Chapter 24
CHAPTER 24
KOSTYA
M arina stared at me, her gaze unwavering, expectation burning in her eyes.
She’d asked a direct question and wanted a direct answer.
Under different circumstances, I would have dodged. Deflected. Or simply refused to answer at all. But I had no intention of letting Marina go. She was going to be part of this life, whether she liked it or not.
I had no idea how she would respond. And that unsettled me more than I wanted to admit.
I always knew how people would react to my words. With fear. Respect. Anger. Some even pissed themselves. I had every possible outcome mapped out before they opened their mouths, ready with an appropriate response before they had the chance to think.
But Marina was unpredictable.
She didn’t react the way she was supposed to.
That should have been her most annoying trait. It wasn’t .
It was maddening, yes. But it was also…intoxicating.
My world was built on precision. Efficiency. Everything in its place. Every variable accounted for.
Marina? She was chaos wrapped in silk. And fuck if I didn’t want to unravel her.
“How much do you know about your sister’s family?” I asked, my voice steady. “Specifically, her mother?”
Her lips parted slightly, then pressed into a thin line. She chewed her bottom lip—a nervous habit I’d noticed—but she didn’t answer right away. Instead, she turned on her heel and walked into the other room, tossing a wave over her shoulder for me to follow.
A test.
I sighed through my nose, raking a hand through my hair before following her.
The scent of butter and garlic hit me first. My gaze landed on the coffee table, now covered with more trays of food, silver domes gleaming under the warm light.
I arched a brow in silent question.
She shrugged, feigning innocence. “I was hungry. I wanted more food. And I figured after the whole chasing-me-down thing, you owed me.”
A smirk tugged at the corner of my mouth despite myself. God, she was something else.
She curled onto the sofa, tucking her legs beneath her, and lifted one of the domes to reveal an absurdly large plate of pasta topped with an entire lobster.
“Order whatever you wish,” I said, shrugging.
I considered sitting next to her, feeling the pull of her proximity like a magnetic force. But if I was going to give her the truth, I needed space. I needed to move. I needed somewhere to put this gnawing, foreign anxiety.
I paced the length of the room, rolling my shoulders back, hands on my hips as I tried to find the right words. But the tension stretched tight between us, and I knew the wrong word could shatter the fragile truce we’d barely managed to hold onto.
Marina twirled a forkful of pasta, watching me, her expression unreadable. “I don’t know much about her mother’s side of the family. I knew she came from money and influence. That was all anyone ever told me.”
I nodded for a moment. “They didn’t just come from money. Veronika’s maternal grandfather was a mafia boss. Her mother was a mafia princess.”
She stared at me, then gestured with her fork for me to continue before twirling another bite of the fettuccine noodles around the tines.
The way her eyes slid closed in pleasure as she chewed was...distracting.
I clenched my jaw, forcing my thoughts back into line. “Veronika’s mother’s mafia family had been dying out, but they still had business contacts, assets, and a few other contracts that the Ivanov family wanted. The only way for us to secure them was through marriage. So a contract was made, and Veronika and I were married. It was only ever a business arrangement.”
“Did you love her?” she asked.
“No,” I answered honestly. “But I wanted to. When I found out about the contract and what it was going to entail, I had hoped that she and I could grow to love each other, but she had no interest in that. I could have forced it, but…” I left the rest unsaid.
“I am pretty sure forcing love like that is called Stockholm syndrome,” she said offhandedly, and I had to bite back a laugh. She was a constant surprise.
“Are you saying the only way a woman could want me is through Stockholm syndrome?”
She looked me up and down, her eyes lingering on my cock beneath my robe, making it harden under her gaze.
“Not the only way, but you seem to enjoy kidnapping women and holding them against their will. So it seems the most likely.”
I narrowed my eyes at her, pressing my lips in a stern grimace to suppress the smile pulling at the corners of my mouth. “Keep it up, little girl, and I am going to give you something to do with those lips, and then your food is going to get cold.”
She gave a small gasp, and I didn’t miss the way her thighs pressed together. But instead of backing down, she met my gaze with open defiance.
“So you’re saying you’re in the mafia?” she said, changing the subject.
The way she said mafia and looked at me without surprise or even fear was unsettling and highly suspicious. As if she said something as mundane as “so you're an accountant?”
“How much of this do you already know?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest and looking down at her.
She should have been scared of me. She should’ve been freaking out or trying to figure out how to escape. Instead, she was setting down the lobster fettuccine and looking under the silver dome of another plate.
“You should try this. It’s fantastic.” She motioned toward the pasta.
“No thank you, I eat for fuel, not pleasure.”
“I have never heard a more depressing statement in my entire life,” Marina said, looking at me.
Immediately suspicious at her casual tone, I exhaled sharply and narrowed my gaze. “You haven’t answered my question. How much of this do you already know?”
“Take a bite of the pasta, tell me what you really think, and then I’ll tell you what I know.” She lifted her eyebrow in a challenge.
“I think that it’s too many calories with not enough nutrients to be satisfying in any real way.”
She arched her eyebrow at me and lifted the fork in offering. I didn’t know if she was daring me to try the pasta or playing chicken, wanting to know who would break first.
