10 Days to Ruin (Ozerov Bratva Book 1)
10 Days to Ruin: Chapter 39

Am I a bad person?

That’s the question I’m asking myself over and over again as I stand outside on the sidewalk, waiting for Sasha. I’ve paced the same ten-foot stretch repeatedly to keep the circulation going in my fingers and toes. But the panicked thumping of my heart is doing plenty to keep the blood moving elsewhere.

There are a million reasons why the answer might be yes. I could be a bad person because I let a bad man do very bad things to me in a public place. I could be a bad person because I’m still holding out hope that that bad man isn’t such a bad man after all. I could be a bad person because I’m bringing him to this place, Safe Harbor Women’s Shelter, where bad-luck women go to escape bad situations in a world that’s too bad to be kind to them elsewhere.

But I want so badly to be good.

And I want so badly to believe that Sasha can be good, too.

I keep looking up and down the street, waiting for one of Sasha’s numerous blacked-out town cars to pull up and spit him out. No dice so far. But I shriek in surprise when I feel a gloved finger tap my shoulder.

My first thought is that Dragan is back for more. Instead, I spin around to see⁠—

“Do not ever sneak up on me like that again!” I scold, smacking Sasha.

He laughs. “Good to see you, too.” Then he grabs me and kisses me, and just like that, I already feel my sandcastle resolve start to crumble.

“I have to make a quick call,” he informs me. “Go inside; I’ll be right there.” I don’t miss how his eyes dart to the corner, the alley, and the nearby roofs in quick succession. I wonder, not for the first time, what it’s like to be him. I’ve always run from stuff that hides in the shadows. Sasha? He shoots it.

But, with a sigh, I turn and do as he says.

The shelter’s front door sticks when I push it, the bell jingling like a nervous laugh. It’s a quiet space, but clean, with a cheerful plotted plant in one corner and a faded pink armchair across from a desk.

No one is behind the desk, though. I step up and crane my head around, trying to see if I can spy someone in the office beyond. “Hello?” I call. “Hi, is anyone there?”

I hear shuffling, a cough, and then a woman emerges from the office. She’s got the sturdy build of someone who’s spent a lifetime hoisting donation boxes and broken women. Her silver-streaked hair is twisted into a knot that defies gravity.

“You’re early,” she says—not rudely, but flat, straight, unvarnished. “Volunteer orientation isn’t for another thirty minutes.” Something about her face is still guarded, like she doesn’t trust me.

Guilt curdles in my stomach. It’s as if she can see my thoughts from when I was pacing outside. Maybe I am a bad person. Maybe she sees it. Maybe I should just be straight up about the real reason why I’m here tonight: ‘Hi, I’m using this place as a litmus test for my mobster fiancé’s humanity. Please grade his performance on a curve.’

Then she sighs, wipes her hands on her slacks, and offers one to me to shake. “I’m Elena Petrova. It’s nice to meet you. We’ll always welcome help here at Safe Harbor.”

“Ariel.” I smile back as I shake her hand. “It’s really nice to meet you, too, Elena.”

The front door bangs open while our hands are still entangled. Cold air sweeps in first, then Sasha. He fills the cramped doorway and my thoughts go loopy like they always do when I see him. Black overcoat swallowing his frame, leather gloves flexing as he adjusts the collar. He’s a razor blade in a world of butter knives.

But is he a good one? screams the voice in my head. I tell it to STFU.

Sasha’s gaze sweeps over the peeling EMPOWERMENT STARTS HERE poster taped to the wall before landing on me. When it does, he breaks into a crooked smile. “Hope I’m not too late.”

“You’re—”

“—exactly on time as always, Sashenka.”

Ariel.exe has stopped working.

Because Elena is hugging him. Actually hugging him, her chapped lips pressing to his scarred cheek. “What a lovely surprise. Our guardian angel returneth.”

They start jabbering back and forth in Russian. Meanwhile, my mind is short-circuiting. Guardian angel. Guardian angel. Guardian angel.

“Wh…what is happening?” I stammer.

The two of them turn to look at me. “You didn’t tell her?” Elena arches a brow at Sasha as he shrugs out of his overcoat and hangs it up on the coat rack, as comfortable and familiar with the place as he is with his own home.

“Tell me what?” My voice comes out strangled.

Sasha grins as he rolls his cuffs up. “I help out here from time to time.”

Elena snorts. “Don’t let him sell you short. He funded the security system, the plumbing, the after-school program, and the dormitory remodel—and this wasn’t just writing checks. I came in one night because I thought there was a robber—but it was just Sasha, slapping up drywall at 3 A.M.” She plucks a pink onesie from an overstuffed donation box at her side and folds it gently. “He was in here last week, actually, paying for a woman’s dental work after her husband knocked her teeth out.”

