CHAPTER 8
KIRILL
Even though I’m shocked to see Oaklynn, something settled inside of me the moment I walked out and saw her.
Until that moment, I couldn’t understand why I felt the need to step out of my office, but it was a feeling I couldn’t ignore.
A thrill I’ve never felt before shot through me at seeing her.
I was blown away with a single glance.
Not only was Oaklynn poised, her head held high, but she was perfectly dressed.
My cock instantly took notice of her flirty skirt and the way her blouse is hugging every single one of her curves.
It took me a moment to notice the way Betty was spitting fire and acting like a territorial bitch, but the moment I did, I could barely contain my fury.
Striding closer to Oaklynn with Baker at her side, I was embarrassed and enraged by Betty attempting to keep our woman away from me.
It wasn’t going to fly.
Not then, not ever.
Now, I have our woman sitting in my office and looking regal and ready to take on entire armies.
What she doesn’t realize is that she’ll never have to take on anything or anyone again.
I’ll gladly stand in front of her and slay whoever tries to harm her.
I’m not surprised by Oaklynn’s confession.
Of course, her father is only using her.
I would expect nothing less from such a spineless coward who is trying to grasp power by any means necessary.
I sit down in the armchair across from our woman, needing to see her, study her.
The longer I look at her, the more anger fills me.
She’s folded in on herself and the strength she showed just moments ago has become mist as the room becomes overrun by palpable anger.
Oaklynn’s eyes come up and meet mine before she glances at the men who have joined us.
“I realize you are probably aware my father is not a man who can be trusted. I’m sure you’ve done your research and I’m not sure that I can add any information to it. While he has kept me as sheltered as possible, I’ve heard whispers and met men who I would rather run away from over the years. I was supposed to be married to the son of the man my father used to work for, but something changed a while ago. It was never explained to me. I was just grateful for the change,” she admits softly.
My hands clench into fists at the idea of her being married to Mikhail, who I’m sure is the person she was supposed to marry.
I exchange glances with the guys and can see the same fire of rage burning in their eyes.
“You’re here to simply inform us that your father is a bad man?” My voice is neutral, almost bored.
“What do you hope to gain from this?”
I don’t give away the knowledge that this woman is meant to be ours.
It’s too soon and I’m not sure she would believe me yet.
She’s been burned by the one man in her life who was supposed to always protect her and put her first.
Trust is hard earned and I’m sure it’ll be no different with Oaklynn.
“Nothing,” Oaklynn states, her face shuttering into something wary and closed off.
I hate it.
“I just don’t believe you should be tricked into something.”
Maxim’s chuckle is dark, almost sinister.
“We’re rarely tricked, Zolotse . It never escaped our notice or our intel that your father is a bastard.”
Oaklynn gives a small nod, accepting my brother’s words while her eyes fill with questions which have nothing to do with my brother’s assertion about her father.
Knowing she feels the same way about him has me curious about what we don’t know about the man.
She looks between us again before biting her lower lip.
I almost let out a groan at how fucking sexy she is.
The best part is she doesn’t realize just how tempting she is.
“ Zolotse ?” Oaklynn questions Maxim, her eyebrow arching with a clear challenge.
He smirks and leans forward, his elbows on his knees and his eyes intensely taking her in.
“It means darling,” he says, his tone offhanded as if he’s the kind of man to bestow pet names without care.
He isn’t.
She nods again, accepting his translation without any fanfare.
Her eyes track over to me, a question burning in her gaze.
One I don’t answer.
“Yes, Solnishko ?” I question her.
Oaklynn lowers her lashes, her cheeks heating slightly before she squares her shoulders and meets my eyes again.
“What does it mean?”
“Little sun,” I answer, unable or unwilling to lie to our woman.
She hums in response and tries to hide how much she enjoys my name for her, but I can see it in the way her eyes twinkle.
The way she doesn’t back down from any of us is refreshing.
We’re used to people bending to our will, it’s something we expect, but our woman can’t be so easily swayed.
It sends a thrill down my spine.
“I say we give Chambers exactly what he wants,” Maxim offers up to the room and lounges back in his seat as if he doesn’t have a care in the world.
Oaklynn’s eyes snap over to him as she gasps, “What?” I smirk, unable to hide my reaction to how adorable she is.
She shakes her head.
“I don’t understand.”
“If we’re going to do this then you have to be willing to go all in the same way I am,” I tell her cryptically.
Her eyebrows pull together, confusion written all over her face.
“There can be no reservations and no fear. I’m not interested in a marriage—,” I begin to tell her.
“Marriage,” she cuts me off with a shout of indignation.
I finish my sentence as if she didn’t interrupt me, “—of convenience. I’m not interested in commitment dictated by a contract.”
Her mouth drops open, and she blinks at me a few times.
I can see the fight in her eyes.
