Chapter 13
13
DARYA
R oman doesn’t speak for the rest of the way back to Malaga.
I know I’ve insulted him by implying that he’s underestimating Vilnus. Maybe, if I’m honest, I wanted to insult him.
It’s not fair. It’s not rational. But knowing that Roman is already a father has shaken me more than I knew it could.
Not because I’m jealous, or envious of his relationship with Ofelia. Nothing could be any further from the truth. If anything, I’m thrilled for Ofelia that she has a living father, particularly one of Roman’s caliber. In some unconscious part of myself, I’m not even entirely surprised.
Of all the children, Ofelia has always resembled Roman the most. Particularly in her nature, the way she intuitively protects her siblings. More than once, I’ve had my breath taken away by the opaque expression that is so much like Roman’s, when she tucks her emotions away in some deep part inside her. It breaks my heart that they have been deprived of one another all these years, denied the relationship they both deserve.
No. It’s not Ofelia’s paternity that upsets me.
It’s the way Roman talks about it.
He’s entirely dispassionate, as if it’s a story that happened to someone else. Not once has he expressed any emotion about the relationship or given any indication that he is excited—or even moved—by the discovery. He avoids any question related to how he feels about being a father, and it doesn’t take a genius to see that he’s telling me barely the beginning of the situation with Inger.
I despise Inger, not just for what she’s done now with her own children, but long before that, for the many ways she let them down and used them for her own ends. I loathe her even more for depriving Roman of his daughter, and Ofelia of her father, for so long.
I know Roman can be an incredible father. Just watching the way he’s opened up to the children over the past months is proof enough that he has the capacity to love and protect them, to be the father they need.
But is that simply because he’s one step removed, a godfather who is legally responsible for them? Now that he knows he is Ofelia’s father, will he suddenly change, put a distance between himself and her? I know better than anyone how hard it is for Roman to allow himself to care, to open up. Given how hard it has been for him to express emotion to me, how much more will he fear exposing himself and his heart to his own child?
And what about the baby inside me?
Will he be willing to take that next step, to be all our child needs him to be?
We’ve never even discussed marriage, let alone children. And given the way Roman has reacted to the news of Ofelia being his daughter, I’m not at all certain how he’s going to react to my news.
Either way, now certainly isn’t the time to tell him about it. Until we have the girls back, my news will have to wait.
I settle back into my seat, staring out the window, trying my hardest not to tremble at the thought of Ofelia in Vilnus Orlov’s hands.
The thought makes me physically sick with fear.
I meant what I said to Roman, insulting as he might have found it. Nobody knows what Vilnus Orlov is capable of more than I do. Not even my father or brother know the depths of his depravity.
I close my eyes, trying to sleep, to push the nightmare memories down to the place I’ve kept them for years. I don’t want to remember, but the news of the girls’ capture seems to have opened the floodgates to the past. The images rise despite my will, sickening and close enough to smell on the late-night air.
“You should be engaged by now, Darya.”
It’s past midnight, and I’m alone in my room. The guards on my door belong to Vilnus and stand aside without question when he comes on these late-night visits.
Since I turned twenty-one a month ago, the visits have been happening more and more often.
“There are plenty of men who’d pay handsomely to marry Sergei Petrovsky’s daughter.” Vilnus eyes my body greedily. I wear thick flannel pajamas even in the Miami heat, precisely because of these visits. “We need to take you shopping. Such a beautiful body shouldn’t be covered up by those ugly pajamas. You need a man to teach you how to show it off.”
His pudgy hand darts out, squeezing one of my breasts with sudden force. I bite down on my cry of pain, trying not to react. This is the game we play, where he tries to get a reaction, and I do all I can to deny him even the slightest flinch at his touch. Four years in his captivity have taught me about his obsession with inflicting pain, the way his eyes get feverish with excitement when he senses fear.
“If you and your brother would just open that vault, all this unpleasantness would be at an end. I could marry you off to a nice man, one who would give you children, a nice home. I could even marry you myself. Keep you here, in your own home. You would be a queen, Darya. Together we would rule Miami.”
His hand tightens brutally on my breast. I swallow my gag reflex. This is another one of his favorite games. I don’t know if he honestly believes in the sick fantasy he conjures up or whether it’s just another way to torture and intimidate me.
