♛Chapter Twenty Seven♛
Lola
Somehow, I finished the painting in a week.
Don’t ask me how. Fear, mostly. Fear for Mikhail.
Fear that I won’t admit out loud because that would mean it’s real.
And he’s fucking pissed about my involvement.
But I’ve never let a man tell me where I can go or what I can do.
And I'm not starting now. Even if it’s him.
Even if my stomach knots every time his eyes cut across a room and land on me.
Even if I get this twisted, electric rush when his voice drops low—rough, cold—telling me to stay out of his world.
He says he loves me. I’m still not sure what that means coming from him. When he told me, everything inside me went still. For a second, I thought maybe I could believe it. But I’m not built right. Pride's poisoned me. The words won’t come out, not even if I wanted to say them back.
So I do what I’ve always done. I earn it. I prove it. With blood, sweat, and paint.
The piece leans against a table like a ritual sacrifice.
Roman’s already there, lounging back in a leather chair, looking every bit the king of this underworld.
Power’s baked into his bones. Sergei’s beside him, arms folded, a grin curling up his face.
A joker on the outside. But I know what lives underneath that skin. He’s not soft.
And then… there’s Mikhail.
Silent. Still. Eyes flat but burning. He doesn’t want me here.
Too bad. I’m not leaving.
I pull the cover off, and Sergei whistles. “Holy shit,” he mutters, walking closer. “It’s fucking perfect.”
Roman’s eyes don’t blink. He just drinks it in. “Accurate,” he finally mutters.
“Accurate?” Sergei scoffs. “This shit’s criminal. Are you sure you’re not some undercover art thief, sweetheart?”
I feel Mikhail tense beside me. His stare goes lethal. “Don’t,” he growls.
Sergei throws his hands up. “Easy big guy. Just giving your girl credit.”
Roman chuckles, and Sergei keeps going. “If we’d used her from the start, would’ve saved us a ton of trouble.”
I bite down on my lip to keep the smile at bay. Jesus, even the iciest bitch has a soft spot for compliments.
Sergei turns to me. “Hell, next time you need a job done, it’s on the house. You’re family now.”
Roman nods, still watching me. “You’ve got our backing.”
Twisted heat comes off Mikhail. He fucking hates this.
Hates that they’re praising me. That I’ve walked into his world and held my ground.
That they know things about me he doesn’t.
Ice snakes down my throat. They know about what I did.
About what I am. They know the part of me Mikhail’s still blind to.
Are they going to out me? Rip it all open before I get to say it?
“Enough.” Mikhail grabs my wrist. “We’re leaving.”
He drags me through the warehouse, down a hallway, into a small room with metal walls and a steel door that slams shut behind us. He pins me there. His hands frame my face, too soft for how furious he looks. “Tell me.”
I raise my chin. “Tell you what?”
“I’m done waiting. I’m done being in the dark. They know more about you than I do, and I’m fucking sick of it.”
“It’s not like that.”
“It is. I’ve been patient. I let you hide things. I thought you’d let me in when you were ready. But no more. I’m not gonna be the last one who knows you.”
My pulse is wrecked. “You want the truth?” I whisper.
His arms slam the wall beside my head. “I want all of it.”
My skin buzzes. My palms sweat.
“I was sixteen,” I start, “when my mom got sick. One week she was up, making breakfast, laughing, painting. A few weeks later, she couldn’t move. It was cancer. Fast. Ugly.”
He watches me like he already knows what’s coming but needs to hear it anyway.
“My father?” I shake my head. “He was fucking someone else. While she was dying. Didn’t even bother hiding it anymore. He brought the woman into our house. Into their bed. She wore my mom’s jewelry. Sat in her seat at dinner. He couldn’t wait to erase her.”
I press my palms to my arms. “I hated him. Hated her more.”
“And?”
“I did something.” My voice drops. “I hired Sergei.”
There’s a beat of stillness.
“This was before the Bratva. Before anyone knew who he was. I found him when I was messing around on the dark web.”
Still nothing from Mikhail.
“The mistress vanished. Poof. Gone. As for my father—death was too easy for him. I wanted him to rot. Sergei got me NDMA. I fed it to him. Little by little. In his tea.”
Mikhail reaches out to catch me when I start to sway.
“He got liver cancer a couple months later. Karma. He lived, though. Which worked better for me—because if he’d died, I’d have been a rich orphan with no access to the fortune.”
I look up at Mikhail, waiting. Waiting for him to pull back. To see disgust in his eyes. Instead, he looks... hungry. Possessive. Relieved?
“You see now?” I whisper. “I’m not good. I never was. I let that rage take me over and I liked it. I watched him waste away, and it made me feel powerful.”
A tear slips free. “I am proud. I’m a goddamn storm of flaws. You shouldn’t love me.”
“You think this makes me want you less?”
His lips graze my cheek. “You call it rage. I call it fire. ”
His mouth brushes my jaw. My throat.
“I’m not a good person, Mikhail.”
He pulls me tighter. “I don’t want good, I want you. You love. You protect. You destroy for the people you care about. And I’d burn the world to match that.”
I collapse into him, and for once, I don’t feel broken or weird. I feel understood.