Chapter Twelve - Rostya
Back at the mansion, the adrenaline is still surging in my veins, refusing to let me settle.
My hands tremble, fists clenched to keep from betraying just how close it had all come.
I can’t shake the image of her caught in the crosshairs, her eyes wide and terrified, the barrel of a gun leveled at her skull.
The echo of bullets is still in my ears, mingled with the memory of her bloodstained dress pressed under my arm as I dragged her through hell.
I don’t let her out of my sight. I drag her down the marble corridor, ignoring the eyes of my men. My grip is hard, angry, all but shoving her through the door of the first private room I find. The door slams behind us, rattling in its frame.
I round on her, my voice a blade. “What the fuck were you thinking? You could have gotten yourself killed. You almost got me killed!” The words are sharp, each one a lash. I need her to feel the edge, need her to see that her recklessness nearly cost us both everything.
She stands her ground, chin lifted, face streaked with dirt and blood. “Maybe next time you’ll leave me behind like you should have!” she spits back, her own fury matching mine. “Why did you even bother to save me if all I am is a liability?”
Her words strike deeper than any bullet. The question punches through the wall I’ve built around my anger. I freeze, breath caught. For a second, I see her not as a pawn or a prisoner, but as something far more dangerous. Someone who has the power to wound me.
I bare my teeth, trying to close that door before she can pry it open further. “You’re missing the point,” I snap. “You’re there because you wear my ring. You walk where I walk, and you follow my orders. That’s the price of survival.”
It sounds hollow even to me.
She shakes her head, eyes burning. “You can’t even admit it, can you? That I matter to you. That you didn’t just save me for the sake of your precious Bratva order.” Her voice is raw, her defiance fierce, and it rattles something loose inside me.
The adrenaline begins to cool, replaced by a hot, unsteady ache in my chest. I don’t want to admit how close I came to losing control tonight. How much it terrified me to see her in the crossfire, how much it matters, more than it ever should.
For a moment, the silence between us is sharper than the gunfire we left behind. I turn away, jaw clenched, unable to look at her and unable to let her go. I realize with a jolt that she’s no longer just a complication.
She’s become the weakness I never wanted, and the one I can’t let go.
I pace the width of the room, the walls too close, the lights too harsh.
Fury keeps me upright, but beneath it, memory gnaws—her terrified face, the weight of her body pressed under my arm as gunfire ripped the world apart.
The stutter of her breath, the way she clung to life even when blood slicked her hands.
I can’t explain, even to myself, why any of it matters.
Why the thought of her vanishing in a spray of bullets makes my chest ache in ways no loss ever has.
She’s still standing by the door, shoulders rigid, fire crackling in her eyes despite the tremor in her hands. Her voice slices through the silence, low but unyielding.
“You’re a monster, Rostya. You use people. You break things. You don’t save anyone. So why me?” Her chin lifts, but her voice falters on the last word, softening into something rawer. “Why did you care?”
The honesty stings worse than the accusation. It slices right through me, shattering my armor. She doesn’t know—she can’t know—how close she came to being another ghost, how close I came to letting her go because I couldn’t bear what it would do to me to admit she mattered.
The silence tightens. We stand locked in a stare, breaths coming rough and ragged, anger giving way to something heavier. The air thickens, as if every unspoken word pulls us closer, drawing all the oxygen out of the room.
I snap.
I cross the space in two strides, my hand catching the back of her neck, dragging her toward me.
My mouth crashes against hers—hard, bruising, a kiss wielded like a weapon.
There’s nothing gentle in it, nothing careful.
It’s hunger and fury, fear and relief, desperate to burn away what I can’t say.
Her lips part in surprise, but then her hands fist in my shirt, pulling me closer even as we fight for control.
I devour her anger, her defiance, everything that makes her dangerous to me.
She’s fire and ice, cursing into my mouth, biting at my lip even as she melts against me.
My fingers tighten in her hair, anchoring her, and for a heartbeat there’s no Bratva, no blood, no war—only the violent collision of mouths, the shared heat and desperation.
When I finally pull back, we’re both breathing hard, foreheads pressed together, bodies shaking with something neither of us can name. Her eyes search mine, confused and hungry, and I know nothing will be the same after this, not for her, and certainly not for me.
The war between us has just changed its terms, and neither of us is ready for what comes next.
At first, she shoves at me, her fists pressing into my chest, desperate to keep distance, to hold the line she’s drawn in her head.
Her defiance is sharp, her anger real, but my hands find her waist, anchoring her, pulling her flush against me.
I can feel her trembling, the way her pulse pounds through her skin.
The kiss deepens, the edge between us burning away, replaced by a hunger neither of us can name.
She tries to push me off again, nails biting through my shirt, but my grip tightens.
I trap her against the wall, the pressure of my body pinning her, giving her no space to retreat.
Her protest twists into a gasp. My mouth moves rough against hers—biting, claiming, demanding.
Her resistance blurs, her hands curling in my shirt not to shove me away, but to hold on.
She’s still fighting, but the fight is different now—desperate, hungry, tangled up in the heat pooling between us.
I drag my lips down her throat, tasting the salt of sweat and fear, the sharpness of her breath hitching as I press kisses—rough, possessive—against her pulse. She tilts her head back, giving me more of her neck even as her hands tangle in my hair, tugging hard enough to sting.