I was going to have fun breaking her later, but for now, I needed answers. I rolled my eyes, but I sat down next to her, grabbing the fork from her outstretched hand. I intended to take one quick bite, just enough to appease her so she would answer me.
She wasn’t satisfied. She stole the fork back, twirled another bite, and held it up. “No, not like that. A real bite.”
Just to make her happy, and to get some answers without another fight, I leaned in and took it straight from the fork.
The moment the flavors exploded on my tongue, I groaned, and Marina laughed softly. “Good, huh? ”
Her laughter was light, teasing, but beneath it, the tension thickened, heavy with something unspoken. She held the fork out again, and I caught her wrist, holding her there. Her breath stuttered.
I let my thumb brush against the inside of her wrist, feeling the rapid pulse beneath her skin. “You enjoy bending me to your whims, don’t you?”
She smiled, but there was a hitch in it, as if she was suddenly aware of just how close we were.
I leaned in, lowering my voice. “Careful, Marina. You keep playing with fire, you’re going to get burned.”
Her breath shuddered out, but she didn’t move away. Instead, she lifted the fork once more, this time deliberately sliding the bite into my mouth, lingering just a second too long.
I arched a brow. “Are you prepared for the consequences, babygirl?”
Averting her gaze, she lifted another silver dome to reveal a baked potato that was loaded with bacon, cheddar cheese and broccoli. “Try this next.”
“Answer the question.”
Ignoring my request, she said, “Veronika didn’t tell me everything, but she told me that her family was in the same kind of business as yours, and that she didn’t have a choice. I’m not stupid. It didn’t take me long to put it together. As far as I know, the only businesses that still seal contracts with marriages are on the less reputable side of the law.”
“It doesn’t bother you?” I asked, stabbing into the potato and watching as a river of melted cheese seeped from where I had cut into it .
Marina sat back, a plate of chicken in a sun-dried tomato and cream sauce on a bed of mashed potatoes on her lap. She took a bite of the chicken, and her eyes closed as her lips twisted into an indulgent smile.
I couldn’t help it, I needed to know what made her look that blissed out. I snuck my fork over her plate and stabbed a piece of the chicken with some of the tomato and even ran it through the sauce and potatoes before bringing it to my own lips.
Fuck, that was good.
It was odd, experiencing something for the simple pleasure of it. “What is this?”
“It’s called marry me chicken,” she answered. “And I don’t know if it bothers me. The bratva is known for its brutality, but is there really any difference between the bratva and any other rich motherfucker? At least you aren’t hypocritical about it. If I ask you questions, will you answer me honestly?”
“I will answer as honestly as I can. I’m not going to tell you anything that’s going to get you hurt or put you in any kind of danger.”
“Have you ever hurt someone for fun?”
I took a deep breath.
Her question was direct and to the point. Part of me had to respect that. She knew what she wanted; she knew where her line in the sand was and what she was and wasn’t willing to forgive.
“As part of my job for the family? No,” I answered. “I’ve hurt people, but never for enjoyment. At least not in the line of duty. Now if we’re talking about on the ice as part of the local hockey team, that’s a different story. ”
“That’s not work, that’s war,” she said with a sexy smile.
Marina had always had this energy about her. It was what first drew me in, a magnetism I couldn't quite define. But watching her now—her fingers skimming the edge of a plate before reaching for another, this one piled high with ice cream and a fudge brownie—I realized what it was.
Hunger.
Not just for food, though she indulged in that too, savoring every bite like it was meant to be worshipped. But for life. For experiences. For pleasure.
She knew what she wanted, and she took it. No hesitation. No apologies.
There was a boldness to her, a recklessness that was intoxicating.
No other woman I knew—whether born into the mafia or clawing their way into it—would have run like she did. They wouldn’t have had the nerve to rebuild a life from the ground up, not once, but twice. And yet Marina had, without compromise. Without losing the fire in her veins.
Just like the way she ordered this feast, not because she needed it, but because she wanted to piss me off. The untouched display of oysters and caviar was proof enough. She could have ordered the entire fucking restaurant if she wanted, and it wouldn’t put a dent in my net worth.
But it was the way she ate, sampling, tasting, teasing herself like she was absorbing the world through sensation alone .
And fuck, wasn’t that the same way she had given herself to me?
In the train car, she met me thrust for thrust, hunger for hunger. She came just as hard as I did, her body surrendering to the full experience.
I didn’t live like that. Every move I made was calculated. Every decision, every action, down to the meals I consumed, all serving a purpose. I didn’t drink for pleasure, only to dull the edges of my temper or ease negotiations.
I didn’t chase Marina across continents because I wanted her. I did want her, had always wanted her, but that wasn’t why I boarded the plane.
I did it because I had made Veronika a promise.
And yet, sitting across from Marina now, watching her lick a smear of chocolate from her bottom lip, I realized she made me want.
She made me crave things I had long denied myself.
She didn’t overthink. She didn’t hesitate. Maybe she should have, maybe then she wouldn’t have fucking jumped off that train, but I couldn’t fault her for her audacity.
Her voice cut through my thoughts. “Do you regret marrying her?”