Chapter 9 – Valeria
My wedding night feels nothing like I imagined.
There’s no celebration. No laughter. No quiet, giddy anticipation of what comes next.
Just silence.
Heavy. Suffocating.
This room—the new room I’ll share with Timofey—doesn’t feel like a beginning. It feels like a waiting room for something terrible.
The package made sure of that.
Marriage was supposed to buy me time. Protection. Position.
Instead, Anton answered with a severed thumb.
He knows where I am.
He knows who I married.
And he’s still coming.
I sit by the window, my knees drawn slightly inward, my fingers resting loosely against the fabric of the silk pajamas Matteo sent over.
It’s one of many. He’s completely changed my wardrobe, down to lingerie.
I should be glad. Matteo knows how to style me well, and I feel like a princess in these pajamas, but I can’t think clearly.
My reflection stares back faintly against the glass—pale, distant, hollow in a way I refuse to fully acknowledge.
Outside, the grounds stretch into darkness, heavily guarded, secure, untouchable.
At least, that’s what it’s supposed to be.
My thoughts spiral anyway.
Because I know Anton.
Security doesn’t scare him.
Power doesn’t scare him.
Nothing does.
I close my eyes briefly, but the memory comes anyway.
It’s only been a week.
Just one week since I walked into my father’s office and found him slumped in his chair.
Blood everywhere.
Too much blood.
And Anton standing over him like it meant nothing.
Like my father—one of the most powerful men I had ever known—was nothing more than a problem he had already solved.
The sound of the gunshots still echoes in my head sometimes.
Even when it’s quiet like this.
Especially when it’s quiet like this.
My fingers curl slightly against my lap.
The thumb in the box….
It wasn’t random.
Anton doesn’t do random.
Whoever it belonged to, he served my father. I know by the insignia. Which means this wasn’t just a warning.
It was a message carved in flesh.
This is what happens to anyone connected to you.
A slow breath leaves me.
I don’t have any family left, and I’m glad Sofia is here in America with me, but is that enough?
What about the hundred others who served my father? They weren’t family, but they were loyal. Would I watch them all die for it?
I try to take a deep breath. Because panic is useless.
Fear is expected.
And I refuse to give Anton anything he expects.
Still….
My chest tightens. Because beneath all the strategy, all the planning, all the cold logic, there’s a simple, unavoidable truth.
I’m not safe.
Not here.
Not anywhere.
And now, I’ve dragged Timofey into it.
My jaw tightens at the thought.
This was supposed to be calculated. Clean. A mutually beneficial arrangement. But Anton doesn’t respect boundaries. He doesn’t care about alliances. He burns everything in his path.
Which means this war is no longer just mine.
A faint sound behind me pulls me from my thoughts. The door opens. I don’t turn immediately.
I don’t need to.
I already know it’s him.
Timofey steps into the room, the quiet weight of his presence filling the space before he even speaks.
He’s still in his suit.
Of course he is.
I left him in the hall earlier, surrounded by his brothers, issuing orders like the world wasn’t tilting beneath our feet.
Like a severed thumb wasn’t sitting somewhere in this house as a warning to me. To the both of us.
My body stiffens instinctively.
It’s automatic now, this tension between us.
But slowly…it fades.
Because this isn’t like before.
There’s no sharp edge to him tonight. No suspicion. No challenge. Just something quieter. Controlled.
He walks further into the room, his gaze settling on me where I sit by the window. Studying.
Not in the way he usually does—like I’m a puzzle or a problem to solve.
This time…it feels different.
Like he sees more than I want him to.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
Simple. Direct.
I almost laugh.
Instead, I nod once. “I’m fine.”
The lie comes easily. Too easily.
His expression doesn’t change.
Which tells me he doesn’t believe me.
Of course, he doesn’t.
Timofey steps closer, stopping just a few feet away. Not too close. Not distant either.
“The Rusnak family will not allow Anton to succeed,” he says.
His voice is calm.
Steady.
Not empty reassurance. Not something said just to fill the silence.
It sounds like fact.
Like a promise backed by blood and power and violence I’ve only begun to understand.
I look at him then. Fully.
And for the first time since the wedding. Since the package. Since everything. Something in my chest loosens.
Just a little.
Because he believes it.
Not blindly. Not arrogantly.
But with the kind of certainty that comes from knowing exactly what he and his family are capable of.
The tension pressing down on me eases, just enough for me to breathe a little deeper.
