16. Razvan
RAZVAN
She’s going to fight me on this.
I know it before I even knock. Actually, I don’t knock. I won’t.
The garment bag’s weight in my hand is a silent command, one I fully expect her to spit on.
I don’t bother with the handle of the bedroom door.
I simply shoulder it open. The suite we share always smells of her lately—peonies and a sharp, electrified layer of defiance that seems to coat her skin whenever I step into her orbit.
I stop dead in the center of the room.
Lena is standing before the pier glass, her fingers trembling as she adjusts the strap of a pale, shimmering champagne dress. It is elegant. Modest. The choice of a woman who thinks she still has a say in how the world perceives her.
“I don’t recall giving you a choice in tonight’s attire,” I say, my voice dropping into that low, jagged rasp that usually makes my soldiers look for the nearest exit.
Lena doesn’t flinch. She meets my glare in the reflection, her chin tilted at that suicidal angle she favors. “I’m wearing this, Razvan. I told you yesterday. I’m not a doll you get to dress up for your Pakhan duties.”
“You are my wife,” I say, the words feeling like a collar I’m tightening around both our necks.
I toss the garment bag onto the edge of our bed and rip the zipper down.
The deep, blood-red silk spills out like a fresh kill.
“And tonight is a coronation. You will dress like the woman who sits beside the Pakhan, or you won’t leave this room at all. ”
I step into her space, the heat radiating off her making my own blood feel thick and sluggish.
I watch her through the mirror. Her pupils are blown wide, swallowing the hazel of her irises until they are almost black.
A fine sheen of sweat has broken out along her collarbone, and the pulse in her neck is drumming a frantic, panicked rhythm against her skin.
She isn’t just angry. She is vibrating with a physical awareness of me that she can’t hide. Her chest heaves, the champagne silk straining against her breasts with every shallow, ragged breath. She is aching for a fight or touch—at this point, I don’t think she knows the difference.
“I said no,” she hisses, finally turning to face me.
I move before she can blink, my hand snaking out to catch the back of her neck, my thumb digging into the sensitive dip beneath her jaw. I force her head back, exposing the long, pale line of her throat.
“Do you need a reminder of what happens when you tell me no, Lena? Should I carry you back down to the cellar and let the damp remind you who owns the air you breathe?”
Her breath hitches, a soft, broken sound.
I lean in, my lips ghosting over her ear, smelling the salt and heat of her.
“Change. Now. Or I will strip that rag off you myself. I won’t be careful with the fabric, and I certainly won’t be careful with you.
If you make me late, I’ll put you back in the dark and leave Theo unattended for the night. Is that what you want?”
She freezes at the mention of our son. The defiance doesn’t vanish—it just curdles into something deadlier. She snatches the red dress from the bed, her knuckles white as she grips the silk.
“Fine,” she whispers, her voice trembling with a rage that is purely sexual. “You want your trophy? You’ve got her.”
“Well?” I settle back into the armchair and cross one leg over the other. “I don’t have all night.”
“Why in the hell are you still here?” she snaps, her eyes looking like they can shoot lasers through my skull. “Are you planning on watching me step into it, or do you just enjoy being a creep?”
I don’t move from the chair. My head tilts slightly, staring at her. She’s trying to rile me up. That’s cute.
“I’m ensuring my investment is handled with care, zayka,” I said, my voice smooth.
“Get out,” she hisses, her face flushing a brilliant, furious pink. “I’ll wear your silly, over-expensive rag. I’ll play your little game. Just. Get. Out.”
I let out a low, dry chuckle. The sound seemed to bounce off the walls, grating against her nerves. She is trying so hard to rile me, to find a crack in the my armor, but her defiance is…refreshing.
“You’re almost cute when you think you have a choice in the matter,” I remark.
That is her breaking point. The sound she makes is not a word. It’s something between a growl and a shriek and she spins her back to me and starts yanking at her zipper, and I hear her under her breath, this steady furious stream of muttering that she clearly believes is too low for me to catch.
