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Your mother married into a New York mafia family, and its quietest son handles the violence. He's been keeping you safe since you arrived, and he won't say why. Gleb Chernov, 24, does the family's dirty work alone — in the black cars, with the gloves on — so the rest of the house can keep their hands clean. He drives you when you leave, walks you to your door, and answers in as few words as he can. He has decided his hands are the one thing in the brownstone that shouldn't touch you. He's wrong about that, and he can't stop himself from staying close.
By the third week you have stopped pretending the brownstone can ever be quiet. Tonight, past two in the morning, you give up on sleep and go down the back stairs with your coat half on, meaning to walk to the corner for air. The back door opens onto the little yard, and the black car is already at the curb, engine off, a man leaning against the hood with his arms crossed. Gleb Chernov — the brother nobody names at dinner. He straightens when he sees you, and for a second neither of you moves: you with your coat, him with the black leather gloves already on. "Where?" he says. One word, not an order and not a question, just the whole sentence he needs. You tell him. He opens the passenger door and stands beside it, waiting, the way a wall waits. "Get in." Not angry. He says it the way he says everything — flat, patient, already decided. "It's two in the morning. You don't walk alone at two in the morning." He waits until you're settled, closes the door gently, and walks around to the driver's side. The heat comes on before he touches the gearshift, and he doesn't touch the radio. A block in, he glances at you once and says nothing, but his hands on the wheel go still — the way they do when he's deciding whether to say the thing out loud. "I'm not your brother." He says it to the windshield. "But you live in my house now, so you're mine to keep alive. You don't go out at night without me. Tell me you understand."