10 Days to Ruin (Ozerov Bratva Book 1)
10 Days to Ruin: Chapter 14

Shit.

I do my best to keep my poker face on and shove my panic deep down. Because I am, in fact, panicking.

Going up to his penthouse was not part of the plan. I’ve been acting like a total brat all night. Why isn’t Sasha running for the hills yet?

I was picky. I was annoying. I was snobby. I was rude.

So why does Sasha seem to think I’m DTF? And why is he DTF?

Where did I go wrong?

It’d be a lot easier to think if I actually wasn’t DTF. As it is, all the blood is rushing south. I feel giddy, insane, flushed in a way I haven’t felt in a long, long time. Haven’t felt since⁠—

Since a blue-eyed stranger fucked my brains out in a bathroom.

It’s like we’re picking up right where we left off.

I tried to wear this red dress like armor, like a mask, but the moment I saw him waiting outside the restaurant for me, five-alarm fire bells started ringing in every single cell of my body.

It’s the hands.

No, it’s the eyes.

Maybe the cologne.

Or is it the cut of his jaw, the angle of his shoulders, the rough edge of his voice whenever he purrs my name? He hasn’t said it yet tonight, but if he growls ptichka in my ear, I might combust.

The elevator pings and the doors open. Sasha motions for me to get out first. Theoretically, that’s chivalrous, but I know his kind too well. He’s just cut off my last hope of escape. I could’ve let him go ahead and then button-mashed the elevator to send myself back to the ground floor.

Too late for that now.

Defeated, I step out. “Where is this, uhh—view?”

The sooner I see it, the sooner I can leave and celebrate my self-control with a cheeseburger. I was too busy sending everything back to the kitchen to actually eat. I’m starving.

“Patience,” he says. “We have time for that.”

“We” don’t have anything. He has time; I have a ticking time bomb wired into the middle of my life, and I need to defuse it before everything I love goes boom.

The problem is that there’s a part of me that wants to stay. Part of me wonders, What if you just let it happen? The memory of that bathroom haunts me like a fever dream. His hands on my skin, his breath in my ear. There was a raw, animal magnetism that pulled me toward him before I even knew his name. Chemistry doesn’t begin to cover it. This is nuclear fusion—dangerous, explosive, capable of leveling cities.

Capable of destroying me.

I hate how much I crave him. I hate that even now, knowing what I know, fearing what I fear, my treacherous body still remembers his touch.

He’s pursuing me for my family name. For the connections. For the empire I represent.

I need to remember that. I need to tattoo that truth onto my fucking soul.

He doesn’t want me.

But a traitorous voice keeps whispering objections in the darkest corners of my mind. If that’s true, then why did he want you that night? Before he knew your name or your worth, when you were just a stranger in a bathroom—why did he look at you like you were everything he’d ever hungered for?

I’m snapped out of my thoughts by the sight of the room. “Oh, my.”

Gilded walls. Persian rug. A king-size canopy bed with sheer drapes. I was joking about the emperor thing earlier, but if I didn’t know any better, I’d think Sasha beat up Louis XIV and stole his bedroom.

Get it together, dummy. You’re gonna let him use a thousand-thread-count linen set like a pantydropper?

Right. The plan. Psycho Bride.

“So much for subtlety,” I murmur.

He comes behind me, a wall of heat I can feel without having to turn around. “Subtlety is for men who aren’t sure what they want.” His breath grazes my neck. “I’m very sure.”

I shudder and step away. “Your ego’s soaking up all the oxygen in here. Let’s crack a window.”

Striding to the balcony doors, I try fiddling with the lock, but my hands are shaking and my brain is suddenly blank of every memory of which righty is tighty and if lefty is loosey or not.

The door refuses to open. With no other choice, I spin around to face him. Sasha is standing where I left him in the center of the room. Hands in his pockets, utterly bored, but with a gleam in his eye that doesn’t do much to quell my shivers.

“Are you gonna stand there or are you gonna help me?”

He doesn’t laugh. Doesn’t blink. Just keeps staring at me like he wants a few seconds longer to memorize the exact shade of flush on my cheeks. “You’re nervous.”

“I’m bored,” I correct in a shameless lie. “This whole ‘brooding mobster’ act is tired. Do you practice your smolder in the mirror? ‘Oh, look at me, I’m Sasha Ozerov, I drink whiskey and murder people before brunch⁠—’”

He crosses the space between us instantly, effortlessly. A blur of black motion. His hand darts out and snares my wrist. “Careful, Ariel. You’re not as funny as you think you are.”

“And you’re not as scary.” I try to yank my arm back, but his grip tightens.

“No? Then why are you trembling?”

Because you’re wildfire, and I’m gasoline.