It isn’t.
“—arrogant, self-important, controlling son of a…” A pause while she wrestles with the zipper.
“—thinks he can just walk in here and stand there like he owns the—well he does own it, technically, which is the most infuriating thing about—” Another pause.
“—not even embarrassed about it, just sitting there like a—”
I’m smiling. I can feel it happening and I don’t stop it.
She reminds me of something. There is a film I’d seen once, during a rare moment of downtime—some animated thing about a city of animals. There was a rabbit in it. Small, fluffy, but absolutely convinced it could take down a rhino if it just shouted loud enough.
A cute little bunny, I think, watching the way her nose crinkled in genuine loathing. Stomping her feet and thinking the earth should shake for her.
Then the dress is on, and the smile vanishes.
The dress is a goddamn sin. It plunges to her navel and vanishes at the small of her back. It leaves nothing to the imagination and everything to the ego.
“Is this enough?” she asks when she is finally done dressing, her voice tight.
I stand and walk toward her. I don’t stop until the heat of her body is a physical pressure against my chest. I reach out, my fingers grazing the bare, goosefleshed skin of her shoulder. I feel the tremor go through her — a violent, traitorous jolt of electricity.
“Almost,” I murmur, leaning down until my nose is hovering just above her skin. She smells like fire and desperation. “You’re shaking, zayka. Your body is screaming for me to touch you, even while your mouth tells me you hate me.”
“I do hate you,” she breathes, but her eyes are hooded, her lips parted.
“Then hate me in the car,” I say, my hand sliding down to the small of her back, the friction of my palm against her bare skin making my jaw lock. “But when we walk through those doors, you will play the role of the devoted, lethal wife. Understood?”
She stares at me, her gaze darting to my mouth and back to my eyes. For a second, I think she will slap me. Instead, she just swallows hard, her hand fluttering to the golden chain on her hip.
“Understood, Pakhan.”
The Neon Serpent is a tomb of bass and expensive cologne. As we enter, the crowd doesn’t just move—they recoil, clearing a path as if we are a contagion. I keep my hand anchored to the small of Lena’s back, my thumb hooked into the silk, making sure everyone sees exactly whose mark she bears.
At first, she is a statue. Cold. Rigid. Bracing herself against my side as if I am a blade held to her throat. She is trying to maintain that bravado, but I can feel the tremor in her spine.
I lean down, my lips brushing the shell of her ear. “Smile, zayka,” I command, the words a low, dangerous vibration. “Unless you want them to think I’ve lost my edge. And we both know what happens to a man in my position when people think he’s gone soft.”
Lena goes still for a heartbeat. I feel her swallow. The defiance is still there, buried deep, but for the sake of the room, she leans into me.
Her hand slides up my chest, her fingers curling into my lapel, playing with the fabric. She looks up at me, her eyes heavy-lidded and dark with a calculated, predatory heat.
“Whatever you want, my love, and I do hope…” she purrs, her lips curves into a dazzling, fake smile that fooled everyone in the room but me.
She leans in, her breasts brushing my arm, and presses her mouth to my jaw.
She doesn’t just kiss me—she lingers, her tongue flicking out to taste the skin there for a fraction of a second.
I feel the growl start deep in my lungs.
She is mocking me with her own body, turning the role of the seductress into a way to bleed me dry in front of a hundred men.
“We will revisit this later, zayka,” I promise, my hand tightening on her waist until my fingerprints will surely be left behind.
She looks at me then, her eyes flashing with a sudden, sharp glare—a moment of genuine hesitation, as if she realizes she has pushed too far—before she masks it back into that sickeningly sweet smile.
I have to leave her side for five minutes. Five minutes to settle a shipment dispute in the VIP lounge. I leave my shadows behind her, but Mikhail Borodin is a man who lives for the moments when shadows fail.
When I step back into the main room, the atmosphere has soured.