Either way, it’s terrifying.
“You think I wouldn’t do it, don’t you?” His eyes narrow to gleaming, predatory slits. “You think that because I’m fifty with a wife and children, you’re safe. Well, a wife is easily disposed of. Mine has bored me for years. I don’t enjoy fucking her anymore, if I ever really did. Not as much as I’d enjoy fucking you. And I would enjoy that, Darya. You would, too, believe me. I know how to make a woman scream.
“One bullet, and my wife is gone. As for children—well. My daughters have already been broken in. I did that myself, Darya. I’m not letting any man take what’s mine by blood. I took them both after they first bled. Taught them how to please a man. Tell me, why I shouldn’t do the same with you?”
I force myself to meet his eyes, to pretend his words don’t fill me with revulsion and terror. “You won’t do it to me because you know I’m too valuable.”
Pretend I’m unafraid. Pretend I believe my own words.
“Your daughters don’t hold the key to a fortune. I do.” I force myself to stare him down. “And if you ever try to do to me what you did to your own flesh and blood, you won’t ever get what you really want. Because you don’t actually care about my body, do you, Vilnus? The only thing you care about is what is inside that vault. And I promise you this: if you force me into your bed, that vault door will remain closed to you forever. I swear it on my own life.”
“Then tell me!” He yanks me toward him, pulling my face close enough to his that his spit sprays me when he speaks. “Tell me how to open it, Darya.”
“I’ve told you. I can’t open it. I don’t even remember my fingerprints being taken. It was all done when I was a baby. All I know is that it takes three sets. I didn’t even know that much, or who the third set belonged to, until you told me. I’ve told you a thousand times that I don’t know how that vault works. Neither does my brother. And if my father knew, he would have told you by now.”
“Then tell me why I shouldn’t fuck you bloody!”
“Because you know that my fingerprints are one of the keys.” I hold up my hands, rippling my fingertips. “I’ll cut them off myself, Vilnus. I’ve told you already that I’ll do it, if you force me. I might not know where this Borovsky boy is, but I do know that even if you find him, you still need Alexei and me to open it. Lose me, and you won’t ever breach that door.”
His breath stinks of cigarettes and alcohol, and his fingers dig into my breast hard enough to leave bruises even through the thick material. But after a moment, and a particularly vicious squeeze, he thrusts me away from him.
“I’ll fuck you one day,” he mutters, stumbling toward the door. “I’ll fuck you until you know how little girls should scream for their men.”
I lie awake for the rest of the night, trembling with fear, wondering how long I will survive before his patience runs out.
I jolt to consciousness with a sickening lurch. I must have cried out, because Roman is staring at me.
“I’m fine.” I push myself up in the seat, rubbing my face. I’ve clearly slept, because we’re in the underground garage beneath the penthouse. Roman’s phone lights up as he turns the engine off. He punches the answer button.
“ Da .”
He listens intently for a few moments. “No,” he says decisively. “It’s only a few hours until dawn. You need to get some rest, Pavel, same with your team. I’m waiting for a call from someone, so I won’t act before then anyway. None of us have slept in days. We know where the girls are. For tonight, there’s nothing more we can do. Leave a team to keep trying to hack the security cameras on the compound, and make sure everyone else gets their heads down. We’ll meet at the lab first thing in the morning.”
Mickey sits up, rubbing his eyes and frowning. “Is that Pavel?” He reaches for the phone. “I need to talk to him—”
Roman hits the end call button and glares at him over the headrest. “You’re going to get into that elevator, go to your apartment, and go to bed. Nobody, not even you, can work without sleep. I want your word that laptop will stay closed until you’ve had your head down for at least a few hours, or I’ll fucking take it myself. Am I clear?”
“Fine.” Mickey casts him a resentful glance. “But you have to promise to wake me if anything happens.”
“If anything happens, you’ll be the first to know.”
“Hm.” Mickey gives him a rather hard look, then switches his eyes to me. His face softens. “I’m glad you’re home,” he says quietly.
“Me too.” I touch his arm and he gets out of the car, giving us both a half wave with his back turned as he gets into the elevator.
