Chapter Fourteen – Maria
Chapter Thirteen – Roman
Lev was talking, making logical proposals for different strategies to catch the culprit. He pushed a stack of files closer across the desk and pointed to some inscriptions scribbled beside the black-and-white photographs of some past foes of the Bratva. And I was listening—at intervals.
“…but we had Roger eliminated. So, technically, unless he somehow came back from the fucking dead to stage this, then it can’t be him.”
“It’s not Roger.”
He tilted his head thoughtfully, drew back the files, and continued flipping. “Maybe not. Successors, though? Not a far-fetched idea, if you ask me. Roger had a stronger motive. You ran his business to the ground after that dirty move he made with the Feds. His two-hundred-million-dollar merchandise investment got tossed into the Mediterranean on your orders….”
I zoned out again, and his voice faded like a backdrop.
Beside Lev, she sat as still as a statue, with her arms wrapped over her chest and her eyes staring straight ahead at nothing.
Two weeks had passed since the scare at Polina’s school, and she’d barely said a word. Not even to Polina. Dawn and dusk came, and sometimes, she remained holed up inside her room. A few nights, I’d passed by her bedroom and heard the soft sniffles she tried to hide.
Seeing her like that, broken and beaten, angered me in a way I couldn’t explain.
Though the purplish bruises were faint dark spots now, she was still badly shaken up. She had almost fucking died. It made sense that she wanted to be alone for a while.
I kept Polly away, even if it broke her heart. We both knew she needed the time and space to get over it. And another way, which was my absolute favorite, was to deal with the scumbag who dared mess with her.
From across the desk, I noticed Lev had stopped talking.
He studied me, then her, and leaned back on his seat with a smug smile, understanding settling on his face. His fingers went through his hair, and he loosely balanced an arm on the armchair.
“You’ve been staring,” he commented in Russian to keep her from understanding.
Her eyes flickered between us for a split second, and she immediately lost her curiosity.
I didn’t answer him, but he went ahead with his inquisition anyway, speaking in Russian. “She’s the one, isn’t she? The girl that made you smile.”
“Lev….”
One warning, and he backed off, two hands raised in the air and that stupid smugness curling at his lips.
I rubbed the spot between my eyes, in no mood for any more drama, and sighed, adding one more word in Russian, “Yes.”
He barked a short laugh at my admission, not shaken by my glare or downturned lips. The rest of my words rolled out in English, matching my fury's speed and proficiency.
“Now, I need to find out what the fuck this is all about. This is the second time some asshole tried to kidnap my daughter. And not only that....” I moved my head, stared at her, and growled under my breath, “They dared to touch what was mine.”
Her eyes widened, and she stared at me like I had grown two heads. Confusion and conflict lingered, and I saw the many questions swirling through her mind like a hurricane. But she didn’t need to worry; I would make it clear to her soon enough that every single part of her was mine and could not be touched by anyone else. Ever.
Lev’s bold input made her blink and look away. “Martin. I don’t know why I didn’t think about that.”
“It’s not Martin.”
He made a noise behind his throat. “It’s not Luke, Dead Roger, Captain Fleece, or Martin.”
“Because it’s not them.”
“Roman, you have a long list of people that want not only your head but your daughter’s, too. I know I don’t need to remind you, but you’ve stepped on a lot of toes. It could be anyone. This particular attack might not be anything special. Remember that one time when they planted that bomb at one of your restaurants in Moscow?”
That got Maria’s attention, though it didn’t linger long.
For a second, I mused on what he’d said. Lev wasn’t exaggerating: The list was a long one—from Moscow to Chicago to New York. I had a list of international fans, too, but those ones were death-threat lovers. My email suffered from numerous spam messages. But I disagreed.
“It’s not Martin.”
He wasn’t convinced. “Your point?”
