Chapter 1

Note: In the official adaptation, ‘The First Commandment,’ a spin-off of ‘Icing on the Cake’ set in the same universe, the name ‘Ю́рий’ (Yuri) is also spelled as ‘Jurij.’ However, we have opted to use ‘Yuri’ as the standard spelling because the story takes place after Igor’s dictatorship falls, and Yuri now lives under a different, more English-sounding name. Please be aware of this when reading.

🜼 🜼 🜼

An uninvited guest came calling.

It was just past two in the afternoon. The neighborhood, quiet even on ordinary days, had fallen still as a grave after the lunch hour. Once the day’s last customer collected his vehicle, Yuri Kiselyov found himself alone in the silence of the garage, with four cars still waiting for his attention before he could close for the day.

The repair shop was now in its third year. Yuri and his father ostensibly ran it together, though, more precisely, it belonged to his father, and Yuri helped whenever he was needed. Lately, business had been picking up, which meant Yuri had been required to show his face with increasing frequency.

Today was one of those days. Only then did he realize he had eaten nothing since morning. He had no appetite, but his empty stomach had begun to demand something, so he decided to throw together the simplest meal he could manage.

He peeled off his gloves, their fabric stiff where oil and dust had hardened into permanent stains, and tossed them onto a shelf. The pale backs of his bare hands looked little better. Blue veins traced the ridges of his knuckles, while grease had worked deep into every crease, leaving his skin battered and permanently stained.

Yuri studied his hands for a long moment before deciding to retreat to the house beside the shop and make do with a peanut butter sandwich. Few things seemed as pointless as spending time on food. The simpler the meal, the better.

Once he had made up his mind, Yuri searched the desk for a scrap of paper on which to leave a note. He opened the drawer beneath the workbench and found the repair tools arranged in neat rows alongside a book, a notebook, and a pen, all ordered with the obsessive precision that governed everything he owned.

He pulled out the notebook and began to write, the letters curling awkwardly beneath fingers that held the pen in an unusual grip. For a man who kept everything so meticulously tidy, his handwriting was nearly illegible. He had never realized that until he met his friend. Yuri’s oldest and only friend had always snickered whenever he caught him writing.

Remembering laughter he rarely heard these days, Yuri walked toward the entrance to lock the garage door.

That was when the unexpected visitor arrived.

She was hardly a customer.

“Um… hello.”

At the small, tentative voice from outside, Yuri turned. A chill briefly settled over his pale, nearly expressionless face, then vanished as soon as he recognized the woman who had left her car with him the previous Sunday.

Rather than return her greeting, Yuri silently assessed her. The reflex was unavoidable, ingrained in him by a lifetime of vigilance. First came the question of whether the stranger was armed. Then he judged why they had approached, formed a preliminary assessment, and only afterward decided what to do.

Ordinary people did not live that way, but Yuri was not ordinary.

“What is it?”

His greeting was anything but warm. It was hardly the courtesy a gentleman ought to show a woman so much smaller than himself, but Yuri had never learned to be a gentleman. This was as kind as he knew how to be.

Even so, he had improved in his own fashion. Life among other people had worn down the roughest edges of his greetings, his perfunctory manners, and his habit of opening every conversation with the point. His father, unlike him, had lived his own way for far too long to change. His speech remained exactly as it had always been. Habits accumulated over the years like sediment, hardening into layers too solid to break apart easily.

“Well… maybe you don’t remember me? I came by last week. On Sunday.”

Perhaps his flat greeting had intimidated her, because she hurried to fill the silence. With every word, the soft, yielding pheromones unique to an Omega stirred in the air around her. Everyone carried a scent of their own, but an Omega’s pheromones were lighter and more elusive than most, something that seemed to dissolve the moment one tried to isolate it.

Because of their innate compatibility, Alphas like Yuri tended to regard Omegas favorably on instinct. Whether that impulse deserved to be called fondness or simple attraction was difficult to say, but Alpha and Omega pheromones drew toward one another like magnets. Perhaps that was why most Alphas treated Omegas kindly. Unless an Alpha was unusually particular about appearances, that was generally how it went.