“That boy gives me more grief than the entire squad of tech heads,” Roman mutters, shaking his head. Despite all that’s happened, I find myself half smiling. There’s an exasperated familiarity in his exchange with Mickey, something oddly touching in the way he casts his eyes skyward and rubs a crease on his forehead as he speaks. I can hear the pride behind his words.
The paternal pride.
I swallow hard on the sudden rush of emotion.
Roman still thinks he has a choice about whether or not to be a father, but that choice was gone long ago.
The kids have chosen him. They chose him months ago, just like I did.
Roman is already a father. Not just to Ofelia. To all three of his godchildren.
He just hasn’t really grasped it yet.
His long body uncurls as he steps out of the car and walks around to open my door. I force myself not to shiver as he takes my hand to help me out. I feel almost blindsided by longing for him, and guilty for wanting anything when he is so clearly devastated and exhausted. Some primal part of myself needs to feel him deep inside me again, to reassure myself that we are still us, even if our world has gone to hell. I want to crawl inside his body, to be skin to skin and mouth to mouth, lost and found as only he makes me feel.
But he drops my hand as soon as he takes it and stands a good foot away from me when we enter his private elevator. He hits the button for my floor, and I chastise myself for feeling disappointed.
Of course he’s shattered .
It’s selfish, not to mention childish, to want anything more from him amid the crisis we are living.
I fold my arms over my body again, the cold terror of the girls’ absence like a hollow darkness inside me. Roman is a warrior, first and foremost. There will be time for us again, perhaps, when all this is over.
The elevator pulls to a halt at my floor, and the doors open. I stand dumbly, suddenly frozen in place.
Do I kiss him goodbye? Just say something like “see you tomorrow?”
What exactly is the protocol for saying good night to a man with whom you’ve shared the most intimate of moments, but who right now feels a million miles away?
“Darya.” It’s only one word, wrenched from him like pulling a rusted bolt from old wood, but the need in it tells me all I need to know.
I turn as he’s reaching for me, and by the time he’s punched the button for his penthouse, his mouth is on mine and I’m already lost.
The doors have opened and closed multiple times on the penthouse floor when he finally breaks the kiss, but it’s only so he can pick me up and carry me down the corridor. He pulls my headscarf off and drops it to the floor.
“I’ve wanted to do this from the moment I saw you.” He tugs out the pins holding my hair, and it tumbles down. “I need you,” he says hoarsely into my hair. “I need this.”
I touch his face with my hand. “Me, too.”
He carries me straight to the bathroom. “It’s been the longest day of a hellishly long week.” He turns the shower on as he begins to undress me. “I need to wash it off, and I need you here.”
I want to be here. I want to stand under the tumbling jets and inhale the familiar citrus scent of the soap he uses, want to trace every scarred line of his body and make it mine once more. The warm water feels like healing, easing the weariness in my bones and the deep pain in my soul.
“I thought I’d lost you.” His lips trace my collarbone as one soapy hand slides over my shoulder and down my spine, pressing my naked body toward his. “I never want to feel that way again, Darya.”
I don’t want to talk. Words feel too hard, too complex. I run my hands over the achingly familiar lines of his body, feeling the corded muscle in his neck tense, the hard globes of his ass clench under my touch. He’s hot and hard, his need a throbbing urgency against my skin, but his hands on me are unbearably gentle. They stroke downward over my swollen breasts. “Christ.” His voice cracks as he cups their new fullness. “The feel of you, Darya...”
His lips close over my nipple, and I give a sharp cry, my entire body reduced to that lone point. I arch into his mouth, my newly sensitized flesh enflamed by every touch of his tongue, heat licking through my body like a wildfire taking hold. I spread my legs and straddle his thigh, pressing my throbbing center against him. I ride his thigh hard as he takes one nipple after the other, careening toward orgasm like an out-of-control freight train. I grasp his cock and he groans, his shaft surging in my hand.
My head falls back against the tiles. “Get inside me,” I gasp.
“No.” He pulls me against him and takes my mouth again. “I don’t want to rush this, Darya. I want you to know how much I—”
I hold his face. “I need you to fuck me.” My body is a frenzied, turbulent mass of desire. I can barely get the words out. My hands slide back to his cock, gripping him hard enough to make him suck in his breath. He pulls back from me, eyes dark, lips pressed together as he fights for control.
