Chapter 16 - Avgust
Dinner should have distracted me, but it didn’t.
I sat at the long table with Ilana beside me, her knee brushing against mine under the polished wood, her presence grounding in a way nothing else was lately. Plates clinked. Zhenya laughed at something Timofey said. Clara leaned closer to Iosif, whispering something that made his mouth twitch.
Family. Noise. Warmth.
And yet my mind stayed locked on one thing alone.
The Romanovs.
I still had nothing solid about them. No first names, no confirmed faces, no addresses.
But just fragments of information that had been extracted from shadows or captured on grainy footage.
I was not even sure if the surname was accurate or just something that had been whispered enough times to spread around for no reason. All of it gnawed at me.
“You’re staring holes into your plate, and your food has gone cold,” Lukyan muttered from across the table, his voice low.
I glanced at Ilana instinctively before answering.
She was eating slowly, color back in her cheeks, though I could still notice how she was constantly on edge.
I could not blame her. Even if my family had been welcoming, it was hard for anyone to adjust to new people this quickly.
She was already doing really well. I reached for her glass, refilled it without comment, and brushed my thumb along her knuckles once before turning back to my brother.
“I’m thinking,” I told him.
“Dangerous habit.”
“There are still no leads,” I added quietly. “The Russian family. It’s like they want to be invisible, and it's been months already. How can anyone be that patient?”
Lukyan chewed, eyes narrowing. “That’s because they are being careful and are choosing not to show themselves. It is not easy to be a new family in a city full of other, stronger Bratva families. It is only understandable that they are taking their sweet time in coming to any decisions.”
“I don’t like this.”
“It could mean one more thing,” Lukyan said, his voice lower.
“What?”
Lukyan stood up from his chair and walked away from the table, towards the windows on the far end of the dining room.
I stood up as well and followed after him, knowing that whatever it was he needed to say must be important.
Lukyan was always careful when it came to trusting people.
It was a good habit. Especially in our world.
“You might be too close to the truth to be able to see it.”
I stiffened. “What does that mean?”
Lukyan didn’t answer right away. His gaze slid towards Ilana and then back to me, the action certainly not subtle at all. I knew at once what he meant, but stayed quiet.
“You’re protecting her,” Lukyan said. “Which means you are being blind to the truth.”
My jaw clenched. “She is clean.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
“How? Have you checked her?”
“I have,” I replied at once, but I knew the statement was not completely true.
I hadn’t run a background check on Ilana the way I would have for anyone else.
I had tried to look for her, but it had been difficult to find much about her.
And then I had given up without questioning anything.
All I knew was that she had gone to Russia for her education, and her knowledge of the country was certainly impressive.
“You want to believe that she is clean,” Lukyan corrected. “But that’s not the same thing as knowing and being sure about someone.”
I leaned back slightly, one arm draping along the window pane. My gaze went straight to Ilana, who was laughing at something someone must have said at the table, looking unconcerned and at ease. I felt a sense of possessiveness take over me as I stared at her.
“She is not involved,” I said flatly, voice low enough for it not to reach Ilana, who was already busy in a conversation with Elisse now. The two of them had really hit it off.
Lukyan sighed. “I am not saying she is. All I am saying is you should research her anyway before coming to such a sure conclusion. It just isn’t sitting right with me that you found her accidentally at an auction where you went to look for the Romanovs, and Avgust Chernykh was so compelled that he bought and married a stranger. This behavior is very unlike you.”
Silence stretched between us as I considered everything he was saying.
“You don’t trust her?” I finally asked.
“I don’t trust coincidences. And this situation has too many of them for it to look accidental.”
My voice turned low. “Drop it. I don’t want to hear of this again.”
Lukyan’s eyes hardened. “I am just looking out for you, Avgust. You know I don’t want to see you suffer again.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked, even though a part of me already knew.
“You are either not looking into her too closely, or you are being stupid and making the same mistake of your past once again. And I am sorry I cannot sit here idly and watch you go down a rabbit hole without doing anything about it.”
The words hit harder than a punch, and I looked away immediately. I knew exactly what he meant. Without saying anything else, the two of us made our way back to the table, resuming our seats.
Ilana finally turned to look at me, her gaze moving between Lukyan and me.
“Are you okay?” she asked me with a small smile.
“Perfect,” I replied, bending down to place a kiss on her forehead.
For the rest of the dinner, I stayed quieter.
But my attention never left Ilana. Everything Lukyan had said kept swirling through my mind, but I tried not to let it make me question anything.
I watched Ilana closely, the way she slowed down in the middle of bites.
I brushed her hair back when it fell into her face and listened to every breath she took, memorizing the way her laugh softened when Zhenya teased her.
I had already failed once in the past.
I was not going to fail again.
Not when the person in question was not only my wife, but a woman I had learned to love in the short time I had known her.
It was a strange feeling, one I wasn’t yet ready to accept in front of her, but I already knew it was true.
I needed to keep her close, and I needed to keep her safe, and I needed to remind myself that she was not the enemy.
She had never been. Everyone took their sweet time with dinner, but it was finally over, and I grabbed Ilana’s hand the moment she stood up from her chair.
“Ready to go home?” I whispered in her ear, and she nodded.
“More than you can imagine.”
I smiled, already thinking about what it would feel like to be wrapped in her arms as she melted in my embrace.
***
The drive home was quiet. City lights blurred past the windshield, reflections skating across the glass.
