Chapter 28
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Drago
Song- Moon, Austin Giorgio
With my hand resting on the small of her back, I guide her onto the private jet. The contact is brief, controlled, but my nerves light up anyway, hyperaware of the warmth beneath my palm.
She hesitates just inside the doorway, eyes flicking over the empty seats.
“You can sit anywhere; no one else is joining us,” I tell her.
She turns slowly to face me, worry etched into her expression in a way that makes my chest tighten. “Can you sit next to me?”
I see the anxiety she’s trying to hide, and there’s no version of reality where I say no.
Even knowing what it will cost me. Sitting that close to her for hours is going to be torture.
Especially now, after knowing what it feels like to have her straddling me.
To have her hands on me. To feel alive because of her touch.
“Of course I can.”
The truth is, I don’t think I could deny her anything of me. Not ever.
My mind doesn’t function properly when it comes to Lily. She’s a glitch in my system, one I can’t decide whether to fix or let consume me.
She smiles softly, and my heart skips in a way that makes me feel reckless. I’m fucked.
She spins on her heel and takes the window seat, and I settle in beside her. Even on a private jet, my size isn’t exactly accommodated. Our thighs brush, and she glances down at the contact, then quickly out the window, but the blush creeping up her cheeks doesn’t escape me.
The air hostess finishes her checks. As we taxi toward the runway, Lily stares straight ahead, fingers worrying the hem of her cardigan. Her breathing shifts, shallow bursts of three followed by a long, uneven inhale. Her thigh starts bouncing against mine as the plane accelerates.
“Look at me, lastochka,” I order quietly.
She does, and the sight of her steals the breath from my lungs all over again.
“Breathe,” I tell her.
“I am.”
I chuckle, resting my hand over her trembling leg. The contact might be grounding for her, but it’s dangerous for me. “No. You’re diving headfirst into a panic attack because you’re not taking in oxygen properly, Lily.”
Her eyes widen. “Excuse me?”
“What’s your favorite color?” I ask calmly.
She blinks, thrown by the question.
Breathing is survival. I learned that through martial arts and far more painful experiences than I care to remember. Mind over matter only works if the body gets what it needs.
“Give me a color, baby,” I murmur.
Her eyes lock onto mine, and she hesitates for a moment. Just staring.
“Blue.”
I smile. “That’s your favorite?”
She nods.
“Mine too. The same deep blue of your eyes. ” I tell her.
That alone makes her cheeks heat, just a touch.
“Okay,” I say softly. “Close your eyes.”
I watch as her lashes flutter shut. “Take a deep breath in through your nose and imagine waves of blue moving through your body, flowing down into your stomach. We want deep breaths, not shallow ones.”
I place her hand on her belly so she can feel the breath filling her properly.
“Feel it?” I whisper. “Keeping you alive.”
She nods.
“Hold it. Three, two, one. Now exhale slowly.” I breathe out with her, anchoring us both. “Picture it like one of your gallery pieces. That glistening icy blue threaded through deep ocean tones as you let it go.”
Her eyes open directly into mine.
“Good girl,” I murmur.
Oh, fuck.
She inhales sharply, then grins, and the reaction nearly undoes me.
“Go again,” I say quickly, steering us away from the edge we almost tipped over. “Another deep breath.”
This time, I close my eyes too. I need it just as much as she does. My hand stays over hers as we breathe together. Except I can’t picture waves. I can only see her when I close my eyes.
“Feels good, doesn’t it?”
She hums in response. We repeat it again and again until the plane smooths out above the clouds, until her body finally relaxes beneath my touch.
When I open my eyes, she’s looking straight at me, like she’s trying to see past the armor.
“Feel better?” I ask, pulling my hand back and resting it firmly in my lap.
“I do. That was really relaxing.”
I nod. “Use it anytime. Inhale and exhale until your body remembers it’s safe.”
“Where did you learn that? Do you have panic attacks, too?”
The question hits harder than she realizes. It breaks something in my chest knowing she carries this now.
“I don’t,” I answer honestly. “I’m trained in various martial arts. Breathing is everything.”
Her mouth forms a small ‘o’. “Is there much you can’t do?”
Keep my hands off you, is what I almost say.
“Knowledge is power,” I say. “It keeps me and the people I love alive.”
Her brows knit. “Is there someone you love? Like… romantically?”
I laugh, the sound rougher than I expect. “Since the day your father took me under his wing, I haven’t had a second to myself.”
She gasps. “Oh my god. Are you a virgin, Drago?”
I arch a brow. “Not even close.”
Her eyes darken, cheeks heating. “So you have had a second to yourself then?”
She nudges my side with a soft giggle.
I lean in just enough to let my breath graze her ear. “I last much longer than mere seconds, baby.”
