Chapter 22
LILA
The ropes settle into place. Perfect patterns decorate my wrists and arms, elaborate knots that look like art but feel like chains. The silk bites into my skin—not painfully, but present, making me hyperaware of every inch of my body.
I'm really a captive now. Tied up. Helpless.
The ropes are beautiful in a way that makes me think of my drawings. All those fantasies I sketched out, never thinking they'd become real. Never thinking I'd be here, living them.
"Wait," I say suddenly, reality crashing in. "How am I supposed to take off the shirt? My hands are—"
Ivan doesn't answer. With words, at least. He grabs the fabric and rips.
The sound of tearing cloth makes me gasp. The expensive silk tears like paper. "That was—"
"Shh." His hand covers my mouth gently. "Relax."
Relax. Right. Easy to say when you're not the one suddenly naked and tied up. When you're not the one exposed and vulnerable.
I try, though. Try to breathe. Try to let go of the part of my brain that's screaming about what a terrible idea this is. About how I should be scared. About how normal people don't do this.
Then a soft fabric covers my eyes. Black silk. A blindfold.
"No—" I try to turn my head away, but he's already tying it behind my head. "Wait, I didn't expect—"
The world goes dark. My other senses sharpen immediately. I can hear his breathing. Feel the bed shifting under his weight.
"Can't move." His voice circles me, coming from everywhere and nowhere. I can hear the smirk in it even though I can't see his face. "Can't see. Can only feel. Now you’re completely mine."
My heart pounds. This is too much. Too vulnerable. I need to see his face, need to know where he is, what he's doing…
I’m about to say speak when he kisses me. It’s firm, decisive, like punctuation at the end of a sentence I didn’t even start. His hand cups my jaw, and suddenly I’m... hyperaware of every embarrassing noise I might be making.
When he pulls back, I'm dizzy.
"Shh," he says softly, lips still brushing mine. The warmth of him lingers, too close, too much.
"Ivan," I whisper. It’s not even a word—just a plea with vowels.
He chuckles—soft but humorless. Then he leans in, close enough that his lips brush the shell of my ear when he says, "You started as my captive.
Now you're mine by choice. But tonight..
. I want to remember how it all began. The first thing I ever told you was that I enjoy my conquests slowly.
Now you'll feel every second of it." His breath ghosts over my skin, and goosebumps chase down my arms.
His hands are on my breasts now, palms warm, thumbs brushing over nipples that are already hard.
A part of me wants to hide, run away, and cover myself. But a deeper part—the part that's been dreaming about this for months—is anticipating that tongue. That mouth. Those fingers that know precisely what to do.
"You’re tense. Enough thinking." He rolls my nipples between his fingers, making me arch off the bed.
"You're my captive now. No more hiding in that pretty head of yours.
In my world, captives get stripped bare—of every secret.
We don't stop until they've spilled it all, no matter how deep it's buried. "
"What secrets?"
His mouth traces down my body, taking his time. Stomach, hipbones, inner thighs. Then lands where it should. Already working, overwhelming me until thoughts disappears.
A moan escapes before I can stop it.
He exhales against me and says, "Like how you crashed into my territory uninvited."
He goes back to work with his tongue and lips and the edge of his teeth. Building pressure, building heat. Then pauses again. "How you exposed my vulnerabilities."
"I never meant—" The protest dies when he sucks hard on my clit. My hips buck. The ropes pull tight.
"You shattered my defenses." Another pause in his ministrations. Then he's back, adding pressure. "Plundered what I guarded most."
His tongue swirls in patterns that make me see stars even through the blindfold. I'm gasping now, pulling against the ropes.
"Stole my heart."
Before I can spiral into panic about what that means, he adds two fingers to his tongue work. I cry out.
"That requires punishment," he says against my skin.
"Oh yeah?" I manage between breaths, playing along and trying to sound confident when I'm anything but. "And how am I to be punished?"
He's breathing hard, too. "First, we need to search you thoroughly." His fingers enter me, slow, deliberate, curling to find that spot. "No resisting. Just take it."
They go slightly deeper, exploring, finding spots I didn't know existed.
"You think you can fight this?"
He twists his fingers slightly. Just enough. "You can't."
"Fuck—"
He doesn't stop, keeping the pressure, waiting, and testing.
Finally, I give up. "Fuck yes, do it. You have whatever you want."
And he goes even deeper, making me question reality. His mouth joins in again, tongue and fingers working together in a coordinated attack on my sanity.
I'm pull against the ropes, trying to get closer, trying to escape, not sure which I want more. "Please—"
"Please, what?" His voice is a purr. "Please stop? Or please more?"