Ilana sat curled in her seat, slightly turned towards me, her hand resting in my lap as I held her hand, thumb tracing slow, absent circles.
A part of me had been trying to outrun this conversation, but it had caught up with me anyway.
I always knew I would tell her eventually, but telling her tonight wasn't on my agenda.
Not until Lukyan had reminded me of it. I finally glanced at her, noticing her gaze was already on me.
“I need to tell you something,” I finally said before I lost the courage.
She straightened up in her seat. “What is it?”
I exhaled, long and heavy.
“There was a woman in my life before you.”
Her body stilled, but she didn’t say anything; she simply kept looking at me. I had never asked her about her past, and she had never asked me about mine. This conversation was not easy for me, but I wanted her to know everything about the man she had married.
“Who was she?” she finally asked, prompting me to continue.
“She was someone I really cared for and loved, but this was all a very long time ago,” I continued. “Before things were… this bad.”
I didn’t look at her as I spoke, not sure what I would find in her eyes. Her gaze was expressive, and she did not know how to conceal her emotions. I watched the road ahead, as if it might fracture beneath us at any second.
“What do you mean?” Ilana asked.
“She wasn’t a part of this world. My world.
And she didn’t even want to be. She was innocent and did not have a single Bratva bone in her body.
And I was stupid enough to think that I could keep it that way.
That I could keep her separated from it all.
” My mouth twisted. “But I was wrong. Very, very wrong.”
Ilana’s fingers tightened gently around mine, as if she did not want to leave me alone in the memory that burned through me right now.
“What happened to her, Avgust?” she asked.
“They took her,” I finally said after a pause. “They were enemies of the family and were trying to get back at me for someone I had killed. So in order to make a point, they took her. And I was too late in saving her.”
My throat burned, but I continued.
“She died because she trusted me to protect her, and I couldn’t. I had promised her I would keep her safe from the darkness of this world, but the darkness took her, and I was nowhere near her when it happened. It eats me alive every day.”
Silence filled the car, thick and suffocating.
“When I saw you at the auction,” he said quietly, “I didn’t just see you standing there, looking at me with those eyes of yours.
I saw her. Helpless and terrified. And I just knew I couldn’t watch it happen again.
I couldn’t just stand there and not help you get out of there unless someone as innocent as you was also consumed by the darkness of it all. ”
Ilana shifted closer, pressing her forehead against my shoulder.
“You saved me that day, Avgust. You really did,” she whispered. “And then you saved me again and again and again until we are finally here.”
I shook my head. “I saved myself, Ilana.”
“No,” she said softly. “You saved me, and I am here right beside you. You got me out of claws that could have killed me and gave me a new life and the protection of your name. You gave me warmth and care and love, and now you have given me a family to call my own. You have given me everything I could have asked for and more, Avgust.”
Her arms slid around me, holding without asking, without pity or shyness.
And I let her. I needed it more than I could explain.
We reached the safe house, and I pulled the car inside, killing the engine in the driveway as the two of us sat there in the darkness of the night.
I finally turned to look at her, realizing her gaze was directed at me already.
“I will not promise I will keep you safe forever, Ilana, because I have come to see that promises can get broken. But I will die before letting anything happen to you.”
“I trust you,” she whispered, coming even closer to me, until she pulled herself onto my lap.
“You do?”
“You have kept me safe until now, Avgust. Of course, I trust you.” Her breath was warm against my cheek as I held her close, my hands slipping around her waist.
Without another word, she pulled in closer and kissed me, her lips needy against mine.
I kissed her back in exactly the same way, hungry and needy for her.
I would not be lying if I said I was quickly becoming addicted to how she tasted and wanted her all the time.
Her hands roamed over my arms and neck until she was holding my face between her palms as I continued to kiss her like a horny teenager. That was exactly how she made me feel.
“Avgust,” she whispered my name, her voice breathy.
Before I could touch her, she hopped back to the passenger seat, pulling her hair into a ponytail before my eyes.
The sight of her bending down towards me with that expression of need on her face made my dick pulse.
I could sense her intentions and had no desire to stop her.
I unbuttoned my pants, and my cock sprung out, already hard for her.
Ilana went to work without a second’s delay, her hungry mouth slurping around my pulsing organ.
“Oh fuck,” I moaned softly as she continued to suck me off.
I took control of her hair and pushed her face down, making her choke on my cock while she continued to gag, everything around us growing messier by the minute.
But neither of us cared. I rubbed my hands along her body, staring at her ass, which was raised in the air as if she had been born to do exactly this.
The sight of her sucking me off in my car was only making me harder.
She pulled away completely and looked at me, her beautiful face turning into a complete mess. Before I could say anything, she took me in her mouth again.
“I am about to come,” I told her, and she only increased her pace, not moving for even a single second, until I came directly inside her mouth and she greedily drank every last drop. Once she had licked me clean, she looked at me with a smile on her face, and I smiled back.
“You are a very good girl, Ilana.”
“Your girl?” she asked, her eyes shining.
“I would break anyone’s fingers if they even so much as think about touching you.”
I got out of the car after unbuttoning my pants and took her in my arms as I carried her back towards our bedroom.
I could not wait to fall asleep with her in my arms. She rested her head against my chest, already beginning to doze off.
It had been a long day for both of us, but I had never felt closer to Ilana than I did today.
It felt as if I had completely unraveled before her. I placed her on the bed as soon as we entered the bedroom and got in beside her after taking my shoes off. She curled into me while I held her close. That was all I had ever wanted.