Chapter 10 Daria
Daria
Kira has been at Masha’s house for exactly forty-three minutes when my phone rings.
I’m standing at the kitchen counter, slicing carrots for tonight’s soup. The knife is dull, and I’ve been meaning to sharpen it for weeks. One of those small tasks that keeps getting pushed aside for bigger emergencies.
The vibration of my phone against the countertop makes me flinch. I set down the knife and wipe my hands on a dish towel before glancing at the screen.
Blocked number. I pinch the bridge of my nose and take a deep breath.
I consider pretending I didn’t hear it, that I was in the shower or out running errands. But Bogdan always knows, and the punishment for ignoring him is worse than whatever he’s about to say.
So, I press the phone to my ear. “Hello?”
“Darling.” His voice slides through the speaker like oil. “I hope you’re sitting down.”
“What do you want, Bogdan?”
“The same thing I always want. What’s mine.” Ice clinks in a glass on his end as he adds, “I’ve been patient with you, Daria. More patient than you deserve. But my patience has limits, and you’ve reached them.”
“I’ve done everything you asked.”
The pleasant tone vanishes. “You haven’t given me a single piece of useful information.”
“I’ve already told you: Pyotr doesn’t tell me anything. He barely speaks to me.”
“Then you’re not trying hard enough.” The ice clinks again. “He carries a phone, doesn’t he? Leaves it on the counter when he showers? On the nightstand when he sleeps?”
“What are you asking me to do?”
“I’m not asking, I’m telling. Get into his phone. Copy his messages, his contacts, anything that shows who he’s talking to and what they’re planning. Some apps can do it in seconds. I’ll send you a link.”
“I can’t do that. If he catches me—”
“Then don’t get caught. When I arrive, you will hand me that information, or I’ll take our daughter. The choice is yours.”
The kitchen tilts sideways, and when I speak again, my voice sounds like it belongs to someone else. “You can’t take her. You don’t have custody. You don’t have any legal—”
“Legal?” The sound of his chuckle scrapes down my spine.
“Since when do men like me worry about what’s legal?
You know who my uncle is, Daria. I have resources you can’t imagine.
People in places that would make your head spin.
If I want Kira, I’ll take her. The only thing standing between me and my daughter is your cooperation. ”
“You don’t even want her. You just want to hurt me.” The words tear out before I can stop them, and I slap my hand against my mouth as if that will take them back.
“It’s quite simple. Clone his phone and bring me what’s on it. Do that, and we can keep things civil.” He pauses, and I can almost hear him smiling. “Fail, and the next time you see Kira, it’ll be in a courtroom. If you’re lucky.”
The line goes dead.
The phone slips from my fingers and clatters against the tile, but the sound is muffled and distant. My knees buckle. I grab for the counter, miss, and hit the floor hard.
Cold tile slaps against my palms, and cabinets dig into my back. I can’t breathe.
The kitchen walls press in from every side. My chest constricts, and I try to inhale, but nothing gets through.
He’s coming. He’s going to take her. I can’t stop him.
I’m drowning on dry land, suffocating in my apartment while my daughter plays at a friend’s house, making friendship bracelets and eating cookies and laughing at things five-year-olds laugh at. Unaware that her father is coming to tear her away from me.
Hands clamp around my shoulders, and I flinch so hard that my head cracks against the cabinet behind me. But the hands don’t let go. They’re large and calloused and impossibly steady against my shaking body.
Pyotr’s voice cuts through the static. “Look at me, Daria.”
I can’t see anything except the darkness closing in.
He takes my face in his hands and forces my chin up. Then, winter-gray eyes fill my vision, blocking out everything else.
His gaze flicks to the door, the window, the hallway—one fast sweep. Then he’s back on me—like the decision’s already made. This room is his territory.
“Breathe with me.” His voice is firm. Commanding. The voice of someone who expects to be obeyed. “In through your nose. Out through your mouth. Do it now.”
The air stutters in my throat and comes back out as a sob.
“Again.” He strokes his thumbs along my cheekbones as he adds, “Stay with me, golubka. In through your nose.”
Golubka. Little dove.
