Chapter 9 Bella #3
“Aleksander,” I whisper, my voice shaking now, “what did I just read?”
For the first time since we left the plane, I see it clearly.
Whatever he is, whatever world he lives in, I am standing much closer to the edge of it than I ever realized.
I glance up at him, my voice barely steady. “Who is this S? Who keeps texting you?”
He holds my gaze, calm on the surface, but something flickers in his eyes—guilt, maybe, or a warning. “It’s not important, Bella.”
But I can’t let it go. I can’t just swallow all the warnings in my head, all the threads that suddenly don’t make sense.
S can’t be the guy who came in with us. He knows where I am, and besides, Aleksander called him Nikolai.
Whoever this S is, it’s someone else. Someone I haven’t met. Someone who knows about “the woman and child.” Knows about me and my daughter.
My blood runs cold.
Aleksander stands across the table, his gaze fixed on me, tension thrumming through his frame. “Bella, it’s not important.”
I snap, voice shaking, “Not important? You’re getting messages about me—about my child. Who is S?”
He looks away, jaw tight. “It doesn’t concern you. Just give me the phone.”
I shove it across the table. “It concerns me if people are watching us. If you’re planning things behind my back, Aleksander. I deserve to know what’s going on!”
He sighs, eyes darkening. “It’s not what you think. Just trust me, Bella. This isn’t the time—”
I cut him off, louder now. “Stop telling me to trust you! You keep saying you’ll explain, but you never do. I’m done being left in the dark.”
He steps closer, trying to lower his voice, but the anger is there, simmering. “You want me to protect you or not? Because this is how it’s done.”
“I never asked for this!” My hands clench. “I never asked to be dragged through airports and into hotels and lied to about what’s really happening!”
He closes his eyes for a moment, struggling for patience. “If I told you everything, you’d be in even more danger. I’m doing what I have to.”
My chest aches with frustration. “That’s not your choice, Aleksander. It’s mine. You don’t get to decide what I can or can’t handle.”
For a long moment, neither of us speaks. The city glows outside the windows, but inside, the air is sharp and thin.
He looks at me finally, a raw edge in his voice. “I just want to keep you safe.”
“Tell me the truth,” I say. My voice comes out thinner than I want. “Not the version you think I can handle. The actual truth.”
He looks at me for a long second, as if he’s deciding whether this is the moment he loses whatever control he still has over the situation.
Then he nods once.
“My name is Aleksander Antonov,” he says.
He says it plainly, no flourish.
I stare at him, trying to keep my face neutral, trying not to show how fast my heart is beating.
“My family is…known,” he continues. “In Saint Petersburg, in Moscow, in places you don’t read about. My father built something there. Power. Money. Fear. People did things because he asked. Sometimes because he didn’t have to ask.”
He pauses, not for effect. Like he’s choosing his words carefully.
“I was born into it. I didn’t join. I didn’t get recruited. It was already in my blood before I understood what it meant.”
I swallow hard. This is not a movie. This is a man in front of me, in a Boston penthouse, speaking like he’s reciting a fact that has been true longer than he’s been alive.
“The Bratva,” he says, and watches my face as if gauging whether the word lands. “That’s what it is. That’s where I come from.”
For a second my brain refuses to cooperate. My mouth does something stupid and I laugh. It comes out sharp, disbelieving, the sound you make when the truth is too big to fit in your head.
“You’re…what,” I manage. “You expect me to believe you’re Russian mafia.”
He doesn’t flinch. “Yes.”
I shake my head, still half laughing because it feels safer than falling apart. “Aleksander, that’s insane.”
“It’s not,” he says, calm and firm. “It’s just not your world.”
I stop laughing. The steadiness in his voice kills the humor. There’s nothing theatrical about him right now. No charm. No flirtation. He looks tired, and not the kind of tired you fix with sleep.
I look away for a second, toward the bedroom door where my daughter is sleeping. The reality of her in the next room makes everything sharper.
Fuck, what have I gotten myself into?
“You’re telling me you’re a criminal,” I say quietly.
“I’m telling you what I am,” he replies. “You can call it whatever you want.”
My hands curl into fists on my lap. “How powerful?”
He exhales through his nose. “Powerful enough that I have enemies who don’t care where I am, or who I’m near, or what collateral damage looks like.”
He says collateral damage like he hates the phrase.
