C1— Sister's Debt
~YELENA ROMANOV~
Anger slithered through me as I watched a man move his hand underneath my sister’s skirt.
The music pounding through the pleasure house faded. The laughter, the moans drifting from the upper floors, the clink of glasses—all of it disappeared at once. Because across the room, kneeling beside a velvet couch, was Mira, my sister. And a thick-necked bastard had his hand squeezed possessively around her backside while his friends laughed.
When the man yanked her closer and lowered his mouth toward hers, something inside me snapped.
I pushed forward without a second thought. A woman cursed as I knocked into her shoulder. A tray of drinks crashed somewhere behind me. I didn’t care. I didn’t stop until I reached where my sister was.
"Get your hands off her!" I demanded. The five of them, including Mira, directed their attention to me at the dangerous tone of my voice.
"Lena? What are you..." Mira trailed off, surprise flashing across her face. Of course she was surprised. She had spent months lying to me, claiming she worked at a restaurant. It wasn’t until I noticed the scars she kept trying to hide and followed her this evening that I discovered the truth. My sister worked in a pleasure house.
I waited for some seconds for the bastard to remove his hand from her, but instead he smirked and tightened his grip. My anger heightened like gasoline being poured onto a wildfire.
I yanked Mira off of him and my fist collided with his jaw hard enough that I heard it crack. Uncle Ivan’s fighting lessons were finally paying off. Nobody gets to treat my sister like a whore.
Gasps erupted in the room and everyone’s attention turned to us.
"You bitch!" The man lunged at me. I grabbed the nearest bottle and smashed it across his face. Blood sprayed from the impact and someone screamed.
Good. Let them scream.
The bastard staggered backward, clutching his cheek. I moved toward him again, but Mira grabbed my hand.
"Yelena, stop!" I turned to her, my eyebrows arching in disbelief.
"Stop?" I laughed. The sound came out harsh.
"Stop?" I pointed at the man on the floor. "That piece of shit was touching you."
Things had been rough for Mira and me since Uncle Ivan, our only family, got arrested and went to prison. But working at a pleasure house? The Paragon of all places? Nothing prepared me for that.
"You have no idea what’s going on. Please stop... you're worsening everything. I'm trying to clear a debt."
My body froze. What debt was she talking about? Mira and I had always been tight as thieves growing up. But apparently not, because she had begun keeping secrets from me.
The crowd suddenly parted before I could ask her further questions. And a man dressed in vintage wear, a walking stick in one hand and a cigar in the other, stepped forward, accompanied by other men in black behind him.
He was tall, broad, and his presence immediately thickened the atmosphere. I didn’t know much about the underworld—about the men said to run this city—but I knew enough to know who this man was. Everyone did.
He went by an infamous name called Deathfist. The head of one of the six families that ran the country—that controlled a large criminal network called the Meridian Circle. They answered to no one. Even the government was said to be at their mercy.
My fingers curled into a fist. Fuck. Of course Paragon was under Deathfist’s control. My sister was involved with him.
His gaze moved from the bleeding man on the floor, to Mira, then finally to me. There was no anger in his eyes, which somehow made him even more dangerous.
Only amusement. Like he was watching something interesting.
"Well," he drawled. "That was entertaining." Then he brought his pipe to his mouth and blew smoke right at me, the sting of the smell choking.
"Striking resemblance," he mused, glancing between us. "Sisters?"
Mira looked ridden with fear as she nodded.
"That explains the temper."
"I apologize for the scene created by my sister. Please pardon her." I watched Mira clamp her hands together, pleading, and I couldn’t believe it. Debt or not, she shouldn’t be stooping low for these men. Shouldn’t be letting a drunk bastard lay his filthy hands on her.
"Well, I am not sorry," I cut her off, looking straight at Deathfist. I don’t care what the news say about him or his affiliates. Mira is all I care about, and no one gets to hurt her. "You will let my sister leave, and you won’t try to contact her ever again," I warned.
He laughed. The sound was dark and taunting.
I frowned. "How much does my sister owe you by the way?"
Deathfist’s head tilted at my question, seemingly in disbelief at my boldness.
"Two hundred thousand." He replied, and I was surprised at the amount. Two hundred thousand? How the fuck did Mira get herself into such debt? I didn’t even know where to begin. Neither of us had any savings. And even if Mira were to continue working for him, how many men would she have to sleep with before he’d consider the debt settled?
"Do you have it?" His voice was pleasant, conversational, like we were discussing the weather. "Or shall I have my men teach you a lesson for the mess you’ve created tonight?"
His eyes cut to the man still bleeding on the floor.
I looked at Mira. She looked back at me with something desperate and terrified in her eyes.
"Run. Yelena... run." She mouthed and I did exactly that, having sensed the danger I had just dragged myself into.
Deathfist’s men were fast on my trail, their footsteps loud and closing in. I ran at full speed through the crowd and into the inner hallway, the only exit I could find. They would catch me—I could already hear that certainty in my head. After cutting through a corner, I tried the suite doors, desperate for somewhere to hide. The first two wouldn’t open. The third did.
I shoved through it and pressed it shut behind me, chest heaving, back flat against the wood. The room was dim—one lamp low on a side table, shadows pooling in every corner. I held my breath and listened.
I could hear the footsteps of the men chasing me outside, and I stilled my breath, praying I didn’t get caught.
However, the bathroom door inside the room opened and someone stepped out.
A man.
I pressed myself deeper into the corner and went completely still.
He hadn’t seen me yet. He moved into the room unhurried, dragging a towel through his damp hair, completely unbothered. I took him in quickly because that’s what you do when you’re calculating threat levels.
His back was to me—broad, the dim light tracing the ink that crawled up his skin and wound along his arms.
He was dangerous. I could feel it the way you feel a change in weather before it arrives. Perhaps he was one of Deathfist’s men, which meant I needed to move first and fast.
I pulled out my knife, which I had strapped to my thigh, crossed the room quietly, and pressed the blade to his throat from behind.
"Don’t move... I’m very dangerous and I have a knife, which you can obviously feel, so just—" I swallowed. That had come out significantly less threatening than it had sounded in my head. "Stay quiet. There are men outside looking for me, and if you make a single sound, I’ll make sure you regret it."
Fuck, Yelena... that didn't sound like a serious threat.
The man went completely still, and for one wild second, I thought it had actually worked.
Then he moved—and I couldn’t even track it properly. My wrist cracked backward, the knife was gone, and then I was against the wall, the blade pressed coldly against my skin, while his second hand pinned both of my hands above my head.
Less than two seconds.
The lamp on the bedside table flickered—and then the main light came on, automatically. Motion sensor, probably.
I saw the stranger's face properly now. He had a sharp jaw, dark hair that was still damp, and eyes that stopped me for just a second—hazel in colour and catching the light in a way that made them look almost amber at the edges. They stared at me like I was a mildly interesting inconvenience.
"Was that supposed to scare me?" His voice came in quietly, with just enough amusement underneath it to be insulting.