I tell myself to follow his rhythm. In through my nose. The air burns, but it makes it past my throat this time. Out through my mouth. A shuddering exhale.
“That’s it. Keep going. Eyes on me. Don’t look anywhere else.”
I focus on his gaze. Gray like frost on glass. I breathe when he breathes. In through my nose. Out through my mouth. Again. Again.
The vise around my chest loosens by degrees, and the darkness at the edges of my vision retreats.
“There you are. Stay with me.”
I realize I’m holding onto his wrists. My fingers are digging into his skin hard enough to leave marks. I should let go, apologize, and rebuild the walls between us.
But I don’t want to.
His hands on my face feel safe in a way nothing has in years. Not confining. Not controlling. Just steady, present, and real.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
“Don’t apologize.”
“He’s coming.” My voice cracks. “He’s coming here, and he’s going to take her, and I can’t—”
“No one is taking anyone. Not while I’m here.”
I feel him starting to pull away, and I grab his wrists harder.
“Don’t.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” He settles back, keeping his hands on my face. “I’m right here.”
“I know. I just…” I don’t know how to explain it. His hands are like an anchor to solid ground. “I don’t want you to let go yet.”
“Then I won’t.”
We stay like that while he traces tiny, soothing circles against my cheekbones with his thumbs, not demanding anything. Just being present.
“Tell me what you need,” he prompts.
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.”
He’s right. I’ve known what I need since he stepped between Semyon and me at the grocery store. Since he bought my daughter shoes and fixed my sink and started checking my locks three times a night.
“I need to not think for a while,” I admit. “I need someone else to be in control. Just for a little bit.”
He cocks his head and eyes me. “You sure about that?”
“Yes.”
“Because I need you to be sure. I’m not him, Daria. I will never be him. But if we do this, you have to trust me. Can you do that?”
I nod.
“Words.”
“Yes. I trust you.”
“Then listen. I’m the only thing you hear.”
Something shifts in his gaze. The softness stays, but something darker joins it.
“He doesn’t get access anymore. Not to your body. Not to your breath. Not to your fear. You’re safe now. Nothing else matters.”
I blink back the tears stinging my eyes.
“You want me to take control? Say it.”
“I want you to take control.”
“If you want me to stop, you say it, and I’ll stop. No questions.”
“Yes.”
“Brave girl. Stay with me. He won't touch you again.”
Heat pools between my thighs at the praise, and then his grip on my face gets tighter, and his mouth is on my neck.
I gasp at the contact. His lips are hot against my pulse point. I feel him smile against my skin when my heartbeat quickens beneath his mouth. He drags his teeth along the column of my throat, just hard enough to make me shiver.
“Still good?” he mumbles against my collarbone.
“Yes. God, yes.”
He pulls back to grab the hem of my shirt.
One tug, and it’s over my head and tossed somewhere behind him.
The cold air hits my skin, but I barely register it before his hands are on me again.
Rough palms slide up my ribs. Calloused fingers trace the curve of my breasts through my bra. He cups me, and I arch into his touch.
Maybe I’ve been starving for years. Maybe I’ve been so focused on surviving that I forgot what it felt like to want something for myself.
He reaches behind me and unclasps my bra with one hand. The fabric falls away, and he stares at my bare chest for a moment. Something dark and hungry flickers in his eyes.
“Beautiful.” His voice comes out in a whisper.
Then his mouth is on me.
He sucks my nipple between his lips, and I cry out at the sensation. His teeth graze the sensitive peak while his hand works the other side, rolling and pinching until I’m gasping, until my head falls back against the cabinet and my fingers twist in his hair.
“Pyotr—”
“Hands above your head. Don’t move.”
His voice is gravel and smoke, and I obey without thinking. I lift my arms, and my wrists cross above me against the cabinet door. He wraps one large hand around them and pins them in place.
“Good girl.”
I whimper, and he rewards me by trailing his free hand down my stomach. His fingers slip beneath the waistband of my leggings. Beneath my underwear. He finds me wet and wanting.
“This for me?” he asks against my breast.
“Yes.” I can barely form words. “Please.”
He strokes through my folds with agonizing slowness. His fingers circle my clit but never quite touch it. He dips lower to gather moisture before sliding back up. I try to adjust my hips to chase the pressure I need, but his hold on my wrists tightens in warning.
