10 Days to Ruin (Ozerov Bratva Book 1)
10 Days to Ruin: Chapter 47

A fun thing about losing your mind is that you can make entertaining little games out of it, if you’re creative enough. For example, I’ve been trying to time the bouncing of my knee to the hammering of my heart since the moment I first came straight to Sasha’s penthouse and took a seat in the foyer. That stupid activity has kept me just barely on the right side of sane.

But I’m getting closer and closer to the tipping point. Every click of heels on tile makes my head snap up—a shitty Pavlovian response after three hours of false alarms. The security guard stopped making sympathetic eye contact around hour two.

Then he finally arrives.

Sasha bursts through the doors like a storm breaking. His tie is undone, sleeves rolled up to reveal corded forearms still speckled with… Is that blood or rust? Doesn’t matter. All that matters is the way his eyes lock onto me the second he steps into the atrium.

I’m on my feet before I decide to move.

He catches me mid-collapse, his hands bracketing my ribs as I slam into him. The scent of gunpowder and sea salt clings to his collar. “Ariel,” he murmurs into my hair, “what’s wrong?”

The dam breaks.

“They fired me.” The words come out mangled, my face pressed into his throat. “John said—he said I’m a liability now. That I’m your problem. And Gina and Lora quit and I—fuck, I ruined them⁠—”

“Shh.” He catches my tears with a kiss on each cheek. “Slow.”

But I can’t. It all spills out in a toxic geyser—the way John’s mouth twisted in a sneer, the pitying stares from colleagues as security followed me out, Lora’s shaky Up yours! as she handed over her press pass. “I spent years building that life,” I choke. “And now, it’s gone because I’m… because you’re…”

His grip tightens. “Because you’re mine.”

“Because I’m falling right into the exact thing I ran from.” I gulp. “I let myself get sucked back into this world. Let you—let my father—turn me into some… some thing. The exact same thing that happened to Jasmine! And for what? A ring? A penthouse? What happens when you decide I’m not worth the trouble anymore?”

“I would never do that,” he growls.

“I know you say that, but how do I know?” I insist. “I didn’t want this! Any of it! Do you know how hard I worked to get away from people like you? To be normal? To have a life where my work mattered more than my last name? But I can’t even have that. It doesn’t matter how far I run—the past always catches up to me. Always.”

Sasha’s quiet for a minute. Then he’s steering me toward the elevators, his palm a brand between my shoulder blades. “Come.”

“I don’t want to go upstairs. I want⁠—”

“You want answers? You’ll get them. But not here.” The elevator dings open. He crowds me into the corner and stabs the PH button. “We do this where walls don’t have ears.”

The ascent feels endless. Sasha’s gaze never leaves mine. When we reach the top floor, he ushers me to the couch and sits me down, then kneels in front of me and holds my hands in his.

“You told me your mother used to tell you stories.”

I want to tear out my hair. “What does that have to do with anything I just said?”

“Hear me out,” he says. “You told me that, didn’t you?”

“Yes. Fine. Yes, she did. Again, I don’t see how⁠—”

He holds up a hand. “That’s why you became a reporter, right? You wanted to tell stories.”

“I… Yes.”

He regards me calmly, coolly. “Do you think that you have to have that job to tell stories?”

I frown. “I… Uh… I mean, it sort of depends on⁠—”

But Sasha is shaking his head. “Wrong. All you need to tell stories is a story to tell, little bird. So fuck your editor. Fuck the Gazette. Tell any story you like. He didn’t fire you, Ariel—he freed you.”

I’m stunned into silence. Is he right?

For fifteen years, my whole identity has been built around ink-stained hands and press badges—a desperate hedge against the Makris blood in my veins. But Sasha’s right. Stories don’t require permission slips. Mama spun them from nothing but a stranger’s face.

Truth doesn’t need a byline. It only needs a teller.

“But just in case you’re still feeling a little short on tools,” Sasha says, “this might help.”

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a simple brass key, then hands it to me.

I hold it up to the light. It’s simple, completely unadorned of anything that might give any indication as to what the hell it’s for. “Am I supposed to guess, or…?”

He laughs. “The Patriot Press is yours.”

I blink. And blink. And blink again.

Then: “Huh?”

Sasha rises, grinning from ear to ear like he’s in on a joke that hasn’t quite clicked for me yet. “You’re a reporter. So go report. Expose whatever you want. Print whatever you want. The Patriot Press is yours, Ariel. Burn it down if you want, or build it into something that doesn’t make you hate yourself in the morning.”

I feel woozy. “You’re… giving me a newspaper.”

He nods. “I am.”

“The one that slandered us.”

“Yes.” His mouth quirks. “It’s poetic, no?”

I laugh—a hysterical sound. “You can’t just buy my integrity back!”

“Integrity isn’t a location, Ariel. It’s not a byline or a business card.” He steps closer, until our breaths tangle. “You think I don’t see it? The fire in you? The need to rip the world open and make it account for itself?” His palm slides down to press over my racing heart. “That’s not the Gazette. That’s you. And I’d take a crowbar to every printing press in this city before I let them extinguish that flame.”

I’m seated, but I still feel unstable enough that I’m worried about falling. Sasha sinks back to his knees in front of me and touches my hips. “I’m scared,” I tell him.

“Good. That means you’re on the right path.”

“What if I fail?”

“You won’t.”

“What if I⁠—?”

He silences me with a kiss. Not the hungry, devouring kind from the dressing room or the library. This is slow. Deliberate. A vote of confidence etched in heat and teeth.

When he pulls back, his forehead rests against mine. “You’ll rage. You’ll fight. You’ll drag truth kicking and screaming into the light. And when the world pushes?” His hand slides into my hair, tilting my gaze up. “We’ll push back harder.”

The last thread of resistance snaps. I fist his shirt, pulling him down as I arch up. The kiss turns filthy, and I’m ready to follow it to its inevitable conclusion.

But before I can, he stands. “Come on. Let’s go check out your new kingdom.”

“Now? It’s midnight!”

His grin is all wolf. “You think truth keeps business hours?”

Sasha kicks open the door marked EDITORIAL, revealing a ghost town of abandoned desks. My fingers trail over Marty DiLaurentis’s empty chair as Sasha spreads his arms wide.

“It’s all yours,” he announces.

I turn in a slow circle—the cracked whiteboards, the dusty computers, row after row of gravestone filing cabinets. Everything the light touches is mine.

“First order of business,” I say, voice steadier than I feel. “We’re changing the name.”

Sasha leans against the doorframe, arms crossed. “To?”

I think for a moment, but when the answer comes to me, it’s like it was always meant to happen like this. I meet his gaze. “The Phoenix.”

Something warm flickers in his eyes. “Little birds rising from the ashes that made them. Fitting.”

He bends down to kiss me, but when he starts to pull away, I grab his face. “Sasha… thank you. For believing in me.”

I feel his grin in the kiss. “You made it impossible to do anything else.” He pats my butt and then turns to go. “I’ll let you get settled in. I won’t be far, though. Call me if you need me.”

I blow him a kiss as he leaves.

Outside, the world is quiet and still. But here, in this broken little kingdom of lies? Something new quickens.

I crack my knuckles, power up Marty’s old computer, and start typing.