Chapter 14 （continued）
Lev
The Armenian organization burns hot and wild; it has to be the most beautiful sight of the night.
Orange flames lick at the night sky, consuming the warehouse where Grigor Markaryan ran his distribution network. The heat hits my face even from thirty feet away, mixing with the tangy smell of blood and the acrid bite of gasoline.
Inside, what's left of Grigor's organization is dying.
A normal person would be puking their guts out. Not me though.
I watch the fire through the scope of my rifle, waiting.
Three men try to escape through the back exit—exactly where I knew they'd run.
The first one makes it two steps before my bullet takes him in the spine.
The second stumbles over his corpse, and Mikhail puts one through his skull.
The third gets smart, throws his hands up, tries to surrender.
I shoot him anyway.
No mercy. Not for men who tried to take my daughter.
Fucking bastards.
"Boss." Yaroslav appears at my shoulder, face streaked with soot. "Building's clear. Everyone inside is dead or burning."
"Grigor?"
"Basement. Alive. Waiting for you."
I nod and hand off the rifle, head inside through the front entrance we breached an hour ago. Bodies litter the floor, sixteen men who chose to fight instead of run. Their stupid mistake.
The basement stairs are slick with something I don't care to examine too closely. Down here, the heat is oppressive, and smoke is already creeping through the ventilation.
Grigor is chained to a support beam in the center of the room, kneeling in water from burst pipes. His expensive suit is ruined, torn and dirty, his face is already swelling from the beating my men gave him during the extraction.
He looks up when I enter and immediately starts to panic. "Lev. Please. I—"
I hit him. Hard. My fist connecting with his jaw brutal enough to snap his head sideways. Blood and a tooth hit the wet floor, staining my knuckles.
"Explain what?" My voice is calm as I wipe the blood on his stupid face.
"Explain why you sent five men to kidnap my seven-year-old daughter from a public park?
Explain why you thought that was acceptable?
Explain why you're stupid enough to still be breathing like you were waiting on me to dole out the punishments since that was a failed operation? "
"I-It wasn't supposed to happen like that!" He's crying now, words slurring through split lips. "Just supposed to be a message, a warning, we weren't actually going to hurt her—"
I kick him in the ribs. Bones crack. He screams so loud my ears pop.
"You fucking aimed guns at my child." I crouch down to his level, grab his hair, force him to look at me. "Put her in danger. Made her relive the worst day of her life. And also pointed a weapon at my woman."
His eyes widen. "Lev, please, I have information. I can give you names, locations, please!"
"I don't need your information." I laugh and pull out my knife, a hunting blade, eight inches, sharp enough to shave with.
"I have everything I need. Your organization is dead or dying. Your operations are burning. Your family will wake up tomorrow to find your pieces in boxes on their doorstep, and they will only wake up because, as monstrous as I am, I don’t mess with family. "
"No—wait—"
I start with his fingers.
He screams. The sound echoes off concrete walls, mixing with the crackle of flames above us, and I work methodically. Each finger severed at the knuckle, cauterized with a lighter so he doesn't bleed out too fast.
He begs. Pleads. Offers me everything he has.
I keep cutting.
When I'm done with his hands, I move to other parts. Taking my time. Making it last. Making sure the message is clear to anyone who hears this story later.
Touch what's mine and die screaming.
By the time I put the final bullet in his brain, he's barely recognizable as human.
I stand, covered in blood and viscera, and look at Mikhail. "Clean this up. Leave the pieces where they'll be found. I want everyone to know what happens."
"Already handled, Boss."
Outside, I strip off my jacket and shirt since they’re both ruined beyond saving now. Stand in the parking lot watching the flames while my men finish the cleanup. Seven locations hit tonight. Seven pieces of the Armenian operation burning simultaneously across the city.
This message will be well received.
Yaroslav appears with a bottle of vodka and a clean shirt. I take the vodka, ignore the shirt. Pour it over my hands, watching Grigor's blood wash away in clear streams.
"It's done," Mikhail says, approaching with his phone. "All targets confirmed eliminated. No survivors except the ones we left barely alive to spread the word."
"Good." I take a drink straight from the bottle. The burn is satisfying. "Pull everyone back. I want full perimeter security at the estate for the next week. No one goes in or out without my express approval."
"Already arranged." He pauses. "Boss, this was... extensive. The kind of response that makes everyone nervous."
"That was the goal, Mikhail. Let them be nervous." I hand back the bottle. "Let every organization from here to Moscow know what happens when they threaten mine. Let them understand that Lev Volkov doesn't forgive and doesn't fucking forget."
He nods and moves off to coordinate transport.
The drive back to the estate takes forty minutes. I spend it staring out the window, watching the city pass in blurs of light, coming down from the adrenaline high that always follows violence.
Grigor's screams still echo in my head. The wet sound of his fingers separating from his hands. The way he begged at the end, voice breaking, promising anything if I'd just make it stop.
I feel nothing about it.
He threatened my daughter. Threatened Valerie. That's unforgivable.
We pull through the gates just after 3 AM. The house is quiet, most lights off except security perimeters.
I should shower in the guest wing. Should deal with the blood and soot before anyone sees me like this.
Instead, I head straight upstairs to my bedroom.
She's there.
Valerie, curled in my bed wearing one of my shirts, reading something on her phone. She looks up when I enter, and her eyes widen at the state of me.
