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13
Kira sat on the terrace, wrapped in one of the wool blankets she’d ordered, and tapped out a grocery list on her phone. Lyon didn’t have a cook, and she’d grown tired of takeout and the few dishes Zoya managed to throw together, all of them barely edible.
Zoya was indispensable in a hundred different ways, but cooking wasn’t one of them.
Kira had finally decided enough was enough, and she’d gone to her father’s house to sit with Lina and get some of her recipes, most of which existed only in her head. Now Kira was taking the painstakingly extracted recipes, which she’d typed on her phone, and using them to make a list of food for the apartment.
Kira had never cooked anything fancy before — Lina hadn’t wanted anyone else in “her” kitchen — but she enjoyed good food. She would start with Lina’s recipes, then branch out into new ones she’d been collecting online.
The thought made her nervous. Would Lyon mind her making a mess in the spotless kitchen? Should she offer him some of the food she cooked? Would he eat anything made with her hands?
He seemed to hate her with the fire of a thousand suns. Not that she didn’t feel the same way. But they did have to coexist somehow, a problem she’d been avoiding by avoiding him.
It wasn’t sustainable. She knew this even as she was loathe to give in to the brute who was her husband, a brute she’d increasingly come to fantasize about in the bathtub, in bed, anywhere at all really.
She turned her gaze to the lake, shimmering in the morning sun. The terrace had become one of her favorite spots to think, one of the few places in the penthouse that had started fo feel like home. Most of the apartment still felt like a hotel. She hadn’t even been in Lyon’s suite of rooms, although more than once she’d hesitated on the threshold when he’d been out, curious about his private space.
She’d explored some of the other rooms behind closed doors only to find them empty, and she rarely chose to spend time in the living room, favoring the comfort of her own suite instead, where she could walk around in loungewear without feeling like a blemish on the surface of Lyon’s pristine apartment. Outside of her suite, she felt obligated to be dressed, as if a photographer for Architectural Digest might appear at any moment.
Hurried footsteps sounded behind her, and she craned her neck to see Zoya rushing up the steps to where Kira sat on the second level. As soon as she saw the expression on Zoya’s face, she stood, worry spreading like a stain in her stomach.
My father…
It was the first thing that came to mind,
“Faye just called.” Kira registered the name as one of Zoya’s friends, an employee at one of the other bratva households. “Doesn’t Mr. Antonov own Samara, the restaurant in West Town?”
“Yes.” Kira knew all of Lyon’s holdings, the ones he’d had before their arrangement and the ones given to him by her father because of it. “Why?”
“It’s on fire,” Zoya said, wringing her hands.
“What?” Kira was already moving for the house. “Was anyone hurt?”
“I don’t know,” Zoya said.
Kira registered that her heart was pounding with fear, that dread was seeping through her veins like an oil slick. Behind it there was a face. Dark hair and amber eyes.
A face and a name.
Lyon.
“What are you doing?” Zoya asked as Kira rushed for her room.
Kira glared at her like she was crazy. “I’m going down there of course. He’s… he’s my husband.”
It was the only thing she could think of to say. The only way to explain the crushing sensation in her lungs. The only logical explanation why she should care at all whether Lyon Antonov lived or died.
