10 Days to Ruin (Ozerov Bratva Book 1)
10 Days to Ruin: Chapter 49

The black town car glides to a stop outside Leander’s brownstone, and I’m hit with a memory so sharp it steals my breath—Jasmine squeezing my hand as we climbed these same stone steps twenty years ago, whispering “Race you to the top!” while our mother’s laughter echoed behind us.

Now, there’s only the click of Sasha’s Oxfords against marble and the weight of his palm at the small of my back.

He knocks, then pauses at the top while we wait for the door to open. “Stay close,” he murmurs against my temple. “Breathe. Squeeze my hand if you feel compelled to sink a knife in his kidney.”

“Tempting.” I force a smirk, adjusting the obsidian choker at my throat—Sasha’s latest gift, cool and reassuring against my frenetic pulse. “But let’s try words first. I hear they’re civilized.”

“Eh. Overrated.”

Leander’s butler—the same one from my childhood, Christos, now sporting a tragically bad combover—opens the door. “Sir. Madam.” He bows low, then ushers us inside.

In the dining room, my father holds court at the head of an endless table. He rises from his throne and approaches us, arms spread wide. “There’s my girl!”

My spine locks. “Baba. It’s… good to see you, too.”

His laugh could curdle milk. He nods to Sasha. “And you—keeping our princess out of trouble?”

“Trouble keeps replaceing her.” Sasha pulls out my chair for me and helps me settle in. “But I’m… handling it.” He takes the seat beside me. The candlelight catches the scar around his throat. “You look healthy, Leander.”

“Ah, an old man does what he can to keep up with you youths.” He takes a sip of his ouzo, then dabs at the corners of his mouth with a cloth napkin. “Eventually, though, he starts to wonder how much longer he can manage that. I’m replaceing that my clock is nearing its end.”

I frown. For as long as I’ve known him, my father has been larger than life. Physically, temperamentally—nothing can topple him. But the longer I look now, the more I see signs of age. It’s worsened since I stood in his office less than two weeks ago and watched his hands shake as he read me my fate.

Ten days. God, has it only been that long? He looks decades older. I see liver spots on his knuckles that weren’t there before. When he goes for another drink, the liquid in the glass sloshes with tremors.

“We have lots to discuss,” he says, clearing his throat. “But even though they say you’re supposed to learn patience as you get older… Well, that lesson’s just never stuck. So indulge my impatience and give me the simple answer first: Where do we stand?” His eyes shift from Sasha to me. “Either you’re in, neraïdoula mou, or you’re out.”

Sasha stills beside me.

Leander arches a brow. “No?”

Blood thrums in my ears. Ten days pass before my mind’s eye in one blurred flash. I see Sasha in Zoya’s restaurant, hunched over borscht as he whispered about his mother’s lullabies. Sasha buying a tabloid empire to spare me shame. Sasha with that child at the women’s shelter, patiently watching her draw with crayon and telling her, Yes, good, like that.

Sasha Ozerov, the first man who’s never asked me to be smaller. Softer. Less.

I clear my throat. “I’ll marry him.”

Silence.

Leander’s glass pauses mid-sip. Sasha exhales roughly through his nose, like he’d been holding his breath until he heard my answer.

“Come again?” Leander purrs.

I lift my chin. “You wanted my answer? Here it is: Yes. To the wedding. To the alliance. To—” My voice cracks. I let it. “To everything.”

Sasha’s hand engulfs mine. At the far end of the table, Leander slowly sets down his ouzo. “You’re certain? It wasn’t long ago that you acted like I’d sentenced you to death.”

“I’m certain,” I tell him. “In fact…” I reach down to my place setting and pick up the steak knife that lies there gleaming.

The blade winks as I drag it across my palm. Blood wells in its wake, bright and burning.

“I swear.” Blood drips down my wrist, welling over a scar that started this whole thing, in a bathroom that feels like a place from a dream. “On blood. On bones. On every silent grave that stands between us.”

For a moment, Leander’s mask slips. Some emotion I can’t name etches itself into the cracks of his wrinkled facade.

Then it’s gone.

“So it shall be,” he murmurs. “Just like we always wanted.”

The rest blurs—talk of security details, guest lists, which family jewels I’ll wear to the engagement party on New Year’s Eve where we’ll announce everything to the world. Through it all, Sasha’s thumb worries my bleeding palm, smearing our pact across skin.

Eventually, dinner ends and it’s time to leave. We’re almost to the foyer when Leander calls out, “Ariana.”

I grit my teeth at the dead name, but I turn anyway.

He hesitates—just a flicker—before tossing me a velvet box. I stop short when I open it.

Inside glistens Mom’s engagement ring, the emerald-cut diamond she hurled at his head the night she left. “She’d want you to have it,” Baba mutters, suddenly fascinated by his cufflinks.

I snap the lid shut. “Thank you, Baba.”

Then the door slams behind us. I make it halfway down the stoop before collapsing against Sasha, laughter and tears clotting my throat, woozy from the feeling of this momentous thing finally getting put behind me.

He crowds me against the limo, forehead pressed to mine. “Ptichka.” His mouth skims over my knuckles. “Why?”

I grab his lapels, dragging him closer. “Because you’re the only man who’ll never ask me to kneel.”

His growl vibrates through my bones. The limo door opens and closes, sucking us in. Then there’s only teeth and tongues and the delicious agony of finally, finally surrendering—not to my father, not to fate, but to the terrifying thrill of choosing my own gilded cage.

He chuckles, eyes flashing with mischief. “Careful what you wish for, Mrs. Ozerova. I’ll have you on your knees by the end of the night.”

The name should terrify me. Ten days ago, it would have.

Now, I can only smile up at him. “Do you promise?”