Twilight Sins (Kulikov Bratva Book 1)

I’m in the library when the front door opens.

My heart leaps into my throat the way it always does when I know I’m about to see Yakov. But it’s a very different voice at the door.

“… say you done your duty, don’t you think?” Mariya asks someone I can’t see. “Following me around the mall is one thing, but following me up to my room might land you on some kind of predator watchlist. Better safe than pedo.” The front door slams closed and she curses under her breath. “Welcome home, Mariya. Big Brother is always watching.”

Sinking into the chair and hiding is an appealing option. My attempt to be friendly with Mariya this morning didn’t exactly go well.

Then I remember how Yakov looked when he walked into the kitchen. The dark circles under his eyes, the strain in his voice. If there’s anything I can do to help him out where Mariya is concerned, I should try.

When she walks by the door with countless shopping bags hanging from her arms, I sit up. “Did you have fun shopping?”

Mariya whirls towards me and arches a brow. “It wasn’t for fun. I needed to buy some necessities since I’ll be staying here a while.”

“Good thinking.”

She steps into the doorway. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone in here. I thought it was for decoration.”

“I like to read.”

Her smile looks more like a wince. “How fun for you.”

The way she can be mean even when she’s being nice is honestly a superpower. Has Yakov considered using Mariya as a weapon against whoever is after me? A short conversation with her and they’d probably back down and cry.

I toss my book to the side and stand up. “It is, but I’m getting stiff. Do you need help with your bags?”

“Nah.”

She walks past the door, but I rush after her. Someone with shame would give up, but I grab a couple pink bags dangling from her finger. “I insist. I haven’t been shopping in so long. I’d love to see what you bought.”

Mariya looks me over from head to toe like she’s trying to decide how easy it would be to get rid of me. Finally, she sighs. “Okay.”

I’ll take the minor victory.

Her room is down the hall from Yakov’s, but I’ve never seen it. It was one of the many locked doors in the house when I first arrived. I imagined dank cells with bars on the windows or torture chambers with shackles hanging from the walls.

Instead, it has a four-poster bed, velvet purple curtains, and butterfly wallpaper.

“This is adorable.” I spin in a circle, taking it all in. “I would have killed for this room as a kid.”

Mariya snorts. “I didn’t even like this room when I was a kid. My mom picked it out. I’m going to redecorate soon.”

“Everything? Even the wallpaper?”

She gives me a look that tells me she’d burn each individual butterfly if she could. “I’m not a little girl anymore.”

To make that fact even more crystal clear, Mariya grabs one of the pink bags I’m holding and dumps it across her purple bedspread. Lace and silk and flashes of black and pink tumble across the comforter.

Lingerie. More lingerie than I’ve ever owned in my entire life, let alone bought in the same day.

Necessities, schmecessities.

She steps back from the bed and looks at me like she’s waiting for a lecture. Or maybe for me to shield my eyes and do the sign of the cross.

I grab a pink bra with flowers on the strap. “This is cute.”

Mariya stares at me for another second before she finally turns away, picking through the rest of her bags. “You can sit down. If you want. I don’t care.”

Growing up with just a brother, I was never good at talking to girls. But even I know that Mariya might as well have rolled out a red carpet and hired a marching band for me.

She is inviting me to hang out. In her room!

I play it cool and sit on the edge of the bed. “Okay, sure. Why not?”

The answer to that, of course, is that I am now an accomplice in Yakov’s baby sister stocking her closet with a parade of the skimpiest outfits I have ever seen. There is no way he’ll ever let her leave the house in any of these outfits. Definitely not the black minidress with the side panel cutouts and plunging back.

But I smile and nod and tell her how great she looks.

It’s not a lie. Mariya is gorgeous. It’s no wonder, given the unreal gene pool she comes from. Yakov is singlehandedly the most attractive human I’ve ever seen, but his siblings are a close second and third. Being in this house is enough to give a woman a complex.

“Ew. No.” Mariya holds a skimpy blue bikini in the air like it’s a rotten banana peel. “This is so not my color.”

“Why did you buy it?”

She shrugs. “I was in a shopping haze. Everything looks great in the store. Then you get it home and have regrets. This is a regret.”

“I think it’s cute.” If giving everyone you pass a glimpse of your goodies can be called “cute.”

Mariya holds the bikini up to me, eyes narrowed. Then she tosses it to me. “You can have it. This color will look great on you.”

I snort. “This looks more like tangled-up string than clothes. I can’t wear this.”