I swing my legs down and turn to him, holding his gaze.
For a moment, neither of us speaks.
And then, my throat tightens.
“I don’t…” I start, but the words get stuck somewhere between my chest and my mouth.
I swallow hard, forcing them out.
“I don’t want to think about him tonight.”
My voice is quieter now. Thinner. Timofey doesn’t interrupt. Doesn’t move. He just watches me. So I take a step closer. And that alone feels like crossing a line.
“Help me forget,” I say.
The words come out softer than I expect.
But they land heavy between us.
My fingers curl slightly at my sides.
“Just for tonight.”
There’s no strategy in this. No calculation. No careful planning. Just…desperation. A need to breathe without fear clawing at my lungs.
For a second, he hesitates. I see it. That flicker of restraint. Of control. Like he’s reminding himself what this is supposed to be. A contract. Nothing more.
Then something in his expression shifts. Decides. And just like that, the distance between us disappears. He closes it in two steps. Fast. Intentional. His hand comes up, firm against my jaw, tilting my face toward his.
And then his mouth is on mine.
He sweeps me into his arms, the strength in his limbs startling and absolute. One arm curves like iron around my waist, crushing me against the hard wall of his chest, while his other hand fists into my hair. He jerks my head back, angling my face up at a punishing degree, and devours my lips.
I moan into his mouth—a sound of pure, unadulterated release—and I feel the shift in him instantly.
He turns feral. The kiss loses its hesitation, turning into a battle of tongues and teeth that leaves me lightheaded.
He isn't just kissing me; he’s trying to reach the parts of me I keep hidden behind my father’s name and my own cold smiles.
He carries me toward the bed, his strides heavy and certain, never once breaking the contact of our mouths. My hands find his shoulders, my nails digging into the solid muscle there as if I’m trying to anchor myself to something real in a world that’s suddenly spinning out of control.
When my back finally hits the mattress, the weight of him follows immediately.
He looms over me, a dark shadow that smells of expensive tobacco and dangerous intentions.
He looks at me—really looks at me—and for the first time, I don’t see the soldier.
I see the man who’s about to take everything I’ve been trying to protect.
“You won’t remember anything but this,” he rasps against my skin, his voice a low, vibrating promise.
The silk of my top is gone in a blur of impatient movement, discarded like the last of my inhibitions. The cool air hits my skin for only a fraction of a second before his heat replaces it.
His teeth graze my nipple—a sharp, electric nip that sends a jolt straight to my spine. I scream, the sound raw and echoing in the room, but he swallows the tail end of it as his mouth moves back to mine.
While he claims my breath, his other hand is already moving. He hooks his fingers into the waistband of my bottoms and shucks them down my legs in one rough, efficient motion.
I’m exposed, trembling, and completely under his thumb.
Before I can even process the weight of his gaze on me, he sinks a finger inside me.
The intrusion is sudden and deep, a searing invasion of warmth that makes my hips buck off the mattress. I’m a mess of contradictions, aching for more while my body reels from the sheer intensity of him.
He doesn’t wait for me to adjust. He begins to move that finger in a slow, torturous hook, finding the exact spot that makes my vision fragment into sparks.
“Timofey,” I gasp, my hands clawing at his shoulders, my nails leaving crescent marks in his skin.
He doesn’t slow down. He adds a second finger, stretching me, his thumb finding the bundle of nerves at my apex and applying a steady, rhythmic pressure that makes my breath hitch in a series of broken sobs. He’s a master of my anatomy, dismantling my defenses with surgical, lethal precision.
I asked him to help me forget, but as he looms over me, his eyes dark with a possessive hunger that looks nothing like a contract, I realize I’ve never been more aware of every inch of my own skin.
I’m not just forgetting the world outside; I’m being rewritten by the man holding me captive in the dark.
He yanks his fingers out of me, the sudden absence leaving me feeling hollow and aching, but he doesn't let the distance last. He holds his hand to my lips, the scent of my own desire thick in the air. I don’t hesitate.
I suck them into my mouth, my pupils dilating as I stare up at him through my lashes, the metallic tang of his ring and the salt of his skin mixing with my own heat.
A dark, predatory smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth. “You taste better than anything I’ve ever been promised, Valeria,” he growls, his voice dropping into a register that makes my stomach flip. “And I want to taste every bit of you.”
