Sitting on the counter, dressed in nothing but sweats and a graphic tee, she looked very much her age, younger even. She looked the part of any nineteen year old girl, not the older woman she had been forced into.
"I suppose so. We have a garden. We use our own vegetables and stuff that we grow." She shrugged her shoulders. She didn't have a green thumb. Most things tended to die when she was taking care of plants.
She heard a tentative meow and looked over to see one of her cats, Sammy, treading into the kitchen. The other two were likely hiding from the intruder.
"I'll tend to it myself." Yurie shrugs, before looking over at the cat with a curious expression.
He crouches, holding his hand out for the tiny creature to sniff, so that the cat determines if he could pet it. He understood cats don't submit to anyone, unless they want to.
"What's its name?" he asks.
"We have Gardners for that, if you don't fire them," Ariella scoffed under her breath. She cared not if he heard her or not. "Do you have a plan to replace my staff? This house can't run itself with only the two of us. I'd rather not see it deteriorate."
She pursed her lips as she watched Yurie with her cat, a small fear blooming in her chest. He wouldn't take her pets away from her would he? Her pets were her life, the only love she had. She would kill for them.
"That one is Sammy. He's more brave than the others."
The Siberian cat was fluffy with its long hair, but also fat, despite the dieting and exercise. Ariella had done her best with him bit he was stubborn and there wasn't much else to try.
"I have taken care of a 4 story mansion all by myself for three years. My minions live elsewhere, and I have no servants. I am very distrustful, and am very proud." Yurie shrugs.
He watches the cat calmly, waiting for the living cottonball to warm up to his presence.
"Sammy is brave? That's a strange thing to say, as he hesitates to come any closer to me." he murmurs.
Ariella drew her bottom lip between her teeth, biting it, before releasing it. Stubborn man.
"Yes, I would say brave, because the other two are likely hiding under a bed somewhere upstairs. They don't do well with strangers."
Sammy sniffed his hand as he crept closer. He was hesitant before rubbing his head along his hand, wanting pets.
"This one only thinks about food and pets. It's the only reason he's down here. One more person to trick into feeding him."
"I won't be a stranger for long." Yurie chuckles, starting to rub the cat behind its ears.
"He's like me in some ways, then." he says, standing up and slipping the cat a piece of raw beef before starting on the process of making the pelmeni.
He turns to the alcohol cabinet, looking through it to find a weak potato vodka.
"No don't feed him, he's trying to loose weight. The vet said he's too fat." Arieall hopped off the counter and picked up the cat, cradling him in her arms.
She pressed a soft kiss to his head before setting down the squirming cat.
"It will still take them all time to adjust." It would take her time as well.
"Nah, he's just. . . what's the word again?" Yurie pauses, then huffs in frustration.
"Нет, он просто мясистый. . ." he whispers to himself before raising his voice.
"Beefy." he finishes proudly, pouring some of the vodka into the pan with the oil.
Ariella snorted. "He's fat. But thanks for the vote of confidence."
She walked to the pantry and found some bread. She grabbed a slice and buttered it before taking a bite. She took a seat at the island bar stool as she watched him cook.
She hoped she would be able to keep the piece of bread down. It seemed to be filling her stomach at the moment.
"Any time." Yurie replies, focused entirely on cooking now.
He quickly makes the dough, then tosses the other ingredients into the dough shell, crimping the sides and frying it in the vodka-oil mixture.
About ten minutes later he uses his hands to grab the pelmeni from the pan, tossing them onto the bare counter for a moment while he rummages around for two plates.
Ariella eyes the food on the counter, glowering. Food did not belong on the counter without parchment paper or something in between it.
She watched him Rimage around her kitchen as she picked at her nails. She blood had longed dried and wounds had stabbed over. She picked at them now, enjoying the pain it gave her.
"Anything I can help you with?"
"No, I got it." he replies, finally finding the plates and grabbing two, placing one pelmeni on his and one on hers, sliding her one of the plates.
"Eat." he says, finding the forks quickly and handing her one before digging into his food.
Ariella looked down at the plate. She picked up the fork, pushing around her food, staring at the counter in front of her.
"Why are you doing this?" She asked softly. "And don't say the contract. No one knows about it outside of the two of us. Is it money? Men? A woman? I doubt you're short of that. Perhaps you want an heir."
"If your father were here to hear me, I'd reply with 'love,' as far-fetched as that would sound. I doub I'm capable of that emotion. But since it's you asking, I'll give it to you straight. The only reason why I'm here is because of the contract. I might divorce you in a year and leave you with Italy. I have nigh unlimited resources in Russia anyways, I don't need Italy on top of that. I don't crave physical affection or anyhing, I have no need of women. They get in the way of my duties as the head of Russia's mafia. I know I don't swing for guys, but I don't judge people that do. I'll kill a gay man as brutally as I'll kill a straight man." Yurie replies.
