Ivor
Her silence tempts me, but I don’t want silence from her. Not anymore. I want her voice, her name, the truth behind the little lace mask she hides behind.
I trace the edge with my thumb, tilting her chin until she has no choice but to look at me. “Enough games, little dove,” I say quietly. “Your name.”
She hesitates. For a long beat, I think she’ll defy me again. But then her hands lift, trembling just slightly, and she slides the mask away from her face.
The sight of her without it stuns me more than it should. Pale skin flushed from my touch, lips kiss-bruised, eyes stormy grey with defiance and something else… something only I get to see.
“Natasha,” she says, her voice low, raw. “Natasha Adeley.”
The sound of it hits me like a blade sliding home. I’ve had women whisper names into my ear before, but this one feels different. Like a vow.
“Ivor Reznikov. And what are you doing here, Natasha Adeley?” I murmur, dragging the lace mask from her fingers and tossing it aside.
Her laugh is bitter, sharp. “Trying to do the one thing they told me I’d never be good enough for.”
I frown. “Which is?”
“Real journalism.” Her eyes flash, anger curling in every word.
“Not food reviews. Not fashion blurbs. Not puff pieces on charity fetes. Every editor I’ve ever worked for thought I was good enough for that and nothing more.
The men get the bylines that matter. They get the scandals, the exposés, the stories that make history. I get… cake competitions.”
The words drips with venom. She shakes her head, voice rising.
“So yes, I lied my way in here tonight. I thought if I could get one piece of evidence, one name, one shred of proof that men like your father own this city, maybe I’d finally get a seat at the table.
Maybe I’d finally stop being laughed out of rooms just because I’m a woman. ”
Her chest heaves. The fury in her voice could shake the walls of this room.
And it makes me want to give her the world.
I lean down, brushing my lips against her temple. “Then you’ll have your story.”
She stiffens, surprised. “What?”
“You want names?” I whisper, my hand splayed across her stomach. “You want the kind of proof that will make your editors choke on their words? Then I’ll give you more than scraps. I’ll give you the feast.”
Her eyes widen. “Why?”
“Because you’re mine,” I say simply. “And my woman doesn’t beg scraps from men too weak to see her worth. If you want to set a fire, I’ll hand you the torch myself.”
I sit back just enough to look her dead in the eye, letting her see I mean it.
“Tomorrow night, when you leave on my arm, you’ll carry a story no journalist has ever touched.
Not gossip. Not whispers. Truth so sharp it cuts the city down.
You’ll have the names of judges on our payroll.
Senators. Police chiefs. You’ll have the kind of story that makes history pages, not gossip columns. ”
Her lips part, stunned.
“But,” I add, my voice going low, “if you write it, you don’t get to stand outside. You write it as mine. As the woman who belongs to me. And when they ask how you know, how you saw, you tell them the truth.”
She swallows hard. “Which is?”
“That you were inside the Bratva,” I murmur, my hand closing gently but firmly around hers, “because the Bratva was inside you.”
Her breath shudders, a flicker of want and horror all tangled together. But she doesn’t pull away.
She doesn’t even try.
For a heartbeat she just stares at me, her bare face pale against the sheets, mask discarded at her side. Then the fury comes back into her eyes, bright and sharp.
“You don’t understand,” she says, voice cracking.
“Even if you gave me the story of the century, I could never work again. Do you know what they’d say about me?
That I slept my way into it. That I traded my body for a byline.
That I’m not a journalist, just another—” She cuts herself off, choking the word back.
I feel a flash of heat that isn’t lust this time. It’s anger. Not at her. At the faceless men she’s describing, the ones who kept her in cupcake columns while they patted each other on the back for taking bribes and screwing interns.
She sits up, dragging the sheet over her breasts like it’s armor. “This will destroy me. Even if I write it, even if I prove everything, they’ll never see me as anything but the woman who got too close to the Bratva heir. The woman who—” her breath catches “—let herself be used for a story.”
I lean forward, bracing my palms on either side of her thighs, caging her without touching. “Used?” I say, my voice low, dangerous. “You think that’s what this is?”
Her chin trembles, but she lifts it anyway. “That’s what they’ll say.”
“Then let them say it,” I growl. “Let them choke on it. You walked into my world on your own two feet. You came hunting, and you caught the wolf. That’s not weakness. That’s power.”
Her eyes flash. “Power? I’ll be radioactive. Untouchable. They’ll blacklist me from every paper in the country.”
I reach out, catch her wrist, press her palm flat to my chest where my heart hammers. “Good,” I murmur. “Then you don’t owe them a damn thing anymore.”
She tries to pull back, but I tighten my grip enough to hold her still. “Listen to me, Natasha. You think you can go back to your old life after tonight? You can’t. Not because of what they’ll say. Because of what you’ve seen. Because of what you know. Because of what you are now.”
Her breath hitches.
I lean closer, until my mouth is at her ear, my words a rumble she can feel down her spine.
“You’ve stepped into a world where people disappear for asking the wrong questions.
You think your editors will protect you?
You think your story will save you? It won’t.
The only thing standing between you and a shallow grave is me. ”
She stiffens at that, but she doesn’t pull away.
“You will always need my protection now,” I go on, softer but no less certain.
“Not because you’re weak. Because you’re too dangerous.
Because you’ve tasted power you can’t untaste.
Every senator, every cop, every man and woman you’re trying to expose, if they find out you’ve been here, with me, they won’t just smear you and blacklist you. They’ll kill you.”
I slide my hand from her wrist to the back of her neck, thumb stroking the pulse there. “With me, you’re untouchable. With me, you get to write your story and live to see it printed. Without me…” I let the silence stretch, heavy, inevitable.
She swallows, her eyes wide, the sheet clutched to her chest.
“You’ll never be safe again,” I finish quietly.
She looks so small like this, sheet clutched to her chest, bare face lifted to me, eyes wide and storm-grey. But I can see the steel under the trembling. She didn’t crumble when she spoke. She bared her teeth. She told me everything the world tried to take from her.
And it makes me want to give her everything.
I brush my thumb along her jaw, slow, tracing the curve of her mouth. “You’ve been clawing for scraps in a world built to shut you out,” I murmur. “Let them keep their scraps. With me, you never have to beg again. With me, you stop being a byline. You become a name.”
Her breath catches.
I lean closer, letting my voice wrap around her like silk.
“You’ll have your story. You’ll have a home.
You’ll have protection. You’ll have an empire that bows when you speak.
You’ll sit at my table, not as a guest, but as the queen of it.
The only one I trust at my side. The only one I want there. ”
I see it land. The flicker in her eyes, fear and hunger twisting together. Her world is burning down behind her, and I’m holding out my hand in the fire.
“Natasha,” I whisper, her name rough on my tongue. “Stop fighting ghosts. Stop chasing crumbs. Take what you came for. Take me. Take all of it.”
“Now,” I say, my voice low and dark and certain, “sit on my face and let me make you come…” My mouth curves into a slow, wicked smile. “…and then ride my cock like the queen you were always meant to be.”