Chapter 45
We are so going to hell for this.
VALENTINA
The church vibrates with the booming, stomping rhythm of We Will Rock You.
Sasha, Roksana, Levka, Fleur, Zina, and Mikhail all clap, and the bass hammers through my chest like a drumbeat of justice.
The altar glows under the dim chandeliers, sacred turned sinister. Anton is trying so hard to wear defiance like armor.
Roman’s steady, warm hand brushes mine. I focus on Roman, on his sharp and commanding eyes as he holds two jars. One crawls with fire ants, the other writhes with cockroaches.
“Choice is yours,” he says, his voice low, clinical. “Crown or core—where will your wrath fall?”
Tonight, we are cleansing through fire and blood. The answer is clear. My fingers curl around the jar of fire ants. Crown.
Fleur’s greatest gift is possibly her attention to detail. Sometimes, I wonder if she has always kept these jars on hand. Unlike Levka, who wears everything on the surface, so much of Fleur is hidden.
I smile to myself because I could imagine her having some secret laboratory, a hidden passage in the dungeon perhaps, where she keeps all her insects. Or anything else.
Straightening my shoulders, I move toward Anton. With every step, it feels like I am shedding the weight of years, the weight of torment and trauma. My hands no longer tremble—they are steady, guided by the fire inside me.
“You will never be rid of me,” Anton snarls. “Neither of you. I will haunt you in your nightmares for the rest of your pathetic lives.”
I grin down at him and trace a line from his chest all the way down to his flaccid cock.
In between the beats of the song, I coo, “Oh, I am counting on it, Anton. Because I will hear your screams in my dreams. I will treasure them. And then, I will rise with the sunrise every morning and forget the air you ever breathed.”
With the narrow tube swarming with fire ants, I take Anton’s dick and nudge the needle into the urethra.
Roman tilts his head, a slow, approving nod. Anton flinches, tries to thrash, but the barbed wire holds him in place.
“Good. Steady hand. Precise placement,” Roman says. “Control him. And ease the needle in slowly and surely.”
His instructions are measured, detached, like a surgeon guiding a novice. But I feel everything. To me, it feels like a ceremony, a sacred ritual. Anton grits his teeth, tries to keep his body hard, tries to maintain bravado, but I see the cracks forming in his mask.
I’ve never felt prouder. Every jagged edge of my broken self aligns here, piercing through the darkness to find light. The disgust, the anger, the stolen pieces of my dignity, my identity—they all converge, and I hold them like weapons.
The music pounds on, the rhythm echoing in the high arches. Every stomp and clap fuels me, and I feel Roman’s gaze on me—not just watching, but honoring. I am taking back what was mine, piece by piece, and my husband is right there beside me, making sure I see the beauty in my revenge. Our revenge.
I am no longer fractured. I am whole in this moment, fierce and untouchable.
Anton squirms. His defiance falters.
“Our scars are not chains,” Roman echoes.
The first scream. It tears from Anton’s throat from the red tide flowing into his fragile flesh. His body thrashes, betraying his agony. Sweat coats his skin, his dark strands clinging to his cheeks.
Now, it’s Roman’s turn.
“Any songs you desire, Moya Samotsvet?”
I twist my lips into a smirk, having already given my next one consideration. I clasp my hands, placing them on my mouth with an utterly wicked energy. “I believe it would a true crime if we didn’t play “Takedown” by HUNTR/X.”
“Mmm, KPop Demon Hunters. I approve.” He winks.
I shrug sweetly. “Who wouldn’t?”
Anton is a demon. And he doesn’t deserve to live. But when this is all said and done, he’ll be a demon’s bitch.
As the electrifying anthem plays, Roman presses the jar of cockroaches against Anton’s anus, then lights a match.
My eyes fill with the firelight as the hiss of heat meets the glass.
The roaches shift, restless. They burrow into the only place that offers them escape.
Roman and I don’t look at him. We hold each other in our gaze, taking back ourselves in these moments.
Anton’s torment becomes our release.
Then? Time melts.
Anton’s agony has stretched into hours like a steady hymn of suffering.
We have danced to that hymn—along with the KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack. Roman chose “How It’s Done”. And then, we debated which songs were the best until we gave up.
The others have nodded off, occasionally waking up to the sound of Anton’s screams. Mikhail has fallen asleep on Zina’s shoulder while Levka is sleeping soundly on Fleur’s lap.