I press my lips together. My mind flashes to the airport, the private corridor, the way doors opened, the way we were waved through without questions. I hate that it all makes sense now.
“What happened to your father?” I ask, and the question is out before I can stop it.
His jaw tightens. “He was killed. When I was seventeen.”
My stomach drops. I picture a teenage boy and I hate myself for even picturing it, because this man in front of me does not feel like someone who was ever a boy.
“What did you do?” I whisper.
He looks at me for a long moment. “I survived.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one that matters,” he says. Then, after a beat, he adds, “I was sent away at first. To keep me alive. It didn’t work. People still came looking. So I stopped running. I learned. I did what they expected of me, because the alternative was being dead.”
His voice stays even, but his eyes are not. There’s something old in them. Something that doesn’t soften when he talks about it.
“You killed people,” I say.
He doesn’t dodge. “Yes.”
The word lands in my chest like a weight. I can feel my throat tighten, my skin go cold.
“You’re not supposed to just say that,” I whisper.
“I’m not asking you to like it,” he says. “I’m not asking you to forgive it. I’m telling you because you’re sitting across from me and you deserve to know who you’re dealing with.”
I stare at him. “And you thought sleeping with me was fine.”
His face shifts, just slightly. That’s the closest I’ve seen him come to discomfort. “No. I thought it was a mistake I could keep separate.”
“A mistake,” I repeat, stung despite myself.
He doesn’t correct it. He doesn’t try to sweeten it either. “It was supposed to be one night. You were supposed to go back to your life. I was supposed to go back to mine.”
My heart beats once, hard. Because the next part is the part I’ve never said out loud.
“And then I disappeared,” I say.
He nods. “Yes.”
The quiet between us turns sharp.
“You didn’t come looking?” I ask, and I hate how small my voice sounds.
His eyes hold mine. “I did. Not like a romantic idiot. I didn’t send flowers. I didn’t show up at your door. I asked questions. I had people check. I wanted to know if you were safe or if you’d been taken to hurt me.”
The word taken makes my stomach roll.
“And when I couldn’t find you,” he continues, “I let it go. Because if I pulled you back into my orbit, you would have been in danger. You would have been watched. Followed. Used.”
I think about the woman in the hotel hallway four years ago, the one who told me to run. I feel a chill crawl up my arms.
“So now you’re telling me you’re this…this Bratva heir,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady, “and you expect me to just sit here and accept it.”
He shakes his head. “No. I expect you to be scared. I expect you to hate me. I expect you to want to run.”
My eyes burn. “Then why are you keeping me here?”
His gaze flicks to the bedroom door again. “Because someone died on that plane, and it wasn’t an accident. And because the people who did it will look at everyone connected to it. They will look at me. They will look at anyone near me. That includes you. That includes your daughter.”
I grip the edge of the chair. “This is not my fault.”
“I know,” he says immediately. “And I’m sorry.”
The apology is quiet, rough around the edges, like it costs him something. He doesn’t say it again. He doesn’t repeat it until it sounds pretty.
I swallow. “If you’re this powerful, why are we running?”
His mouth tightens. “Because power doesn’t mean invincible. It means you have more people trying to prove they can touch you.”
I stare at him, trying to absorb the shape of the world he’s describing. It’s ugly and practical, not glamorous. It’s not even dramatic. It’s just dangerous.
“And the man on the plane,” I say. “Kirov. You knew him.”
He nods. “Yes.”
“Was it your people who killed him?”
His eyes cut to me. “No.”
I believe him, which scares me more than if I didn’t.
I stand up, needing to move, needing air. “You should have told me sooner.”
“I should have never been near you,” he says, and there’s something blunt in it that feels like truth.
I turn to face him. “Then why am I still here? Why am I in a penthouse in Boston with you?”
His voice lowers. “Because when I saw you on that plane, after four years, I realized I didn’t want to let you go again.”
My chest tightens, anger and something else twisting together. “That’s not a reason.”
“It’s not a good one,” he agrees. “But it’s mine.”
I take a breath, trying to steady myself. “If we go to New York tomorrow, what happens?”
Aleksander’s jaw flexes. He looks at me for a long moment. “I don’t know,” he admits, almost painfully honest.
That scares me more than anything else tonight. The way he says it—not with uncertainty, but with a kind of resolve, like whatever happens, he has no intention of letting me go. The air between us tightens, charged and impossible to ignore.
