Chapter 21 Xander
XANDER
The driver takes off toward Nadya's apartment but the coil of rage in my chest only grows tighter.
She sits sniffling beside me, arms curled over her stomach as she stares out the window.
She can't do this to me.
Leonid warned me that she would be a liability, but I thought we connected.
I thought we were going somewhere.
And just when I started to realize that I love her she decides to go all noble on me.
Watching me eliminate that courier was just too much for her.
She can't handle it.
I thought she could and I didn't shelter her softer side from the darker things.
She wants to be like one of the guys, and while she's not like the women in this world who ignore the dirty side of the business, she's not cut out to handle the darkness that dwells inside me.
"Are you going to kill me?" she asks between sniffles, head still turned toward the window.
I imagine that's what she thinks.
My last cleaner ended up in a puddle of his own blood when he tried to buy his way out but I can't do that to her.
Not if I intend to live with myself.
"Not if I don’t have to…" is the only answer I can give her.
Leonid will make a move before I ever will, and I'm not sure how I'll handle it when he does.
Because he will.
Nadya knows too much.
She's a walking encyclopedia of my crimes.
"Have to?" she asks, turning to look at me with terror in her eyes.
It undoes me.
I reach for her, pulling on her arm until she yields and climbs onto my lap.
"Ptichka, I never want to harm you."
I can't control her any more than I can control any other human being.
It's just that my way of getting what I want typically involves bloodshed.
But I won't hurt her.
I can't.
My conscience won't allow it now.
I want this woman and I want her to want me back.
"Then let me go, Khishchnik. Let me be with my family… please. I love you."
Her hands toy with the buttons on my coat and the only thing I can think is how badly I need to control this situation, to make the spiral stop.
To force her somehow to see my worth so she won't do this, because pulling away from me is like marking her for death.
But I can't force her to do anything, and I can't control her.
But I can show her what I want.
So I reach up and grip her face in both hands and pull her down, crushing my lips to hers.
Nadya melts against me, hands splayed on my chest as she lets me devour her mouth.
She clings to me, not sure if she wants to escape or sink deeper.
I make that decision for her.
My hand slides down the line of her back and grips her ass through the denim.
She jerks when I grind her down against the hard length straining at my zipper.
A small gasp slips past her lips.
I swallow it, then take her bottom lip between my teeth and bite just hard enough to make her flinch.
I shove my hand between us, fingers working at the button of her jeans.
She stiffens but doesn’t stop me.
The metal gives with a snap, and I drag the zipper down.
"Lift," I order.
My voice is rough, unfamiliar even to me.
She obeys, hips shifting, and I peel the denim down, shoving the stubborn fabric past her thighs until I can get my hands where I need them.
She’s hot under my touch, wet enough that my fingers slide easily across the mess under her panties as she tugs the jeans the rest of the way off.
I palm her through the thin cotton first, make her grind on me, make her feel what she does to me.
She clutches my coat, torn between pushing away and dragging me closer.
I drag my thumb over her through the fabric in tight circles until her breath turns uneven and her hips chase my hand.
Only then do I tug the damp cotton aside and touch bare heat.
"You think I’d ever hurt you?"
I murmur against her mouth, and push two fingers inside her slowly.
Her knees clamp around my hips.
I set a hard rhythm and keep my thumb steady where she needs it most as the car continues to bounce and rock.
Her breath stutters, breaks, catches again, but I don’t give her release so quickly.
I draw it out, grinding my thumb over her until her thighs tremble, until she’s panting into my neck.
I murmur against her ear, "Keep taking it. Show me you’re not running from me, little bird."
She clutches at my coat, writhing, hips rocking helplessly as I thrust my fingers deep and drag her closer to the edge inch by inch.
She rides my hand because I give her no choice, because her body begs for what her fear tries to refuse.
When the release finally takes her, it tears through every inch of her.
Her thighs lock around my wrist, her hips bucking in broken rhythm against my hand.
She claws at my coat and gasps my name into my collar, and her whole body arches, trembling hard as I keep my thumb grinding over her, stretching the climax until she’s shuddering, her voice breaking on short, desperate cries.