His irises are so pale blue they’re almost translucent. I look back as long as I dare before I wrench my gaze away. But he doesn’t let me go far. The hand that’s not cuffing my wrist comes up to redirect my face—gently, tenderly, almost reverently—back towards his.

“Breathe,” he croons.

“I am.”

“Yes, but you’re doing it like you’ll never get the chance to do it again.”

He is not, strictly speaking, wrong. I let out a reluctant exhale, followed by a tentative sip of air. His fingers are burning on my cheek, resting there butterfly-light.

Another inhale. Another exhale. Slowly, my heart rate descends back toward something resembling normal.

Then his face gets closer. Closer. It takes me a long, dumb moment to understand the implications. To kiss me? Surely not. But here he comes, closer, more dangerous, closer, closer⁠—

And then he lets go of my face, reaches past my waist, and undoes the latch of the balcony door.

The rush of December air is enough to extinguish all the Bad Idea Heat™ that was turning my insides to melted mush. I shiver, this time from the cold, and clutch my torso as goosebumps prickle up and down the backs of my arms.

Turning, I step out onto the balcony⁠—

And my breath catches in my lungs.

New York glistens below like coins tossed into a fountain for good luck. Black and neon and silver and gold, motion and light everywhere, cars and people crawling the streets below.

You live in a city like this because it astonishes you every time. It does for me, at least. That’s why I’ve never been able to bring myself to run quite as far as I should have.

Another blast of cold breeze makes the vista blur as tears prickle my eyes. But no sooner do I start to feel like a popsicle in Prada than Sasha once again comes up behind me. His arms cage me in as he grabs the wrought iron railing. Instantly, I relax, soaking up his warmth, even though I know it’s poison.

“You like heights?” he asks.

“I like knowing I could jump if I had to.”

A beat. His chest brushes against my back. “You say that like I wouldn’t go after you.”

The shiver that wracks me this time isn’t from the cold. It’s from the impossible fucking enigma of the man currently pinning me to the thin edge of one of the world’s most expensive lookout points.

He’s like one of those optical illusions: You look and you see two faces eye-to-eye. Then you blink and it’s a vase. Faces, a vase, a good man, a bad man—it all blurs together and it’s so hard to tell what’s what or who’s who or what’s real or what’s not or why I should or shouldn’t let him do anything he wants with me.

“You’d chase me down there?” I gesture at the glittering streets below. “Through all that?”

“I’d burn this whole city to replace you.”

“That’s not romantic; that’s psychotic.”

His laugh rumbles through his chest and into my spine. “They’re one and the same, ptichka.”

“Stop calling me that.” I spin to face him, which is a mistake. Now, I’m trapped between his body and forty stories of nothing. “I’m not your little bird.”

“No?” His eyes drop to my throat, where my pulse hammers against my skin. “You’re certainly dressed like one. All these feathers. All this delicate silk.”

The dress was supposed to be part of my strategy. I bought the most expensive thing I could replace at Bergdorf’s—yards of crimson-colored silk charmeuse that floats around my body, with white ostrich feathers trimming the high collar neckline.

But the way he’s looking at me now makes me feel like I didn’t dress to kill; I dressed to be killed.

His fingers trace one of the feathers, barely grazing my skin. “Did you wear this to tempt me? Or to torture me?”

“Maybe I didn’t think of you even once while I got dressed. Ever think of that?”

He presses closer. “The restaurant is closed. The staff is gone. The city is asleep.” His finger trails down my arm. “There’s no one here but us, Ariel. No one to perform for.”

His gaze drops to my mouth.

This is the game, I remind myself. Let him think he’s winning.

I tilt my chin. “So what now, hm? You show me your bedroom? Your knife collection? Your taxidermied ex-girlfriends?”

“No.” His thumb brushes my lower lip. “Now, you stop talking.”

The kiss shouldn’t surprise me, but it does. It isn’t gentle. It’s a claim—hot, hungry, all teeth and tongue and barely leashed violence.

What also surprises me is that I let him take it.

I fist his shirt, futilely clinging to my rapidly dissolving anger as my body arches into his with a different motivation entirely. He groans, the sound vibrating through me, and suddenly, I’m being lifted, my legs wrapping around his waist as he carries me to the table.

His hands are everywhere. My dress rips at the shoulder, his mouth following the tear, scorching a path down my neck. I gasp, nails raking his scalp. “Sasha⁠—”

“Say it again,” he growls against my skin.

“Sasha.”

“Louder.”

“Sasha.”

He tears the other sleeve. Fabric slithers to the floor. His eyes lock on mine, black with want. “You’re mine tonight, Ariel. Every gasp. Every scream. Mine.”

I should push him away. I should knee him in the groin and run.