He moves toward me with a slow, deliberate purpose, his gaze locked on mine.
I feel it before he even touches me—my body responding, breath catching, nipples hardening beneath the thin fabric of my top.
The fear, the anger, the wildness of the last few days all boil up into something sharp and hungry.
He crowds into my space, his presence overwhelming. His hands find my waist, dragging me flush against him. “I need to taste you,” he murmurs, voice rough against my ear. “I’m hungry.”
My mind spins. “You barely ate,” I try, a weak protest.
He gives a crooked smile, dark eyes burning. “Not that kind of hungry.” Before I can say another word, he lifts me easily, settling me onto the edge of the dinner table. Plates and silverware clatter, forgotten.
Then his mouth is on my neck, tongue tracing a slow, hungry line to my collarbone. He kneels, hitching my dress up, his hands bold and impatient. The heat of his breath skates over my bare skin, making me shiver.
“You’re just trying to distract me,” I whisper, fingers curling into his hair as his tongue flicks against my nipple, sending sparks shooting through me.
“Maybe,” he growls, looking up at me with a hunger that borders on worship. “But you want it just as badly.”
His mouth trails lower, unhurried but intent, like he knows exactly what he’s doing to me and doesn’t plan to stop. My breath stutters as he slips fully between my thighs, his hands spreading me open with a familiarity that makes my knees weak.
Then his tongue finds me.
I open my mouth to argue, but it turns into a gasp, a moan, as his tongue licks around my pussy, relentless. He’s ravenous, insistent, every touch staking his claim.
He groans softly against me, the sound vibrating straight through my core, and then he licks me again, slow and deliberate, flattening his tongue against my clit like he’s tasting something he’s been starving for.
“Fuck,” I whisper, fingers digging into the edge of the table.
He doesn’t answer. He just sucks gently, then harder, lips closing around my clit as if he means to pull the sound right out of my throat. My body reacts instantly, heat coiling tight and fast, my legs trembling as I try to stay upright.
I know what he’s doing. I know he’s distracting me, pulling me out of my head and into my body. I know it’s deliberate.
And still I can’t stop the moan that slips free when his tongue flicks just right, when his mouth seals around me again and he hums low, possessive, like he’s reminding me exactly how easily he can undo me.
My hands fist in his hair, my head falling back as the world narrows to sensation. The fear, the questions, the future I don’t understand—all of it dissolves into the wet heat of his mouth, the relentless way he licks and sucks until my thighs shake and my breath comes apart.
“Aleksander,” I breathe, half warning, half plea.
He looks up at me then, eyes dark and focused, his mouth still wet from me. “There you are,” he murmurs, before dragging his tongue over my clit again, slow and cruel and perfect.
He keeps his mouth on me, steady and relentless, like he’s decided this is the only thing that exists right now.
His tongue moves with purpose, slow at first, circling, pressing, retreating just enough to make me ache before coming back again.
He sucks gently, then harder, lips closing around my clit until my breath fractures.
“Oh god—” I gasp, the words falling apart as my hips lift without permission.
He grips my thighs, anchoring me, keeping me open for him. The sound he makes against me is low and hungry, possessive, and it sends a sharp wave of heat straight through my body. My nipples ache, hard and oversensitive, my skin humming everywhere he’s touched me.
“You feel that,” he murmurs, voice rough, mouth never leaving me. “Don’t fight it.”
I’m already shaking. My fingers claw at the edge of the table, knuckles white, as the tension coils tighter and tighter, sharp and fast and unbearable.
He knows exactly where I am, exactly how close, and instead of easing up, he licks me deeper, faster, his tongue flicking just right, again and again.
“Aleksander,” I breathe, desperate now, my body rocking toward his mouth.
He groans softly, the vibration tipping me over the edge.
I come with a broken sound, my whole body seizing, thighs trembling as the pleasure tears through me in waves. I can’t hold myself up, can’t think, can’t do anything but gasp and shudder as he keeps his mouth on me, riding it out with me, not stopping until the last aftershock fades.
I sag back against the table, breathless, completely undone.
Only then does he lift his head, eyes dark, focused, intent. He presses a slow kiss to my thigh, then straightens, crowding into my space again, one hand sliding up my body like he’s reminding me he’s still here.
“Now,” he says quietly, voice thick, “you’re listening.”