“The restaurant bomb, the death threats, the ambush on Wall Street, even the fucking Feds. You see, all of that is normal. Kidnapping Polly? Now, that doesn’t happen every day. It’s deliberate. The decision to take my daughter was made by someone who’s got a lot more than balls and resources. It’s bigger than a revenge ploy. The attacks are personal. Very, very personal. Whoever it is wants to hurt me badly.”
He remained quiet, pondering on it. “That’s a solid point.”
I straightened in my seat with clasped fingers. “Plus, the last time I made a check-in, Martin was still in the hospital. He doesn’t have the men or the resources to pull that off.”
Lev hummed and closed one of the yellow files. “So, Martin is officially off the list.”
“I know him,” she piped up, and we focused on her.
When neither of us said anything, she wet her lips and repeated, “The man who tried to take Polly that day, the man who attacked me...I know him. His name is Finn Jameson. He’s the man my father owed money.” She looked at me, her eyes softening just a bit. “The debt I had to repay, it was to him.”
“Well, that’s something solid.” Lev eyed me. “At least we have a lead now. Finn Jameson. Having one name can help us find out more about who could be behind it.”
While they talked, I was thinking, and none of it made any sense. I held up a hand, and their conversation dropped. I gave Lev a look, and he immediately understood it. Something wasn’t right. “I’ve never had to deal with a Finn Jameson before. Lev?”
“Nope. I’ve got a good memory. If we had a Finn Jameson or even a descendant with that name in Level One, I’d know.”
“Then, how?”
He offered, carelessly shrugging his shoulders and stroking his chin, “Maybe you’ve stepped on toes that stepped on his?”
I rolled my eyes. “We would know.”
“True. We would.”
Another detail upset my thoughts, and I asked him, “The money?”
He caught on. “Had Avian send it through a ghost account with that warning note you scripted.”
Then, it was absolute: None of it made sense. If Lev had the financial secretary pay off Maria’s debt through a ghost account, there was no way an idiot like that could have traced the strange deposit to a Varkov.
Across the desk, Lev pushed his chair back and gathered the files. “Sitting around isn’t going to get you any answers. I’m going to work.”
With one fleeting, knowing look between me and Maria, he fixed the files under an arm, stuck a cigarette between his lips, and was out of the office in seconds.
The moment the door clicked shut, Maria crossed her seat and stood by my side, glaring daggers.
She clenched her jaw, hardened her eyes, and hissed, “Get one thing clear: I don’t belong to you.”
I inclined back on my seat with a raised brow. Deep down, I was proud. She deserved some accolades for not going off on me in the presence of Lev. I recognized that trait anywhere—respect.
Maria Simmons might have hated my guts, wanted nothing to do with me, and, at this very moment, desired to punch me in the face, but one fact was for sure: She respected me.
I eyed her, allowing my gaze to sweep from the top of her dark hair with blonde highlights at the tips down the short length of her orange dress to the nude paint on her toenails.
Mine.
“You belong to me.”
“No, I don’t. I don’t belong to anyone. Not you, not Finn, not anyone! Do you understand?” she fired back with no hesitation but wasn’t prepared when I rose to my feet.
She faltered backward like a scared kitten.
I snaked an arm around her waist, pulled her flush against my chest, and sniffed her. The tip of my nose brushed her nape, and shudders ran down her spine.
Shudders ran down my spine. She smelled good, edible . Like natural fragrance and cookies.
I sniffed harder, already drawn in and intoxicated.
“Allow me to make it clear,” my growl rumbled on her bare collarbone, and my cock twitched at the declaration. “ You belong to me .”
With my other hand, I traced the stiffness of her spine, molded the curve of her ass through the thick fabric, and smacked the softness. She yelped, and I pressed my lips over hers, swallowing her pain.
“Your lips, your hair, your quivering pussy…every fucking part of you, I marked as mine. No one, Maria. No fucking person has the right to touch what’s mine without my permission. Do you understand?”
She panted, and her eyes shimmered.
