Chapter 31
THIRTY-ONE
ALEXANDER
The private jet hums steadily beneath me, the kind of luxury silence that used to calm me. Now, it just echoes the mess in my head. Aged whisky burns down my throat, but it doesn’t do a damn thing to settle me.
Daniel’s voice crackles through my AirPods, quiet but sharp.
“He looked nervous,” he says. “Almost… stunned. I think he needs time to process it.”
I stare out the window, watching clouds blur past in the dark. The city lights are faint below us—glittering, untouchable.
“Let him take the time,” I say evenly. “But no pressure. Not from you. Not from anyone.”
“He didn’t reject it,” Daniel adds. “That’s something.”
I nod to myself, jaw tight. “I guess.”
The line clicks off. I pull the AirPods out, set the glass down on the tray beside me, and finally glance down at my phone.
A single message: we need to talk.
Sent thirty minutes ago. No follow-up. No emojis. Just that. Words that land like a fist in my chest. I haven’t replied. Not because I don’t want to, but because I already know what it’s about, and I don’t know if I overstepped.
Across from me, Anton’s typing slows.
“Everything alright?”
I shrug, eyes still locked on the screen.
“Yeah. Just tired.”
He nods and goes back to work.
The deal we just flew out for wasn’t clean, not really.
Mikhail’s coastal shipping empire has been under federal investigation for Smuggling, laundering, and cross-border arms trafficking.
And when it looked like Mikhail might finally slip into their hands, my grandfather, Roman Petrov, made his move.
He’d wanted Mikhail’s network for years — the ports, the private docks, the shadow routes carved through the Baltic like ghost veins.
Trade lanes that didn’t exist on any official map, yet bring in an untraceable large amount of wealth.
And now, with the law creeping up Mikhail’s back like a blade, he had no choice but to hand it to us.
Not because we paid the most.
Not because he trusted us.
But because deep down, Mikhail knew the truth: The government might have the law, but they can never touch the Petrov family.
Now the entire coastal network is ours. Ports. Warehouses. Vessels.
My father hates it. Hates that we’re still tied to the Bratva, to Petrov’s empire of silence and blood. But it doesn’t matter; the legacy has always been ours—mine, Anton’s, Maksim’s, and the rest of the Petrov family.
We were born into this, carved from it.
And yet…
As I sit here, thousands of feet in the air, whisky warm in my hand and the hum of the jet in my bones, none of it matters.
Not the power or the wealth, what claws at me is Lucas.
He doesn’t know what kind of war he wakes inside me without even trying. He doesn’t know how much of me becomes soft, unrecognizable, when I’m near him.
He doesn’t know just how much power he has over me
He thinks the trust fund is too much.
But if he knew—if he truly knew just how far I would go for him, then he’d understand that the trust fund is only the beginning.
Because I’d strip the world bare if it meant seeing him smile.
And I’d burn it down if anyone dared take that smile away.
***
“Welcome back, Mr.Petrov,” Mike says, opening the back door of the Escalade parked at the private airstrip.
“Penthouse?” he asks,
I shake my head. “No. Lucas’s apartment.”
I settle into the back seat, and the door shuts with a soft click. Inside, the world dims—leather seats, faint cedar scent, the purr of the engine beneath me. Outside, the city moves glowing, breathing, but I barely look. My mind’s too full.
I haven’t seen him in five days.
Five long, goddamn days since that night, since I kissed his skin until he was trembling, breathless beneath me. Since I touched him and made him moan my name like a prayer.
His voice still echoes in my head, wrecked and blissed out, whispering “you’re so hot” like it was a confession.
That look in his eyes… like I was something holy.
A crooked smile tugs at my lips. The memory hits me fast, sharp, like a match strike in the dark.
The car slows as we turn onto his street — narrow, quiet, steeped in familiarity.
I check my watch. 8:38 PM. Good. He’s probably still awake.
James pulls to a stop outside.
I pull out my phone and send him a quick text: I’m here, come downstairs.
He sees it almost instantly. But doesn’t reply.
Then, minutes later, I see him.
He steps out into the night like he doesn’t even know it’s holding its breath for him.
Streetlight spills down over him, warm and soft, gilding the edges of his silhouette like something out of a dream.
He’s wearing a beanie, and I hate it instantly because it hides the curls I ache to run my fingers through.
Still, he’s beautiful.
He always is, even when he doesn’t try, especially when he doesn’t try.
“Go take a smoke break,” I say to Mike, my eyes never leaving Lucas.
Mike nods and steps out wordlessly. A moment later, he opens the door for Lucas with the same crisp formality he uses for me.
