58. Chapter 58
58
Konstantin
I buy everything the vendor has for the entire month.
Every tortilla, every slab of marinated pork, every ounce of salsa in the back fridge—all his stock gone in sixty seconds.
The vendor doesn’t ask questions. He sees the three SUVs idling across the street. The six bodyguards stationed at each corner like expensive shadows. He glances at the matte-black pistol visible under Anton’s jacket and hands over his keys like I’ve just bought his life.
No one lingers. Two teenagers try to film until one of my men raises an eyebrow. The phones vanish faster than the vendor’s dignity.
But Bella?
She’s unbothered.
Propped on her crutches in front of the grill like a queen with a limp, curls wild from the ocean wind, eyes glowing like the fire under the meat.
“Four tacos,” she says. “ Carnitas . Extra lime. No onions. And one shrimp. Because I’m living dangerously.”
The scent is aggressive—fat, spice, and grilled smoke curling around her like a crown.
“You realize this is a tactical liability,” I murmur as I lead her to the small table we’ve claimed as a throne room.
“So is breathing,” she says, already tearing into the first taco. “But here we are.”
The juice drips down her wrist. She moans.
A man could lose empires to that sound.
“This is better than sex,” she says into her napkin.
I raise a brow. “You mean better than our sex?”
She freezes mid-chew. Swallows like she forgot how. Her face flushes—pink blooming fast across her cheeks, up to her ears.
She fumbles the taco slightly. “I—okay, wow. You’re really going to bring that up while I’m holding food?”
“I’m just clarifying,” I say. “For the record. You seemed pretty vocal about enjoying yourself.”
She glares down at the taco like it betrayed her. “I moaned once.”
I lean in slightly. “Once?”
She chokes on air. “Shut up.”
Now she’s full-on red. Even the tops of her shoulders are pink.
And for some godforsaken reason, I find it… cute.
Dangerously cute.
I clear my throat and shift the topic before she combusts.
“So why tacos?” I ask, like I haven’t already memorized the exact way her mouth moves when she says carnitas. “Heritage? Or just that deep, spiritual bond you clearly formed when you climbed out the church window before our wedding to get one?”
She snorts into her napkin. “I was hungry. You try marrying a Russian crime lord on an empty stomach.”
I look at her—at the napkin half-tucked under her chin, at the smear of salsa near her mouth she doesn’t notice. At the way she jokes like the world didn’t break her first.
She’s the biggest lie I’ve ever seen.
But damn, if she isn’t the kind I’d believe in anyway.
She exhales, grateful. “My dad used to bring me to places like this. After competitions. Singing. Debate. Karate… you name it. One time I had a full-on panic attack before a recital, and he just handed me a taco like it was a damn defibrillator.”
“You sang?”
She groans and covers her face with her hand. “God, don’t make me say it out loud.”
I lean back, watching her squirm. “You brought it up. I’m just here for the fallout.”
She peeks at me through her fingers. “Fine. I sang ‘My Heart Will Go On.’ In glitter flats. With finger choreography.”
I blink.
She nods solemnly. “Yes. There were hand motions. Very serious ones.”
“And?”
“I forgot all the words. Mid-verse. Froze like a deer. Ended up humming the Titanic theme for a full minute and then did jazz hands.”
I press my knuckles to my mouth like I’m stifling a cough.
She points her taco at me. “Don’t laugh.”
“I’m not laughing.”
“You’re absolutely laughing.”
I’m grinning. I don’t realize it until her expression shifts—something soft tugging at the corners of her mouth.
“Dad clapped the loudest,” she says, quieter now. “Even when the rest of the room was silent. Like, horrifyingly silent.”
She stops. Blinks hard. Her taco hovers midair.
“Mom would’ve said I was brave,” she adds. “Even if I sounded like a drowning squirrel.”
After a beat, her smile fades.
She looks sad.
She just stares at her taco like maybe if she focuses hard enough, the ache will fold itself away.
It’s the kind of strength people mistake for apathy. I know better.
I see it in my children sometimes. That tight jaw. That stretch of silence held like a shield.
Alya, when she pretends not to care about her mother’s absence.
Lev, when he smiles too fast and looks away.
Bella’s doing the same thing now. Grieving in real-time with a joke as armor.
And somehow, that undoes me more than tears ever could.
And suddenly, Bella feels more real.
Not just the woman in my bed.
Bella swallows and takes a sip from the plastic cup.
She jolts forward with a sputter, coughing like it’s trying to come out of her nose. Her face flushes red as she grabs a napkin, dabbing at her mouth like she’s holding onto the last scrap of dignity.
She waves me off before I can say anything. “I’m fine. Just forgot how to exist like a functioning adult.”
I don’t rush her. Just watch as she coughs once more, wipes her mouth, and stares down her half-eaten taco like it personally betrayed her.
I’ve never had patience for this kind of thing. Grief, feelings, slow bleeds. People could grow a third fucking arm, and I still wouldn’t care—so long as they showed up, got the job done.
But I wait, anyway.
Because it’s her.
“After they died, it changed fast. Mike and Peggy started making decisions like they owned us. One day, I was a teenager; the next, I was in charge of finances, homework, grief.”
I say nothing.
“I didn’t know how to save Julian from nightmares. Or Lila from her silence. But I knew how to cook. Clean. Sell. So, I did.”
“I wish I could’ve helped sooner,” I say.
She looks at me.
“That sounded dangerously sincere.”
“Don’t make it weird.”
She smiles, but it’s gentler now.
Then: “What about you? What was it like growing up in your world?”