Borodin is standing in Lena’s personal space, his face flushed with vodka and a misplaced sense of immortality. He is leaning in, his hand hovering inches from the bare skin of her back.
“—shame for a woman like you to be wasted on a man who’s probably forgotten how to use what he has.” Borodin is sneering, his voice loud enough to draw a circle of silent witnesses. “Volkov is a relic, darling. You need someone with a bit more…stamina.”
He reaches out, his thick, greasy fingers snagging the golden chain on her shoulder, pulling her an inch closer.
I don’t waste breath on a shout. I move through the crowd like a shark through water, the silence following me like a shroud. By the time I reach them, Borodin’s eyes are just beginning to register the shift in the light.
I catch his wrist. I don’t just hold it. I squeeze until I feel the radial bone start to bow under my grip.
“Mikhail,” I say. My voice is a dead thing, cold as a Moscow winter. “You seem to be under the impression that your life has value tonight.”
“Pakhan! I-I was just complimenting—”
“You were touching my property.” Stepping into his space until our chests nearly touch, I can smell the rot on his breath.
I don’t care about his words—I care about the fact that his filth is within reach of her skin.
“I’ve killed men for far less than looking at her.
Imagine what I’ll do to you for putting your hands on her. ”
I reach for the serrated blade at my back, my pulse steadying as the familiar itch of the kill takes over. I want to open him up right here, to let his blood ruin the floor he stands on.
Suddenly, Lena’s hand is on my chest.
“Razvan,” she says.
I don’t look at her. “Get out of the way, Lena.”
“Darling,” she says, her voice dripping with that new, dangerous honey.
She steps into the line of fire, forcing herself between me and the dead man walking.
She wraps her arms around my neck, her body flush against mine, forcing my focus onto her.
“He’s a nobody. A drunk. Don’t let him stain your hands tonight. ”
Then, she crushes her mouth to mine, her tongue forcing its way past my teeth, her body arching into mine with a desperation that tastes like iron and silk. The bloodlust in my veins doesn’t vanish—it just changes shape, exploding into a raw, territorial hunger that makes my vision blur.
I groan into her mouth, my hand releasing Borodin to tangle in her hair, yanking her head back so I can devour her more completely.
She pulls away just enough to look me in the eye, her breath coming in short, jagged gasps, her lips swollen and reddened from my mouth.
I look over her shoulder. Borodin is trembling, his face the color of ash as he clutches his mangled wrist.
“Thank your lucky stars, Mikhail,” I rasp, my eyes locked on Lena’s. “That my wife can distract me so easily. If you’re still in this city by sunrise, I’ll peel the skin from your bones myself.”
Borodin flees into the darkness of the club.
The car ride back to the compound is a suffocating, silent war.
The partition is up, but the space feels like a pressure cooker. Lena sits on the far edge of the seat, her chest heaving, her gaze fixed on the passing streetlights. The seductress has vanished, replaced by a vibrating, electric tension that makes the air feel heavy.
I watch her. I watch the way the light catches the golden chains against her skin, the way she bites her lip as if trying to keep a scream inside. My own body is a mapped territory of nerves and heat, my blood pounding a heavy rhythm in my ears.
She used herself to stop me. She gambled on my desire for her being stronger than my need to kill. It is a move a Pakhan’s wife would make, and I hate her for how well she played me.
The car rolls through the iron gates and lurches to a halt before we even reach the front steps.
I am out the door before the driver can move. I reach back in, my hand hooking around Lena’s wrist, and haul her out into the cool night air. The gravel bites into her heels as I spin her around, slamming her back against the side of the SUV.
The metal groans under her weight. Her hands fly up to my shoulders, her eyes wide and wild in the moonlight. I lean in, my body pinning hers to the vehicle, my hand finding the curve of her throat.
“Now,” I growl, my thumb pressing against the frantic, leaping pulse in her neck. “Let’s discuss tonight, zayka.”