"More. God, more."
"Confession is good for the soul." His fingers slow down, teasing now. Torturing. "Tell me what you've done. In my world, we don't stop until we get every detail—no mercy."
I know what he wants. Know I should be embarrassed. But the darkness makes it easier somehow. Makes the words flow.
"I... I've thought about you. Drawn you. Touched myself thinking of you."
"When?" His fingers reward me slightly, moving faster.
"Every night. For months."
"Before we met?"
"Yes." The admission should embarrass me. It doesn't. "Before I even knew your name."
"Dirty girl." His fingers quicken their pace, building that delicious pressure again. "What else?"
"I drew us together. Drew your hands on me. Your mouth. Drew things I'd never done but wanted to try."
"What things?"
"This. Being tied up. Helpless. At your mercy."
"And how does the reality compare to the fantasy?"
"Better." The word comes out as a gasp. "So much better."
The interrogation continues. He makes me confess everything—every fantasy, every desire, every time I imagined him doing what he's doing now. What he did on the table. Against the wall. In my drawings that I thought would stay private forever.
When I try to hold back, when I get too embarrassed to continue, his fingers slow. When I tell the truth, his mouth rewards me, bringing me right to the edge before pulling back at the last second.
I'm a mess. Begging. Incoherent. Confessing sins I never thought I'd say out loud.
"Final confession," he demands. "Tell me you're mine."
"Again?" I manage. "Haven't we established this?"
"I'll never get tired of hearing you say it."
"Fuck, yes, I'm yours. Only yours. Now, please, I need—"
Finally—finally—he takes me. Still bound. Still blind. And somehow I've never felt freer despite the restraints. Or maybe because of them.
He's everywhere. Touching me. Spreading my legs around his shoulders. The pleasure shifts—rough to soft, fast to slow, overwhelming to precise. I can't see. Can't anticipate. Can only feel.
Every nerve ending is on fire. Every sensation amplified by the darkness.
It's perfect.
It's too much.
It's everything.
When we're done, I'm breathing hard, trembling, and slick with sweat. I can positively say I’ve never felt better in my entire life.
I wait for him to take off the blindfold and untie me. To end this so we can curl up together.
Instead, he enters me again.
Rough. Really rough. No warning. No buildup.
"Ivan—what—"
"I don't know what the fuck I'm doing anymore." His voice breaks. Not the controlled Pakhan. Not the merciless captor. Just Ivan. Raw. Vulnerable. "I killed Boris today. I'm alienating all my men. Turning my back on everything my father built. For you. For this."
He's moving harder now. Desperate. Not playing anymore.
"I've never felt more alive," he says against my neck, his breath ragged. "But I'm also watching everything crumble."
Then he's over me, fully, and I can feel his weight. His presence. "I'm trading my empire for you. My father's connections. Everything he built. The Petrov legacy. It's all crumbling because I won't give you up."
His grip bruises, anchoring me to him. "Promise me," he says hoarsely. "Promise you’ll stay. Because when this all burns down—and it will—I’ll have nothing left but you. No empire. No name. Just... you."
He rips off the blindfold. The light stings, searing through the dark. My eyes adjust, and he’s there—hovering above me, face bare, eyes wrecked. There’s no distance, no mask, no power left to hide behind.
And I think—God, he’s terrified. Not of the world. Not of losing control. Of losing me.
What am I doing? Should I do this? Is this the right time? He admitted he's throwing away everything. Generations of work. His father's memory. An entire empire. For me.
What if I'm not worth it? What if I let him down? What if—
My mouth betrays my mind. "Ivan... I..."
"You what?" His voice cracks. "I NEED ANSWERS, LILA. I need to know this is real. That you won't leave when it gets bad."
The words tear out of me before I can stop them. "I love you."
Silence follows. The kind that roars in your ears.
Instant regret. Did I ruin this? Do mobsters even believe in love? Did I confess to something he can’t feel?
He looks at me, eyes searching mine for truth, or lies, or doubt.
"You're worth every fucking empire there is."
He kisses me hard.
"I love you," he says against my mouth. "I love you so fucking much it terrifies me. I've never loved anything. Never wanted to. But you—"
He kisses me again. Deeper.
"You're everything."
The makeout is intense. I'm helpless, bound. He's doing all the work. Claiming me entirely. Hands everywhere. Mouth possessive. Still inside me, moving slowly now, making it last. Filling it with meaning.
I'm his. Completely. Irrevocably.
And I've never been happier.
Even though I should be terrified. Even though this is insane. Even though empires are crumbling, men are dying, and everything is falling apart.
I've never been happier.