I don’t let up, holding her tight on my lap until the aftershocks leave her limp and shaking in my arms.
I haul her higher, one arm tight around her back while the other frees my belt and zipper.
I drag myself out and notch against her slick entrance.
"Again," I tell her. "On me."
I grip her hips and guide her down.
The tight pull makes my vision haze, every nerve in my body screaming with the slick heat gripping me.
It’s a rush of fire, the kind that claws at control and tempts me to lose it all.
I grit my teeth, savoring the way she stretches around me, milking every inch.
She buries her face in my neck and whimpers, and I can feel every shiver of it through her body into mine.
I rock her slowly at first, then faster, driving up from the seat while I bring her down to meet it, each thrust sending sparks through my spine and rattling the breath out of my chest.
Nadya's lips part and she gasps, "Harder… don’t stop," the words spilling against my throat as if she can’t hold them back.
Her fingers knot in my shoulders through the coat, anchoring herself while I pound up into her.
I change the angle, one hand at the back of her neck to keep her close, the other locking her hip to grind her where it counts.
Her sounds turn wild. Sweat beads at her temple.
I feel her tighten on me, then seize around me, the second climax tearing through her while I hold her caged and shaking.
That breaks my control.
I crush her to my chest and drive deep, once, twice, and then the heat rips out of me.
It starts low in my spine, a violent rush that builds until my whole body bows against hers.
Every thrust forces more into her, thick pulses that I can feel spilling out around me, searing me until it feels as though we're fused together.
My vision whites out, my muscles locked as if I’m breaking apart while she squeezes me tighter, milking every drop.
I groan against her throat, my chest heaving as the flood keeps coming until I’m drained.
Even then I hold her down on me, buried to the hilt, shuddering with the aftershocks as my release slows to spasms.
Heat floods out of me and into her, a claim I can’t take back and won’t.
I keep her there, seated on me, while my breath saws against her skin and the world narrows to the thud of our hearts and the low growl of the engine.
When the car slows to a stop, she climbs off me.
I see the slickness of our sex drain down her thigh as she repositions her panties and reaches for her jeans.
But the look on her face isn't just pleasure.
She's still torn, still not convinced.
"Nadya," I say, a strange sound on my tongue.
She's my little bird, my Ptichka, and saying her name sounds foreign.
"Xander, please."
She shoves her feet into the jeans, lurches awkwardly against the seat as she wrestles them upward.
"Don't…" she pants, and I pick up her flats and hand them to her.
"I have a few more jobs…" I mutter, hoping she understands how this works.
I can't be the bad guy with her.
I just can't.
And Leonid will have no mercy.
He'll send Igor or Ivan and that will be that.
The next thing I know, I'll have them cleaning her blood up.
Nadya finishes pulling on her shoes with jerky, uncertain movements.
The scent of our coupling fills the confined space and I breathe her in, desperate to keep her here.
I watch her profile in the dim light, memorizing the curve of her cheek and the way her dark hair falls across her shoulder.
She won't look at me or meet my eyes as she straightens her coat.
"Ptichka."
She freezes, her hand on the door handle.
"You need to understand something."
My voice comes out edged with desperation I can't quite hide.
"No one walks away from me. Ever."
She turns then, finally meeting my gaze, and the terror I see reflected there physically hurts me.
"I know," she whispers.
Her hand rises to swipe away a tear.
If there were other words I could say to help her understand, I would.
But I can't say anything.
I'm just the monster that roped her into this life she vehemently hates.
"Then why—"
"Because I have to try."
Her voice cracks and she sniffles again as more tears slide down her cheeks.
"Because if I don't, I'll lose them forever, and I can't survive that."
She opens the door before I can respond, cold air rushing in to replace her warmth.
I watch her hurry toward the building's entrance, shoulders hunched against more than just the winter wind.
The lobby door closes behind her, and she disappears into the tower of concrete and steel and for the time being out of my grasp.
The driver catches my eye in the rearview mirror, waiting for instructions.
I could send men up to her apartment right now, could drag her back down to this car and make her understand that choice is an illusion in my world.
