Chapter 15 – Lev
I was zipping up my duffel bag when Anya stepped into the bedroom, her silhouette framed in the early evening light filtering through the windows. She stood there for a moment, watching me pack with an expression I couldn’t quite read—part resignation, part fury, all exhaustion.
“Again?” Her voice carried more weight than volume, the single word loaded with weeks of accumulated frustration.
I nodded slowly, not trusting myself to look at her directly. “Two days. I’ll be back before you know it.”
“You said the same thing last week. And the week before that.” Her voice was steady, controlled, but I could hear the fractures underneath. “I don’t even remember what it feels like to have a husband anymore.”
The words hit me like physical blows, each one finding its mark with surgical precision. I forced myself to keep packing, to maintain the cold professionalism that had kept me alive for thirty-seven years.
“I’m tracking a man who’s already put blood on our doorstep, Anya. This isn’t some game—”
“What’s the point of being safe if we’re falling apart in the process?” she interrupted, and this time I could hear the crack in her voice, the desperation bleeding through her careful composure.
Something inside me snapped. All the pressure, all the sleepless nights, all the weight of protecting everyone I cared about while hunting a ghost who could be anywhere, could strike at any time.
“I’m trying to stop a fucking assassin before she burns our entire life to the ground,” I snarled, finally turning to face her. “I’m trying to keep you alive, Anya. I’m trying to keep all of us alive.”
Her hazel eyes flashed with pain and anger. “I don’t want safety if it means losing you in the process. I miss you, Lev. I miss us.”
The raw honesty in her voice broke something inside my chest. Here I was, running myself into the ground trying to protect her, and all she wanted was me. Just me, present and whole and hers.
I reached for her without thinking, my hands finding her waist and pulling her against me. She crashed into me with weeks of suppressed longing and frustration, her lips finding mine with a desperation that matched my own.
We didn’t make love. We took it. Claimed it. Demanded it from each other with the kind of raw hunger that came from too many nights sleeping in separate worlds, even when we shared the same bed.
“I need you,” she gasped against my mouth. “Right now. I can’t wait anymore.”
“Then don’t.” I grabbed her shirt and yanked, buttons scattering across the floor. “Fuck waiting.”
She pulled at my belt with shaking hands. “Get these off. Now.”
Clothes tore. My shirt ripped at the seams. Her skirt bunched around her waist because neither of us could wait long enough to remove it properly. Breath hitched as skin met skin.
“You’re already so wet,” I groaned, my fingers sliding between her thighs, finding her soaked through her panties.
“That’s what you do to me.” She shoved my pants down just far enough to free my cock, her hand wrapping around me immediately. “God, I’ve missed this. Missed you inside me.”
“Then take it.” I ripped her panties aside—literally tore the fabric—and lifted her against the wall. “Take what you need.”
The room pulsed with heat and desperation and all the words we’d been too afraid to say. Her hands mapped my body like she was memorizing it, like she was afraid I might disappear again before morning.
“I hate you,” she said, even as her legs wrapped around my waist. “I hate that you can make me feel like this.”
“Liar.” I positioned myself at her entrance. “You love it.”
“I do,” she admitted breathlessly. “I fucking love it. Now fuck me already.”
I slammed into her in one brutal thrust, and we both cried out. No gentleness. No slow build. Just raw, desperate need.
“Yes,” she moaned, her nails digging into my shoulders hard enough to draw blood. “Harder. Fuck me harder.”
“Like this?” I pounded into her, the wall shaking with each thrust.
“Just like that. Don’t you dare stop. Don’t you dare be gentle with me.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” My hands gripped her ass, holding her in place as I fucked her with everything I had—all my frustration, all my love, all my desperate need to reconnect. “You feel so fucking good. So tight around my cock.”
“I’m yours,” she gasped. “I’ve always been yours, even when I hated you for leaving.”
I worshipped her in return, one hand sliding between us to rub her clit while I kept up the relentless pace, trying to pour all my love and regret and need into every touch.
“I’m sorry,” I groaned against her neck. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
“Show me.” She yanked my hair, forcing me to look at her. “Show me you’re sorry. Make me feel it.”
It was rough and hungry and perfect in its imperfection. A war between love and frustration that left us both breathless and clinging to each other like drowning people who’d finally found something solid to hold onto.
“I’m close,” she warned, her pussy clenching around me. “Make me come. I need to come.”
“Then come for me,” I demanded, my fingers working her clit faster. “Come all over my cock and scream my name so the whole fucking building knows who you belong to.”
She came with a cry that was half-pleasure, half-rage, her whole body convulsing in my arms. The sensation of her coming undone pushed me over the edge, and I buried myself deep, emptying into her with a groan that sounded like it had been torn from my soul.
“Fuck,” she panted against my shoulder as we both trembled. “Fuck.”
“Yeah.” I was still holding her against the wall, both of us too weak to move. “That was—”
“Overdue,” she finished. “That was about three months overdue.”
