Twilight Sins (Kulikov Bratva Book 1)

“What is all of this for?”

Luna is standing in the doorway to the dining room in a pale pink dress and towering heels. I told Hope to pass along the message to wear something nice, but I’m still surprised Luna listened. I figured I’d have to wrestle her into a dress. This is… unexpected.

“It’s dinner.”

Luna takes another step forward, taking in the formal place settings and the dimmed lights. “There are flowers on the table.”

Hope must have known what Luna was planning to wear. The tulips in the center of the table are the exact same shade of pink as her dress.

“The flowers aren’t for dinner. They’re decoration.”

She glares at me. “I know what flowers are for.”

“Then stop acting like you’ve never sat down for a nice dinner.” I pull out her chair. “Sit down.”

She crosses her arms, staying firmly planted in the doorway. “Is that an order?”

“Eating is a basic survival skill. Do I need to force you to survive, Luna?”

“Wearing a dress to dinner isn’t ‘survival.’” She gestures down at herself. “This is luxury. I’m just trying to figure out what the catch is.”

“There is no catch.”

At least, not one I can figure out.

The idea rammed itself into my head when Luna was on the phone with Kayla yesterday. Kayla was yammering on about how Luna shouldn’t give up on dating. How she needed to keep looking until she found the right guy for her.

Then I saw Luna’s face and everything clicked.

Luna wasn’t upset that Kayla kept setting her up on dates; she was made that Kayla kept setting her up on bad dates.

Luna wants the kind of boring, basic, nice guy Kayla described… She just doesn’t think he exists.

Fuck knows I’m not that man. I know it. Luna knows it. But I’m not even sure she’d know how to recognize that kind of man if he walked through the door right now with flowers and a box of heart-shaped chocolates.

So I’m showing Luna what she wants. I won’t fall in love with her, but I can show her what it should look like.

She runs her hand along the back of the chair like she’s checking for a detonation switch. “I just don’t see what you get out of this. It feels like a trap.”

“If I wanted to trap you, I wouldn’t need a diversion.” I grab her hand and coax her down into the chair. “I’m more than capable of getting you to do what I want.”

She yanks her hand away and folds it in her lap. “Right. The same way you get everything you want. By force. I remember.”

“Not everything.” I shrug. “Plenty of things come to me willingly.”

She holds my gaze for a second, stunned, before looking away nervously. Before either of us can say anything else, the kitchen doors open and the food is brought out.

Luna’s stunned expression only grows as her meal is placed in front of her. “Did you make this?”

“I must have made some good breakfast if you think I’m suddenly searing scallions and serving up perfectly cooked wagyu ribeye.”

“At this point, nothing about you would surprise me,” she mumbles.

I snort. I highly doubt that. There are things she doesn’t know about me that would singe her pretty little eyebrows right off her face.

“I called in a favor with a friend,” I explain begrudgingly.

“That is exactly what I’m talking about. Who has friends who are world-class chefs?”

“I don’t waste my time on mediocre people.”

She could read more into that if she wants, but a distraction comes along in the form of wine, fresh fruit, and warm focaccia with a honey drizzle. I finalized the menu this morning, but even I have to admit that it does look excessive now that it’s spread out in front of us.

Luna stares at the table and slowly shakes her head. “You did all of this for… for me?”

Yes. And I’m not even trying to take you to bed. Make that make sense.

I drag a scallion around the plate, gathering herbs and butter. “I have to eat, too.”

“We’ve eaten together before. I know what that looks like. It isn’t this.” She turns to me, brows creased in worry. “Is something wrong?”

“Everything is fine.”

She gestures to the bread plate. “There’s, like, four courses in front of us. I’m trying to figure out why you’re trying to butter me up. Literally.”

I drag a hand through my hair, scowling. “For fuck’s sake. I’ve never regretted something so fast in my life.”

Some way or another, I always live to regret being nice.

“What did you say?” she asks, an edge of panic creeping into her voice. “If something is wrong, just talk to me. You don’t have to do all of this. Whatever it is, I can handle it.”

“There’s nothing to handle.” I grip the edge of the table. I could force her to look into my eyes and see the truth. But touching her isn’t the way to get her out of my head. Finding her a boring little boyfriend? That’ll do the trick. “Nothing is wrong. This is just dinner. We’re eating. There is no trap.”

She chews on her lower lip. “It’s really just dinner? You don’t have bad news for me or anything?”

“I think I just figured out why ours was the first good date you’ve had in years. Interrogating your date about why he is taking you out isn’t good dinner chat.”

“I know what a date looks like! But you and me aren’t—We don’t—” She stops and, slowly, her eyes widen. “Is this a date?”

“Believe me, Luna: if this was a date… you’d know it.”

Something like disappointment flickers across her face and she falls quiet.

We eat for a few minutes before she clears her throat. “Thanks for dinner.”

I respond with a quick wave of my hand. I don’t do gratitude; I deal in favors. Give something to get something. If I’m not getting something, I’m not giving shit.

Doing something nice like this just because is… new.

“I believe you, you know.”

I arch a brow and try not to look as interested as I feel. “About?”

“Everything. That I’m in danger, even though I don’t know what the danger is.” Her fork scrapes across her plate as she finishes the last scallion. I slide the plate away and replace it with the ribeye. “I’m not good with a lot of this relationship stuff. Dates and trust and stuff. Not to say we’re in a relationship! Obviously.”