But I wasn’t letting her go that easily.
“Do you understand me, Maria?” She nodded, and I cupped her cheeks and lightly caressed the bruise on her neck. “Does it still hurt?”
She shook her head and returned a soft, “No.”
I lowered my head, planted a kiss on the faded purple-black spot, and enjoyed the sound of her soft sigh when I flicked my tongue over the bruise.
“Do you want me to let you go?
She bunched a fistful of my shirt, whimpering. She didn’t say anything, but I knew her answer. I heard it in the sound of her heart thrashing against my chest, like a wild animal in a cage seeking release. She wanted this as much as I did. Letting go was not an option.
This insane connection between us—I knew she felt it, too. And why the thought of that made my dick hard, I didn’t know.
“You gave him a hundred grand,” she whispered. “I owed fifty.”
Dazed, and completely mesmerized by the sound of her voice, I kissed her jaw, sucking on the skin hard enough to leave a faint mark.
God , I wanted to gobble her up.
“You’re worth a lot more, Solnishko. ”
I gripped her thighs, hoisted her from the ground, and placed her on the edge of the desk. I straddled her body and pressed my thighs between her legs.
Her warm gaze fell to my lips, and she traced them with a thumb. “That word…what did it mean?”
It meant Little Sun. Because, somehow, I knew deep down that this woman—this feisty, confident, beautiful woman—was my match.
The shining sun to my darkness.
She was the healing balm to soothe my ache.
We were so close, almost bumping nostrils, so I could see her curiosity as clear as day. She believed it was an endearment, but I wasn’t going to reveal any more that I already had.
Her nose scrunched up, and I had to stop myself from laughing at how unbearably cute she was.
“I have so many questions,” she said.
I pecked her lips. “And I’ll answer them later.”
When I pressed another kiss against her collarbone, she shivered. My dick grew harder, and if it got any harder than it already was, I would go on a rampage.
Holding her gaze, I said softly, “I like your dress. I want to take it off.”
There was a long, crackling moment before she decided whether or not to respond. To give in. Our gazes held like a lit dynamite, waiting as the seconds passed before exploding.
She licked her lips. “Is that you asking for my permission?”
I slipped a hand underneath her dress and bunched up the fabric until her white thong was visible. On instinct, I spread her legs further apart and wound them around my waist.
“No.” My voice was a harsh rasp in the quiet room. I gritted my teeth to suppress the animalistic urge to fuck her senseless. “That’s me telling you what I want.”
I was at the edge of my self-control when she shifted her hips closer, pressing the valley between her legs against the bulge on my pants.
I looked at her, breathing shallowly and watching me with wary eyes. Her hair spilled all over her shoulders, and her eyes twinkled in anticipation, and I felt a jolt of possessiveness.
Darker and more intense than anything I’d felt before.
My blood rushed through my veins like wildfire. Heat rose off my skin in smoke.
Unwilling to wait, I unfastened the belt buckle around my waist, rolled down the zipper, and grasped my hard dick in my hand.
Her voice stayed calm, but the excitement in her eyes was clear. “Don’t you want me to take off the panties?”
It was sinless and genuinely asked from a heart with nothing but purity. But it made the blood rush to my ears and strained the veins on my cock. Her innocence revved an unhealthy obsession within me.
When I spoke, it was in pants. “I don’t need to take them off.”
I slid a finger past the thin piece shielding her sex from my view. Then, I shifted it aside so she was exposed: pink, soaking wet, and ready for me.
I stared down at her. Desire wracked my entire core like a tornado, leveling everything in its wake. I stroked her, rubbed her clitoris, watched her quiver, and then settled myself between her spread thighs.
I nuzzled her throat and kissed my way up until I found her lips. Then, I shoved my dick inside, the entire length buried in her.
She arched into me, dug her nails into my arm, and groaned into my mouth.
I muttered a rushed, “Fuck!” before I withdrew and went again.