“Why not? Are you embarrassed of your body?” She looks me up and down and I prepare myself for whatever horrifying thing she’s going to say to me. Then she says, “Because you shouldn’t be.”

I will not base my self-worth on a seventeen-year-old’s compliment. I will not base my self-worth on a seventeen-year-old’s compliment. I will not⁠—

“Thanks, but I⁠—”

“Put it on and we can go sit by the pool.” Mariya digs through a bag and pulls out a low-cut fuchsia one-piece. “I need to tan up.”

On one hand, this is my chance to spend time with Mariya. She wants to hang out with me. I could talk to her, maybe help open up a door between Yakov and his sister.

On the other hand, I wear more clothes at the gynecologist than this bikini will cover. I’ll be one sneeze away from my annual pap smear.

Mariya tosses her clothes into the corner and slips into her swimsuit while I’m still staring down at the bundle of fabric in my hand. She plucks a pair of sunglasses from the dresser and walks to the door. “I’ll meet you out there?”

I’m not sure if I’m still falling for peer pressure or I’m really this committed to helping Yakov with his sister, but I find myself nodding. “Sure. I’ll be out in a second.”

“I love it here.” Mariya is stretched out on the wooden lounge chair next to mine, her pale skin already turning pink in the sun. “I thought today was going to be shit, but it has been really good.”

Given the way we started this morning, I thought the same thing. But she’s right—the day is turning out alright.

“So shopping was fun after all, then?”

“No. Well, yeah,” she admits, rolling her eyes. “But I just like it here. The sun and the pool. Plus, I’m not on a plane back to Russia, so that’s a bonus. I was waiting for Yakov to surprise attack me in my sleep and deport me.”

“He wouldn’t do that.” It’s hilarious coming from a woman Yakov has kidnapped not once, but twice.

Mariya doesn’t know about that, though. I should probably keep it that way unless I want Yakov to ban me from speaking to his sister.

She snorts and rolls onto her stomach. “Yes, he would. He probably tried. I bet Nik talked him out of it. Nik is the only reason I’m still here, I’m pretty sure.”

“Nikandr?”

She nods. “He was the only one who would talk to me on the phone. Yakov’s always too busy. I think Nik likes having me around. Yakov… not so much.”

It’s hard to believe the girl next to me is the same one who called me a “bitch” at breakfast. This morning she was on the defensive, prickly and unapproachable. Then I told her I liked her bra and, boom, instant best friends.

I wish all relationships could be fixed that easily.

“It’s not that Yakov doesn’t want you around. Things have just been… tense lately. He’s stressed.”

“Because of you?” she asks.

“It doesn’t have anything to do with me. Well, not really. I don’t—” I frown. “I hope he’s not stressed because of me.”

I don’t know enough about what is going on outside the walls of this house to be sure.

“Maybe you’re here to help him de-stress, then.” She opens her eyes long enough to wag her brows at me.

“Gross. You can’t say things like that about your brother.” I pretend to gag. “And if it makes you feel any better, Yakov would get rid of me if he could. I’m just stuck here for the time being.”

“Yeah, right. You wouldn’t be here if Yakov didn’t want you here. My brother doesn’t do anything he doesn’t want to do.”

I groan. “Is that the official family motto or something? I haven’t seen it carved on any of the walls.”

Mariya laughs. “It is just the Kulikov way. The boys get to do whatever they want while I get hauled around and bossed around. No one cares what I want.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is. No one asked if I wanted to leave one month after my dad died.” She lifts herself onto her elbows and stares out across the pool. She and Yakov have the same nose, I notice. “He died and then I was ripped away from my brothers. Who never called me, by the way. I was in Moscow for five years, but this house always felt like home. I always wanted to come back, but Yakov wouldn’t let me.”

I want to defend Yakov. I don’t know everything, but I know enough. Things were hard for him after his father was murdered. He held the man in his arms as he died.

But Mariya doesn’t want to hear that right now. She’d probably clam back up and shut me out again.

“That must have been really hard. I can’t even imagine what it would be like to restart in another country after losing someone you loved. I’m sorry that happened to you.”

She gives me a tight smile. “Thanks.”

I’m about to tell Mariya that she should tell Yakov what she just told me. Hearing each other’s perspectives could go a long way in fixing things between them.

Before I can, Mariya’s phone vibrates. She checks it and then jumps up. “I have to go meet someone.”

“Oh. Okay. Does your brother know where you’re⁠—”

“Nice talk,” she calls over her shoulder.

It could be another insult disguised as a compliment… but I don’t think so.

I smile as she runs for the patio doors. Maybe I’ll have a friend in this house after all.