The woman before him was objectively beautiful, the sort who would catch an Alpha’s eye anywhere, and Yuri’s bluntness had clearly thrown her off balance. Her pretty green eyes searched his face for some clue to his mood while he tried to determine why she had come.

He did not know her name, but he remembered her car: a blue 2022 Subaru Forester in an uncommon shade. She must have driven on trails often, because mud had caked the tires and flying gravel had left tiny chips in the glass. The interior had been fairly clean, though stiff hairs clung to the seats as if she owned a dog, and, unusually, she had installed a dashcam.

She seemed ordinary. The hands he had glimpsed in passing were soft, free of calluses and fine cracks, and far removed from any kind of rough labor.

That was all Yuri remembered about her.

After a moment, he gave a slight nod. The response held no warmth, but it was enough to brighten her face.

“You do remember! Thank goodness. My car suddenly started acting up that day, and I was in real trouble. Your shop just happened to be open on Sunday, so I rushed over, and you fixed it so quickly. I was so grateful. So…”

The longer she spoke, the redder her earlobes became. She rushed through the words she had prepared as though something were chasing her, then drew a shallow breath and held something out to him.

Yuri’s gaze dropped to the white paper shopping bag she offered with both hands. A sweet aroma rose from within, unfamiliar and sugary enough to sting his nose and numb the back of his throat.

“I made you a little something to thank you. It’s a pie.”

Ah. So that was it.

Yuri had turned thirty-two that year. At his age, he understood perfectly well what could lie beneath a gesture of goodwill, particularly when it took the form of flirtation between an Alpha and an Omega.

Unable to keep watching her struggle with what appeared to be a heavy bag, he reached for it without comment. Their fingers brushed over the handle. Her hand was so small that it could have disappeared inside his palm.

She flinched at the contact and looked up. Yuri glanced at her pretty face, bright with expectation, before lowering his impassive gaze to the dessert.

She had brought him an apple-and-cherry crumble pie with a thick, crisp crust. A generous layer of fresh cherries and apples had baked to tender softness beneath the crumbly topping, releasing a fragrant warmth. The pie was round and polished enough for a shop display, and faint steam still curled from it as though it had only just left the oven.

The woman’s hands were flushed as red as the cherries. With June nearing its end and the weather already mild, the color had nothing to do with the cold.

It looked good. It smelled good too.

Even so, after studying it for a moment, Yuri handed it back.

“I’m fine.”

He decided she deserved at least some explanation, so he added the truth.

“I don’t really eat dessert.”

Yuri disliked sweet things. Even a little sugar made the tip of his tongue sting and killed his appetite, but what he hated most was the lie of it. Sweetness offered a fleeting pleasure that made reality feel false. When it came to dessert, he would not even pretend to eat out of courtesy.

“Do you have an allergy?”

The woman’s eyes widened. Unlike the place where Yuri had grown up, this city took even gluten and dairy allergies seriously, and discomfort crossed her face as though she feared she had made some terrible mistake.

Yuri considered being more direct, then decided against it.

“No. I just don’t eat it.”

“I see.” Her shoulders sank. “That’s too bad.”

Embarrassed, she drew the dessert back against herself. Her expression made Yuri uncomfortable as well. He had never learned how to receive anything gentle, whether it came in the form of consideration or concern.

“Um…”

A hesitant breath escaped her. Then she gathered her courage once more.

“This might make you uncomfortable, but I’ve been thinking about it all week, and I couldn’t get it out of my mind. I swear to God, I’m not usually the kind of person who makes the first move. So… if you’re all right with it, would you like to go on a date with me?”

There it was. The real point.

It had taken courage, and Yuri did not find the proposal unpleasant. Her willowy figure, curly brown hair, and intelligent green eyes were, if he had to define the matter, very much to his taste. His answer, however, had always been fixed.

“I’m sorry.”

Yuri had no intention of seeing anyone. He had never dated before, and he did not plan to begin.

“…Does that mean you have someone?”

“No.”

His clipped answer seemed to frustrate her. Displeasure and humiliation flushed her face.