I let Roman do his thing, trusting in his superior skills to cut his brother, writing our names into each mark. He’s fulfilled his vow. The slices cover nearly every part of Anton’s body, more cuts than skin. Roman rubbed salt into every wound, enhancing the agony.
By dawn? In between the excruciating pain of the fire ants and cockroaches, Anton is clinging to his final threads of life, his blood soaking the altar like a sacrifice for the sins he will carry to hell—the darkness we now command.
He draws his last breath. We stare him down, our silence like the last trump to usher in the apocalypse.
And then?
Music hits like a lightning strike! Strings and trumpets. A sudden and unison choir of layered voices ringing in the “Hallelujah!” chorus in a triumphant, exultant energy.
Roman and I glance back, where everyone has jerked up their heads. And Zina, sits at attention, with Shalun on her shoulder and the glowing tablet in her hand.
We both shake our heads with a laugh. Of course, Zina would usher in the most glorious song of all.
Roman deadpans with me before turning to address them, “Thank you for paying homage as witnesses to our acts of justice and retribution. You are dismissed.”
“Wait!” I say, touching his arm.
Everyone pauses, eyes on me. Blushing and biting my lower lip, I turn to Mikhail, fold my hands in front of me, and ask, “Father Mikhail. I know we may be married in spirit. But would you do us the honor of marrying us now? An official ceremony?”
I feel Roman’s eyes on me, his energy like a ravenous beast at my declaration, one ready to lunge for me and fuck me against the nearest surface.
After a moment’s pause, Mikhail echoes, “It would be an honor.”
Fleur is my Maid of Honor. Zina is my honored Matron. Levka serves as Roman’s Best Man, followed by Sasha as a Groomsman. Roksana has claimed a silent but supreme position next to Mikhail.
We may be crusted in blood from head to toe.
We may be high off fumes of endorphins and adrenaline, waiting all night for our hard-driven coupling as Roman says, but we take each other’s hands, our love and lust bright enough to ignite the whole chapel with all its bodies.
They serve as our dead witnesses, their voices silent here but screaming as they writhe from the bowels of hell.
Father Mikhail speaks the words over us, and Roman slides the recovered ring onto my finger. We light a unity candle upon the altar. And even share a drink of wine with Anton’s corpse serving as our warm cupholder.
And finally? We say our vows.
“Muzh-golová,” I proclaim them with all the love and pride of my heart and soul. The husband is the head.
“Zhená-dushá,” echoes Roman. The wife is the soul.
Roman dives for the kiss, and the others file out, not looking back, as he begins to tear at my dress, crusted everywhere with dried blood. I tear at his clothes with just as much passion. It doesn’t take long before we are naked.
I give Roman another blowjob, exhilarated by how he’s still hard after, how I’ve made him that way, how we’ve both waited all night for this.
The first thing he does is spin me around, so I’m facing Anton’s body.
And then, my husband, my true husband, drives himself deep into me from behind.
My nails dig into Anton’s bloody skin. I let myself feel it, the blood, the flesh, the pounding of Roman’s cock in my pussy, ramming me hard, splitting me open.
He reaches for me, kneading my breasts and luring my body into an arch so he may fill me deeper. I moan and fuck him back as much as I can while he twists and tweaks my erect nipples. My cunt creams itself.
“Horosho devochka,” he praises me. “Dripping over her master’s cock, worshiping her king, her god.”
He feeds the deep ache inside me. His heart pounds against my back as I grip him harder, squeezing my inner muscles. Everything has culminated in these moments. Every time he hits the back of my hot cunt, I curse and cry, digging my nails into his hips, his thighs, anywhere I can reach.
Gripping my hair with one hand, Roman yanks my head back until he’s stabbing his tongue down my throat. Fucking me so violently, so deliciously from behind. I kiss him back, hard, but he attacks and mauls my mouth with his hunger, surging raw waves of lust through my being.
Blood and flesh. Skin and bones. Heart to heart.
And head to soul.
He takes what he wants. I give him what he needs.
My husband’s teeth find my shoulder, sinking in, and I sob at the utter high he’s taking me to, convinced I’ll touch the very edge of heaven. As long as he always brings me back to him…
“Your Idol” would be perfect for this moment. Maybe “Golden”. Oh, fuck it!
