ghost of last night’s desperation hanging in the air.
The phone rang again before I could reach the living room, and I answered it with hands that shook more than I cared to admit.
“Where the hell have you been?” Maxim’s voice cut through the silence like a blade, carrying that particular edge that meant he’d moved past worried straight into furious. “I’ve been calling for hours.”
“I was sleeping.” The lie tasted bitter on my tongue, but the truth would have been so much worse. “My phone was on silent.”
“Bullshit.” He knew me too well, could read the tells in my voice even across an ocean. “Anya, I need you to listen to me very carefully. Pack a bag. Eleanor’s assistant will pick you up in two hours. You’re flying to Milan tonight.”
“What? No.” The word exploded out of me before I could stop it. “Maxim, I can’t just drop everything and—”
“Things are serious.”
His voice was flat, but there was something else beneath it this time—weariness, maybe, or the weight of too many nights without sleep.
“Things have been…unstable since Mike’s death. Everyone’s scrambling for territory, debts are being called in, and old enemies are starting to circle. It’s not safe for you right now, Anya.”
The phone felt heavy in my hand. I’d already known about Mike—everyone did—but hearing Maxim talk about the aftermath, quiet and controlled, made the chaos outside feel closer. Realer. Wars were brewing, and if he was calling me, it meant they were already spilling over.
While I was in Mike’s son’s bed, giving him the one thing I’d sworn no Bratva man would ever touch.
“I have the show,” I whispered, my voice barely audible over the sound of my own heartbeat. “The investors, the venue, everything’s been arranged. I can’t just—”
“Postpone it.”
“I can’t postpone it!” The words came out sharper than I’d intended, born from panic and guilt and the desperate need to maintain some control over a life that was spinning away from me. “Do you have any idea how much money is riding on this? How many people are depending on me?”
I added, “I won’t run.” The words surprised me with their strength, their finality. “I’m not twelve years old anymore, Maxim. I won’t spend my life hiding from shadows.”
“Then you’ll spend it dead.” The line went quiet for a moment, and I could practically hear him pacing, could imagine his jaw set with that stubborn determination that had kept us both alive this long. “Two hours, Anya. Don’t make me come home and drag you to the airport myself.”
The call ended with a click that felt like a door slamming shut. I stood in Lev’s living room, wrapped in his sheets and drowning in the implications of everything that had changed in under twenty-four hours.
Mike was dead. Lev was alone. And I was standing in the aftermath of the biggest mistake of my life, trying to figure out how to pretend it had never happened.
The bedroom door opened behind me, and I turned to find Lev leaning against the doorframe. He’d pulled on a pair of black jeans but nothing else, and the sight of him—all lean muscle and dangerous grace and those gray eyes that missed nothing—made my breath catch in my throat.