Something fragile breaks in my chest. “Why?”

Sasha’s jaw tightens. Behind him, through the office’s smudged window, I watch snow begin to dust the Brooklyn streets.

Elena comes up to me and pats me on the shoulder. “I get the feeling that, tonight, you’re going to learn what I’ve learned about Sasha Ozerov: Don’t bother asking ‘why.’ Just take the man as he is. He gets awfully grumpy otherwise.” She smiles once more, then walks toward the door that leads deeper into the center. “This way! We need hands in the donation room. Sasha Claus sent gifts.”

I’m still dumbfounded as I trail along behind her. She spends ten minutes walking me through how items get catalogued and deposited in the various boxes for distribution, then leaves with a promise to come check in on us later.

We work in silence—Sasha sorts toys; I fold clothes. Every faded teddy bear looks like a grenade in his hands.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask after a while.

“You’re the one who wanted to surprise me. I didn’t want to ruin it.”

“Yes, but I— I— Dammit, it’s not fair that you keep turning the tables like this all the time!” I throw down a pair of toddler socks in a frustrated huff. “Just once, for one single, solitary time in my goddamn life, I’d like to seem like I know what I’m doing.”

Sasha laughs bitterly as he stops sorting and turns to face me. “Ariel Ward, if you think for even a moment that I’m in charge of what’s happening here, you’re mistaken. I’m as helpless as you are.”

A frown splits my face. “This feels like another trap.”

He spreads his hands wide. “No traps here. No games, tricks, or bullshit. I didn’t intend for any of this to happen the way it has. But…” He leans over and cups my fingers between his palms. “I’m not fighting it anymore, Ariel. I tried; I tried like fucking hell. But it failed. So I’m doing the only thing I can do now: seeing where it takes us.”

I want to believe him. Truly, I do. I just… can’t. Whether it’s a lifetime of trauma, a genetic predisposition to paranoia, or some other third thing, I simply cannot let myself take Sasha Ozerov’s words at face value.

Even when they’re nice words.

Even when they’re beautiful words.

“There’s just no way you’re not getting something out of this,” I mumble. My face drops in burning shame even as I gesture around with a hand to encompass the whole shelter we’re sitting in. I know I sound ridiculous—and I sure as hell feel that way, too. But I just have to press and poke until the truth is utterly undeniable.

“Like what?” he scoffs. “What could I possibly stand to gain from supporting a safe haven for people who have nowhere else to go?”

I shrug, face still aimed at the ground. “I know how people like you operate. You look for pretty fronts so you can clean your dirty money.”

I have to stifle a scream when Sasha slams the donation box down. “Do not ever accuse me of that again.” Dust motes swirl in the sudden silence. He grabs my face and makes me look at him. “You think I wipe ledgers here? With glitter glue and toddler socks? Or is it just that you think I’m so weak that I need to play charity to feel human?”

“I think I don’t know you at all.”

He stills. Beyond the thin drywall, where the women and children live in the dormitories that Sasha’s money rebuilt, a child’s laughter bubbles through—sweet, bright, completely alien in this bruised, battered world.

“You want my biography, Ariel, as if that will explain me. Since when do facts on a page explain a person? Are you summarizable? Does your fucking LinkedIn tell your story?”

I swallow hard. “I’m a reporter, Sasha. Is it so crazy that I want to know more?”

“It’s not crazy.” He catches my wrist. “It’s just… incomplete.”

“How can it be incomplete when there’s nothing there at all? Sasha, I barely know the first thing about you—other than how you make me feel. Just give me something to tether that to. Give me a reason to believe I can trust this.”

It’s the closest I’ve come to admitting that things have changed, have been changing, between us. We’re two days shy of the end of this crazy game, and I’m less certain than ever of anything at all.

Sasha’s face smolders. Like this, in just a shirt and slacks, seated at a repurposed picnic table in this stale, quiet room, he almost looks human. The eyes, though, have seen things no one else was ever meant to see.

“You want a story? Fine. Here’s a fucking story. My mother once begged my father to let her visit her cousins in Minsk. She grew up with them, as good as siblings, and all she wanted was to see them again.” His voice grates like steel wool. “Do you know what he did? He hid her passport. Burned her letters. And when she tried to leave anyway, he broke her wrist.” His hand clenches into a fist on his lap. “She didn’t ask again after that.”

For a brief, hallucinatory flicker, I see the face of the boy Sasha imposed over the man. I can imagine him running to his mother as she cradled that hurt wrist to her chest. I can hear how she sniffled to dry up her tears so she could tend to his instead. How she used her good hand to hold him close and tell him everything was going to be alright.

