Chapter 49
“Oh yeah, Daddy, do it harder.”
VALENTINA
FIVE MONTHS LATER
“What do you think, Moya Koroleva? Should we not waste the time? Or should we savor?”
Roman’s green eyes gleam in the dim light of the ice fishing house.
Not nearly as much as his gold mask with its elegant but eerie skeletal design.
I love watching him work with his mask on.
I love him fucking me more when he’s wearing it.
This is the best extended honeymoon ever.
We needed it. We needed the space, this time together.
Huddling into the black wool coat, I press my lips into a smile as I clutch my favorite toy, my Makarov PM, eyes tracing the thin, wiry frame dangling above the ice hole.
He’s weaselly and thin but wiry. The former trafficker’s sharp brown eyes dart like a desperate rat searching for a way out. There is no way out.
Roman’s thick ropes bite into his wrists, unrelenting.
By now, he’s been dealt some minor bruises while his naked body hangs just above the icy water.
My husband knows exactly how to build the suspense.
One wouldn’t know that there is a beautiful luxury cabin just about a mile from here.
A cabin where we’ve spent every waking hour with one another when Roman isn’t doing his thing.
We haven’t returned to the manor yet. Too dangerous up till now due to the winter, but we are closer. My blood thrums at the knowledge, eager to go home. Home.
Well, home is right next to me.
The stench of fear curls in my nose, acrid and intoxicating, and I feel that familiar rush—the same one that made the chapel night a trial by fire. The same one when I stabbed the trespasser.
“Well, Romy,” I murmur the nickname I came up with when we started this journey.
He was surprised at first, but now he loves it.
Valentina to Valya and Roman to Romy. I tilt my head, rubbing the gun barrel along my lower lip.
“I don’t exactly have anywhere else to be, so why not enjoy the show?
” The corners of my mouth twitch as the man’s gaze snaps to me, pleading, wide, and helpless.
I have more I wish to savor, more I wish to share…with Roman. The buildup might be killing me, but the suspense also lights up my nerve endings.
Roman moves like a predator, his boots grinding softly against the frost-slick boards.
“As my queen commands.” His tone is low, smooth, and wicked.
The words shiver through me—a thrill rushing up my spine.
I slide my finger along the trigger, the cold metal grounding me, and watch the thin man quiver.
Tonight, he will pay for the lives he has harmed.
We dismantled much of his trafficking pipeline, one that stole shipments of medicine headed for underprivileged communities. Children’s medicine. Up until about a month ago, he was selling them on the black market.
Every contact he relied on, every smuggling route, we cut it off piece by piece—ships intercepted, shipments rerouted, informants turned. We struck like surgical phantoms—with a little help from Roksana and her network. Her allies became our allies.
By the time this sniveling rodent realized the walls of his little empire were crumbling, there was nowhere left to run or hide.
Even his small army of enforcers was taken care of when we invaded his “fortress”. Now, that was a fun night. It reminded me of the chapel, but with much fewer bullets. More quick slices to the throat or Roman snapping their necks.
He fucked me over the office desk while I primed my loaded Makarov at the big boss in the chair. If he ran, I was ready to shoot the coward.
And now, here he hangs, suspended above ice and water, stripped of everything. This is the final reckoning. Only one last thing we need to know.
“Where is the last storehouse, Maxym?” Roman asks, circling the former dictator, brandishing a long harpoon with a gaff fishing hook at its end.
“Go to hell!” The man spits, but his terror is evident.
Heaving a sigh, Roman rubs the cold hook along but Roman and I’s spine. “This process is so distasteful. Wouldn’t you rather avoid it? What else do you have to lose or gain? We’ve taken everything. You have no assets, no allies, no loyalties. No one is coming to save you.”
Maxym shudders, but the stubborn set of his jaw holds. He’s clinging to the only thing left—silence.
Roman tilts his head, studying him like a fish caught in a net, dangling helplessly. “You think silence gives you power?” He drags the harpoon hook down again, slower this time, until it clinks against a rib. “Silence is nothing.”
Maxym hisses between his teeth, muttering curses in his native tongue. He’s clinging to authority, but it’s invisible, nonexistent. Any rebellion is thin.
Roman’s sigh fogs in the frozen air. “Do you know what happens when a body goes into water this cold? Nerves seize. Breath catches. Your lungs spasm before you can even scream. But the mind—” he taps the man’s temple with the blunt end of the hook— “the mind stays awake far too long. Long enough to feel yourself drowning. Long enough to wish you had answered me.”
More silence. Maxym trembles. Sweat slides down his temple.
My breath catches as my husband begins, pulling at the lever on the wall, the one that controls the rope suspending Maxym.
