10 Days to Ruin (Ozerov Bratva Book 1)
10 Days to Ruin: Chapter 40

“Your place, huh? Should I be flattered or concerned?”

Sasha looks at me and winks as the elevator doors start to open. “Terrified.”

It’s like seeing the penthouse through new eyes. Last time, I couldn’t have been less concerned with the furniture or the man who picked it; I was mostly concerned about the location of the exits.

Now, though, I take my time looking around. Glass walls reveal Manhattan glittering like a spilled diamond necklace below, but the furniture belongs to a different century—ornate mahogany side tables, a velvet Chesterfield sofa aged to the color of dried blood. A bookshelf spans the entire west wall, crammed with titles in Russian, English, and what looks like Greek. How many languages does this man speak?!

“Decadent mobster or retired librarian?” I trail my fingers along a leatherbound edition of Anna Karenina. “It’s hard to tell.”

Sasha strips out of his coat and goes to pour himself a drink from the bar cart in the corner. “Just don’t ask me if I’ve actually read them,” he teases. “Some of those stories are long. You hungry? Thirsty?”

“Speaking of stories…” I turn to face him. “Elena told me about the first time she met you. The woman you saved, the one who’s in Marseille now.”

He stills, a vodka bottle frozen halfway to the crystal tumbler. For a second, I swear I see fear flicker in those mercury eyes. Then it’s gone, replaced by his usual mocking nonchalance. “Eat first. We’ll talk after.”

“Afraid I’ll lose my appetite?”

“Afraid I’ll lose mine.”

He strides into the kitchen. I follow in time to see him tying the leather strings of an apron. His hands are deft and his face relaxes as he chops and cooks. In a few short minutes, the air is filled with the sound and smell of sizzling oil. He starts setting plates in front of me. Blini smeared with caviar, beet soup so dark it looks like liquefied heartbeats, pillowy dumplings that burst with venison and guilt.

“What wise words did your mom have about food?” I ask as I try not to shovel dumplings in my mouth like I’m a trash compactor with legs. “Because if these are her recipes, I’ll listen to anything she might’ve said.”

“She said, ‘The fatter the wife, the better your life.’”

My jaw drops with a shocked laugh. Sasha’s eyes are twinkling, too, even when I chuck a dumpling at his head. “She did not say that!”

He snags the flying food right out of the air and pops it into his mouth, utterly unfazed. “I may be paraphrasing.” Rubbing his hands on the dish towel, he adds, “These are her recipes, though. She had a gift.”

“Yeah,” I agree as the mood downshifts. “You can taste the love.”

Sasha regards me, palms planted flat on the counter.

“What?” I ask. “You’re staring.”

“Observing,” he corrects.

“Oh?” I lift my eyebrow. “Like what you see?”

His grin twitches. “More than you’ll ever know.”

“You’re just buttering me up so I keep complimenting your cooking,” I accuse, rapping the back of his knuckles with my fork.

“Shameless fishing for compliments is what gets me through the day, Ariel.” He laughs and straightens up. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

“Where are you going?” I call after him as he vanishes down the hall.

His voice comes floating back. “I want to show you something.”

I’m wringing my fingers in nervous silence, wondering if I’ve gone too far tonight. If I’ve pushed too deep into territory that has been very clearly marked as DO NOT TRESPASS. Sasha hasn’t said anything about me trying to blindside him with the women’s shelter thing. Part of that is because he effortlessly turned the tables there without even trying, but part of it also seems to be… acceptance? Like, he’s acknowledging that there are parts of him he doesn’t share with anyone, and that those are the parts I’m most interested in seeing, and he’s maybe starting to warm to the idea of easing the restrictions and letting me in.

Or maybe not. Maybe that’s just my hope talking.

He comes back into the kitchen a moment later with a thick volume in his grip. “Here.” He thrusts it at me. “Take a look.”

I’m frowning as I crack it open to the first page. It’s a photo album. Blank leather cover, inside pages yellowed and crinkling.

But the first picture pasted inside stops my breath. A boy of maybe five straddles a bicycle too big for him, front wheel mangled beyond repair. His split lip blooms purple, but his grin could power the Eastern seaboard.

“You were adorable,” I gush. The bowl cut, the short shorts, the clear eyes, the irrepressible smile. I look up at the man version in front of me. “Wait—are you still fishing for compliments? Am I just falling into your ego trap?”

He chuckles and rolls his eyes. “Keep sassing and I’ll take the book back.”

“Over my dead body.” I turn my back to him to shield it. Sasha is still chuckling as he plasters himself against me, his chin coming to rest on top of my head. “Keep going.”

The next picture is even older than the first. Baby Sasha, swaddled like a burrito, with only his chubby cheeks peeking out. Aleksandr Ozerov—1 July 1986, 4.56kg. I do some quick math in my head and my jaw drops once again.

“You weighed more than ten pounds when you were born?!” I screech.

Sasha’s laugh bounces his chin on top of my skull. “I was big.”

“You were fat! Oh my God, Sasha, you must’ve killed your—” I freeze, even as the insensitive words are already halfway out of my mouth. Blanching, I change gears. “I’m so sorry. That’s such a horrible way to— God, I’m an asshole. I’m sorry, Sasha.”

His hand drifts up to graze my cheek from behind. “It’s okay, Ariel. It’s all okay.”

But it’s not okay. Because I turn the page and see eight-year-old Sasha with a black eye. The page after that has him in a leg cast. Then an ugly, puckered slice on his forearm, a grimace as he tries to run after a soccer ball. Another cast, another bandage. Page after page reveals a story written in bruises and blood. I see decades of Sasha’s pain, preserved forever in Polaroid amber. Nataliya Ozerova appears ghost-like in the margins—a blurry figure drying tears in a ripped sundress, hands cupped around a candle in a blackout, pressing an ice pack to her son’s eye while hers swells shut.