You wanted an answer, I laugh at myself in loathing. Does this pass the test?

I reach for him. If I can just touch him, that’ll be the start of the apology he deserves. As soon as I feel his warmth, I can give up this stupid, silly game and let myself trust that the man in front of me, the man I’ve seen with my own two eyes, is no monster. He’s not a saint, but he’s not the beast I thought he was. He’s… he’s…

“Mr. Sasha!” A blur of neon leggings barrels into his legs just before my fingers make contact with Sasha’s knee. “You came back!”

I spring backward to make room for the new entry. The girl who just ran in can’t be older than five, her braids secured with mismatched butterfly clips. Sasha goes predator-still—then slowly crouches, beaming wildly as he lowers himself eye-level with her. “Anyusha. Where is your mother?”

“Talking to the lawyer lady.” She thrusts a crayon drawing at him. Purple stick figures holding hands under a lopsided sun. One has bright blue eyes. “Look what I made! This is you and me at the park!”

“This can’t possibly be right…” He takes the paper like it’s made of blown glass. “There’s no swing set!”

Anya giggles hysterically as he tickles her belly.

“Go add swings so I can push you higher than the trees, like I promised,” he tells her.

“Come with me!” she pleads. Her eyes are huge and round, completely undeniable. I can feel my heart melting at the edges.

Sasha looks at me and I nod. “Go ahead,” I murmur. “I’ll be alright.”

He rises and takes her hand. Well, sort of—her tiny fingers barely fit around his pinky. But he lets her lead him away through the door and into the room beyond, leaving me alone and wondering just what the hell I’ve gotten myself into.

The door clicks shut behind Sasha and Anya. I slump onto the bench, staring at the half-folded onesie in my hands. The fabric’s worn thin at the knees. Some little girl will wear this until it disintegrates, and she’ll never know the monster who paid for her safe place to sleep.

“He’s good with the little ones, no?”

I startle. Elena leans against the doorframe, arms crossed, gazing at me.

“Seems like it,” I mutter, folding the onesie into a tight square.

She hums, moving to sort through a box of battered board books. “You know, the first time he came here fifteen years ago, I thought he was casing the place. Big, rich man, scary man sniffing around my door? I nearly called the police.”

My hands still. “What changed your mind?”

“The woman who came with him.” Elena plucks a copy of Goodnight Moon from the box, thumbing its water-stained pages. “Her face was… how you say? A mosaic. Broken pieces glued with fear. Sasha carried her suitcase. When I asked if she needed sanctuary, he said, ‘No. She needs a boat.’”

Jealousy licks my ribs. I hate myself for it. “His mistress?”

Elena barks a laugh. “His conscience. Her husband was a powerful man, a bad man.” She sets the book aside and looks at me again. “Sasha showed up at their home in the middle of the night, put a gun to the husband’s head, and made him let her go. Then he took her away. Last I heard, she’s teaching violin in Marseille.”

The onesie slips from my numb fingers. “Why?”

“Why does anyone do kindness?” Elena shrugs. “Maybe he saw his mother in her eyes. Maybe he simply felt like.”

The jealousy is a feral thing inside me now. Still loathing how much it’s affecting me, I can’t help but whisper, “Did he love her?”

Elena’s smile is pitying. “You think this is about romance? Think bigger, solnyshka.” She taps her temple. “The head, the heart—they speak different languages.”

Footsteps echo in the hall. Elena straightens as Sasha reappears, Anya’s giggles trailing behind him.

“That little princess is a tyrant in the making,” he grumbles, but there’s warmth in it.

My throat tightens. I want to ask about the woman from Marseille, about midnight drives and loaded guns pressed to abusive husbands’ temples. I want to know if he kissed her goodbye at the docks, if her hands trembled when she thanked him for what he did.

Instead, I say, “You’re good with her.”

“Children are simple.” He adjusts his hair. “They want safety. Swings. Teddy bears and cookies and for their fathers to stop coming home so angry.”

“And you? What do you want?”

His gaze traps mine. “Do you still have to ask me that question, Ariel?”

At the sound of a door closing, I look up to see that Elena is gone. It’s just us in here, Sasha and me, in this home of dreams that have been beaten but not yet killed.

Meanwhile, deep in the belly of Safe Harbor, the furnace kicks on with a groan. Somewhere closer, a mother sings a lullaby in soft Spanish. Sasha Ozerov sits amidst the chaos of discarded toys and secondhand hopes, smelling like snow and gunmetal, and I finally understand⁠—

The monster isn’t a mask. Neither is the man. They’re the same person, split down the middle.

And I’m falling into the crack in between them.