Her heat and wetness slid against my hard cock, and I kissed her like a prisoner that had been starved for days, parting her lips with my tongue and delving deep.
She melted in my arms as she did every time I kissed her, sighing into my mouth. Her fingers crawled to my hair. My fingers found her wet sex again, and I played with it.
Stroked my fingers lazily across her pussy and… thrust.
A brutal moan resonated from her throat. Our tongues lapped, breaths mingled, and heartbeats formed a rhythm. The sound of quickening breaths and the jerking wooden desk filled the silence. Need and hunger grew, and the blood in my ears steamed, each roll of her hips matching mine.
I wanted to strip her, to taste every inch of her. But I had no patience.
This will have to do—for now.
I dug my fingers into her ass, lifted her from the desk, spun, and pinned her against the wall behind us.
She stiffened, and I knew why: memories of the attack—of being slammed to the wall and almost choked to death. But I didn’t let her go. I was going to kill the bloody asshole when I saw him.
I held her tighter and whispered into her ear, “I’m going to rewrite everything that fucking bastard did to you, and by the time I’m done, you will only remember me.”
Then, I kissed her sweetly—tugged at her upper lip and tasted the heat on her tongue. It started slowly…until I kissed ferociously.
I whispered in her ear how much I wanted her, needed her . How crazy I felt when I didn’t have her beside me. How murderous I got at the thought of letting her go.
But I said all of those in Russian and enjoyed the ascending sound of her loud moans ricocheting off the walls in my office.
She looked dazed, her cheeks flushed and her eyes hazy. She began to shake. Quivering, she arched against me, tipping her head back on a helpless moan. Her hips rocked in time with the thrust of mine, and her thighs shook.
I wanted her to come. I wanted her to scream my name. I wanted it so much that I grunted with the effort to stop myself from saying it.
She whispered, eyes closed, “You feel so good, Roman. You’re so hard, and I love it. I love—"
She gasped, trailing off. And I lost myself.
I bucked into her so hard that she clenched around me with every thrust. Her body flexed; then, she arched and came, jerking and shuddering.
I tried to catch my breath. Her sounds drove me to the brink, and I wanted to jump off the edge. Sweat rolled down my arm and stuck to the fabric of my shirt. Her upper lips glistened, and her eyes rolled into her head.
The first time we had sex was purely physical, driven by lust, desire, and adrenaline. This second time…it felt different. More intimate, like we’d connected in ways neither of us could explain. My chest felt like it would burst.
In split seconds, my desire for this woman grew and blossomed into something more consuming—a force so powerful that my knees buckled.
I grabbed her ass, dug my nails in, and fucked her as hard as she asked me to.
Then, I exploded with a sudden, violent jerk: an explosion that cracked a door open, a door I’d kept shut for a long time.
I groaned, pulled out of her, and spilled myself onto her thighs. Our breathing slowed, and our heart rates returned to normal. I felt lighter and more exposed than I’d felt in six years.
Cupping her cheeks, I kissed her softly and heard myself murmur. “ Solinishko. It means ‘Little Sun’.”
The day I turned fifteen, I had my first boyfriend: Noah Jepton.
That was his name, and he made sure I didn’t forget it.
He was an athlete at our local high school, one of those stereotypical jocks that all the girls in the cheerleading squad drooled over, shook their booties for during practice, and giggled their heads off for, even when his jokes were as dry as twigs in the Sahara.
We were neighbors. We rode to school together, talked, laughed, and ate pizza with his friends at Joe’s Pizza Hut. I watched his games, he bought me Starbucks, and I wore his jersey to sleep every night.
Handsome, smart, a bit arrogant, and charismatic. I like him, then, a whole lot. I was living a fantasy. I was living the dream. But I was fifteen: young, na?ve, and in love. I couldn’t have possibly known that he would crush my heart to pieces three months after his dumb proposal at the school cafeteria, with a bowl of pistachio ice cream and a stupid note scribbled in the poorest of handwriting, asking me to be his girlfriend.
