Chapter 3 - The Ledger of Sins
The walk to the subway was a blur of gray concrete and racing thoughts. My car sat dead at the curb, a useless metal box, while my mind spun out of control. My father's debts. I thought I had buried that nightmare years ago, back when my mother died and my father vanished into the shadow of his gambling addictions, leaving behind a trail of broken promises and men in cheap suits knocking on our apartment door at midnight.
I spent the morning at Rossi Gallery staring blankly at a three-hundred-year-old angel’s wing, my brush hovering a millimeter above the canvas without touching it.
“Elena, you’re drifting,” muttered Marcus, the gallery’s head curator, walking past my easel with a rolled-up catalog. “If you add any more blue to that cloud, it’s going to look like a thunderstorm. Take a breather.”
I set my brush down, my hands trembling. “I’m fine, Marcus. Just... didn't sleep well.”
“Yeah, well, sleep is overrated,” he tossed over his shoulder, walking away.
By 1:00 p.m., the stress had eaten a hole through my stomach. I stepped out into the brisk autumn air, needing coffee, need air, needing anything that didn't smell like turpentine and impending doom.
As I rounded the corner of 5th Avenue, a heavy black sedan pulled up smoothly to the curb. The tinted rear window rolled down silently.
A silver Rolex flashed in the cabin light.
“Get in, Elena.”
Nikolai’s voice. Low, authoritative, and utterly inescapable.
I stopped dead on the sidewalk, glaring at the dark tint of the glass. “I am not getting into a car with a mafia boss—or whatever it is you actually do.”
“You are late for lunch, and you look like you haven't eaten a solid meal in three days,” Nikolai said, the door clicking open from the inside. A massive bodyguard in the front passenger seat turned half an inch to look at me, his expression carved from granite. “Get in before traffic officers decide my parking job is a federal offense.”
Pride warred with curiosity—and a strange, terrifying sense of safety that seemed to follow him like a shadow.
I sighed, hauled my tote bag over my shoulder, and slid into the leather interior of the backseat. The door closed with a heavy, vault-like thud, sealing out the noise of the city.
The interior smelled of leather, mahogany, and rain. Nikolai sat beside me, taking up half the bench seat, his long legs stretched out comfortably. He didn't look at me immediately; instead, he nodded to the driver, and the car glided back into traffic.
“Where are we going?” I asked, keeping my body pressed as far against the door as physics allowed.
“Somewhere they don't serve cardboard coffee,” he replied smoothly, turning his dark gaze toward me. “Now. Let’s talk about your father.”
I stiffened, turning my head to glare out the window at the passing storefronts. “My father has nothing to do with you.”
“Your father owes forty thousand dollars to a low-level syndicate operating out of Brighton Beach run by a man named Viktor Vance—no relation, thankfully,” Nikolai said, his tone conversational, as if he were discussing the weather. “They tracked him to New Jersey last week. When they couldn't find him, they ran your name. They found your address. That’s why your tires were slashed last night. And that is why two men were loitering outside your building at four in the morning.”
My breath hitched. The world outside the window seemed to tilt sideways. “How... how do you know all of that?”
“Because I bought your father’s debt this morning at 8:00 a.m.,” Nikolai said simply.
I whipped my head back around, staring at him in absolute disbelief. “You... you what?”
“I bought the paper,” he repeated, his black eyes locking onto mine with an intensity that made my chest tighten. “Viktor Vance doesn't exist anymore. His ledger is cleared.”
“Why would you do that?” My voice cracked, a mixture of panic and raw confusion boiling over. “I threw your money in your face yesterday! I screamed at you in bunny slippers! I am a complete stranger to you! Why would you pay off a forty-thousand-dollar debt for someone you barely know?”
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Nikolai shifted closer. The sheer physical heat radiating off him wrapped around me like a heavy velvet cloak. He reached out, his long fingers gently catching my chin, tilting my face up so I had no choice but to look straight into his dark, unfathomable eyes.
“Because, Elena,” he whispered, his thumb brushing slowly across my lower lip, “you walked into the lion’s den wearing pink cotton bunnies and told me to keep the noise down. You don't bow to anyone. And anyone who tries to hurt what belongs in my building... answers to me.”
