Chapter 31
brOOKLYN
“How did you get this?”
We’re lying in his bed, me in his arms. Now that the blindfold's off, I’ve had a chance to truly look at him completely naked…
And holy fuck .
Talk about exceeding expectations.
The man is built like a freaking god . I’m not exaggerating when I say that none of the guys I dance with at the Zakharova—who are all basically fifteen to twenty years younger than Kir, and, you know , professional athletes —have physiques that even come close.
He’s lean and powerful, with smooth, chiseled muscles. Currently, I’m using some of those warm, strong muscles as a pillow as I rest my cheek on his chest, listening to the even beat of his heart as I bask in everything that’s just happened.
I trace a finger over the scar—one of several on his body—that I’ve just asked about, and his strong arms tighten around me. When he remains silent, I shake my head.
“You don’t have to answer,” I murmur.
“Siberia.” He inhales slowly. “We were working on improving a rail line to accommodate heavier transports. The cold snapped a steel tie, and one of the spikes launched out of the ground like a bullet and grazed me as it flew by.”
I blink in shock, my brows knitting. My teeth worry my lip, my hand lying flat on his scar like I’m trying to heal it with my touch.
“I didn’t know you worked in Siberia.”
He grunts a mirthless laugh.
“It wasn’t by choice.”
I twist my head to look up into his face. “What do you mean?”
“Zavolzhsky Penal Camp Eighteen wasn't a job,” he grunts. “It was a work camp.”
I stare at him. “Like a prison camp?”
He nods, and my mouth twists.
“When was this?”
“About thirty-four years ago.”
I frown, stiffening as I do the math before my eyes widen as I stare at him in shock and horror.
“You were fucking ten !? That’s—” I stare at him in disbelief before my face caves, thinking about him as a child working in a Siberian labor camp and almost getting killed by a flying railway spike. “That’s horrible .”
His jaw tightens. “That’s Russia , in the post-Soviet scramble for power between warring Bratva families and the actual government, which was really just a better-funded mafia group.”
“Why…” I stop and shake my head. “Sorry, that’s none of my?—”
“Of course it is,” he murmurs, his arms tightening around me. “I’ve made all of your life my business. It’s only fair that you’re free to know all about mine.”
I chew on my lip, my eyes tracing over his gorgeous face.
How is this real?
“My father ran the Nikolayev family, back when it was little more than a ragtag street gang. Then the crackdowns happened. After my mother and uncle were killed, my father went to work for the rival family who had sold us out to the authorities, in order to safeguard my life, and my sister's.”
I blink. I didn’t know he had a sister.
“She’s dead now,” he says quietly, as if reading my thoughts. “But her son, my nephew, is alive and well.” He smirks. “Damian’s a lunatic, but he’s found his way. He’s in Japan: he married into a Yakuza family. He works for them now.”
I shake my head and then lower my mouth to kiss his chest. “I’m sorry about your family.”
“I’m sorry about yours.”
I exhale against his chest as his arm wraps around me, his hand moving a lock of blonde out of my eyes.
“So, Moscow, to a Siberian prison camp, to…Oxford?”
“Prison camp to boarding school , to Oxford.”
I shake my head. “That’s quite a journey.”
“I could say the same about yours,” he murmurs. “Perhaps now you can see why I was holding back before when it came to you and I.”
I frown quizzically, and he exhales with a smile.
“ I’ve got scars older than you are, babygirl .”
I blush as he cups my jaw, leans in, and kisses me, slow and deep.