Chapter 35
Ilya
The girl reads fast. She’s flipping the pages, her eyes alight, pale skin flushed with interest. The things I would give to know exactly the scene that made her gasp, shifting on the couch.
I’m about to demand she come to me so I can push my hands between her legs to discover if she’s wet, when a heavy knock sounds on the door.
I sigh and call, “Come in.”
Irelynn doesn’t even lift her gaze from the page. Her lips are stained an aroused shade of deep pink. I shift in my chair to ease some of the pressure in my hard cock.
Misha strides into my study, his eyes hard on mine. “Popov made contact.”
I stiffen, my eyes moving to the oblivious little woman on my couch. A little pink tongue pokes out to lick her fingertip. She flips a page, her lips parting as her eyes widen.
What is she reading?
My gaze snaps to Misha when I hear him clear his throat. I growl low, the sound the first to call her attention from whatever it is she’s reading.
I’m having second thoughts about the books I’ve bought her.
What the fuck is happening in that book?
Now that I have her attention, I speak. My voice comes out gruffer than I expect. “I need to speak with Misha. Wait for me in our room, yes?”
“Oh.” She notes the page number, before she snaps the book closed. I expect her to walk straight out the door, but she surprises me as she moves across the space toward me. I half hope she’ll give me a parting kiss, and I’m sorely disappointed when, instead, she swipes the remaining two books from my desk. “Thanks—um—for these.”
I feel my eyes narrow at the huskiness in her voice. If Misha wasn’t standing here…
Fuck.
I watch her tight ass sway in her tight leggings as she moves to the door, pivots, and strides across the office to my bar. She swipes the bottle of wine from the cabinet, gives me a cute little wave, and struts out.
I release a breath, and a curse.
Misha barrels a laugh.
I glare at my friend.
He drops into the chair opposite my desk and smartly gets down to business. He knows better than to say anything regarding the woman who has me all twisted up in knots. I’m already on edge. It wouldn’t take much to give me that final, deadly shove.
I take a gulp of my vodka, trying to clear her from my head.
Misha speaks, “He is demanding you contact him as soon as possible.”
I raise a brow. “Is he calm and composed?”
“No.”
I smile. “I take it they’ve finally found Lev.”
“The U.S. authorities work slow.”
After killing Popov’s son, I’d had his yacht moved to a lesser port. I’d registered it under one of the many aliases’ Popov uses. The move was intended as another message to the rat who schemed to overthrow me, as if the heart I’d lain on the pillow next to his dead son’s head wasn’t message enough.
“I’ll call him.” I take the phone Misha hands me. My enemies don’t have the number for my personal phone. No fucking way.
Tapping Popov’s contact, I listen to it ring once before his rough voice sounds, “Son of a bitch.”
“Something tells me you’re upset,” I goad the man, my voice strategically calm. “Why would that be?”
“You’ve taken two sons.” I can hear his grief-tinged rage. “I will see the day your head rolls.”
“Careful, Popov.” I lean back in my chair, relaxed. “A man with secrets shouldn’t make threats.”
“I will kill every last member of your family!” he roars. I can hear the spittle fly from his mouth.
Keeping my cool, calm tone, I ask, “When is your next trip to America, Popov?” The line goes eerily silent. “Specifically, Madison, Georgia?”
“Stay away from her.”
“Ah, so there is a woman you care for.” I chuckle, just to taunt him. “I thought, being that you sell them, you wouldn’t care about any. Imagine my surprise when I found out about a certain Ruby Belle, whom you visit every three months under the alias Ivan Petrov.” I chuckle, imagining the fear coated sweat that lines his brow. He’s probably shaking like a pig at slaughter. “Honestly, Ivan Petrov? It’s like you wanted me to find her.”
“Why are you doing this? What do you want?”
I’ve rattled the man. Good.
“You have attacked my businesses. You set a bomb to one of my cargo ships, sinking product that lost me millions, and strained relations with the Cosa Nostra. You have killed my men. Good men. And,” I pause, listening to the heavy wheeze of his breath. “You have attempted, more than once, to kill me. I explained I would not do business with you, and I explained why. You forced me to take one son, and then another. You hide like a coward behind the soldiers you command to overthrow my business. My rule. And you ask me why?”
Popov curses, a fist slamming on something hard in the background. The grown man can’t even command his composure. A shame.
“You called for this war, Ivan. Demanded it. I only replied.”
“I tried to partner with you,” he hisses. “You rejected me. No one rejects me without consequences.”
“Are you telling me your sons died because you have the ego of a little boy?”
“They died because you think you’re better. You are not!”
Ice fills my voice. “I don’t sell people, Ivan. Not men. Not women. Not children.”
“They are nothing,” he curses into the line. “Rejects.”
“I don’t sell people,” I repeat.
“You don’t sell people, but you kill my sons. Hypocrite!”
“I warned you, when you came to me with your first threat, that this war was not one you wanted to fight.” His breaths fall heavy into the line. He’s panting now. Good. Let him pant. “Now, I will end you. I will end your line. I will destroy your business, until there is nothing left of you. Even your soldiers won’t remember your name. When I am done with you, there won’t be enough left of your carcass for even the rats to feed.”
“I will?—”
“You are not the one with the power here, Popov. And unless you want your sweet daughter to befall the same fate as your sons, I suggest you hand yourself over to me. Admit defeat, like a real man.”
