The café is warm, crowded, and humming with low conversation, but Ronan cuts through it like it belongs to him. He stands at the counter with his back straight, voice calm and clipped as he speaks Russian to the cashier. He doesn’t check the price. He never does. Cash changes hands, quick and final, like a verdict.

You watch him for a moment—dark coat, sharp profile, the way people subtly step out of his space without realizing why.

By the time he turns, you’ve already drifted toward the door.

The bell chimes softly as you step outside.

The cold hits immediately, sharp enough to steal your breath. Snow falls thick and heavy, muting the street until Moscow feels unreal. You stop on the sidewalk, transfixed. Where you’re from, winter never looked like this—never felt so quiet, so alive. Snow gathers on your lashes, your hair, your gloves as you lift your hands, smiling without meaning to.

That’s when you see him.

A man huddled against a brick wall across the street, shaking violently, clothes far too thin for the weather. Your chest tightens. Without thinking, you cross over.

“Hey,” you say softly, crouching down. “You’re freezing.”

He looks up like he expects cruelty instead of kindness. You shrug off the thick wool coat Ronan bought you earlier—heavy, expensive, unmistakably his—and drape it around his shoulders.

He grabs it like a lifeline, hands trembling. “No… please…”

“It’s okay,” you tell him gently. “Take it.”

You don’t hear the café door open behind you.

But the man does.

His eyes snap past you, widening in terror. His face drains of color. “Devil,” he whispers. “The devil.”

Before you can turn, an arm locks around your waist and pulls you back hard against a solid chest. Ronan’s grip is iron, possessive, furious—like he’s reclaiming something stolen.

“You don’t leave my sight,” Ronan says coldly. Not to you—to the world.

A bodyguard is already nearby, silent, alert.

Ronan steps past you, placing himself squarely between you and the man, his broad back blocking you completely. Then he crouches.

Slow. Controlled. Lethal.

The man presses into the wall, shaking so badly his teeth chatter, the coat slipping but never leaving his grasp.

“You touched something that doesn’t belong to you,” Ronan says quietly.

“I—I didn’t—she—” the man stammers.

Ronan tilts his head, voice cutting. “You speak when I allow it.”

The street feels frozen solid.

“You will walk away,” Ronan continues, tone flat and merciless. “You will not look back. And you will thank whatever god you believe in that she stopped here instead of me.”

The man nods frantically, lips moving in panicked prayers.

Ronan leans closer, shadow swallowing him whole. “If I ever see you near her again, they will never find what’s left of you.”

The man breaks, scrambling to his feet and fleeing into the snow, clutching the coat like it’s the only thing keeping him alive.

Ronan stands and turns back to you.

The cold in his face disappears the moment his eyes meet yours.

His hands grip your arms gently but firmly, pulling you close, checking you over like he needs to feel you there. “You’re shaking,” he murmurs.

“I’m okay.”

“No,” he says quietly, pressing his forehead to yours for half a second. “You’re cold.”

He shrugs off his own coat and wraps it around you, pulling you into his chest, body shielding you from the street and every pair of eyes on it.

“You don’t wander,” Ronan says softly, just for you. “Not without me.”

Snow keeps falling, indifferent, while Ronan Markov stands between you and Moscow like nothing else is allowed to touch you.