Yuri frowned and pushed the hair back from his forehead with one broad hand. Remembering his father’s advice not to make a lady miserable, he offered her a reason.

“I can’t be with anyone.”

“Not even for one date?” Hope still lingered in her voice. “Am I just not your type? I’m more fun than I look, so please, just give me one chance.”

Then she whispered, “Please.”

There was only one other answer Yuri could have offered her: dating was out of the question, though sleeping together once during her cycle was possible.

The woman clearly did not want to hear that, and Yuri had no desire to say it aloud merely to be slapped. Losing his lunch break was trouble enough.

When the silence stretched too long, she sighed. As if unable to understand him, she raked a hand through her hair, then lifted the paper bag and pointed it at him.

“So are Alphas your type, then? Or Betas?”

What a nonsense.

Once the horrifying guesses began, Yuri decided it was best to end the conversation. In the world where he had grown up, the idea of being with another Alpha was difficult to accept. Vancouver did not seem to regard it as particularly strange, but hearing the suggestion still made him uneasy.

“You’ll find someone.”

He met her tear-bright green eyes in silent apology, then closed the door.

Once he had locked himself inside the garage, Yuri released a slow breath. The battered wall clock his father had picked up from somewhere showed that it was already past two. Lunch was over. If he intended to finish the repairs on schedule, he would have to work steadily for the rest of the afternoon.

The only mercy was that the smell of all that sugar had erased his appetite.

Yuri touched his stomach, now quiet as though numbed, and looked down at the back of his hand. Grease stained the pale skin, leaving it filthy.

Come to think of it, his hands had never once been clean.

Not ever.

🜼 🜼 🜼

—Never let anyone become precious to you.

It was one of the promises people made when they crossed into that other life, a rule meant to protect them. That world belonged to men who operated beyond the law: contract killers gifted at violence, mafiosi who survived by exploiting others and taking their money, and the brokers and technicians who made their living by helping them. Everyone in that world knew the rule.

Yuri Kiselyov was mafia.

That alone explained enough. He stood as far from normal as a person could. He was a criminal, a bad man, and everything in the past that had shaped him was foul and filthy. Not even God could absolve him. The sins branded into his soul would not disappear with death.

That was why he never dated.

Yuri had no right.

“Yuri, Alyosha says he’s coming by tonight.”

His father brought the news when he returned around five that afternoon. He had gone grocery shopping, so he must have run into Alexei downtown.

At the sound of his oldest friend’s name, even Yuri’s blunt expression changed. The cold tension eased from his brow, and warmth entered his blue eyes.

“Around what time?”

“Well, by that boy’s standards, evening probably means after nine.”

“Should we eat then?”

“Let’s do that. Oh, and he said he’s bringing a guest.”

At the word guest, Yuri pressed his lips together. Alexei was his friend, but he was not a man who casually brought visitors around. This was unusual.

“Valeri?”

The only person Yuri could think of was Valeri, Alexei’s lover.

His father shook his head. “No. He said the guest had something to do with your work. Let me see. He told me to say this exactly.”

Then his father arranged his face into an uncannily precise imitation of Alexei. One brow arched with arrogance, a broad grin spread across his already handsome face, and a cool, effortless amusement settled over his features.

“‘Buy some chocolate and serve it to me.’”

Laughing heartily, his father went to lock up the shop. Yuri understood the brusque gesture for what it was: a command to stop working and get some rest. He stepped out of the garage and headed toward his car out front, intending to leave at once and buy the chocolate Alexei had requested.

Then he caught sight of himself in the window and stopped.

Yuri went home to wash first.

Oil never came off easily. He scrubbed with soap until his skin stung, yet even then, only some of the stains faded. After washing his face at the sink, he pulled on a black jacket presentable enough for downtown.

He started the car and drove south. Reaching downtown from North Vancouver required crossing a bridge, and evening rush-hour traffic had clogged the roads so thoroughly that his navigation app estimated an hour for a drive that usually took twenty minutes.