I choke on the pleasure, my core on the barest verge of splitting into a crazed orgasmic haze.
And then, a solid strike lands on my ass.
I yelp. The moment he pulls out, I moan in sexual frustration before spinning around and attacking him, ripping at his bloodied hair, nails raking down the sides of his neck.
Feral femininity throwing down with primal masculinity.
I can’t escape. Can’t resist. I burn up inside his emerald gaze.
I know he will win. I start the battle. Roman ends the war.
And leaves nothing but a massacre in his wake.
Fried nerve endings. Welts and stripes. A pussy so stretched and beat up, I’ll feel the flames for days.
I’ll spend three days in bed recovering until I can walk again.
And him, playing the attentive and devoted healer the whole time.
His heavy cock throbs between us, and I reach for him, but he smacks my hands away and grips my hips.
“You’re so goddamn gorgeous, Valya,” he growls while lifting my body and dumping me on the edge of the altar. “Fucking perfect, made for me.”
With Anton’s fleshy carcass at my back, Roman spreads my legs and lowers himself, sinking to his goddamn knees.
“Oh, God, don’t stop!” I screech, tangling my hands in his hair as he grinds his mouth against me, tongue like wet velvet stroking every inch of my inner and outer labia, then circling my clit with all his expertise.
I remember the first night together, how he vowed to destroy me and to remake me.
Tonight, we destroyed our enemies.
Now, we are destroying each other. And we will remake each other, piece by piece.
One more circle of his tongue around my clit, and I come in a torrent of hot bliss, the arousal creaming his face. I’m still climaxing when he rises, grips the underside of my thighs, and slams into me with ruthless abandon.
“You love it rough, don’t you, Moya Koroleva?” he says low and dark in my ear while pounding into me, igniting all my senses. “Love it when I hurt you, punish you. Getting off on all the pain I can give you.”
Because the heights of unholy bliss are indescribable.
“Fucking you in a church, drowning in the blood of our enemies,” he breathes hotly against my lips.
“We’re going to hell,” I moan and tip my head back as he grinds into me, setting my pussy on fire.
“Mmm…I’ll build you a throne from the bones of ten thousand demons and the devil himself will bow to hell’s new queen.”
My ass chafes against the cold stone, wet with Anton’s blood. And with every thrust, I hit the side of his body.
Roman licks the outline of the crown brand on my chest and rumbles a low growl, “You are my deepest sin, Valentina Makarova. And my highest divinity.”
He unleashes. The force of how he fucks me is like a war hammer, sending my pulse into a tailspin.
The earth tilts off its axis, and the orgasm wrenches my spirit right from the church into another dimension.
He power-fucks me through it, spiraling with me, catching me in that other dimension before dragging me back down.
Roman Makarova will never let me go.
“Get on your back, Valya.”
It’s all he says after he pulls out, leaving my pussy gushing with both our fluids, leaving a little well on the floor in front of the altar. I screw my brows low, infuriated by him stopping when his cock is still a raging beast slapping against his thigh.
He’s nowhere near finished with me. The tension in his back, in his ramrod spine, and bulging muscles confirm it.
I can’t see what he’s doing, but I know he’s not sane. Not safe. My maddening assassin, who knows all the erotic, beautiful ways to hurt me, to make me crave him until only we exist in a storm of our own making. We’ve ripped our storm upon our enemies.
Now, we’re entering the eye.
When Roman turns and advances toward me again, my jaw drops at the object in each hand. “You can’t be serious!”
A wicked grin crooks one side of his face.
Okay, there’s kinky, and then there’s just crazy.
Roman’s prepared. The second I dodge to one side, trying to lunge out of the way, he catches me.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk, Valentina,” he scolds me while I buck and thrash against him, kicking up a storm.
With one iron-strong arm, he maintains his hold on me, then kicks the cross bearing Anton’s corpse right off the altar.
The fall thunders through the church, and I feel it reverberate into the altar as Roman dumps me on the stone, spattered with his brother’s blood.
I try to scramble away, half-desperate from panic and half-desperate from need, for him to punish me harder.
Like a ritualistic cleansing. Make it hurt. Make it hard. Purge what was old.
All that we were dies here on this altar. What rises next will be unbroken and untouchable.
We are so going to hell for this.