I carefully lowered her to her feet, but neither of us let go. We stumbled to the bed together, a tangle of limbs still half-dressed, and collapsed onto the mattress.
Afterward, as we lay tangled in sheets that smelled like sex and reconciliation, I buried my face in her hair and whispered the truth that had been eating me alive.
“I’ve been so focused on chasing this ghost that I forgot about the one thing that keeps me human.”
Her arms tightened around me. “What’s that?”
“You.” The word came out rough, broken. “Loving you. Being loved by you. I forgot that’s what I’m really fighting for.”
She pulled back to look at my face, her fingers tracing the lines of exhaustion I knew were carved deep around my eyes. “Promise me something.”
“Anything.”
“Promise me that when this is over, we’ll figure out how to be normal. How to have breakfast together and fight about stupid things and fall asleep watching terrible movies.”
I kissed her forehead, tasting the salt of tears I hadn’t realized she’d shed. “I promise.”
***
Morning light painted Anya’s sleeping face in soft gold, and for the first time in weeks, I felt something that might have been peace. She was curled against my chest, one hand resting over my heart like she was making sure it was still beating.
She looked so beautiful, so heartbreakingly soft in the quiet morning, that I couldn’t bring myself to move. I just lay there, watching her breathe, memorizing the way the light kissed her skin, wishing time would stop so I could keep her like this—safe, still, and mine, for just a little longer.
I was memorizing the moment—the weight of her against me, the sound of her breathing, the way her lashes cast shadows on her cheeks—when her phone buzzed on the nightstand.
She stirred, blinking sleepily as she reached for it. I watched her face change as she read whatever message had come through, confusion replacing the soft contentment I’d put there.
“What is it?” I asked, already reaching for my own phone in case it was work-related.
“Sasha.” Anya sat up, the sheet pooling around her waist. “She says she’s going to Germany. That she’ll explain later.”
I frowned. “Family emergency?”
Anya stared at the screen, her brow furrowed. “That’s not how Sasha writes. She always explains everything immediately. Uses proper punctuation. This….” She held up the phone. “This isn’t her.”
Ice formed in my stomach. “What do you mean?”
“I mean something’s wrong.” Anya was already moving, reaching for her robe. “Lev, has Trev said anything to you about Sasha?”
I blinked, the question catching me off guard. “Trev and Sasha? No. Why would he?”
Anya hesitated, tying the belt of her robe with sharp, nervous movements. “They’ve been close lately. Spending time together on weekends. I saw them kiss yesterday morning.”
The pieces clicked together in my mind with sickening clarity. My brother, the trained federal officer who’d spent years undercover, getting involved with Anya’s assistant. Sasha, who had access to Anya’s schedule, her routines, her vulnerabilities.
“If there’s something between them, Trev’s never mentioned it to me,” I said carefully, already reaching for my phone to call him.
But Anya was faster. She was already dialing Sasha’s number, her face pale with worry. The call went straight to voicemail.
“Sasha, it’s me. Call me back immediately. I’m worried about you.”
She ended the call and looked at me with eyes that reflected my own growing dread. “Something’s happened to her.”
I was already out of bed, reaching for clothes. “Maybe she really did have a family emergency. Maybe—”
“No.” Anya’s voice was firm, certain. “Sasha doesn’t have family in Germany. Her parents died in a car accident three years ago. It’s why she came to Chicago—to start over.”
The cold certainty in her voice made my blood freeze. If Sasha was lying about where she was going, if someone had taken her or coerced her into leaving….
“Call Trev,” Anya said, reading my thoughts. “If they’re involved, he needs to know she’s missing.”
But when I dialed my brother’s number, it went straight to voicemail too. No answer, no callback, just digital silence that felt like a death knell.
“Fuck.” I was already pulling on my jeans, my mind racing through possibilities. “This could be connected to Kozak. If they took her to get to you, to get information about your schedule—”
“Or to get to Trev,” Anya finished quietly. “If they know about his feelings for her, they could use her as leverage.”
I stopped dressing and looked at her—really looked at her. She was standing by the window, morning light making her look ethereal and fragile, but her voice was steady. Determined.
“What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking that if someone took Sasha because of me, because of us, then I’m not going to sit here and wait for news.” Her chin lifted in that stubborn way I’d come to both love and fear. “I’m thinking it’s time I stopped being protected and started protecting the people I care about.”
Before I could argue, before I could tell her that she was staying put while I handled this, she moved to me and kissed me. Soft and sweet and goodbye.
“I love you,” she whispered against my lips. “But I won’t hide anymore while the people I care about are in danger.”
I wanted to argue. Wanted to lock her in the penthouse and post guards and keep her safe while I turned Chicago upside down looking for answers.
Instead, I kissed her back and whispered the words that sealed both our fates.
“Then we do this together.”
Because if there was one thing I’d learned in my thirty-seven years of survival, it was that the people you loved were worth any risk, any price, any sacrifice.
Even if it meant walking straight into hell to get them back.