Ariella raised her head, stating at him. She leaned back in the bar stool. "So that's it? Because you are an honorable man? That you are loyal and follow your word? I don't believe that for a second. You are not an honorable man."
She got up off the bar stool and strode to him. "I'll offer you this one last time. You can walk out that door and no one ever need know about this contract. You go your way and I'll go mine. You are free from your debt that you think you owe."
She held her chin up high, back straight, and arms by her side. She looked much more put together than she really was. Inside, she was dying.
"I may have earned the nickname 'Piercer,' but that doesn't make me less likely to honor a contract. I am free from no debt, because a debt of a life saved - your father's life mind you - is something that cannot be dissolved so easily. I protect you and train you for a year, at which point we divorce, or we rule over Italy and Russia together. It's honestly up to you." Yurie shrugs, finishing his pelmeni and tossing his plate in the sink.
"You're okay being in an arranged marriage. Someone you didn't chose, for the rest of your life. Do you expect heirs? You'll need to pass on your legacy to someone." Ariella wasn't insinuating sex. There were other ways to conceive without sex. However, she wasn't sure how she felt about being a mother. At least not any time soon.
She turned to watch him as he went to the sink. She found she had no appetite to finish her own food, or even start it.
"You cannot fulfill a life debt in only a year. We both know that. It is a life debt. Is this something you want to throw away your own life to fulfill?"
"Are you okay with it? Heirs, the arranged marriage, all of it? Because it seems like you're projecting your own emotions onto me." Yurie sighs.
"I can save your life many times in a year, which satisfies the criteria of ending a life debt. The point of a life debt isn't slavery, but the saving of a life in return for your life being saved." he explains.
He turns back to the cat, who was pouting because he wasn't getting pet or fed.
"You didn't answer my question. You first." Ariella wasn't going to answer a damn thing. She didn't owe him anything, he owed her. Stupid contract by her stupid father. There had to have been other options. Had to.
And yet here they were.
Even in her father's death, she wasn't free. Just another obsession for someone else, to dear about her safety. Not as if it wasn't her own father's action that killed her mother and put her in danger.
"Then yes, I'm fine with it. It's not like I can control the situation." Yurie replies.
He starts petting the beefy cat, smiling slightly as its loud purrs reverbrate through the room.
"But do you understand how I'll be saving your life? These first couple months, you let me run things. I'll get everything set up. And then I'll start teaching you things useful for running a proper country-wide mafia." he asks, looking up at Ariella.
Ariella's eyes flickered down to her purring cat, silently cursing the traitor. He was as dumb as he was fat, but he was her baby and she loved him.
"Fine, but there will be some rules. I will keep my room. If you're as good as you say, then you should have no problems protecting. Find a room you deem acceptable and I will move my things, but I will be staying in that room. I will not move rooms every other night. You will go through me first before firing any of my staff." Mostly because she wanted to give a heads up and a check with enough money to last for a few months. "However, I will not be letting go my personal maid. She's been with me since mu birth. She stepped in as my mother figure after my own passed. She stays. And my gardener. He tends to the yards, the garden, the greenhouse. I trust him with my life. And my personal guard. Isabella, my maid's son. He has been on my guard since he was old enough to understand what it means to wield a gun. Again, I trust him with my life."
She also had selfish reasons for wanting him to stay but she would not voice it. It was between no one but the two of them.
Yurie's ice cold eyes turn colder at the mention of the kid.
"The maid, fine. Gardener, sure, what the hell. The kid? What's his relationship with you? Who exactly is he?" he asks.
He would not tolerate faithlessness. Loyalty or death had always been his motto. In this case, he couldn't kill the disloyal party, but he could make her life hell.
He'd done it before, as a message to his followers.
Ariella stiffened and crossed her arms. She shifted her eyes away from him, staring around the kitchen.
"He's my guard. He taught me almost everything that I know. Our history is history. He's just my guard." She shifted her eyes back. "He is loyal and fierce and I wouldn't trust anyone else to be my personal guard."
She had been young and cooped up all her life. She had wanted to control of her life and he had been there. Any relationship they had ended the day her father found out.
Yurie's eyes narrow. He can tell that it wasn't the full truth, that she was holding something back.
"You two were together. Maybe still are. Right?" he asks. But it wasn't a question, so much as a statement.
His eyes bore into Ariella's, capturing her gaze and holding it.
Ariella remembered the day perfectly. She had been turning eighteen in two weeks. He was twenty at the time. When her father had barged in on them unexpectedly, he found them in a compromising position. They weren't having sex, not yet, but both of them were missing some articles of clothing. Her father remained calm and politely asked him to leave so that he could talk with his daughter. After they were both dressed and he had left, her father sat on the bed next to her and calmly spoke to her.
She never fooled around with him again. Perhaps in another life, they would have been perfect together, but this was their lives and their realities.
"Does it matter? He is my guard, and loyal at that. He would die for me, kill for me, do whatever is necessary. There is no relation between us but friends."