“Stay still.”
“I can’t—”
“You can.” He kisses the swell of my breast. “You will.”
I force my body to obey. Every muscle trembles with the effort of not moving, of not begging, of letting him set the pace. His fingers keep up the maddening rhythm, circling and stroking, but never giving me quite what I need.
“Obedient. Beautiful.”
“Please,” I breathe. “Pyotr, please.”
“Please what?”
“Touch me. Really touch me.”
“I am touching you.”
“You know what I mean.”
He lifts his head from my chest and meets my eyes. “Tell me exactly want you want.”
My face burns. “I need you to touch my clit. I need you to make me come. Please.”
A fire erupts in his gaze, full of approval and hunger.
“Good girl,” he murmurs. “That’s what I want to hear.”
His fingers find my clit, and I cry out at the contact. He rubs tight circles while his mouth returns to my breasts. His teeth graze sensitive flesh, and then his tongue soothes the sting. The pleasure builds so fast that it steals my breath.
I’ve never felt anything like this. Never let anyone take control like this. With Bogdan, control meant pain and humiliation and terror.
With Pyotr, it feels like freedom.
He adds more pressure to his circles, and I moan. The sound echoes in the quiet kitchen, and I would be embarrassed if I could think at all. But there’s nothing in my head except the feeling of his fingers between my thighs and his mouth on my skin and his hand pinning my wrists above my head.
His thumb doesn’t slow. His grip tightens. Like he’s holding the perimeter.
“Eyes on me,” he orders. “I want to watch you forget everything he did to you.”
I force my gaze upward. His pupils have dilated enough to make his wintery eyes dark, but something else is there, too. Something akin to reverence.
“That’s it,” he murmurs. “Only me. Right now.”
He slides two fingers inside me while his thumb maintains pressure on my clit. He curls them forward, finding the spot that makes my back arch off the cabinet. I’m trembling beneath him, caught between his grip on my wrists and the steady, punishing rhythm of his hand.
“You’re so tight,” he says against my ear. “So wet. You’re doing so good, golubka. Do you have any idea what you do to me?”
I can’t answer. I can barely breathe.
“Let go,” he commands. “Come on my fingers.”
At his command, I shatter.
The orgasm crashes through me, pulling me under. I hear myself cry out—his name, maybe, or just wordless sounds of pleasure. His hand on my wrists is the only thing keeping me tethered. Wave after wave rolls through me, and he works me through each tremor until I’m boneless and gasping.
He cleans his fingers with a slow swipe of his tongue, the same calm precision he uses to check locks.
When I finally come back to myself, I’m trembling all over.
Pyotr releases my wrists and takes them in his hands, one at a time. He runs his thumbs over the skin, checking for marks. His touch is gentle now, so different from the commanding grip of moments ago.
“You okay?”
I shake my head. Words won’t come yet.
He lifts my wrists to his mouth and kisses each one. The tenderness of it makes my throat tight.
Then he rises and disappears. I hear water running in the kitchen. A moment later, he’s back with a glass.
“Drink.”
I take the water with shaking hands and sip slowly while he retrieves my shirt from the floor. He pulls it over my head, guiding my arms through the sleeves. The intimacy of it undoes me more than the orgasm did.
I watch him move through the apartment, testing locks and checking windows. Walking his ritual around the perimeter like nothing happened. Like he didn’t just take me apart with his hands while I fell to pieces on my kitchen floor.
He never even kissed me.
The realization sends a fresh wave of heat through my oversensitive body. This terrifying Bratva enforcer, who could snap bones without breaking a sweat, made me come harder than I ever have in my life. And he did it without once pressing his lips to mine.
What would have happened if he’d kissed me? If he’d taken his time instead of grounding me through a panic attack? If we’d made it to a bed instead of the cold tile floor?
The thought makes me clench my thighs together.
He returns and lowers himself onto the floor beside me, leaning against the cabinet. He’s still enough to feel his body heat even though we’re not quite touching.
The boundary between us has crumbled. Neither of us seems to know how to rebuild it.
I’m not sure I want to.