My cock throbs now, pressing against the seam of my pants.
She curses my name, spits fury, but it melts at the edges.
The anger collapses into something molten.
Her body arches, seeking friction. My hands are everywhere—her hips, her back, the soft curve of her thigh as I lift her, hooking her leg around my waist, crushing her against me.
The heat between us is savage, not soft or careful, but wild—like a dam breaking after too long under pressure.
She clings to me, nails scoring my skin. My teeth graze her jaw, her collarbone, marking her, branding her as mine. The sounds she makes are raw, broken, her lips parted with each desperate exhale. Every gasp is a surrender, every moan a confession that she wants this as much as I do.
I press her harder into the wall, her dress riding up, the lace tearing beneath my fingers as I tug it out of the way. Skin meets skin, fever-hot. Her hands fumble at my belt, frantic, yanking me closer. She’s so desperate she doesn’t even seem to care about the splinters in her palms.
I groan into her mouth as she bites my lip, her thighs tightening around me.
When I slip between her folds she’s already soaked for me, and a low hum of approval leaves my lips. She gasps into my open mouth as I thrust, and she takes me right to the hilt.
The rhythm is rough, desperate—a tangle of bodies and ragged breaths, mouths colliding, hands everywhere. She arches, moving to meet every thrust, her head tipping back as pleasure rips through her in waves, each one fiercer than the last.
I lose myself in her, in the heat and the fury, in the way she sobs my name like it’s both a curse and a plea.
Every sound she makes drives me harder, rougher, my hands roaming her body like I can learn every secret in a single desperate night. Her legs tighten around my waist, heels digging into me, urging me closer, deeper.
She’s arching against me, body slick and writhing, hands raking down my back.
My mouth claims her again—her jaw, the corner of her lips, the pulse at her throat beating wild beneath my tongue.
I want to leave my mark everywhere, a constellation of bruises that won’t fade.
I bite her shoulder, and she gasps, hips jerking, her fingers tugging at my hair until it hurts.
We don’t move to the bed. We don’t need it. The wall is enough, the sheer force of want holding us upright as we crash together again and again. Her breath hitches with every thrust, her nails clawing lines into my skin.
“F-fuck,” she mutters against my lips, and I feel her pussy clench around my cock. She’s so close, I can feel it in the way she writhes, in the way her whole body responds to me.
I let my hand slide down, grip her thigh, force her hips higher so she’s pinned hard.
She moans, head thrown back, eyes fluttering.
I feel her shudder, the tension coiling inside her, building higher with every frantic movement.
The world narrows to the sound of skin on skin, the wet, guttural noises between us, the ragged pace of our breath.
Then the orgasm tears through her, and Karmia gasps with the force of it.
I can feel her breaking apart, every muscle tightening, the moment right before she falls over the edge. I press my forehead to hers, swallowing her cries, my own control slipping. Her body trembles, then shatters around me, her cries muffled against my mouth, raw and unguarded.
I hold her through it, losing myself in the chaos. I let go, falling with her, letting the heat and violence strip me bare. I come too, wild and unrestrained, emptying inside of her until there’s nothing left but the rush of blood and the taste of her sweat on my tongue.
We stay tangled like that, her head against my shoulder, my arms still anchoring her tight. The aftermath is almost as fierce as the act itself, each of us holding on, gasping, bodies marked by the battle we’ve just fought and won, together and against each other.
Our combined come is slick and cooling between us, but I don’t have it in me to care. I stay nestled inside her for a while, enjoying the warmth of her.
For a long moment, there is only the darkness, the bruises, the frantic echo of our hearts, and the sense that something between us has shifted irrevocably, and forever.
The room is a ruin of tangled bodies, rumpled clothes, sweat and sex thick in the air.
The silence stretches, a living thing, broken only by the sound of our ragged, mingled breathing.
Her dress is half shredded, her hair wild around her face.
I can still feel the echo of her nails down my back, the lingering bite of her teeth at my shoulder.
I pull back, but only just enough to see her.
Her lips are swollen, cheeks flushed, throat mottled where my mouth and hands have left marks.
She looks at me not with victory or surrender, but with something raw and questioning.
She’s still angry, still trembling, but the heat hasn’t faded from her eyes.
I don’t speak. Words would break whatever has just cracked open between us.
Instead, I hold her gaze, letting her see me in the raw aftermath—no mask, no shield, nothing but the reality of my hunger and the ache I can’t hide.
My eyes lock on hers, unreadable, drilling through every barrier she tries to rebuild.
For a moment, I can’t hide it. Something flickers underneath all the cold, all the cruelty. Something painfully human and real, something I never intended to show her. She sees it. I know she does. It unsettles her more than violence ever could.
She looks away first, her breath still shaky, her body curling in on itself like she’s unsure who she’s become.
I know she’s searching for answers—why I saved her, why I want her, why I let her see what’s buried under my ruthlessness.
I give her nothing. No explanations, no comfort. The words die on my tongue, locked behind everything I still refuse to name.
I rise, turning from her, the cool air biting at sweat-damp skin. I don’t look back. I can’t. If I do, I might admit to things I have never let myself feel. So I leave her there, caught between rage and something deeper, darker.
In the silence that follows, she learns a new kind of fear—not of me, but of herself. For yielding to me. For wanting more. For sensing that beneath all the brutality, there is something dangerously alive, waiting for her in the dark.