Chapter 44
It was Valentina’s diabolical idea
ROMAN
“Your song next, Moya Samotsvet.”
Valentina taps her lip with her bloody finger, and I fantasize about biting those painted lips.
Her mouth on me was both flawless and dark, sating the deep need inside.
But my erection has not faded. And I know soon, we will come together in a coupling so excruciatingly beautiful, it will rock the foundations of this unholy chapel.
Valentina looks at me, and I lower my brows, finding tears turning her eyes glassy, filled with an unreadable emotion. Without her gaze breaking from mine, she says, her voice cracking, “Zina, could you please play ‘Face Down’ by Red Jumpsuit Apparatus?”
Oh, my beloved jewel of a soul…
As the music pulses to life, I take her trembling hand and lead her to where Levka has tied her father to the pew closest to the altar.
Mikhail’s sharpened focus is all for Anton, and he keeps a safe distance of a few feet to prevent my brother from attacking and trying to swipe the gun from his hold.
“I knew I should have left you in the snow with the dead body of your mother,” Victor spits at Valentina as she approaches. “Nothing but trouble since you came out of the womb screaming up a storm. Should have strangled you at birth.”
My wife holds herself like a queen, but I can still read the shadow of hurt in her eyes. But it can’t match her feminine fury.
Before either of them can blink, I seize the back of Victor’s neck, yanking him back so he may look into the eyes of his daughter.
I growl low in his ear, “You are not fit to lick the blood she has shed. And her retribution will reign tonight.” I lift my head, jaw like stone.
“What punishment would you desire, Moya Koroleva?”
“For every caning bruise he left on my back…” She begins, inhaling deeply through her nose. “Take it back. Tenfold, Maya Korona.”
I don’t hesitate to strip him, keeping his back to me. She once told me the number of times he would take her to the wine cellar and whip her or cane her. How it would be five when she was younger, then ten, and then twenty. I kept the tally.
He will be dead before I stop swinging.
I plunge the needle into Victor’s chest with a satisfying snap of resistance, adrenaline burning through his veins, forcing his failing body to remain alive—long enough for me to carve my justice into him. Valentina’s justice.
His back is already a ruined canvas, flesh peeled and curling like bloody wallpaper strips, the gleam of bone catching the low light. I strike again and again, the whip cracking like thunder. Blood splatters across my face, my chest, my hands.
He only rasps. His voice is hoarse from too many screams.
I do not stop. I cannot stop. I am a beast, and this beast belongs to her.
Valentina watches me, smiling through tears, her body softer, freer than I have ever seen her. Her eyes hold me, drenched in adoration, and for a moment, the darkness inside me eases beneath her gaze. She is mine—utterly mine.
When Victor slumps, his heart staggering in his chest, I watch her. Just her. The instant she nods, I let the whip fly from my hand, sending it crashing against the far wall. The silence afterward is deafening.
I take her face in my bloody hands and crush my mouth to hers, our kiss iron and salt and fire. We are still dripping in red, but in this moment, I feel only her.
Then, together, we turn to Anton. The true storm is coming.
Valentina and I step up onto the platform, advancing toward the altar where Anton waits, shadows engulfing much of his face. They could never hide his black eyes, evil with sin and suffering. The air hums with violence, but for the first time tonight, it feels like the end is within reach.
Mikhail lowers his gun at last, slow and cautious, and in that instant—just that hesitation—Anton strikes, seizing the weapon.
The first crack of gunfire splits the air. He fires at us both, wild, brutal, desperate.
I grab Valentina and drag her down beneath the altar, pressing her body tight against mine, covering her with my upper half. Bullets smash against stone, chinks raining down around us, but none touch her. Never her.
Five rounds. The clip is nearly empty. And then he spins, firing the last round into the lock of the rear door. The metal shrieks, splinters. My wife and I lift our heads as the door bursts open—
—but it isn’t Anton’s triumphant departure that fills the room.
It’s the crack of a pistol whipping against his skull. The blow makes him stumble back, his empty gun clattering from his hand.
And then I see her.
The figure straightens from the shadow, regal even in ruin, one gloved hand still raised, her gun trained steady on Anton. My breath punches from my lungs. My chest seizes.
“Mamma…”
Roksana.
Bruised and swollen from our battle. But alive. Like a Tsarina come back from the dead.
The mask I’ve worn for six years fractures. Relief floods me. So sharp, I almost choke on it. Valentina whimpers and sobs, and I realize my eyes are stinging.
“I hope I am not too late,” my mother says, her voice cool as silk and steel. Midnight trousers tucked into boots, a fitted black coat belted at the waist, leather gloves still sticky with someone else’s blood.