But it didn’t matter. The most popular boy in school liked me. All of me, he claimed: my weirdness, my silence, my obsession with learning self-defense, and my strange tendency to mix blueberry muffins and plums together.
So, I said yes.
Yes, to my fifteen-year-old idea of love.
Yes, to finally being a girlfriend to my high school crush.
Yes, to getting the worst heartbreak of my life. The type that left a girl hiding in the basement one week after the entire school knew that she’d lost her virginity to East High’s heartthrob because the douche himself showed his friends a video of our very first time.
I’d been hurt, broken to pieces, wrung out, and left scarred for life.
But I didn’t forget to return the favor. A month later, I learned some roundhouse kicks from a video online and used him as target practice on the field after one of his stupid games.
But the point was, six years later, I wasn’t that fifteen-year-old na?ve girl who gaped out of the window like a love-struck puppy, waiting for her charming N.J. to slide through the old windowpanes and kiss her goodnight.
No, I was a lot older now, much wiser, too.
Wise enough to distinguish right from wrong. Wise enough to know the difference between a politician, a security officer, a wealthy businessman, and a mobster. Wise enough to know that any man who possessed those four personalities had to be the most corrupt, vicious, and dangerous man on Earth.
Roman Varkov was that man, and he was no Noah Jepton.
Men like Roman didn’t break hearts. They snuffed out souls, crushed spirits, and were joyful harbingers of destruction and death. Where he was, darkness was. The heights he reached had blood spilled and evil written all over it. I could say this with certainty; I’d seen him take a man’s life—twice.
When moral leaders spoke of men who committed despicable acts, they spoke of Roman Varkov.
Tossing, I squeezed the pillow to my chest and kicked the sheets in frustration.
I was older now, and I was more experienced in the field, so I knew that I couldn’t use a man like him for target practice. It didn’t matter how many techniques I’d mastered; if I did, the only person who would leave with a bruised face and busted ego would be me.
But yet….
Yet….
None of these thoughts deterred me. None of them swayed me. Every factor screamed, “Run! Run as fast as you can, away from him.”
But my heart whispered, “Stay.”
Stupid.
I repeated the dangers to myself so often that it almost became a mantra. But my heart didn’t budge. The more I remembered why he was bad for me, the more my body craved his touch. I remembered the feel of his finger inside me, his voice in my ear, whispering, “ I’m going to rewrite everything that fucking bastard did to you. By the time I’m done with you, you will only remember me.”
And I did.
I only saw his eyes, the intense pleasure and lust in them when he kissed me, fucked me, teased me, and made me moan his name. I trembled at his touch and quivered when he showed me sides he only ever reserved for Polly.
Then, he went ahead and made me melt like butter in a heated oven.
“You’re worth a lot more, Solnishko.”
“Solinishko. It means ‘Little Sun’.”
I turned to mush at the roll of the words delivered in his rich baritone. My insides squeezed like sweet, ripened oranges, and I might have hit hard on another orgasm if he hadn’t already pulled out.
His constant switch, from hard to soft and hard again, made me want to scream, and yet, I still whetted an appetite to explore every side of him till I knew him like the back of my hand.
Roman Varkov was everything.
Mysterious and simple.
Beautiful and scarred.
When he’d paid off what was left of my father’s debt, I became indebted to him, surrendering my control to him for as long as he was willing to keep me.
That was the sad part: battling with unanswered questions about what his next actions would be after he grew weary of me and our sexual escapades.
As much as I wanted to regain my freedom, the reality left me feeling hollow, with a sense of loss.
Crazy .
How could I lose something that wasn’t mine?
Groaning, I got off the bed and went over to the window. It didn’t even help that I missed the feeling of lying on his bed, naked, with his heavy, muscled leg strewn over me. Watching the starry ceiling as he hovered above and claimed every inch of me.
