Sinful Blaze (Chekhov Bratva Book 1)

An hour later, Asya and I are busting up laughing while I utterly fail at stuffing the dough for meaty pierogies. I’m either overfilling or rolling the dough too thin, because the membrane keeps breaking no matter how delicately I handle it.

“You’re doing much better than I did when I first learned!” Asya exclaims while watching me struggle with joining the seams of my second attempt. “The trick is being able to measure a balance with your eyes. And better a thick dough than a broken one, yes?”

“So what do I do with this… this… whatever the hell this is?” I laugh as I hold up my sad attempt at international cuisine.

She plucks it from my hand and lays it out on the counter. “Take it apart and try again. Smaller meat, thicker dough.”

“But what if it looks bad? Or it’s too small compared to the others?”

“Then we eat it as a tester. Always test your cooking before serving, moya docha. Better a fat chef than a skinny husband.”

I damn near choke on my own spit when she says that. Husband?! But maybe she meant it as a saying she heard somewhere. A general statement. Nothing to do specifically with Pasha and me.

Yeah. That’s what she meant.

I roll the dough again and try for a slightly thicker spread this time, glancing at Asya for her approval. She smiles and nods, but she’s been smiling and nodding even when I royally fuck up the process and make a mess, so I take it with a grain of salt.

“Woohoo!” I hold my sealed, if a bit lumpy and misshapen, pierogi up in triumph. “I did it!”

“Wonderful!” Asya slides the bowls of dough and meat in front of me. “Now, we do it ten more times. You, maybe fifteen or twenty. Practice makes perfect, yes?”

“You’re right.” I tear off a fresh ball of dough to roll out and grab the rolling pin. “So, you said these are Pasha’s favorite?”

She nods, moving to the other side of the island to work on chopping vegetables for a crunchy side salad. “It’s a comfort food, back in Russia. I used to make them for him when he had a bad day, not that he’d ever tell me if that was the case.”

“That does sound like him.”

“But a mother can always tell. You will learn this soon enough with your own little one. So I would let him think I didn’t know, and I’d make pierogies for dinner to cheer him up.”

“Did it work?”

Asya grins at me. “Every time. The quickest way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, and both of Pasha’s are huge.”

I bite my tongue before I voice my concerns about just how true that is. She seems to sense my hesitation, because she rests her hand on mine and gives it a gentle squeeze. “He is a stubborn man, but a good one. Be patient with him.”

“I tend to think I’m the one who needs all the patience,” I half-heartedly joke.

“Pshk. Keep him on his toes. Make him earn your love. Men like him are used to getting exactly what they want, when they want it, so you’ll be doing him a favor. He has the Bratva to serve his demands. He needs his family to keep him humble and human.”

In a weird sort of way, I think I know what she means. “It seems like Mak and Sofi have that on lock.”

Asya laughs and nods. “My little troublemakers. All three of them, really, and Pasha was always the worst offender. So watch out,” she warns with a wave of her spoon at my baby bump. “That very well might be genetic.”

“Pasha? A troublemaker?” I’m laughing at the mere idea of a little Pasha running around making a ruckus. “Why do I believe that?”

“You should! He was my little prankster, always pulling the wool over someone else’s eyes for a good laugh. He once trapped Makari in his bed with plastic wrap.”

Oh my God. I literally snort when I laugh and have to step away from the raw pierogies. “Seriously?”

“Waited for him to be dead asleep before he got to work. Just wrapped and wrapped his little brother to his bed. Tight enough we had to cut him loose.”

“Did Pasha get in trouble?”

“Of course!” She furrows her brows like just remembering the moment brings up some residual anger. “I had to make sure he was being nice to his little brother. But between you and me? One of his funniest pranks by far. I had to laugh myself clear in the bathroom before dealing out the motherly justice.” Her voice pitches into a mimicry of what must have been Little Pasha and Little Mak. “‘He stole my Walkman! He took my bike! He won’t play with me! He won’t leave me alone!’ Bozhe moy, could they go at it! But when things got dark, Pasha was right there for his siblings. And for me.”

I notice the way her eyes mist up and her voice softens. It’s not my place to pry, so I don’t ask about what she means by “dark.” I can only imagine that a life supported by organized crime has its fair share of shadows.

“Alright, docha, it looks like you’re ready for the next step.” Asya wipes her hands clean and comes around the kitchen island to usher me to the stovetop. She grabs a pot, has me fetch a stick of butter from the fridge, and walks me through the actual cooking process. “You’re going to melt the butter—salted is always tastier. And once it’s nice and hot, plop!”

She makes a pierogi with what remains in the bowls while I watch the butter melt. If ever I doubted her skills as a chef, the impeccable timing she has erases all such doubts. Without hesitation, she turns from the island to the stovetop, plops the pierogi into the pot, and shows me how to turn it with a wooden spoon.

“See? Plop! Flip a few times until it’s golden, then serve it up.”

I grab a serving platter for her to put the pierogies in, thinking she’s going to fry the rest of them up. But she shakes her head with that signature grin and hands me the spoon.

“Nyet, you need to do this. I can tell you how, but you won’t learn until you do it yourself.”