While it should turn me off, it only makes me want her more.
“Marriage,” she whispers softly, disbelieve coloring the word.
She blinks and shakes her head, as if she’s trying to dislodge the thought.
“Yes,” I intone seriously, “marriage.” Her dark brown eyes meet my gaze, and I grin sinisterly.
“All or nothing goes not only for me, but for my brothers as well.”
“What?” She gasps the word breathlessly.
She looks shocked, but her pupils dilate.
While she might not want to admit it, she wants all of us.
The tension in the room, which had been easy to ignore before, is now almost suffocating.
Without even realizing it, we all shift a little closer to our woman.
“Our woman is just that. Ours,” Huck’s voice is an octave lower than normal.
Oaklynn’s eyes shift to him and widen slightly.
She swallows hard and links her fingers together on her lap.
“I’m not sure what that means,” she whispers.
“Any woman I claim, any woman I marry, will belong to all of us,” I tell her as my hand makes a sweeping motion to encompass the men I trust with my life.
“That is,” she starts to say and shakes her head, clearly unsure of how to respond before she lands on, “different.”
Her face screws up in a slight grimace as if she knows that word doesn’t fully encompass what we’re asking of her.
Maxim chokes out a laugh which has her narrowing her eyes at him.
“Sorry,” Maxim holds up his hands in surrender.
Silence descends on the room and the longer it holds, the more Oaklynn seems to squirm in her chair.
When she winces, I sit up straighter and I’m not the only one.
“I think you have more to tell us,” Baker’s voice is strained.
Oaklynn glances at him and then looks down at her hands.
She takes a deep breath but keeps her eyes averted as she speaks.
“After we left dinner, father was angry. He felt disrespected because you didn’t give him an answer right away. He’s spent so long expecting to use me as a bargaining chip for his own success, but that had been taken away from him. Then he wasn’t able to close the deal with you immediately.”
Her eyes are glassy with unshed tears when she lifts her head again and looks at me.
The pain in her eyes guts me.
“He hurt you,” Maxim’s voice is cold.
He doesn’t pose it as a question, just a statement of fact.
“I’ve gotten very good at covering bruises over the years,” there’s bitterness in Oaklynn’s voice that pierces my heart.
She clears her throat and shifts in her seat again, wincing at the movement.
“He kicked my torso a few times. Nothing is broken this time,” she sounds so dejected, but I have a feeling she’s downgrading what happened.
I can’t take it anymore.
When I stand up and stride toward her, she doesn’t cower away from me and my admiration for this woman grows.
I drop to my knees when I reach her and her lips part with a gasp.
“I’m not a man to kneel at the feet of a woman,” I tell her honestly, “but you deserve nothing less.”
Her eyes soften and the pain in her gaze turns into something I covet with everything I am.
When my hands cover hers, electricity shoots through my entire body and lights me up in a way I’ve never experienced before.
If this is how it feels to only touch her hands, what will it feel like to have our naked bodies pressed together?
“You will never go back to that house,” I tell her sternly, “I won’t allow it.”
As much as she tries to stop it, one tear escapes and slides down her cheek.
She doesn’t try to brush it away or pull her hands away from mine.
“There was a time when I dreamed about being saved from that place,” she admits quietly.
“It was never a home and has felt like a prison for as long as I can remember. Freedom was something I had to hide, but I found ways to find my own strength.”
“You are strong, Solnishko ,” I murmur.
Oaklynn takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly.
“I didn’t come here expecting marriage.” She shakes her head, a small, sad smile on her face.
“Really, I just felt like you should know the truth. Before I was too young to do anything or stop what my father was doing. I don’t believe the men my father associated with would have listened or cared either.”
“They would have killed you,” Baker points out, his tone filled with rage.
She nods, her eyes flicking toward him.
“I’m sure you’re right.”
“You didn’t think we would kill you?”
Being this close to her, I watch the way emotions play across her face.
Fuck, she’s gorgeous.
“My gut said you wouldn’t,” she whispers.
“But I figured if you did then I would accept my fate.”
My hands slide from her hands and up her arms, feeling her shiver under my touch.
When I cup her face, my thumbs sweep along the apples of her cheeks, and she closes her eyes.
Something like bliss covers her face and it makes my heart pound in my chest.
“We will never hurt you, Oaklynn,” I promise.
Her eyes snap open to race between mine.
The way she studies me closely, digging into my soul for the lie, doesn’t scare me.
She’ll only find my sincerity.
“Once we met you, we knew that Kirill would be accepting your father’s proposal,” Maxim tells her, and I tighten my grip on her face.
“For me?” She whispers with so much hope that my chest aches.
How the hell does this woman make me feel so much in such a short time?
I’ve always been decisive, but the way this woman has gotten under my skin is like nothing I’ve ever felt before.
“There was no other choice,” I admit.