As the cars stretched bumper to bumper, Yuri listened to a song drifting from the radio. Habit prompted him to reach for a cigarette, but he remembered in time that smoking behind the wheel would only attract police attention.

In the city where he had spent most of his life, illegality had been little more than a haze without fixed meaning. Even now, he often learned Canadian laws only when he was on the verge of breaking them. Adjusting to a society where ignorance offered no protection from punishment still required effort.

Had it already been three years?

That was how long he had lived under a false identity, folded into society while pretending to be ordinary. His true surname was Kiselyov, but his identification named him Yuri Campbell. Even his given name had been spelled in the form more familiar to North Americans rather than the Russian one.

His father, Vasily Kiselyov, had become Jeff Murray, a name so wildly ill-suited to a man who spoke English with a heavy Russian accent that it bordered on comedy.

Alexei Sorokin, Yuri’s closest friend, also lived under an alias. So did Alexei’s father. All of them had been born and raised on the fringes of America, in a small border town called Saratov. It was a barren place where migrants from across the continent had gathered amid the chaos that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Saratov was a dumping ground for the poor and desperate, people who could neither secure asylum nor immigrate through proper channels. Abandoned people in vulnerable circumstances always attracted predators eager to exploit them. The Soviet-born mafia had seized Saratov and remade the town into their kingdom. In that way, a tiny border settlement no one cared about had become a den of criminals.

Yuri had been born there.

Children raised in a town where even dreaming of college was beyond them faced only a handful of possible futures: exploit others in order to survive, or die as someone else’s victim. Most of the brave ones who rejected that fate were killed. The lucky few escaped, though never without terrible scars carved into them.

[…I think we’ve said enough about the prime minister’s new policy for now. Shall we turn to a piece of news from Vancouver?]

[That’s right. We’re talking about the injury of Cherriot Goodnight, captain of the Vancouver Red Maple.]

[Reports say he’ll miss the rest of the season after injuring his knee during training. Is that confirmed?]

[The precise cause hasn’t been made public, but it does appear certain that he’s out for the season. The season has only just begun, and expectations for the Red Maple were high this year, so fans are understandably disappointed.]

[He has one of the largest fan bases of any athlete in North America, so naturally…]

While Yuri drifted through idle thoughts, the song ended without his noticing. The program shifted to conversation, and the name Cherriot Goodnight caught his ear.

It sounded every bit as ridiculous as Jeff Murray. Whatever the public thought of it, Yuri found it dreadful.

Still, whether genuine or invented for public consumption, the peculiar name possessed one virtue: it was impossible to forget. That was why even Yuri, who paid little attention to the wider world, remembered it. He did not know the man’s face, but hockey fans mentioned him so often that one visit to a pub on game day had been enough to lodge the name in his memory.

Cherriot Goodnight.

Yuri repeated the strange name to himself as he eased into a space in front of the chocolate shop. It was a weekday evening. On a weekend, finding one there would have been unthinkable.

At moments like this, he almost felt as though he truly lived an “ordinary” life. In Saratov, illegality had lost nearly all meaning, and the population was small enough that Yuri had never heard anyone complain about parking. Only in a society where ordinary people owned cars in great numbers, respected property, and paid fines could something as trivial as finding a parking space become an inconvenience.

After stepping out, Yuri scanned the area for a parking kiosk. He spotted the sign nearby and started toward it.

The instant his black work boots struck the drizzle-darkened paving stones, he sensed someone following him.

More precisely, he caught the faint trace of pheromones.

The scent was almost negligible, perhaps masked beneath heavy deodorant, but it carried the unmistakable signature of an Alpha. As the footsteps quickened and the pheromones drifted nearer, Yuri curled the hand inside his jacket into a fist.

In a city where he existed as little more than a ghost, an unsolicited approach rarely promised anything good. The stranger might be a remnant of his past or someone he had crossed while helping Alexei. Pretending not to notice, Yuri fixed his attention on the parking sign and waited for the distance between them to close.

The nearer the footsteps came, the more hurried and uneven they sounded. The careless spill of pheromones suggested a complete amateur.

Even so, Yuri could not afford carelessness of his own.