Before Anton can recover, Sasha is on him, scooping the fallen pistol, pressing his own to Anton’s temple. “Move,” he growls, eyes blazing, “and I’ll shoot you in the goddamned foot, so my sister and brother-in-law may still torture you. Valentina isn’t the only one who knows how to handle a gun.”
I rise and turn to Roksana. “I’d say you’re right on time, Mamma.”
Then Valentina surges forward, bloody hair swinging, her sobs raw and unguarded. She collides with Roksana in a fierce embrace.
My mother stiffens, gasping. “Good God, milaya, I am Russian. We do not hug.”
“Oh, you do today,” Valentina insists, crushing herself tighter against her.
My mother smiles as she wraps her arms around my wife.
Valentina pulls back, hiccuping on her tears, and wipes at her face. “I’m sorry, I’ve gotten blood all over you.”
Roksana waves a gloved hand dismissively. “It’s not the first time.” Then, curling her lip in disgust, she flicks her eyes toward Anton. For one charged beat, she and I share a look—something deeper than words, forged from loss and survival and impossible reunion.
“How?” My voice is rough, barely steady.
Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Fleur—our Fleur—hovering with a black satchel in hand, giving a shy little wave.
Roksana glances toward them. “Anton’s men were about to toss my body into the Bering Strait.
I was near death, moy syn. You did well.
But the body is capable of much when driven by will and heart.
I snapped their necks before I fell. I thought it was my last breath…
until dear Fleur found me. She and her miracle plants saved me.
Is it she today?” Roksana double-checks.
Fleur nods gently, confirming the change. Always fluid.
Valentina breaks into fresh tears and rushes to her, burying her face in Fleur’s neck. Fleur seems stunned at first, but lets the satchel drop and embraces her.
When my wife pulls back, sniffing, she looks down. “What else is in the bag, Fleur? Other than our trophies, of course.”
Fleur opens it just slightly. I can’t see from where I stand, but I don’t need to. Valentina’s hands fly to her mouth, her chest heaving with a gasp. Then she touches her heart with a dramatic flourish, her bloody face radiant through tears.
“Fleur! There simply aren’t words.”
The cross was Valentina’s diabolical idea.
After all, she couldn’t let Fleur steal all the thunder of inspiration, given the exquisite torture in her black bag.
I step back, hands folded behind my back, my gaze sweeping over the chapel. It has transformed into a mass graveyard of corpses, the faint scent of rigor mortis curling in the air. But Mikhail lit some of the candles, which creates an ironic paradox of romance within the carnage.
All the others have gathered in the front row for the ceremony. Even Zina, who still holds a tablet that controls the music.
The cross rests atop the altar, its vertical and horizontal beams stark against the candlelight. Anton is bound to it in a perfect cruciform posture, limbs stretched, head hanging slightly forward. The barbed wire bites into his wrists and ankles, pulling taut, lacerating him as he struggles.
With Fleur’s precious jar in one hand, Valentina moves around him like a feline predator, inspecting her handiwork, her fingers brushing his form. Her eyes gleam with anticipation and something fiercer—justice, reclamation, and raw delight.
I can’t help but admire her brilliance, her twisted mind of turning this from punishment into a ritual.
And as I stand there, watching her, I know we are not simply seizing vengeance. We are rewriting our scars, reshaping every wound into a testament of our power.
“Valentina.” I take her by the wrist, bringing her closer, admiring her depth of character and the utter, unfiltered, and unconditional love in her gaze.
“We are going to make this last all night, Moya Samotsvet. We will write a new script for our lives. We will not stop until the blood dries on our clothes. And once dawn arrives, I will fuck you on my brother’s corpse. Is that understood?”
With an outpouring of a smile I don’t deserve, Valentina stands on her tiptoes, kisses me something sweet and brief, then says in broken Russian, “Klyanus’, ya ne mog by lyubit’ tebya bol’she, chem lyublyu seichas, no znayu, shto budu tochna tak zhe lyubit’ tebya zavtra.”
I chuff a laugh and crook my smile. “I swear I couldn’t love you more than I do right now, and yet I know I will tomorrow.”
The perfect quote for the moment.
“You go first, Roman,” she tells me.
“Weak little blyad. Fucking bitch!” Anton spits at my wife.
I bring my hand down in a solid strike that snaps his head. “You are about to become our bitch, brat.” Brother.
Valentina clasps her hands, tilts her head, and lifts her brows. “What song, Roman? What song?!”
I press my lips into a fervent grin. “I believe I will invoke the title of Moya Koroleva. And select the song that can summon three generations.” Without looking away from the jewel of my soul, I direct, “Zina, play Queen’s ‘We Will Rock You’.”
“Oh, God, I am so fucking hot and wet for you right now,” Valentina gushes before doing a twirl, jar still in hand.
“Save that fire, my Jewel. At dawn, the best is yet to come.”