“I should make this last,” he rasps.
But the hollow loneliness of the past days, combined with the passionate relief of having him naked in my embrace, has spawned a lust so potent it’s almost savage.
I don’t want to play.
I don’t want a game.
I just want him, fast and hard.
I tug him toward me, one hand slipping underneath him to cup his balls. “Fuck that,” I whisper in his ear.
Whatever thin line of control was holding him snaps. He pulls me up, his hands under my ass, my legs wrapped around him. He spins out of the shower and carries us into the bedroom, our mouths hot against each other’s skin, devouring every inch like souls lost in the desert discovering water once more. His cock is a searing rod against my clit, and I’m bucking against him, grinding my body into his as his mouth marks my neck and breasts, his tongue teasing my nipples as his palm rests under my opening. He groans aloud as he feels the slick wetness seeping from me. His fingers dip inside and I clench around them, the first tremors of orgasm already twitching inside me.
“Fuck, Darya.” His hands spread my opening wider, and his clever fingers drive inside me, but it isn’t enough. It isn’t even close to being enough.
I thrust down against his cock. “I need this. I need you.”
He throws me down on the bed, and I spread my legs wide, arching my hips toward him. He enters me with a savage thrust. I revel in the hoarse cry he can’t bite back, feeling an almost primal triumph as he fills me. My body feels unbearably full, as if every nerve is heightened. Each thrust opens me further, my body swelling and pulsing as he goes deeper and deeper. The orgasm that has been threatening since the moment he touched me is hovering on the edge, growing to such intense pressure that I angle my hips up, desperate for release.
He groans and his hands go under my ass, lifting me to the right angle as he drives right into me, hitting the places deep inside me that take me into orbit.
I scream and he surges home, roaring as he feels me exploding around him. His orgasm bursts into a hot, urgent stream inside me, and his mouth owns mine, our bodies rippling together as the mind-shattering release takes us both.
I wake barely an hour later to find him fresh from the shower. He’s dressing in the corner, his back to me. A pale dawn threads across the horizon, but the day is still distant.
“You need sleep.” I prop myself up in the bed, rubbing my eyes. My body is heavy with lethargy, the nausea that is fast becoming a daily trial churning uneasily in my gut.
“I need to get the girls back.” He turns and crosses the room to the bed, one hand cupping my chin, his thumb stroking my cheekbone. The grim lines of his face soften momentarily, but not the dark shadows in his eyes. “I can’t sleep, Darya. I can barely breathe.”
He cuts off abruptly, pulling his hand back and inhaling sharply as he fights for control. “I have a friend.” His voice is rough with exhaustion. “Makari Tereschenko. He’s a... colleague, on the project I told you about. He owes me a favor. He has an army, Darya.”
I sit up, tucking the sheet around me, trying to make my befuddled mind work properly. “An army?” Something about the slight emphasis on the word makes me think he isn’t just talking about any normal security detail.
“I don’t mean vor .” He reaches for his cuff links. “Mak runs the biggest private mercenary force in the world. He commands missiles, tanks, weaponry—enough to overturn multiple countries. I contacted his people several days ago. I just received a message that he’s available for a meeting. I’m heading to the lab so we can talk on a secure line.”
My nausea flees, replaced by a cold, stark wash of terror.
“Didn’t you hear me yesterday? You can’t go in there with guns blazing, Roman.”
He clips a cuff link into place and frowns at me. “Actually, I fucking can. More guns than Vilnus Orlov has any hope of fighting back against.”
“No.” I swing my legs over the side of the bed, swaying as I try to gather myself. “You don’t know him like I do, Roman. He’ll be expecting this.” I rub my eyes.
“Darya, please.” He sits down on the bed, his hands gentle on my shoulders. “I need you to rest, and I want you to trust me. I heard you yesterday. Now you need to listen to me. I’d never do anything to endanger the girls, and that includes launching a war before I have all the facts. But I have to get the pieces in place, get ready for the moment when we are ready.”
“What about the vault?” I press my cheek against his hand. “Vilnus will contact you about that, and soon. What are you going to tell him? We need to speak to my father, to find out what he knows—”
Roman’s face tightens. “I think it’s better that we leave your father out of this.”