The last photo steals the air from my lungs. Nataliya stands before a quaint storefront with peeling gold letters: Babushka’s Lap. Zoya’s place. Her smile is sunlight through prison bars.

“That’s—” My throat constricts. “She looks exactly like⁠—”

Sasha reaches past me and snaps the album shut. “I think that’s enough.”

“Why show me this?”

“Because you wanted to know me. This is me.”

“This was you,” I correct. I turn to grab his wrist. He lets me take it, unresisting. “But a book of photographs and an asshole dad don’t define you any more than a closet full of princess dresses and an asshole dad define me. I didn’t want to be that anymore, so I stopped. You…” I look up at him, surprised that my eyes are filling with tears. “You don’t have to be what he wanted you to be.”

Sasha gazes down at me. It’s impossible to say what he’s thinking, what he’s seeing. Do I look insane to him? Delusional? Or just plain stupid?

What I’m proposing is a complete and total rewrite of his entire life. His dad melted the soul of this little boy down and poured it into the mold of a monster. But fuck the mold. Outlines are only suggestions, right? I’m not the princess Leander wanted. Sasha doesn’t have to be the beast Yakov intended for him to be.

We can replace a different way.

… If he’s willing to try.

Sasha’s thumb passes over my cheekbone where a tear escaped without permission. His eyes burn through the fragile space between us. “You think it’s that simple? Stop being what he made me?” The vodka on his breath is sweet fire. “Maybe you are delusional.”

But there’s no heat in it. Only wonder.

“Delusional’s my middle name.” My laugh cracks. “My parents couldn’t decide between that, ‘Disaster,’ or ‘Bad Decisions.’” I reach up to touch the scar around his throat, a question I’ve been too afraid to ask. He flinches—then stills, letting me trace the marbled skin.

“He did this,” I whisper. Not a question.

“He tried.”

Then he makes his move.

Not toward the exit. Not away from the truth. Toward me. Sasha’s mouth crashes over mine like a storm surge—hot, desperate, inevitable. The photo album thuds to the floor, forgotten, and he picks me up to my feet.

We walk backward until my back hits cold glass as he pins me against the window. Manhattan winks below, a thousand judgmental eyes. I don’t care. I bite his lower lip, swallow his growl.

“Watch,” he rasps, wrenching my face toward the glittering abyss. “Watch what you do to me.”

His reflection floats in the glass—eyes black with want, hands possessive on my hips. But it’s my face that shocks me. Wild-haired, swollen-mouthed, hungry. I’ve never seen myself like this. So… uncontained.

His teeth replace my earlobe. “You see it now? What you wake up in me?”

“I’m getting the idea.” I rock into him, shameless, and feel his answering hardness. “Show me more.”

Chaos unfolds in sharp, bright fragments. His buttons scatter. My blouse tears at the shoulder seam. He licks the exposed skin and murmurs, “That blush is my favorite color on you” when I shiver. All the while, the city stretches below us. We’re in a snow globe of steel and sin, and Sasha’s shaking it apart.

My palms flatten against the window. “You want answers?” His voice scrapes raw as he rips my pants down around my thighs. “I’ll give you one.”

The first thrust steals my breath. He sinks into me with a groan that unravels into Russian. I watch our reflection blur as he sets a punishing rhythm and the glass fogs with our panting.

“You’re the only one, Ariel.” His hand fists in my hair, tugging my head back to expose my throat. “The only one who sees.”

“Sasha—”

“No. Look.” He smears the condensation with his palm, clearing a portal to the world below. “Look how high we are. How far you’d fall.”

The duality guts me. Terror and tenderness. The way he pounds into me like vengeance, but cradles my hips like something precious. He’s splitting me open in every way that matters.

“I’m not afraid of that,” I lie.

He stills. Drags his thumb over the smudged lipstick at my mouth. “Then you’re a fool.” The next thrust is slow. Torturous. “You should run from this. From me.”

“Then why don’t you make me?”

He chuckles dark against my skin. A finger slides between my legs. Circles. Presses. My knees buckle, but he holds me up easily. “Because I’m a selfish bastard, and I can’t let you go, even if that’s the only thing left that could save you.”

His teeth sink into my shoulder as I climax. The world blurs out, fireworks bursting behind my eyes. He follows me over the edge with a broken grunt.

When we’re both spent, we slide down the glass into a puddle of tangled limbs and twisted clothes on the floor. Sasha’s heartbeat thrums against my spine, out of rhythm with the city’s pulse below.

I count the sweat droplets tracking down the window. Five. Ten. Twenty. Fifty. A lifetime passes in the rise and fall of his chest.

“You asked me about the woman I helped. From the shelter.”

I twist to face him. His gaze stays fixed on the ceiling.

“She was running from a bad man. Two of them, really.” His thumb rubs absent circles on my hip. “She begged me to help her get out. Said she’d rather die than be another man’s pawn.” A muscle tics in his jaw. “So I gave her a new name. New life. Far from here. But she had to leave behind everything and everyone she knew.”

Snow begins to fall past the window—silent flakes that dissolve the second they kiss the glass. I see the years etched in Sasha’s face—the boy who learned his mother’s recipes, the man who thought mercy made him weak. All the lives caught in his fists.

“Sometimes,” I whisper, “isn’t starting over a good thing?”

“Sometimes,” he agrees. “But it’s a hell of a price to pay.”

I press my palm over his galloping heart. “Sasha… I’m starting to think I⁠—”

He touches my lips. “Not yet. Don’t say it yet.”

We both know what it is. The word neither of us can survive. But when he kisses me again, soft as snowfall, I taste that word on his tongue.

For now, that’s good enough.