I glance at the guards. At the street.
And then I answer.
“Structured. Brutal. My father didn’t believe in affection. He believed in discipline. Every success was expected. Anything less was punished.”
“Sounds… nurturing.”
“My first bulletproof vest was a birthday gift. Tatiana taught me to lie before she taught me to read. Yelena taught me how to stand still while men screamed in my face.”
She winces. “So that’s why you’re hard on your boys.”
“I’m not hard. I’m precise. I teach them how to survive.”
“And who taught you to love?”
I pause.
Then: “No one.”
She doesn’t flinch. She listens like it’s oxygen.
Like there’s nothing in the world more important than me choking out pieces of a childhood I’ve buried six feet deep.
“And Irina?” she asks.
The air shifts.
“I never loved her,” I say. “It was obligation. A merger. We were paper. Not people.”
Like us.
Her face drops.
I hate that look. That flicker of sadness. Like I’m something to pity.
Then—without warning—her fingers brush against mine. Barely there. Soft. Hesitant.
Like she forgot.
Forgot this isn’t real. Forgot she’s not really my wife. Forgot I’m not someone built for moments like this.
“But you love the kids,” she says, her thumb now tracing the back of my knuckles. “I’ve seen it. The way you are with them. It’s not something you were taught. It’s just… there.”
I don’t move.
Because if I do, I’ll break the spell—or worse, lean into it.
She keeps going. “That kind of love doesn’t just happen. Not unless it’s already somewhere inside you. Maybe buried under a mountain of old damage, but still alive.”
The words hit harder than they should. Somewhere deep and locked up, where even I’ve stopped checking for cracks. She says it like it’s true. Like she believes it.
And I can’t fucking breathe.
So, I pull away my hand away.
Just enough to remind her—and myself—what this is supposed to be.
“I meant to tell you,” I say, eyes forward now, tone shifting. “Julian and Lila will have their own rooms in the mansion next week.”
She blinks. “Wait. What?”
I glance over. Her expression is stunned. Eyes wide, lips parted like she forgot how to finish the sentence.
“But… you didn’t tell me anything.”
“I’m telling you now.”
“I mean, before the decision was made.”
I shrug. “It’s done.”
She leans back like I’ve knocked the air out of her. “I just… that means I can be closer to them. I thought I’d have to keep doing these weekend trips and awkward handoffs. This—this matters.”
“It’s not permanent,” I say, but my voice betrays something quieter. “Just a step. For now.”
She nods, but her throat works like she’s swallowing something thick.
Silence stretches again, but it’s different this time. Not the awkward kind. The kind loaded with everything unspoken.
She looks at me then—really looks. There’s salsa at the corner of her mouth and tears pooling in the corners of her eyes, but she doesn’t blink them away.
“Thank you,” she says softly. “For giving them space. Even if it’s temporary.”
I shift, jaw tightening. “Don’t get the wrong idea.”
She waits, brows slightly raised.
“This isn’t about you. You got hurt because of my world, and I won’t have your siblings suffering for it. I don’t allow collateral damage. This is damage control.”
Her lips curve. Not into a smile—into something knowing.
“You really suck at lying about the good parts of yourself.”
I look away.
“You know it sounds like an excuse,” she adds, wiping her mouth with a napkin like she’s letting me squirm.
A beat.
“And if I kissed you right now?”
I don’t blink.
“I’d let you.”
She leans in, slow, like she’s testing gravity.
I meet her halfway—my hand sliding behind her neck, fingers threading into her hair. I tilt her face up just enough to let her know if this happens, it’s on my terms, too.
Her deep sea-blue eyes burn with a “try me” glare, and that raw fight makes my cock twitch, ready to break her.
Then she kisses me—soft at first, then not.
I taste lime and carnitas and something raw underneath it all. Her hand finds my chest, curling into the front of my shirt like she’s hanging on.
People pass. A truck honks. But none of it registers.
It’s just her mouth. Her breath. The way her body presses close like we’ve been doing this forever.
She exhales into me, and I breathe her in like a man starving. Our mouths open, slow at first, then deeper. Her tongue brushes mine—tentative, then bolder—and I answer without thinking, like my body knew her rhythm before I did.
She kisses like she fights: all heart, all heat, no backup plan.
I slide my hand from her neck to her jaw, thumb tracing the edge of her cheek as her fingers tug at my shirt like she can’t get close enough. She bites my lower lip—just enough to make me groan—and then softens it with a kiss so sweet it knocks something loose in my chest.
She pulls back for a breath, and I chase her mouth before I can stop myself, stealing one more taste like it’ll fix the ache.
And I let it happen.
I let myself want it. Want her .
Until she pulls back, breath hitching, her lips swollen and kiss-bitten, eyes still half-closed like she’s not fully back in her body yet.
And that’s when the wall slams back up.
My jaw tightens. I shift just enough to put air between us. “Don’t read into that.”
She blinks.
I don’t let her respond.
“This thing between us—whatever it is—it doesn’t change the terms. You’re here because of… business . That’s it.”
Her expression falls, slow and silent.
A pang hits me, sharp and unexpected. It’s a flash of something foreign—like a string snapping tight in my chest. I don’t like seeing her like this. The way her eyes drop, lashes veiling whatever she won’t say. It shouldn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. But it does. And I hate that it does.
But I keep going. “When this ends, you go back to your world. I go back to mine. That was the deal.”
I hate how cold my voice sounds.
I hate even more that I need it to be.
Because if I let myself want what that kiss felt like… I won’t be able to let her go.
And that was never the plan.