“Don’t touch her.”
I smile, because I imagine he’s already trying to contact the girl. I can hear it, the frantic motions—the panic in his weighted breaths. He cares for this girl. “Too late, Popov.”
With that, I end the call, and his scream of rage and fear.
During the call, Misha had risen to pour a glass of vodka, which he shoots straight now. Rocking on his heels, he watches me for a long moment. “Do you think it will work?”
“I don’t know. He’s gone to great lengths to keep her hidden from this world. He could have bartered a marriage for her, allied with someone powerful. She’s a beautiful woman.”
Misha gives a thoughtful nod. He predicts, “The rat will crawl out from his hiding hole. When he does, we will kill him.”
“He will pay for the lives he’s taken. The good men he’s killed,” I agree, standing. “Now, I’m going to join my woman.”
Misha stops me before I hit the door. “How long are we keeping Ruby?”
Setting my eyes on my friend, I chuckle. “Kirill is not too happy with me for dumping her on him. But—” I shrug. “I can’t have her here.”
“Will you release her?”
“When Popov is dead, it will be Kirill’s choice what happens to her. He can keep her, or he can release her.” I smirk. “I wager he’ll keep her indefinitely.”
I expect my little reader to be drooling over the pages of a book when I enter my bedroom. What I don’t expect is to find her sitting on the edge of a bath full of water, her skin flushed red from a long soak, towel tucked tight around her body as she cries into a small container of empty lotion. Lucifer meows desperate meows at her feet, bumping his body into her legs.
Her body shakes. Convulses. She lets out another loud cry. A sharp sob that fires splinters into my soul. The cat stands on his hind legs, front paws on her lap as he peers up into her face with what can only be worry in his yellow eyes.
What happened?
Dropping to my knees, I catch her face between my hands. “Look at me, Irelynn.”
She does, with red rimmed eyes. She’s been sobbing for a while.
“What happened?” I demand. The cat meows.
“It’s g—gone.”
I frown. “What’s gone?”
“My c—cream.”
My gaze drops to the empty container she clutches. Her knuckles are white with the force of her grip. What the fuck?
“Love, I’m confused.”
“It isn’t even Christmas yet!” she wails. Lucifer answers with one of his own. Her distress distresses him. He’s not the only one.
“Irelynn?”
“I always buy myself one of these in November. Every year. I spend money I can’t afford for this cream.” She shakes the container, and I think for a moment she might throw it. But she doesn’t. Instead, she clutches it to her chest. Her eyes are heartbreakingly sad. “It reminds me of my mom.” Her voice has fallen to a whisper. A pained, devastatingly quiet cavern of grief. “It makes me feel close to her at the time of year when it’s hardest not to have her, to have them.” A sob wracks her shoulders. “I’ve never ran out of it so fast, but I’ve been so stressed, and the scent soothes me…”
Fucking hell.I didn’t know. “I’ll get you another.”
She just cries harder. Gently, I pry the empty container from her hands to set it on the ledge of the tub. Then I lift her into my arms as she sobs, and sobs, and sobs. I would give any sum of money, commit any sin, just to make her tears stop.
“My heart, please,” I beg against her temple as I walk her to the bed, the cat following. “Please stop crying.”
She doesn’t stop crying as I lay her down in the bed. Then, without taking off anything, I lay with her. As uncomfortable as it is to lay in my suit, I can’t leave her right now.
Tightening my arms around her as she snuggles into my embrace, her cat laying close, it takes a while before her sobs begin to settle. Still, she’s crying when she asks in a small voice, “Why did he leave me?”
My heart knocks in my chest. Who the fuck is she talking about?
“Who?” I feel jealous, until she whispers, “My dad.”
As soon as she speaks, I feel like an asshole. “I don’t know, Little Blue.”
“He loved Mom so much.” Another sob hitches her breath. “They had been together so long, but they were always touching each other. I remember thinking they kissed way more than other parents. And when they watched movies together, they were always snuggled up together. I wasn’t left out, either. Mom always made room for me. They made space for me inside their love.” Her voice is tragic. “I thought he loved me, too.”
“I’m going to tell you a secret,” I tell her, feeling her sad eyes on my face. “Men are weak. I truly believe that when a man loves a woman, it’s an all-encompassing love. It’s the blood in our veins. The flicker of light in our soul. The beat of our heart. Loving her becomes our life. And if we lose her, sometimes, we lose the will to live. It’s a weakness. It’s devastating. But it does not mean your father did not love you. He simply lost his ability to breathe without her.”
For a long moment, she is silent. Then our dynamics shift, because she pushes herself up in the bed, in my embrace. And then her lips are on mine. It’s the first kiss she’s initiated, and I feel it like fire in my blood. I force myself to stay still, for the first time not wishing to take more than she wants to give me.
When she pulls back, I can taste the sweet scent of her in my lungs. I know for a fact, that if I lose her, I’d lose all air.
“Thank you, Ilya.”
She settles into my chest, surely listening to the rage of my heart behind its rickety cage. It feels like any moment, and it’ll break free to live the rest of its days in the palm of her hands.
Into her hair, I whisper, “I love you.”
Her only reply is to snuggle deeper into my embrace.
With the cat rumbling his purr into the silence, she falls into sleep quickly.
I spend the night in my suit.