Before I can even find my breath to answer, he shifts. He moves with that lethal, fluid grace that makes him so dangerous, sliding down my body until he’s positioned between my thighs.
He doesn’t ask. He doesn’t wait.
He grabs my knees and shoves them back toward my shoulders, pinning me open. The vulnerability should terrify me, but under his burning gaze, it feels like a revelation. He leans in, his breath hot against my inner thigh, making the hair on my arms stand up.
“Timofey,” I whimper, my fingers fisting in the sheets as I wait for the strike.
Then, his mouth finds me.
The first touch of his tongue is a firm, wet stroke that sends a bolt of pure lightning through my center.
I scream, my head slamming back against the headboard, my body a live wire of sensation.
He’s relentless, using his mouth with the same cold, calculated perfection he uses to handle a weapon, but there is nothing cold about the fire he’s stoking inside me.
He drinks from me like a man dying of thirst, and for the first time in my life, the world outside this room—the threats, the blood, the Petrov name—is gone.
There is only the pressure of his tongue and the beautiful, terrifying ruin of my own surrender.
He doesn’t give me a moment to breathe. His tongue is a rhythmic, punishing force, flat and firm as it drags over my most sensitive nerves.
He knows exactly where to apply the pressure, his mouth creating a vacuum that pulls every thought from my head until I’m nothing but a collection of raw, frantic pulses.
I’m thrashing now, my heels digging into his shoulders as I try to find a way to escape the intensity, but he won’t let me go. He grips my thighs, his fingers bruising my skin, keeping me pinned for the slaughter. The world dissolves into a haze of heat and the sound of my own broken cries.
“Timofey, please—”
I don’t even know what I’m begging for anymore.
Then, it happens. A violent, white-hot explosion of pleasure rips through me.
My body seizes, my back arching off the bed in a silent scream as the orgasm crashes over me in wave after agonizingly beautiful wave.
I’m shattered, my muscles twitching with the aftershocks, my breath coming in shallow, panicked sobs.
I’m still coming down, my vision still blurred by the intensity of the peak, when he moves.
He doesn’t wait for the tremors to stop.
He doesn’t wait for me to find my center.
He looms over me, a dark silhouette of pure, unadulterated intent.
He hooks my legs over his shoulders, and before I can even draw a full breath, he drives into me.
The sight of him plowing me, his suit still on, is the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.
The sensation is overwhelming. I’m still raw, still hypersensitive from the climax, and the feeling of him filling me so completely makes my head snap back. It’s too much. It’s perfect.
“You’re mine tonight, Valeria,” he rasps, his voice a jagged edge against my ear as he begins to move, his pace hard and fast, forcing me back into the fire before I’ve even cooled from the last one.
I wrap my arms around his neck, clinging to him like a lifeline as he pulls me into the storm once more.
There is no strategy left, no fear, no Petrov legacy—there’s only the heavy, rhythmic thud of his heart against mine and the way he’s claiming every single piece of me I thought I’d never give away.
“Valeria, I’m so close. So, so close. Fuck. You’re so fucking tight.”
His voice is a fractured growl against the side of my neck, raw and stripped of all its usual composure.
I can feel the vibration of his words deep in my bones.
His muscles begin to spasm, a violent, rhythmic tension that ripples through his entire frame, and the sheer intensity of him coming apart inside me triggers a second, devastating explosion in my own body.
I shatter all over again, my vision going white as I cling to his sweat-slicked shoulders.
Timofey lets out an animalistic growl, his head falling into the crook of my neck as he finally gives in, his heart hammering against my chest like a trapped bird. We stay like that for a heartbeat—frozen in the wreckage of the fire we just started—until the world slowly begins to stop spinning.
As I start to come down from the high, an overwhelming wave of sleepiness consumes me.
It’s a heavy, leaden weight that pulls at my limbs, making every muscle feel like it’s turned to water.
My mind tries to signal a warning—to remind me that this wasn’t part of the agreement, that I should get up, get dressed, and put the walls back up—but my body refuses to listen.
I don’t pull away. Instead, I let my eyes flutter shut and curl instinctively into Timofey’s side.
I tuck my head against his chest, breathing in the scent of salt and the lingering heat of him.
Even knowing the danger, even knowing the morning will bring questions I’m not ready to answer, I can’t move.
In the heavy, silent aftermath of the storm, I fall into a deep, dreamless sleep, anchored by the man who was supposed to be nothing more than a contract.