Blood spatter across my chest and face. Soot streaking my arms. Grigor's blood still under my fingernails.
Three weeks ago, she would have screamed. Flinched. Run. Looked like she would faint.
Tonight, she just sets her phone aside and stands.
"Is it done?" Her voice is steady.
"Yes."
"Thank goodness." She moves toward the bathroom. "Come on. Let me help you clean up."
“You did not sleep?”
“I couldn’t.” She takes my hand. “Come.”
The domesticity of it is surreal. She runs a bath while I strip off the rest of my clothes, dumps expensive salts into the water that smell like lavender and rosemary. Steam fills the space, and my muscles involuntarily relaxes.
When the tub is full, she helps me in, and I allow her because I need her touch, no matter how little. Her hands are gentle as she uses a washcloth to scrub blood from my shoulders, my chest, my face.
"Did he suffer?" she asks quietly.
"Yes."
"Good." No hesitation. No moral conflict. Just satisfaction that the man who threatened Mila paid the price. "He deserved it."
I catch her wrist, pull her closer. "You're not bothered by this? By what I am? What I do?"
"I am… I mean, I would have been bothered three weeks ago." She continues washing, methodical and careful. "Now I just see a man protecting his family. Doing what needs to be done, now I think if it were my daughter, I’d do the same."
I chuckle under my breath, "That's a dangerous way to think."
"Maybe." She shrugs and rinses the cloth, wrings it out. "But it's honest."
Her fingers find the split skin on my knuckles, damage from hitting Grigor's face repeatedly. She examines them with a small frown, then reaches for antiseptic.
"These need tending."
I let her work. Watch her clean each wound, apply ointment, wrap them carefully in gauze. The care she takes is almost painful in its tenderness.
When she's done, I pull her into the bath with me.
"Lev—my clothes—"
"Take them off then."
She grumbles under her breath, but does it anyway. Strips out of my shirt and her underwear, steps into the water, settles between my legs with her back against my chest.
Perfect.
I wrap my arms around her, need her close, need this contact after hours of violence and death. She melts against me, head tilting back onto my shoulder.
"What now?"
"Right now." My hands slide up her sides, cup her soft, sensitive breasts. "The Armenians are destroyed. Anyone left will spread the message. No one touches what's mine."
"What's yours." She repeats it quietly.
"Yes. You and Mila both. Mine to protect. Mine to keep safe. Mine."
She shivers despite the hot water.
I grin. “Are you afraid of belonging to me, little mouse?”
"I should be."
"Are you? Does it scare you?”
"No." Her hand covers mine, where it rests on her ribs. "It doesn’t."
I turn her in the water, need to see her face. She straddles me easily, knees bracing on either side of my hips, and suddenly we're eye to eye.
"I need you." I find myself saying. "Need to feel you. Need to be inside you."
"Then take me." Her hands cup my face. "I'm right here."
I lift her slightly, position her, and she sinks down slowly onto my cock.
The sensation steals my breath. Hot water, her body wrapped around mine, the way she gasps and clenches as I fill her completely.
"Fuck." I grip her hips, hold her in place. "Don't move yet. Just... let me feel this."
She stays still, trembling slightly, and I memorize this moment. The weight of Valerie on my lap. The heat of the water. The smell of lavender and arousal. The tightness of her walls against my hardness. The way she looks at me—no fear, no hesitation, just want, despite.
Then she starts moving.
Slow. Rolling her hips in lazy circles that make my vision blur. Not frantic or desperate like before. Just steady, deep, taking her time.
I let her set the pace. Watch her face as she rides me, savouring every expression. The way her lips part when I hit deep. The flush spreading across her chest. How her eyes go unfocused when pleasure builds.
She’s going to fucking kill me. This woman.
"Lev—" My name sounds like a prayer.
"I've got you, Milaya." My hands slide up her back, tangle in her wet hair. "I've got you."
She leans forward, kisses me while still moving, and the intimacy of it cracks something open in my chest. This isn't just fucking. This is something else. Something I don't have words for.
Her rhythm changes. Faster now, chasing release, and I help her. One hand between us, finding her clit, circling it the way I've learned she likes.
"Come for me," I murmur against her mouth. "Let me feel you clench around me."
She does. Milking my cock so hard I’m groaning in pleasure, fingers gripping the soft flesh of her hips as she gasps my name, nails digging into my shoulders as her orgasm rocks over her body in waves.
I follow immediately after. Bury myself deep and come harder than I have any right to, her name torn from my throat.
I mildly notice water sloshing everywhere.
Afterward, she collapses against my chest, both of us breathing hard. I hold her while the water cools, running my hands over her back, her hair, unable to stop touching her.
We stay in the cooling water until it's uncomfortable, then I carry her to bed. Don't bother with clothes. Just pull her against me under the sheets and hold on.
"Sleep," I murmur into her hair.
"You too."
I try. But hours later, she's finally asleep, and I'm staring at the ceiling, mind churning through problems I'm deliberately ignoring.
Mikhail's latest report sits unread on my phone. Patrick O'Rourke has been quiet lately, no activity, no movement, just silence where there should be noise.
That’s unusual about the bastard.
I should investigate. Should find out why.
Not just that.
Since I’ve claimed Valerie as mine, I should dig deeper into whoever's running her, force her to confess everything, and eliminate threats before they materialize.
Instead, I close my eyes because I want her to come to me herself.