“Obviously,” I drawl.

“But my last boyfriend didn’t make it easy for me to trust people. Or myself, for that matter,” she adds softly.

When she looks up at me, her blue eyes wide and vulnerable, a weird emotion hits me square in the chest. “What are you saying?”

She jumps at the sharp tone of my voice. “I’m saying that I’m starting to trust you and⁠—”

“No,” I snap. “About your last boyfriend. What did he do to you?”

It doesn’t matter to me if she dated some mudak before. If she wants to let herself get slapped around by some asshole, why should I care?

Why do I care?

I’d love to ignore it, but for some reason, I can’t.

I do care. More than I should.

Luna’s mouth tips into a sad smile. “I believe you’re telling me the truth. But trust goes both ways, Yakov. You won’t tell me your secrets; I’m not going to tell you mine.”

I’m about to argue—demand, actually—that she tell me everything about this guy, including his current address, when a ball of mangy fur flops onto the end of the table with a heavy fwap.

“Gregory!” Luna squeals. “He must be getting comfortable here. He’s been hiding in my room since last night.”

My room. I’m not sure how I went from never bringing a woman home to letting Luna and her fucking cat sleep in my bed, but hearing her claim the space as her own does something strange to me.

I like that she feels at home here. That she trusts me.

I like it a little too much.

Gregory swats a spare fork off the end of the table with his paw and then slowly makes his way towards us. His eyes are pale blue, compared to his owner’s deep aqua, but they pierce into my soul with the same kind of innate curiosity. Though I think Gregory’s motivation has more to do with the ribeye on my plate than what’s going on inside my head.

“Standing on tables is too comfortable by far. He needs to go.” I reach down to swat the cat onto the floor, but he instantly curls his head into the palm of my hand. I feel the vibration of his purr rumble through my arm.

Luna claps her hands over her mouth. “He’s purring! That means he likes you.”

I shove the cat again, but he flops onto his side with a thud. Then he rolls onto my hand. The purring continues.

“He never purrs for anyone. He hardly even purrs for me.” Luna’s smile fades. She narrows her eyes at her cat. “Did you give him some treats or something when I wasn’t looking?”

I snort. “Don’t ask stupid questions.”

“It just doesn’t make sense that he’s doing this. He only does this for food, so you must have given him something.”

“The only thing I’m giving him is a boot in the ass.”

Luna huffs in annoyance and leans across the table. Her hair falls over her shoulder and a floral scent follows her. “Go on, Gregory.” She shoos the cat away. “He doesn’t want you here like I do. He doesn’t appreciate your company. Go on and I’ll find you later.”

Gregory gives her a scathing look before he lightly jumps off the end of the table and saunters into the kitchen.

“Well, now, you’ve met Gregory,” Luna mutters, dropping back into her seat. “Like every other creature on planet Earth, he was into you immediately. Go figure.”

“The feeling is far from mutual.”

“What’s your deal?” she asks. “I thought villains were really into cats. In movies, they’re always stroking them and hatching evil schemes.”

I arch a brow. “I thought you trusted me now.”

“I trust you, but that doesn’t mean I’m an idiot. Whatever you’ve got going on here—”She circles her finger in my face.“—is definitely villainous somehow. So I thought you’d be into Gregory. What’s the matter? Did your dad run over your childhood dog or something?”

“No, but he would have. My father hated pets more than I do. My mom always wanted to get a cat, but he refused.”

“So you never had a pet? Not even a gerbil or something?”

“Mariya had a pet for a few days.”

“That’s your sister?” she asks.

I nod. “She begged our parents for a pet for years. They refused, so she took matters into her own hands. She snuck a baby squirrel into her room and kept it in a box under her bed.”

Luna gasps. “A squirrel? A wild squirrel? How did she take care of it?”

“Who knows? Mariya is determined. No one can tell her no. Even when our parents found the squirrel and released it outside, Mariya caught it again later that night and brought it back into her room. They finally had to take it to a wildlife refuge to get it away from her.”

“Is ‘wildlife refuge’ the same as a dog ‘going upstate to live on a farm?’” She winces like she already knows the answer.

“My father wanted to kill it. He almost did, actually. But my mother stopped him. She is too soft-hearted to watch any creature suffer.”

I didn’t take after her in that regard.

Luna smiles and sighs. “Your family sounds nice. Will I ever meet them?”

She has no clue she’s already met Nikandr. It’s no secret that my brother works in the family business; everyone in our world knows who he is. But letting Luna into how things operate in my life… That is a slippery slope. It’s easier to never go down that road.

“Why would you want to meet my family?”

“Um… I don’t know. Because they seem important to you.”

“Exactly. They’re important to me. You don’t even know them.”

“Meeting them would fix that, wise guy.” She puts down her fork and rests her chin on her fist, watching me. “I may be bad at dates, but you’re bad at friends. Did you know that? This is the kind of stuff friends do. They share information about their lives with each other.”

“I’m not your friend, Luna.”

Friend might as well be a four-letter word. Where Luna is concerned, it’s the absolute last thing I want to be.

“Not yet.” She lays a hand on my arm and smiles. “Which is why we’re going to play a game. Ever heard of Truth or Truth?”