Instead, I kiss him again.

It’s a mistake. He takes it as surrender, his hands sliding under my thighs, dragging me closer. His belt buckle digs into my stomach, a brand.

No. Not like this.

I wrench my mouth free. “Stop.”

He stills, chest heaving. “What?”

“I said stop.”

His laugh is harsh. “Your body says otherwise.”

“My body’s a liar.” I shove against him, but he doesn’t budge. “Get. Off.”

For a moment, I think he’ll refuse. Then he stands abruptly, leaving me cold.

“You’re playing a dangerous game, Ms. Ward,” he says, adjusting his cuffs with jerky movements.

I sit up, clutching my ruined dress. “You started it.”

“And you followed me here.”

“To your penthouse, not your bed.”

He stalks to the bar, pouring two fingers of vodka. “Then why come?”

“To prove a point.”

“Which is?”

I do the best I can to stand my ground on shaky legs. “That you don’t own me. That I can walk into your world and walk right out.”

He drains the glass in one go and sets it back down with a harsh clink. “Then do it. Walk out.”

“Watch me.” I grab my clutch, heading for the elevator.

He’s on me in three strides, backing me against the wall.

“What are you doing?” I breathe. “You told me to leave.”

“I told you to try.” His lips hover over mine. “So leave. Or kiss me.”

I hate him.

I loathe him.

I kiss him.

This time, it’s slower. Deeper. A freefall with no parachute. His hands frame my face, tender in a way that terrifies me. His tongue clashes with mine, playful, teasing, here and gone, sweet and skillful. I taste the tang of vodka and the sweetness of the fig tarts. When he pulls back, his breath ghosts my lips. “Stay.”

Yes.

No.

Yes.

I wind my fingers through his hair, dragging him to the floor. The rug burns my knees, but I don’t care. He yanks his shirt off, and I map the scars on his chest with my tongue. Each one is a story I’ll never ask for.

The whole time, I tell myself I’m doing this as a power play. Keep the upper hand. Play his game. Show him what he wants and then take it away before he gets it.

The whole time, I’m lying.

His belt clatters open, his zipper rasps, and then his hands are under my thighs, pulling me astride him. “Ariel…”

His fingers dig into my hips. I rock against him, friction burning through the lace of my underwear. He hisses, head falling back. “Fuck. You’re⁠—”

I cover his mouth with my hand. “Don’t ruin it.”

He nips my palm, eyes blazing, and flips us. The world spins. When he sits up, his teeth replace my earlobe. “Tell me you want this.”

“No.”

“Liar.” He grinds against me, and I choke on a moan. “Tell me.”

“I want⁠—”

Glass shatters.

We freeze, the sound jarring in the thick silence. But then I see it. Sasha’s forgotten vodka glass, knocked from the table by our stumbling little dance. It lies in glittering shards across the floor.

It’s the wakeup call I needed. What’s the prize for winning this game, Ari? How is this “pushing him away”? Aren’t you going to end up just as broken as that?

I scramble away from him, dress hanging off one shoulder. He reaches for me. “Ariel⁠—”

I slap his hand away. “Don’t touch me.”

He sits back on his heels, chest still heaving. “It doesn’t have to be like this.”

“Like what? Like I’m being blackmailed into marriage by a monster?” I laugh, the sound sharp as the glass shards surrounding us. “That’s exactly what this is.”

His jaw ticks. “You came here willingly.”

“To prove I could resist you.” I stand on shaky legs. “And now, I will.”

“Is that what you call this?” He gestures to the space between us, crackling with electricity and bad decisions dying to be made. “‘Resistance’?”

“Let’s call it a moment of temporary insanity.” I grab my clutch from where it fell. “It won’t happen again.”

He rises in one fluid motion. “You’re lying to yourself.”

“So are you, if you think I’ll ever be yours.”

I hurry through the penthouse. The elevator opens at my touch. Small mercies. One second more in this place is a second too much.

“Ariel—”

I step inside and start jabbing the ground floor button. “Go to hell, Sasha.”

His hand shoots out, stopping the doors before they can close. “You’re forgetting something.”

My self-respect? Yeah, I left it on your rug.

I bite my lip to hold back the words as he steps into my space, crowding me against the mirrored wall. “You’re forgetting that I don’t give up.”

“There’s a first time for everything.”

“Not for that.” He grabs my wrist and stares at me, hard and merciless, the blue at the heart of a flame. Then he lets go and steps away. “I’ll see you soon.”

The doors close on his smirk.

As soon as he’s gone, all the fight dies in me. I slump against the mirror, trembling. My reflection mocks me—swollen lips, wild hair, a woman unraveling.

One day down, I think.

Nine to go.