The hard, measured tone and suddenly glacial expression tell me more than his words need to.
I cover the hand holding mine with my other one. “Please, Roman, listen to me. I know you have every reason to hate my father. I’m not happy with him myself right now.”
His brow creases at that, a flash of surprise in his dark eyes.
“Do you think my father has told me all his secrets?” I shake my head wearily. “Sergei Petrovsky isn’t one for confidences, Roman. And he’s traditional. I’m his daughter, not his son. It might have been me running with him all these years, but even now, it seems Alexei knows more than I do.” It’s hard to keep the bitterness from my tone. “Alexei booked a ticket for me using the name on my new passport. That name, and the passport, was a secret known only to Papa, me, and a contact of Papa’s whose name not even I know. Alexei has clearly been talking to Papa.”
The fact that my father and brother have been making plans behind my back doesn’t just hurt.
It fucking pisses me off.
I’ve grown up in a world where men are the protectors. In the normal course of events, Roman wouldn’t even be having this conversation with me. He’d be acting, while I sat here and wrung my hands.
But I’ve had six years of being forced into decisions, of facing danger.
I’m not about to be put back on the sidelines again.
“It isn’t a question of trusting you.” I hold his hand, meeting his eyes directly. “It’s a question of you trusting me . I know you’re more than a match for Vilnus Orlov, Roman. But you need to stop seeing me as someone you have to protect and start seeing me as a resource, someone who has knowledge that can help you.”
I’m fighting to keep my voice steady and even. So much rides on this discussion, on Roman’s ability to be a different man than those among whom he was raised.
“We come from a world where women stay in the background. Do as they’re told, accept that men will take care of business.” I hold his eyes. “But how did that work for my mother? For yours? Would things have been different if our fathers had listened to them? I’m not asking you to put me in danger, Roman, or to make me part of your business. But I spent years locked up in that compound with the Orlovs. Any plan you make will be better if you include me in it.”
I see the emotions warring in his eyes, and I understand them. Roman is a warrior. Even admitting he might have a vulnerability is difficult. Accepting help from a woman he believes is his job to protect is entirely counterintuitive.
But I’m long past diplomacy or playing the victim. I’ve seen too much.
I squeeze his hand, holding his eyes. “I don’t want to say things that will cause you pain.” He frowns, and I go on in the same low, steady tone. “But you need to know that Vilnus Orlov plays games, Roman. He played them with my mother, until he killed her. He played them with me until I almost lost my mind. He plays games with women—and girls—that he hides from others, even from his own men.”
I see the horrified flash of understanding in Roman’s eyes, the panic he can’t quite hide.
I nod. “The only reason Vilnus spared me from actual rape was because he was afraid of losing his chance at the vault. But he doesn’t need to protect Ofelia in the same way. He knows you’re going to come for her, but there’s no chance he’s going to allow you to take his only leverage, no matter how hard you come at him. He will do everything in his power to hide them from you. And believe me, Roman—it is Ofelia who will pay for any mistakes you make. She will pay in ways no man ever has to, and she will pay over and over, until Vilnus gets exactly what he wants.”
Roman is staring over my shoulder, his eyes blazing, mouth set in a thin line. “I’ll kill the bastard.”
“I know you will.” My immediate answer, and the fierce rage I can’t hide, breaks through Roman’s internal fury. “I know,” I say when he meets my eyes. “But killing Vilnus won’t mean a damned thing if Ofelia returns to us broken. I want him dead just as much as you do. More, perhaps.” His eyes narrow at the dark edge in my voice. “But more than that, I want Ofelia returned to us unharmed. And the best way to ensure that happens is to let Vilnus think he’s winning. Keep him happy until we have every fact at our disposal. Can you do that, Roman?”
His hands are stiff in mine, his eyes turbulent with barely suppressed fury, but after a time, he gives a curt nod.
“I can do that.” He leans forward and kisses me, his lips lingering for a long time. “I suppose,” he says slowly when finally he pulls back, “that we had better have a conversation with your father.”
I nod. “I think that would be wise.”
“Fine.” He stands up and moves to the door. “Set it up. I’ll go to the lab, and we’ll meet with him when I get back.”