He came into my bar on a Tuesday night in November in 2017 in a dark coat that did not, in any honest sense, belong on Tremont Street.
I am Saoirse Maeve Kavanagh. Irish-American, twenty-eight years old, half-owner of Coven, the small women’s basement bar in the South End my three best friends and I have been running for the previous three years.
He is Maksim Pavlovich Volkonsky. Russian, thirty-six years old, Pakhan of the Volkonsky bratva on the east coast of the United States of America.
He sat at my bar.
He did not, in fact, ask.
He courted me through every single thing I told him not to do, in the careful Russian-edged English of a man who had decided, on the small evidence of one Tuesday night at ten past ten, that the bartender of Coven was, on the small evidence of one look across the bar, the only person in the city of Boston he was, in the rest of his life, going to be in love with.
I said no.
I said no on a Tuesday at three, on a Wednesday at noon, on a Thursday at quarter to nine, and on a Friday at the kerb in front of Coven at quarter past midnight, in the half-Irish-American voice of a half-Irish-American woman who knew, in the corner of her own ribs, what saying yes was going to do to her own life.
He said yes anyway.
He said yes in front of a small Russian Orthodox officiant in the front room of the house on Beacon Hill on a Saturday in November in 2017.
He said yes in front of the twins, Anya and Pyotr, in April of 2018.
He said yes, in any honest sense, every single morning since.
I said yes back, you absolute fucking lunatic.
I would, on the small evidence of every Tuesday at three since, say yes again.
—
A dark Bratva romance. Possessive Pakhan. Sassy Irish heroine. Pregnancy. Found family. Bonkers Russian housekeeper. HEA. 18+.
I am Saoirse Maeve Kavanagh. Irish-American, twenty-eight years old, half-owner of Coven, the small women’s basement bar in the South End my three best friends and I have been running for the previous three years.
He is Maksim Pavlovich Volkonsky. Russian, thirty-six years old, Pakhan of the Volkonsky bratva on the east coast of the United States of America.
He sat at my bar.
He did not, in fact, ask.
He courted me through every single thing I told him not to do, in the careful Russian-edged English of a man who had decided, on the small evidence of one Tuesday night at ten past ten, that the bartender of Coven was, on the small evidence of one look across the bar, the only person in the city of Boston he was, in the rest of his life, going to be in love with.
I said no.
I said no on a Tuesday at three, on a Wednesday at noon, on a Thursday at quarter to nine, and on a Friday at the kerb in front of Coven at quarter past midnight, in the half-Irish-American voice of a half-Irish-American woman who knew, in the corner of her own ribs, what saying yes was going to do to her own life.
He said yes anyway.
He said yes in front of a small Russian Orthodox officiant in the front room of the house on Beacon Hill on a Saturday in November in 2017.
He said yes in front of the twins, Anya and Pyotr, in April of 2018.
He said yes, in any honest sense, every single morning since.
I said yes back, you absolute fucking lunatic.
I would, on the small evidence of every Tuesday at three since, say yes again.
—
A dark Bratva romance. Possessive Pakhan. Sassy Irish heroine. Pregnancy. Found family. Bonkers Russian housekeeper. HEA. 18+.
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