Chapter 40
EVELINA
Milena
Are you ok?
No, I'm not.
It’s been two weeks since I was attacked outside the Syndicate party. But that’s not why Milena’s texting me. She and the rest of our friends don’t even know about that, because I begged Val not to tell anyone.
No, she’s 100% texting me because she just got the same news alert that I did.
Moscow: Former NYC Crime Boss Pavel Nikitin Arrested in FSB Raid of Minsky Bratva.
Physically, I’m fine. The two big lumps on the back of my head have disappeared, and the cut on the side of my neck from the knife is just a fading pink line.
For the first few days after it happened, I was jumping at my own shadow or the slightest sudden sound. But that has abated for the most part.
But again, the attack isn’t why I’m not okay.
The headline involving my dad being arrested by Russia’s version of the FBI does have a lot to do with it, but it's only part of the reason.
It’s Vaughn.
For the first couple of days after I came home from the hospital, he was right there, permanently at my side. I mean the man literally made me pee with the door cracked open, as if I was going to get jumped in his own bathroom.
But since then, he feels a little more distant. It's like the walls between us that I thought were coming down are slowly being put up again.
He won’t sleep with me, either—in either sense of the word.
He literally won’t sleep in the same bed with me. He brings me to his bedroom every night, and tucks me in. He’ll even crawl into bed with me and let me fall asleep against his chest. But if I wake later, he’s gone, sleeping alone in one of the guest rooms.
It's confusing, and it stings. Especially because when I ask, he tells me it’s because he’s been having nightmares and doesn’t want to wake me. Which I'd almost believe except he won’t look me in the eye when he says it.
He also won’t fuck me. I’ve asked, but he keeps saying I need to rest, because I’m still recovering. Like suddenly, the man who gets off on fucking me like he’s trying to murder me with his cock is afraid he'll hurt me.
That also stings, because I really want him to.
I need him to.
He's like a drug. Or therapy. When we slip into that headspace together, where he’s my monster and I’m his prey, and he owns and controls me in every possible way, it’s like I can breathe easier.
See with more clarity. Be with more honesty.
The brutal violence that we create in bed is my catharsis, and without it, I feel like I’m backsliding into a nervous version of me I don’t recognize anymore.
Me
You saw, huh?
Milena
U want to talk? I know it’s complicated with ur dad.
Me
Thanks, but I think I need to talk to Rome first.
Milena
OK. I’m here if u need anything, girl. You know that. Luv u.
Me
Love u too <3<3<3
I’ve barely hit the send button when my phone lights up.
Roman.
“Hi,” I say quietly.
He exhales. “You read the news?”
“I did.”
There’s a moment or two of silence.
“I guess you’re at his fucking place?”
“His name is Vaughn,” I say quietly.
“Yeah,” he grunts sourly.
“Roman, is it really so awful that I grew up? That I found someone who—”
“Who what, Eves?” he snaps.
“Oh, come on!” I hurl back. “I don’t remember giving you anything but love and support when you were coming to terms with who you were and trying to find the courage to tell me you were in love with a man!”
My brother barks out a cold laugh. “You are not seriously equating me coming out with you deciding to jump into your villain era by shacking up with a fucking lunatic.”
My jaw tightens. “That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about siblings having each other’s back. Also, that is really fucking unfair.”
He snorts. “For fuck’s sake, even Val thinks his brother is a sociopath.”
“Do you know why I started talking to Vaughn in the first place?“ I snap. “Because I knew you didn’t want to have anything to do with helping Dad. So I went to him instead.”
He exhales in a slow stream “Jesus, Evie. I don’t know what it’s going to take for me to impress upon you how much—”
“You hate him?” I snap. “No, Rome, I think you’ve made that abundantly clear.”
My brother exhales.
“See, that’s where you’re wrong. I don’t hate him,” he says flatly. “I don’t care enough to bring hate into the conversation where Dad is concerned. I wish you could appreciate that.”
I shake my head. “I just…I wanted to believe there was good in him, you know? I mean he’s us. If he’s rotten to the core, what does that say about you and me?”
Roman nods, exhaling. “And that’s why you went to Vaughn and the Syndicate.”
“Sort of,” I mumble. “I tried a bunch of other places first, but no one wanted to touch helping him with a ten-foot pole.”
“And that still didn’t drop any clues for you…?” he sighs. “Sorry, go on.”
“I…actually talked to Andrés Torvallés first.”