“I’m sorry that walking away, playing a power game with your father, caused you pain.”
Her sigh is broken as her entire body relaxes.
“He was going to find an excuse sooner or later,” her words are hoarse.
I shock myself when I press my forehead against hers, filling my gaze completely with our woman.
The beast inside of me stills and focuses entirely on her.
Without a doubt, I will protect this woman with my life.
Her father will never lay a hand on her again.
I won’t allow it.
And he’s not the only one.
If anyone dares to harm her, they will find exactly how ruthless I can be.
And the men in this room will do the same.
There isn’t a doubt in my mind.
“I’m all in,” Oaklynn’s voice is strong and sure.
I rear back and blink at her in surprise.
The way she smiles at my reaction has me fucking melting.
She giggles softly and the air in the room feels lighter with the sound.
“What?” She sasses, “You’re all sexier than sin and I know you’ll be able to protect me.” She eyes the other men, her eyes glazing with desire instead of pain.
“Why would I turn this opportunity down?”
A low chuckle comes from deep in my chest and I shake my head.
“You are a breath of fresh air,” I murmur.
“Fuck,” is groaned from behind me.
I grin knowing it came from Baker.
I don’t have to look at him to know he’s probably adjusting himself behind the fly of his slacks.
He’s not alone in that problem.
I’ve been hard since the moment I saw her at White Stone the other night.
I’ve fucked my own hand more in the last few days than I have in a long fucking time.
It wasn’t satisfying in the least.
I’m sure nothing less than being buried inside of her tight, wet heat will satisfy the need roaring through my veins.
“You will never go back to that house,” I tell her, my words a command.
“I’ll take care of your father, but I want to make him stew for a few days. Especially once he realizes you’re not where he expects you to be.”
She swallows hard and I can see the indecision on her face.
Then, like a miracle, I witness the moment her resolve strengthens.
Her grip is firm when she grabs my wrists and pulls my hands away from her face to place them palm up on her lap.
She fiddles with her bracelet and then drops it in my hand.
“It’s a tracker bracelet,” she informs me.
“I don’t need it anymore.”
Without a word, I lean forward and press my lips against her forehead.
She melts against me, everything dropping away except for the feeling of my lips against her soft skin.
“Maxim,” I command quietly knowing he’ll hear me, “take our woman home and help her get settled.”
As much as I would love to take her home myself, I still have work to do.
I need Huck with me to keep digging into Chambers and everything he was involved in with Morozov.
Baker won’t leave me unprotected, even if he may feel torn when it comes to allowing our woman to leave his sight.
Maxim will keep her safe.
He’ll bathe in the blood of whoever threatens her, just like we all will.
My fingers curl around the bracelet before I stand and hand it over to Baker, knowing he’ll work with Huck to get any information he can about it.
I don’t need to tell him what he needs to do.
I hold a hand out for our woman and that spark is back when her hand slides into mine and I help her stand.
The way she tries to hide her grimace makes it difficult to stop myself from splattering her father’s blood across every surface of the house where she’s been imprisoned for far too long.
Soon enough he will meet the beast that lives inside of me.
Frist, I need to ensure our woman is safe, happy, and healed.
Then I’ll worry about what Chambers has coming his way.
Maxim wraps an arm around our woman’s shoulders and grins at me.
“Looks like it’s you and me, Zolotse ,” he teases while wiggling his eyebrows.
Oaklynn giggles softly and shakes her head at him in admonishment.
As much as I hate it, I allow my brother to lead our woman away.
I want to pull her against my chest and kiss her until we’re both breathless, but I fight the urge.
For now.
There will be time enough to have our woman in my arms soon.
“See you at home, fuckers,” Maxim calls out before opening the door and ushering our woman out.
The only reason I don’t pull my gun is because I trust the man and our woman needs a little light after she took the risk of coming straight to me without knowing how it would all shake out.
I’m proud of her.
She’s the perfect woman to stand at my side.
I look at Huck who is glaring at the open door to my office even though we can’t see Maxim or Oaklynn anymore.
Baker looks dazed, a feeling I definitely understand.
“Did that just happen?” Baker’s question is filled with awe.
“It did,” I confirm.
“We have our woman. She’s going to be in our home. Now we just have to get the pieces in place to ensure she’s never taken from us or be used against us by her father.”
Huck stands up slowly and nods, “Then we need to get to work.”
Baker comes out of his haze and looks at me with a pout.
He whines, “I can’t believe Maxim gets to spend time with her alone.”
I glare at him and bite out, “I’m not thrilled about it either, but he’ll protect her, and we have work to do.”
Baker’s shoulders slump and he nods with understanding.
“Let’s get it done then.”
No fucking kidding.
I have a woman to get home to and spoil.
It took a lot of courage to come here today.
I’ll be rewarding her for the rest of our lives.