I love his twisted smile as he lowers the deposed boss into the water, halfway up, so he gets his dick wet with the polar temperatures.
Savage screeches burst in the air, but Roman and I hold each other’s gazes.
I flick my eyes down and grin because he’s pitching a tent in his pants.
He smiles back, having picked up on my attention.
The coat I wear is too thick to see, but my nipples are hard, and wetness grows in my core. The deep blush forming on my cheeks is enough of a sign.
Every encounter like this gets our adrenaline rising, our blood pulsing.
Violence gets us both off. But united violence.
Because we share everything now. Sometimes, it’s just a quick fuck up against the nearest wall.
One recent time, I bratted too much, and Roman whitewashed me in the snow—buck naked.
Then, he fucked me until all our extremities grew numb.
But the fireplace and Jacuzzi were the perfect follow-ups.
Finally, Roman pulls the lever, raising Maxym out of the water. He’s gasping and crying, his whole body shaking and shivering.
My husband leans in, voice low, intimate. “You have one last thread to cut, Maxym. Where is the storehouse?”
He says nothing. Just spits in Roman’s face.
Circling the ice hole, Roman pauses to stand behind the ex-boss. Heat fills me…for more than one reason. It’s almost time.
I love how my husband’s black gloves subtly crack as he tightens his grip on the harpoon.
My breath hitches as he swings it, bringing it down in an expert strike to Maxym’s back.
The rodent squeals. The hook doesn’t tear the flesh yet.
Roman will get there. But I imagine the sorry excuse for a man will break down first.
Perhaps Maxym is staying silent because he knows he’ll be dead after he gives us the warehouse location.
Regardless, I hope it won’t take too long.
The past five months have been amazing but also exhausting.
I see the toll it’s taken on Roman, too.
I also know it would be a heavier toll if I weren’t at his side.
I don’t just take the edge off and help relieve his tension, which I’m proud to do.
I am his partner, his equal, his queen. Where he goes, I go.
He’s still just as crazy, always finding new ways to shock me, to test me. I hope we don’t lose that now. I hope it doesn’t change, given the…circumstances.
But one unquestionable and irrevocable thing that will never change? We’re so goddamn crazy for one another.
Roman swings the metal rod again, striking the man’s ribs with the blunt side.
My heart pounds with the secret I’ve been carrying today, nearly ready to burst. And something I once mentioned comes to me, and it’s just too perfect. So me. So us.
One more blow, and I burst, blurting out, “Oh, yeah, Daddy, do it harder.”
Roman snaps his head to me. One brow lifts. I blush deeper and bite my lower lip. At first, he chuffs a laugh, misinterpreting my meaning as a kink.
So, when he raises the harpoon again, I repeat with one tiny change, “Oh yeah, DADDY, do it harder.”
“Valentina?”
He tilts his head.
I tilt mine. And grin. “Surprise?”
In one second, he’s flung off his mask, and he’s charging for me. I skitter back against the nearest wall as he closes in, looking like a beautiful warlord while still holding that harpoon. “How on earth—?”
I shrug sweetly, feeling his hot breath on my face. “I found a pregnancy test kit in one of the very well-stocked bathroom closets. And well? I’m late.”
I can’t tell what he’s feeling. One second, he looks like he’s going to eat me. And the next, like he’s going to wrap me in his arms and keep me there for the next nine months.
Tears form in my eyes as he touches my stomach, but his eyes stay fixed on me. “My queen is with child. A little prince or princess.”
“Or printz or printzessa. I like both,” I say and kiss his cheek.
A muscle bounces in his jaw, but he glances to one side where Maxym is still whimpering. “And now, Maya Valya? You chose now to tell me?”
My laugh sparkles. “I couldn’t wait. And we’ve never done things the conventional way.”
“Indeed.”
One split-second later, Roman is raining down blows and hits on Maxym’s body. He’s unleashed something. Something feral, possessive, and hyper-protective. It’s beautiful and deadly, and I love every moment.
Once he’s bleeding and writhing like a worm on a hook, Maxym finally spits out the warehouse location. Roman takes a few minutes to verify. I admire the bloody mess he’s created. So chaotic. So crazy. Nothing like the slow, surgical cuts I am used to.
He stands in the corner, muttering something. After a few more aching seconds, my husband advances to the coward. And he pulls the lever—all the way down. One savage scream is all we hear before the body falls into the ice hole, disappearing into the depths. An icy, eternal coffin.
Before I can blink, Roman is before me, sweeping me into a honeymoon hold and stealing my breath.
“Back to the cabin, then?” I wonder as he sets me on the snowmobile transport.
“Yes.” He takes his place behind me, covering me with his body, wrapping me in his arms. “And then? Home.”
Home.