Chapter Two #2
"I am speaking of Anastasia Volkov," Azar hissed, leaning over the desk, her face inches from the glow of the lamp.
"I pulled the data, Raphael. I saw the backdoors in their accounts. They are broke. The Bratva is fractured, and they are using this girl as a pretty, blonde piece of bait to drag your empire into their civil war. And you’re taking it! "
"Ezra has reviewed their financials. We are aware of their... structural difficulties," Raphael replied, his tone remaining infuriatingly calm. "It gives me leverage. When I marry her, I absorb their remnants on my terms."
"You marry her, and you invite vipers into your bed!" Azar yelled, slamming her hand against the desk. "She doesn't know you. She doesn't care about this family. She is a chess piece. How can you not see that?"
Raphael’s eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. "Watch your tone, Azar."
But Azar was too far gone. Years of silent devotion, of watching from the shadows, of hoping he would finally see her as a woman—it all boiled over into toxic, reckless fury. Ewan’s words rang in her ears, and she wanted to tear them down.
"I won't watch my tone!" Azar cried, circling the edge of the desk, stepping into his space.
"I know you're a Don. I know everyone in this house bows to you.
But right now, you are being stupid! You pride yourself on being the 'Iron Saint,' the master tactician, but you are looking at this woman and her Bratva pedigree, and you are blind! You aren't using your head, Raphael. You’re blinded by a pretty face. Or worse, you’re just using a different part of your anatomy! "
The silence that followed was deafening. The air in the room didn't just freeze, it shattered.
Raphael stood up.
He moved with a sudden, predatory speed that defied his tall frame. Before Azar could even take a breath, before she could register the mistake she had just made, his hand shot out. His long, strong fingers clamped around the back of her neck, his grip like a steel vice.
Azar gasped as he hauled her forward, his other hand gripping her waist, effortlessly lifting her off her feet until she was slammed back against the edge of the mahogany desk. The tablet clattered to the floor.
Raphael loomed over her, a tower of coiled violence. His face was mere inches from hers, his eyes blazing with a feral, monstrous fury that she had only ever seen on the security feeds when he broke men in the basement.
"You forget yourself, little girl," Raphael snarled, his voice a guttural, demonic whisper that scraped against her skin. "You forget who I am. You think you can stand in my office and speak to me like I am a boy in the streets? You think this is a game?"
"Raphael—" she breathed, her hands coming up to grip his wrists. But she wasn't pushing him away. Her fingers dug into his skin, holding on.
"You think this is a fairy tale?" he sneered, his breath hot against her lips, his grip on her neck tightening just enough to make her pulse pound agonizingly against his palm.
"You look at me with those wide, naive eyes, thinking your devotion makes you special.
You think you can save me? I am not a prince, Azar.
I am a butcher. And I will show you exactly what happens when you disrespect a monster. "
He didn't give her a chance to speak, to apologize, to run. He crashed his mouth down onto hers.
It wasn't a kiss. It was an assault. It was brutal, punitive, designed to terrify her, to shatter her naive illusions, to break her spirit so she would finally realize she was playing with a man who dealt in death.
His mouth was hard, his teeth bruising her lips, parting them by sheer, violent force.
He tasted like expensive whiskey and power.
He expected her to whimper. He expected her to cry, to push back, to shrink away in horror from the feral darkness he was unleashing on her.
Instead, a wild, fractured sound tore from Azar’s throat—not a sob of fear, but a moan of pure, unadulterated triumph.
She didn't cower. She didn't break.
Azar’s hands slid from his wrists, tangling fiercely into his thick hair.
She pulled him closer, arching her back against the hard edge of the desk, meeting his violence with a feral, hungry desperation of her own.
She opened her mouth to him, kissing him back with a bruising, desperate force, her nails biting into his scalp.
Raphael froze for a fraction of a second, the shock of her retaliation halting his fury. And then, the shock violently morphed into something much darker. The punishment dissolved into blind, all-consuming lust.
A guttural growl ripped from his chest. His hand moved from her neck to her hair, wrapping his fist in the thick waves and pulling her head back, exposing the long, pale line of her throat.
He dragged his mouth down her jaw, his teeth scraping over her pulse point.
Azar gasped, her chest heaving as she arched into him, her fingers tearing frantically at the buttons of his shirt.
"You want the monster?" Raphael rasped against her skin, his voice thick with a primal need.
He gripped the collar of her silk blouse, his knuckles white.
With one violent, seamless motion, he ripped the fabric down the center.
The sound of tearing silk echoed loudly over their breathing. "You think you can survive this?"
"Show me," Azar challenged, her voice trembling but utterly defiant. Her eyes were dilated, shining with worship and wild desire. "Show me, Raphael."
He swept the ledgers and crystal glasses off the desk with a deafening crash, lifting her by the thighs and seating her on the smooth mahogany surface. He stepped between her legs, his body crowding her, devouring her space.
It was a frenzy of tearing fabric, bruising grips, and desperate, feral touches.
There was no gentleness, no tender romance.
It was a collision of two wild things. Azar’s hands roamed over the hard expanse of his chest, her fingernails leaving half-moon indentations in his skin.
Raphael consumed her, his mouth hot and relentless, biting her lip until she tasted the sharp metallic tang of her own blood.
He pushed her back against the wood, his frame pinning her down. He was ruthless, taking her apart piece by piece, his hands rough and demanding. When he finally drove himself into her, tearing through the barrier of her innocence, the pain was a sharp, blinding white light that made her cry out.
Raphael instantly went rigid, his chest heaving, his eyes snapping up to meet hers. He saw the tears stinging the corners of her eyes, felt the tight, agonizing resistance of her virginity. The monster hesitated, a flicker of shock and realization crossing his face.
"Azar..." he gritted out, his voice strained, the primal fog lifting for a microsecond.
"Don't stop," she sobbed, wrapping her legs tight around his waist, her hands pulling him down by the shoulders. She didn't want his mercy. She wanted all of him. "Don't you dare stop, Raphael."
He groaned, a sound torn from the deepest, most animalistic part of his soul, and he surrendered to the violence.
The lovemaking was a brutal, punishing rhythm that rattled the desk.
He gave her no quarter, claiming her with a feral possessiveness that bruised her skin and marked her soul.
He held her wrists pinned above her head, his thrusts deep and relentless, pushing her past the threshold of pain into a blinding, euphoric oblivion.
Azar matched him breath for breath, bite for bite, her back arching off the wood, her cries muffled against his shoulder as she sank her teeth into his skin, leaving her own brand upon the Iron Saint.
The air in the office was thick with the scent of sex, sweat, and shattered boundaries. As the explosive climax tore through them both, Azar clung to him, her nails digging into his back, sobbing his name into the quiet darkness of the room.
When the silence finally returned, broken only by the sound of their ragged breathing, Raphael remained draped over her. His face was buried in the crook of her neck, his broad chest rising and falling rapidly against her flushed skin.
Azar lay beneath him on the ruined desk, her clothes torn, her body aching and bruised in a dozen places. The pain throbbed between her thighs, sharp and sweet. Ewan was wrong. The family was wrong.
She turned her head slightly, her lips grazing the damp hair at Raphael's temple. A slow, delirious smile curved onto her lips. She was bleeding, she was broken, but as his arms tightened around her waist, refusing to let her go, she felt like a queen.
Finally, she thought, closing her eyes as the shadows of the office wrapped around them. He sees me.