That is when I saw him. Not because he was flashy. Not because he was loud.
But because he was still.
Amid movement and color and music, he stood like a shadow carved into the wall.
Tall and broad-shouldered, he was dressed in a perfectly tailored black suit that made no effort to draw attention and yet somehow still did. His mask was a simple matte black with clean lines. It had no embellishments and no grandeur to it. It almost seemed as if he didn’t even want to try. The mask covered the upper half of his face, leaving a strong jaw visible, the faint shadow of stubble catching in the light.
His dark hair was slightly disheveled in a way that looked unintentional and entirely deliberate at the same time. He stood effortlessly, as if the ticking of time had no effect on whatever it was that was going through his mind. The glass of scotch in his right hand was steady, and he elegantly took it towards his lush pink lips and took a sip.
I continued watching, noticing how he wasn’t even talking to anyone. He wasn’t even dancing or pretending to socialize. He was simply watching everyone before his gaze shifted and landed directly on me.
It took me a few seconds to snap out of my stupor and realize he was watching me. The man I had been staring at shamelessly was now giving me the entirety of his attention, and my heartbeat accelerated once again. I didn’t know what to do. Or how to breathe. Or how to react in the situation. It felt wrong.But it felt right at the same time. My own feelings confused me. The worst part of it all was that I was enjoying the intensity of his gaze on me.
The realization slid over my skin like cold water.
I didn’t look away immediately. Something in me refused to. I noticed how his posture didn’t change when our eyes met. He didn’t nod or smirk and didn’t even signal recognition. He was simply there. Still cold and unbothered except for his dark, dark eyes. Even from across the room, the intensity in them burned my skin in ways I had forgotten skin could be burned. Something about the whole thing made me want to turn around and run away, but I stayed rooted to the spot, my body refusing to move.
The air between us shifted.
It felt like standing too close to a live wire.
“Are you okay, Elle? You look like you have seen a ghost.” Zhenya asked quietly, noticing my focus.
I nodded, my eyes still on the stranger across from us. Zhenya and Mila looked at me with confusion, following my line of sight with their own eyes when they finally saw exactly what, or more appropriately, who I was staring at.
“Do you know him?” Mila asked.
I didn’t answer. I just shook my head no.
“Well, with the way the two of you are staring at each other, I think you need to get to maybe dance with him,” Zhenya said, a short laugh escaping her lips. “I don’t recognize him either, so he is probably just a harmless stranger.”
“We don’t know everyone who is a Chernykh enemy, Zhenya,” I replied, my mind already plotting a thousand different ways this could go wrong.
“Well, the good thing is, you are not a Chernykh tonight,” Mila interjected, talking some sense into me.
She was right. I was not a Chernykh tonight. I was simply me. And a part of me wanted this man who was staring at me in a way that made me feel as if he would consume me entirely and burn me with the fire that was evident in his eyes.
My decision was made.
Chapter 2 - Fyodor
I believed in leisure.
That was the first lie I told myself when I agreed to attend the masquerade. The second was that I needed a night off. I have never needed a night off in my life. The third was that I could ever truly stop watching.Like hell I could. I had been a watcher even when we were back in Russia, and my instincts had only grown sharper after we had moved here.
The car door closed shut behind me with a quiet, decisive thud, and I adjusted the cuffs of my black suit as I took in the estate before me. It was beautiful, like every other house, without any special quality. The windows were gold-lit to draw attention, and the walls were adorned with silk banners, giving it a royal look. As I walked further, I could hear laughter spilling into the Miami night like champagne poured too generously.
It was a party after all, or at least that’s what they called it. I, on the other hand, called it a map.
Every powerful family in the city had sent someone tonight. Maybe not the heads and the pakhans, since this was nothing but a place for leisure, but I had intel that everyone’s representatives were here anyway. It could be cousins, fixers, or even enforcers. I was sure I would find an ambassador or two dressed in velvet and lace. These were the kind of places where alliances were negotiated in whispers far more often than in boardrooms.
I knew how the game worked.
And I was here to observe all of it unfold before me. Or at least that’s what I had told Kliment, my eldest brother and the head of our family. The Romanovs.
“I want to see who’s circling and what’s happening. The entire mess caused with the Chernykhs has already halted our progress in establishing ourselves in the city. We should not continue holding back much longer,” I’d said earlier that evening.
My brother had studied me with those calculating dark eyes, the weight of our last name pressing against his spine the same way it pressed against mine. “You’re not there to indulge,” he’d replied. “And you know the rules, Fyodor. No one should know who you are. We are not ready to expose ourselves yet.”