“Know any good Russian takeouts?” I joke as I accept the spoon. She playfully whips a kitchen towel at my butt and goes back to assembling the salad.

I have to admit, I’m really enjoying this. All of this. The cooking, the learning how to actually cook, but most of all… Asya herself. She’s the perfect example of everything I’ve never had with my own mother: loving, compassionate, with a great sense of humor and the patience of a saint.

And the way she treats me? I can’t dwell too much on it without feeling my eyes start to sting with unshed tears. I always knew I was missing something in my relationship with my mother; I just never had a good basis of comparison to identify what.

Now, I do.

And as nice as it is to feel it now, it’s heartbreaking to think of year after year when I needed it so badly and got none.

We both hear the front door open. Asya smiles at me knowingly while I start to panic.

“Keep at it, moya docha,” she mutters to me on her way to the cabinets. “I’ll set the table.”

It’s a longer moment than I expect before Pasha appears in the archway of the kitchen. He’s sniffing the air with a growing smile, and my stomach does a little flip.

Will he like it? Will he forgive my lumpy, misshapen interpretation of his favorite food?

The moment he sees his mother in the dining room, he freezes. “Mama? What are you doing here?”

Asya is completely unfazed. “I had to come see the beautiful mother of my grandchild! And give a few pointers for dinner.” She winks at me as she finishes arranging the silverware.

I notice she only grabbed enough for two place settings. “Aren’t you joining us?”

“Thank you, docha, but I have my own plans.” She walks over to me and kisses my cheek. “Besides, you’ll want your alone time.”

For the first time since I’ve met him, Pasha looks completely bewildered.

“Be good, and—” She slaps her son’s chest lightly. “—be good to her. She’s done a marvelous job cooking you a warm meal. The least you can do is be far more accurate when you brag about her next.”

“Moth—”

“Enjoy, moi deti! Call me if you need anything, yes?”

And just like that, Asya Chekhov whirls out of the penthouse and leaves us to each other.

Pasha watches the door closed for a while, breathing softly, before his gaze swings to me. He says nothing, just looming and looking and smelling way more intoxicating than is fair, in my opinion.

He glances into the pan. “Is that…?”

“Pierogies. There’s a side salad ready on the table; I just need to grab the dressing from the fridge.”

He nods and turns to go get it, then changes his mind. “How exactly did you get a hold of my mother?”

“I didn’t. I came home with Viktor and she was just here. Made me tea and fed me cake. Said she wanted to get to know me better sooner rather than later.” I flip another pierogi onto the platter so I won’t have to look at him, though I can still feel his eyes burning a hole in the side of my face. “She also said she has her own key, for emergencies.”

Pasha just stands there for a tense, silent moment. Then, to my surprise, he bursts into laughter. “I should have known better.”

“Did you give her a key?”

“Hell no. She must have slipped a copy from me during my last visit to her place.”

“That sounds…” How do I say it?

Pasha answers for me. “Like the wife of a Bratva pakhan. The widow of one, anyway. If you think I’m tricky, just remember: I learned it from somewhere.” He plucks a dumpling from the platter and takes a bite.

I suck in a breath. Moment of truth.

Pasha’s jaw drops. “Fuck. This is amazing.” He looks at me, and I swear I haven’t seen that gleam in his eyes since the auction. “You made this?”

“I had help. Lots of it.” I blush and my eyes fall to the floor. “But yeah, I made that one. The fancy-looking one is your mom’s.”

He stands there and watches me fry up the last of the dumplings in the butter, holding the platter for me as I set them in. He doesn’t say anything, and I don’t know if that is a good thing or if I should be worried.

When the last dumpling is fried up and ready, Pasha takes the platter into the dining room while I untie my apron and wash my hands. I don’t know why, but I feel a nervous flutter in my stomach that isn’t our daughter tap-dancing in my uterus.

The flutter grows stronger when I join him in the dining room. Not only did Asya set the table with the nicest set of plates and silverware, she lit a few candles and turned on some classical music at low volume for ambience.

Someone—not me, but someone, a total third-party stranger who doesn’t know any better—could easily mistake this to be a romantic meal.

My place setting is next to Pasha’s, not on the other end of the table like usual. Should I move? Is this weird for him? For us?

Pasha pulls the chair out for me. He’s composed, elegant, so I guess this isn’t as weird for him as I thought. I sit down, he pushes me in, then goes back to his own seat and sinks into it slowly.

I wait nervously for him to make the first move. I expect him to zero in on his mother’s perfect pierogies, but he completely ignores them and piles up my lumpy ones instead. “She used to make this for me whenever I had a bad day.”

“Did you? Have a bad day, I mean?”

He pauses, thinks about it, then shrugs. “Things didn’t go like I planned. I guess you could call it a bad day, but…” He raises his eyes to meet mine. “It doesn’t feel like one anymore.”

“Oh?” I take the platter when he hands it to me and pluck the two his mother made for myself. “What made it better?”

“I came home.”

Our eyes lock. He’s smiling—genuinely smiling, which, wheeew, buddy, that is a deadly weapon—and it’s infectious. Beyond infectious.

I can’t help but smile, too.