The second Lucas slips into the seat beside me, the air shifts.
He turns to me, eyes sharp and unreadable in the dim light of the car. Something like defiance lives in his expression, not anger, not exactly, but close enough to draw chaos if I reach for it wrong.
Then he lifts a hand, showing me an envelope.
“What is this?” he asks. His voice is low, barely above a whisper, but it slices clean through the silence.
I glance at the envelope.
But my attention catches somewhere else entirely.
His fingers.
Slender. Smooth. His nails are painted with natural pink that gleams subtly under the car’s ambient light. They look like they belong in a painting. The shade glows against his skin, soft but striking and delicate.
And fuck, it’s distracting.
By the time I drag my eyes back to his face, he’s watching me — lips parted, like he’s about to speak. But he doesn’t.
He freezes.
Because he sees it.
He sees how I’m looking at him.
The intensity in my gaze hits him mid-breath, and his mouth closes slowly. His throat bobs with a swallow.
“I had it set up for you,” I say quietly. “Because I want you to have a degree. A future you choose.”
He blinks, chest rising with a shallow breath.
“It’s too much,” he says, voice firm. “All of this. The money. The apartment. The car. It’s—”
He drops his hands, jaw tightening.
“It’s overwhelming. It’s too fast.” He says quietly.
I watch him for a long moment. Let the silence stretch before I speak.
“I don’t think it is,” I say, calm but direct. “I’m going at your pace, Lucas. I always have.”
His hand trembles slightly as he shoves the envelope toward me, as if to throw it back, but I don’t take it.
“I don’t want this,” he says. Voice flat, sharp. “I don’t want to owe you.”
I stay still. Let him say it. Let him breathe.
“You don’t owe me,” I say evenly. “That’s why I set it up the way I did. It’s anonymous. It’s irrevocable. I don’t have access to a single cent of it. Only you do.”
He laughs, it’s bitter and quiet, but there’s no real humor in it.
“And how does that help how I feel?” he asks, and his voice breaks. Just for a second. “You think knowing you cut yourself out of it makes me feel better?”
I blink slowly, watching him carefully.
He doesn’t look at me. Just keeps staring down at the envelope like it’s a weight he can’t put down.
“I’ve never had anything like this,” he says, voice tight. “Never had anyone just… hand me something without wanting anything in return.”
“I don’t want anything in return,” I say.
“That’s the part I don’t get!” he snaps, looking up at me, a fierce look in his eyes. “Why would anyone do this for someone they barely know?”
Something about the way he says it makes my chest tighten.
I stare at him for a moment, then lean forward slightly, my voice low and steady.
“Barely know?” I repeat, almost with a laugh, but there’s nothing funny about it. “Lucas… I know you.”
His eyes narrow, skeptical, like he’s waiting for me to prove it. So I do, firmer this time.
“I know you bite your bottom lip when your thoughts get too loud. I know your brows scrunch when you’re trying to lip-read and the words slip past you, even with your hearing aids on — and how you pretend you understood, just so you don’t have to ask them to repeat it.”
His mouth parts slightly; they always do when he’s taken aback about something. But I’m not done yet.
“I know you prefer vanilla over floral — your skin smells like it all day, even after you shower. I know you hate ketchup, but drown your fries in that chili garlic sauce like your life depends on it.”
His eyes are wide now, and I see how his hands twitch slightly, like they do when he’s holding back emotions.
“I know what you taste like, Lucas,” I say, softer now, heat threading into my voice. “And I know how much you love it when I kiss your neck… when I leave hickeys across your skin like I’m staking a claim.”
His breath catches. Brown doe eyes staring at me like he’s seeing something he doesn’t know how to hold.
I lean back slightly, voice dipping.
“You can fight me on it. Tear the papers up. Burn them if you want. But none of that changes why I did it.”
“And why is that?” he asks softly, like he’s scared of the answer.
“Because you deserve it,” I say firmly. “Because I can. Because I want you to walk across that stage and get your degree. And because I have you in my life, I am not going to watch you drown.”
He looks away again, out the window this time, his reflection fractured in the glass. He doesn’t cry, but something inside him bends like it’s about to.
“I didn’t ask for this,” he says, so quietly I almost miss it.
His eyes drop to the envelope in his hand, staring at it like it might explode.
Like the weight of what it holds is too much.
He tries to stay still, to play it cool, but I see through it — the subtle tremble in his fingers, the tight clench in his jaw.
Then he exhales, sharp and broken, like he’s been holding his breath for days.