I pull back immediately, increasing the distance before I lose control entirely. I loosen my tie, roll up my sleeves, and catch her watching every movement like she’s memorizing me.
She’s as alert to me as I am to her.
“Why don’t you take time for yourself?” she asks, chewing her lip.
I shrug. “My life’s been a series of fuck-ups. We built an empire between mafia families in Russia and America. Took on the jobs no one else wanted. It nearly got me killed last year. I’ve never been safe enough to think about love. Or family.”
The words spill too easily. Like I’ve been waiting my entire life to have someone to talk to about everything. That the things I’ve bottled up over the years need to come out. I’ve never had anyone in my life I’ve wanted to talk about this shit to. Not until her.
“That sounds… sad, Drago.”
I smile faintly. “If your dad hadn’t taken me away from my parents, I’d have been dead before my sixteenth birthday.”
I rub at my chest, trying to silence memories I never allow myself.
The only childhood memory I have is of my parents locking me in my bedroom while they got high downstairs.
As years went on, I blanked more and more shit out.
As I got older, they were home less, which was a blessing to me.
When I was at an age I should have been playing outside with the other kids on our bikes, I was trying to figure out how to wash my own clothes.
“How so?” She asks, shaking me from my thoughts.
“You’re an inquisitive little thing.”
“About you,” she says softly. “Yeah.”
The air hums between us.
“My parents were dealers for a powerful man in Russia,” I tell her. “They kept stealing from him. When they got caught, they offered me as payment.”
She gasps, hands flying to her mouth. “What the hell? And I thought my parents were bad.”
Although I understand Lev’s reasons for sending Lily away to America with her mom, I’ll never quite comprehend how he did it to himself. If I had a daughter, I’d walk through hell to keep her with me. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t let them go.
“Trauma doesn’t compete, Lily,” I say gently. “Yours doesn’t diminish because of mine.”
Her palm lands on my thigh, and I nearly launch out of my seat.
“So how did that land you with my father?”
I swallow. “He killed my parents for their crimes and took me instead. He offered Ivan their heads on a stake. Then he trained me to be indestructible.”
I brush a strand of hair from her cheek before I can stop myself.
“He trained me to protect you.” My thumb glides over her skin, and her breathing fractures into soft pants. She doesn’t need to know the extent of my protection. I’m already telling her more than I’ve ever spoken out loud to another soul.
“Now breathe for me, Lily,” I whisper, our noses almost touching.
I should put an end to this.
She. Is. Out. Of. Bounds.
Not mine to taste. To hold. To have.
She’s the daughter of my best friend.
Her fingers graze the back of my hand. “Are you going to kiss me, moy zashchitnik, my protector?”
My pulse detonates. My grip tightens without permission, fingers curling just enough to feel her warmth. Her breath brushes my mouth, and for a split second, I forget how to be anything but a man who wants.
I see it all. Her lips parting. The sound she’d make. The way she’d melt into me like she already trusts me with everything she is.
Then Lev’s face slams into my mind.
The man who dragged me out of hell. The man who gave me purpose. The man who trusted me with the one thing he loves more than his own life.
His daughter.
Fire rips through my chest. I pull back sharply, my hand dropping as if burned.
“No,” I say, way too harshly. “I’m not.”
Hurt flashes across her face before she can hide it, and it nearly destroys me.
“This,” I continue, forcing air into my lungs, forcing distance between us, “can’t happen, Lily. As much as I want it to. Because god help me, I do.”
“Because of my father.” She says, dropping her head.
“Yes,” I say immediately. “And because I’m supposed to be better than this.”
“But you want to?” There’s a heaviness in her tone, like the words cost her.
And that guts me.
I look at her properly then. Not as a mission. Not as Lev’s daughter. As a woman who has tilted my world for five fucking years, if not longer.
“Yes,” I admit. “I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything.”
Her breath stutters.
“And that’s exactly why I won’t. Nothing good happens around me; I only hurt.” My voice cracks.
Pressure clamps down behind my sternum. Because it’s the truth.
Silence stretches between us, broken only by the steady hum of the engines and the rush of air outside.
I lean back, deliberately placing my arm on the armrest, forcing distance where my body begs for closeness.
“If I cross that line,” I say quietly, “I don’t stop. And you deserve more than a man who would burn his entire world just to feel you.”
Her lips tremble. “You already are.”
Fuck.
I close my eyes briefly, grounding myself, dragging in air like it’s poison and salvation all at once.
“Lily,” I say softly, opening them again, “I exist to keep you safe. Even from me. Especially from me.”
She nods, pain and understanding colliding in her expression.
The seatbelt sign flickers off, yet neither of us moves.
And the worst part isn’t that I said no. It’s knowing that if she leaned forward right now, if she closed that final inch herself…
I’m not sure I’d survive saying it again.