Oh, Maria.
I massaged my temples.
This was really worse than dealing with Noah Jepton.
I stared out my window, surrounded by the sounds of the city. It was a little after five in the evening. Cars honked, and people chattered in the distance. It had become a familiar chaos that I’d grown to love over the past weeks.
Roman had been intentional about building his home not too far away from the view of the city, and I knew it was for his daughter’s benefit. That way, Polly didn’t feel estranged from life outside those thick walls. It was one feature of the Varkov Mansion I enjoyed.
I inhaled the faint smells of food and exhaust from the distance, seeping in through the cracked window, and felt the hustle and bustle of the city come alive.
I leaned my forehead against the glass, letting the sounds wash over me. The sounds forced me to recall moments when I wanted to jump out my window and run away into the night.
When my father came back drunk, raving mad about not having dinner. Dinner that he didn’t provide for. Or when he felt like testing out the quality of his new leather belts, belts I was sure he’d stolen from Jepton’s clothing store downtown.
He'd gag and whip me when he was not in the mood for extreme violence. Hit me across the face when he was upset. Playfully shove my face to the bulge in his pants when he was drunk. Tie me up with worn-out twine and batter my ribs with bone-crunching punches when he was furious.
One time, he’d forced alcohol down my throat, grabbed a fistful of my hair, and told me to spit it back out slowly just for his pleasure.
I’d hated my father.
I’d hated him so much that I’d cut my hair to hinder his fingers from going in. I’d hated him enough to think about different ways I could tie him up and deal him blows, too, to hurt him as much as he’d hurt me. But the universe didn’t want me to get me to get my hands dirty. He’d kicked the bucket before I ever got the chance.
I sighed and turned away from the gruesome memories. Even if I’d convinced myself that I’d moved past them, they always made me sick.
I thought about Roman and all the times I’d watched him wear the cloak of a soul destroyer. The anger brimming in his eyes, the torrents of fury, and the thick layers of brutality that formed the man.
I didn’t know him well; I only knew the sides he’d shown me. Regardless, deep down, there was a conviction, just sitting there in the recesses of my heart, and I knew for a fact that he would never hurt me.
At that moment, my phone buzzed on the nightstand, and I walked over to it. Picking up the phone, I tapped on the screen. It was a message from the man himself.
Be ready by six. x Roman.
I racked my brain.
Be ready?
The last time I saw Roman was two days ago, in his office, after he unhooked my legs from around his waist, cleaned his come off my thighs with a piece of cloth he’d produced from a mini wardrobe, and kissed my forehead before sending me off to my room to get some rest.
Then, all of a sudden, I got a text, asking— ordering— me to be ready?
Be ready for what?
Surprised, I stared open-mouthed at the cryptic text and had already begun drafting a response when a rapt knock resounded on the door.
I ambled closer and opened the door to reveal the new housecleaner. Roman had hired her three hours after Finn’s attack.
She was years younger than Irina and a lot quieter, too. With a short nod and brisk steps, she placed a big black box on the edge of my bed and was out of the door in a flash.
I went over to the box, ran my fingers through the sleekness of the designer’s logo, and played with the strings of the ribbon tied over it. Carefully, I unwrapped it, curious to know what it contained.
The strings came undone, the box loosened, and I parted the layers and ruffles. I gasped. Beneath the covering, lying in a neat fold, was the most stunning red dress I had ever seen. It was like liquid night, hugging every curve, and the fabric felt like silk on my skin.
Then, I saw the price tag, and my eyes widened in shock.
This dress cost more than a down payment on a condo!
I started composing another text to express my appreciation and to kindly inform him that I couldn’t accept such an expensive gift when I caught sight of a white square piece of paper peeking out from under the layers and ruffles.
Tucking my phone into my pocket, I picked it out.
It was a note, one that made my heart soar above the danger signs and warning mantras in an instant.
You’re worth a lot more, Solnishko.