Page 41 of Crimson Sin
The comparison stings because it's accurate. I close my eyes, remembering that mangy orange tabby who hissed and clawed at everyone but still somehow wormed his way into my heart. Mr. Whiskers, we'd called him ironically, though he'd never made a sound except to yowl his displeasure at the world. I'd seen something in him that no one else could; a desperate need for safety beneath all that rage and fear.
“This isn't the same,” I insist, but the words lack conviction.
“Isn't it?” Charlotte presses.
Her voice is gentle now, but there's iron beneath it. She knows me too well. That's the problem. Charlotte can read between thelines of what I'm not telling her and hear the changes in my voice that signal I'm falling for someone I should be running from. She's witnessed my pattern of rescuing broken things and believing I can heal what others have damaged beyond repair.
“I don't know what I'm doing. He tells me things about his world and what he does. It should horrify me.” I admit, rubbing my thumb along the ceramic of the mug. The surface is smooth, expensive, probably crafted by some artisan whose work belongs in a gallery, not a home. Everything here is like that. Beautiful, costly, and somehow empty of real meaning.
“But it doesn't,” Charlotte notes.
“No,” I whisper. “It does, Char. But then he tells me things like… ‘I never wanted this life, but it's the only one I was given,’ and suddenly I forget he's a mafia boss and start thinking about the little boy whose father was killed when he was three years old.”
The confession spills out before I can stop it, raw and honest in a way that frightens me. Because admitting it means acknowledging how deep I've already fallen, and how thoroughly he's gotten under my skin. It means accepting that I'm not just playing a role anymore. I'm living it, breathing it, and becoming it.
There's silence on the other end of the line. Then Charlotte sighs, and I can picture her rubbing her temples the way she does when she's trying to solve an impossible problem.
“Nae… just promise me you're stillyouin all of this. That you haven't lost yourself.”
I'm not sure I can make that promise. The naïve woman who agreed to this arrangement feels like a stranger now. That Naomi believed in clear lines between right and wrong, in heroes andvillains, and in love stories that didn't require bulletproof glass and armed guards. This Naomi understands that the world is painted in shades of gray, that sometimes the monster is also the man who holds you while you sleep, and who looks at you like you're the only thing keeping him human.
“I'm trying,” I offer weakly. “But I think he sees parts of me I didn't even know were visible.”
And that's the terrifying truth of it. Daniil looks at me and sees things I've kept hidden even from myself. The recklessness beneath my careful exterior. The hunger for something bigger than the safe, small life I'd built. The part of me that's always been drawn to dangerous edges, to testing boundaries and seeing how far I can push before something breaks.
“That's what scares me,” Charlotte admits.
We talk for a few more minutes, exchanging reassurances neither of us believes. She tells me about work, about the new event she’s planning for an up-and-coming A-list celebrity, about normal things that feel like fairy tales from my current perspective. I listen and make appropriate responses, but part of me is already elsewhere, counting the minutes until Daniil comes home.
Home.When did I start thinking of this place as home? That’s a path I refuse to go down right now.
I hang up after assuring her I’ll call tomorrow, my fingers unsteady as I set the phone down. I rise from the chair and make my way down the hallway toward my suite, my bare feet soundless on the marble. The floors here are heated, another small luxury in a house full of them, but they still feel cold beneath my skin. Everything about this place is designed forcomfort yet somehow achieves the opposite effect. It's too perfect, like living inside a beautiful museum where everything is valuable, but nothing can be touched.
The hallway stretches before me, lined with artwork that screams of wealth. Abstract pieces splash color across pristine white walls, and sculptures twist and reach toward the vaulted ceiling like frozen screams. I've walked this path dozens of times now, but I still feel like an intruder.
I round the corner and just as my hand lifts to the doorknob, I freeze. The door opens from the inside. Irina Volkov steps out composed and elegant, as usual. She’s impeccably put together in a navy-blue suit and heels that don't make a sound on the floor. Her lipstick is a slash of crimson, meticulously applied. She moves with the fluid grace of someone who's never doubted her place in the world and never questioned her right to be wherever she chooses to stand.
My stomach lurches, a visceral reaction I can't quite explain. There's something about Irina that sets my teeth on edge, though she's never been anything but polite to me. Perhaps it’s the way she looks at me, like I’m a lock she hasn’t found the right key for. Or maybe it's the obvious history she shares with Daniil. An easy familiarity that hints at intimacies I'm not privy to.
“Irina?”
She doesn't startle. She simply offers a cool smile, brushing invisible lint from her lapel. The gesture is so casual, so utterly unbothered, that it leaves me blinking in surprise. Most people would be at least slightly embarrassed to be caught leaving someone else's private room uninvited. Not Irina. She treats it like the most natural thing in the world.
“Naomi. I was just leaving you a little something.”
Her voice is smooth as silk, cultured in the way that suggests expensive schools and careful breeding. Everything about her screams sophistication, from her perfectly styled hair to her manicured nails to the way she holds herself like a queen granting audience to a peasant. I’m suddenly self-conscious of my rumpled clothes, bare feet, and hair that hasn't seen a professional stylist in over a year.
I blink, still not quite understanding. “You… were in my room?”
The question comes out harsh, but I can't help it. This is supposed to be my space, the one place in this fortress where I can pretend to have some semblance of privacy. The thought of her going through my things, touching my belongings, violating that small sanctuary makes my hands clench into fists at my sides.
“I left you a gift,” she explains with a graceful sweep of her fingers. “It's been a difficult few days. I thought it might help.”
The explanation is reasonable, even thoughtful, but something about her tone doesn't sit right. There's a current running beneath the polite words that makes my instincts scream warnings.
I hesitate, studying her face for any crack in that perfect composure. “What kind of gift?”
“On your nightstand. Lavender oil and a silk eye mask. I find that scent and darkness calm the mind. You've been under tremendous strain.”