But the memory of the terror in her eyes stops me.
"Drive," I tell him.
We pull away from the curb, leaving behind the woman who has become both my weakness and my obsession.
Moscow's streets blur past the tinted windows, neon signs reflecting off wet pavement in smears of red and blue light.
My phone rings against my chest.
I pull it out, seeing Igor's name on the display.
I swipe to accept the call.
"Da?"
"We found a message." His voice is tight with tension.
"Written in blood on a wall in the Tverskoy district. Says THE STORM COMES AT MIDNIGHT."
I lean back against the leather seat, processing the threat.
The Sokolovs are done hiding, ready to bring the war into the open.
It seems a little late now, but some men take longer to rouse from their slumber.
"Fresh blood?" I ask.
"Still wet when our patrol found it. They're making their move tonight, Boss."
His tone is clipped and impatient, and I have enough of his message to know what's going on.
I don't have patience for dramatics, so I hang up.
The line goes dead, leaving me alone in the back of the car with the driver's eyes watching me through the rearview mirror.
I motion for him to pull over, needing time to think without the motion of the vehicle adding to the chaos in my head.
We stop beneath a streetlight, engine idling while I stare out at Moscow's empty streets.
The city sleeps around us, unaware that blood will flow before dawn breaks over Red Square.
But my thoughts keep circling back to the woman who just walked away from me.
The scent of her still clings to my clothes, and I haven't even zipped my pants up yet.
She thinks leaving will save her family.
That distance will protect them from the violence that follows me everywhere I go.
But she's wrong.
The moment she stepped into my world, the moment she started cleaning up after my kills, she became part of this war whether she wanted to or not.
The Sokolovs know about her.
They've watched us together, seen her enter crime scenes and emerge hours later with blood scrubbed from her hands.
To them, she's not an innocent caught in the crossfire—she's my accomplice, my weakness, my most vulnerable point.
And Leonid knows about her.
He's already warned me, told me to eliminate her the first sign of weakness.
And I'm stuck right the fuck in the middle.
If Sokolov doesn't hurt her, Markov will, and where will that leave me?
I pull out a cigarette and light it and suck in a deep breath of the sweet tobacco.
The flame briefly illuminates my reflection in the window, and I see a stranger looking back.
When did I become the type of man who falls for someone I should have eliminated the moment she became a liability?
When did I become so fucking weak to let anyone think they can shout at me or refuse my orders?
Leonid warned me this would happen—that keeping her around was a mistake that would cost us both.
But I couldn't listen, couldn't accept that what I felt for her was anything more than possession and lust.
Now I know better.
The ache in my chest as I watched her disappear into that building isn't about losing a useful asset.
It's about losing the only person who made me feel human in a world that demands I be a monster.
She called me Khishchnik in the car, her pet name for me slipping out in a moment of vulnerability.
And that's what I am—a predator, a monster, the man who is supposed to devour her alive.
But to her I'm the only thing standing between her and her death by the hands of angry men.
A khishchnik of khishchniki.
And my little bird is vulnerable to being devoured by other men like me.
I take a long drag from the cigarette, letting the smoke burn my lungs.
The pain is nothing compared to the realization that I've fallen in love with a woman who can't survive in my world.
Nadya has seen me kill, has cleaned up the aftermath, but she still believes in things I abandoned years ago—family, safety, the possibility of redemption.
She still has hope.
And hope is the most dangerous thing she could carry into a war with the Sokolovs.
I don't know where to go from here.
Every choice leads to violence, and violence leads back to the same conclusion.
I am exactly what Nadya believes me to be.
A killer.
A monster.
A man too stained with blood to deserve the light she carries.
But I'm also the only one who can keep her alive when the Sokolovs come looking for revenge.
And they will come, whether she stays with me or runs back to her sister's apartment.
Her name is already written in their ledger of debts to be collected.
She has no idea that walking away from me might be the most dangerous decision she's ever made.
I have only a few days left to eliminate the Sokolov Brotherhood.
But first, I have to figure out how to save the woman I love without destroying her in the process.
The clock is ticking toward midnight, and with it, the storm that will decide all our fates.