Roman groans. “For fuck's sake, Evie. If I’d known you were going to people like the Torvallés family, or the fucking Syndicate—”
“You’d have what,” I say tightly. “Done something about Dad?”
At first, a long exhale is his only answer. Then he clears his throat.
“Wait, when did you go to Andrés? He’s been missing and presumed dead for like three four months.”
I nod. “I know,” I say quietly, thinking of the night when Vaughn yanked Andrés out of that car and just…killed him.
For touching me.
For trying to hurt me.
Something sparks inside of me.
“Can I say something?” Roman says quietly.
“Sure?”
He exhales. “Look, I know you always had it easier with Dad. And that’s nothing on you, he’s just old school like that, and you were the princess,” he says gently.
“But I’ve spent my life being able to see him pretty clearly.
And the thing is, his priority is, always has been, and always will be, himself. Full stop.”
I frown, looking down at my hands.
“I don’t even necessarily think he’s an evil guy, Evie,” he continues. “He’s just…a shitty, defective human being who thinks only about himself, and that makes him do shitty stuff.”
He sighs heavily.
“There’s no helping someone like that. Because at the end of the day, he’s his own worst enemy.
You could have done everything in the world to help him when he was whining about being abandoned in Russia.
You could have given him every cent you have and a fucking organ, and that prick would still find a way to let you down and take it all for himself.
I guarantee that, and if you still don’t believe me, look at today’s headline again. ”
Roman snorts.
“The Minsky Bratva has spent decades paying off the right people in the Russian Government to basically be untouchable. It worked for them for years.” He chokes out a bitter laugh.
“Then they got in bed with our dad, who immediately did something incredibly stupid and utterly self-serving and fucked up the whole thing.” Roman sighs.
“The Minsky family was untouchable for thirty fucking years, and all it took was four fucking weeks allying themselves to that fucking prick to get their shit kicked in.”
He sighs, and we both go quiet for a moment.
“And then there’s you,” he finally says tiredly. “I might not like Vaughn that much, and I sure as fuck don’t like you and Vaughn together. But what pisses me off the most is that you getting together is just one more piece of collateral damage from fucking Pavel.”
My heart twists.
“That’s what you think of me finding happiness with Vaughn?” I mutter. “That it’s collateral damage?”
“Isn’t it?” he grunts. “Dad whined to you, knowing you’d do anything to help him. And you did, by quite literally getting in bed with a psycho like Vaughn—”
“Half your friends are fucking psychos!” I yell. “Nero?! Carmen?! Nico?! I mean are you even serious right now?!”
“Well I’d never in a million years let you date them!” he snaps.
I bark a thin, brittle laugh. “Let me? Roman, I’m twenty-three years old! I’m not a kid anymore! Why the fuck are you acting like it’s the end of the world that I grew up and found someone?!”
“Because of who that someone is!” he roars. “I’ve done everything I can to shield you from the worst parts of the world you and I grew up in, and now here you are with the actual worst of that world—”
“Look at our last name!” I yell, choking out a bitter laugh. “Rome, that world is my world! Why are you so worried that I might be in love with someone from—”
“Please,” he snarls. “We both know whatever this shit is with Vaughn, it’s a rebellious phase at best. I just don’t understand why you couldn’t just go out and get a tattoo like a normal person!”
“Roman,” I seethe, my eyes squeezing shut. “I love you. But fuck off.”
I hang up abruptly and then drop the phone onto the bed next to me before shoving my fingers through my hair.
Dammit.
I end up having a four-day weekend off from the Zakharova—which Vaughn seems to know before I even tell him—so we decide to get out of the city and head up to Blackbriar Hall.
It ends up being exactly what I need, because our first night there, Vaughn’s self-imposed celibacy comes to a crashing end.
With the whole place to ourselves, the first night is pure madness. The huge old house already feels haunted, but with Vaughn chasing me through the dark hallways, it’s exactly the escapism I need.
Every pound of my pulse feels like fresh new blood is filling my veins. Every gasp wakes me up a little more. Every rough, claiming, stretching, filling stroke of his thick cock as he takes every single part of me is like a rush of life.
And when he’s finally done with me, and I crawl broken, bloodied, and shaking up between his legs to take his still hard, slick cock into my mouth, he groans deeply and tangles his fist in my hair, knowing I still need more.
I’ll always need more.
But the second night, our games get put on hold.
Sabine comes to visit.
Freaking cock block.