Chapter 35
CHAPTER
THIRTY-FIVE
DINARA
The first thing I become aware of is the hard length pressed against my hip. The second is a hand moving in lazy circles up and down my spine.
What in the hell...
“Good morning, wife.” Kirill’s voice is rough with sleep. “Did you sleep well? You seemed pretty comfortable using me as your personal mattress.”
I startle, pushing onto my elbows as I lift my head to find pale eyes watching me with a very amused expression on his face.
Kirill Baronov.
My husband.
The man who restrained me and made me come more times than I ever thought possible, pushing me past every limit, taking me apart before putting me back together again.
“Don’t get used to it,” I snap. “I was obviously not in my right mind.”
His hand slides lower, cupping my bare ass. “Multiple orgasms will scramble your brain a little. But you held up pretty well.”
Before I can respond, he flips me onto my back and settles between my spread thighs. The hard length of him presses against my bare cunt and my body responds immediately, slick and ready for him.
“If you want a repeat of last night,” he murmurs, running his tongue along the tendons of my neck, “I’m more than up for it.”
Tempting. So damn tempting, but in the cold light of morning, my brain is coming back online. With it comes the need for answers.
I plant my hands on his chest. “We need to talk and I won’t be distracted by your… very obvious enthusiasm.”
He grins, grinding against me once again. “Are you sure? I can be very persuasive when I want to be.”
My eyes roll back in my head, but I grit my teeth against the growing desire. “Stop! I deserve to know what the fuck is going on.”
He rolls off with an exaggerated sigh. “Business before pleasure, I see how it is. Go and shower. I’ll make us breakfast.”
“So generous of you.” I grab the sheet and wrap it around myself as I head for the bathroom, hyperaware of his eyes on me the entire way.
Alone, my back hits the door and I release a heavy breath.
Kirill knows my real identity. If he was savvy enough to discover I’m Dinara Potapova, he also knows I’m connected to the Syndicate.
I look down at the ring on my finger. If he was going to kill me, he already would have. But instead he married me. Now the question is why.
The shower helps clear my head even if it doesn’t wash away the confusion. What’s gnawing at me is what he plans to do with that information.
I dry off and find my clothes in the closet, exactly where he said they’d be. Everything from my apartment is here, neatly organized like I’ve always lived in this space. I pull on black leggings and an oversized grey hoodie.
The smell of food draws me down the hallway to the kitchen. Kirill is at the stove, shirtless, wearing only grey sweatpants that do absolutely nothing to hide the fact that he’s built like a god.
His back muscles shift as he works the stove. His tattoos ripple across his skin in patterns I didn’t fully appreciate last night in the dark, but I sure as hell do now.
He turns and catches me staring, a slow smile spreading across his face. “Good morning, wife.”
“It’s Dinara. For the record, you’re abusing this ‘wife’ business.”
“Oh, I’m just getting started.” He turns back to plate the food. “Besides, I earned the right to call you that after making you come so hard you squirted. First time, if I remember correctly.”
My face burns. “Are you going to bring that up every five seconds?”
“Only if your face flushes that adorable shade of pink every time I bring it up.”
I release a frustrated huff as he plates perfectly cooked eggs and bacon.
“Sit,” he instructs pointing to a stool beside the kitchen island. At least this is the bossy Kirill I’m used to. I acquiesce and slide onto a stool as he sets a plate in front of me and pours coffee into a mug, adding cream how I like it.
He settles across from me with his own heaping plate of food.
I pick up my fork, suddenly starving. The eggs are perfect, the bacon crispy.
We eat in silence for a few minutes and I’m grateful for the chance to gather my thoughts and figure out how to navigate this conversation.
Because I need answers and I’m not leaving this kitchen until I understand exactly what he wants from me.
I take a breath and plant my hands on the counter beside my plate. “How did you learn my name?”
He sips his coffee, considering me over the rim.
“My men searched your apartment. You did an impressive job covering your tracks, but we lifted your fingerprints and ran them through every database we have access to. There was a biometric security check you did at a Swiss bank a few years ago… remember that?”
My stomach drops. It never occurred to me that my fingerprints could betray me. I’d been so focused on digital traces, on wiping my online footprint clean, I forgot about physical evidence. One stupid mistake and my entire cover collapsed.
“From there, a few calls to contacts in Russia and we learned exactly who Dinara Potapova is. Daughter of Yarik Potapov, boxing instructor. Lead hacker for the Belov Syndicate. Graduate of Moscow State University with a degree in computer science that you earned when you were nineteen.”
I push back from the island, my appetite gone.
The carefully constructed walls I built around Evelina Panova crumble.
He’s listing facts about my life like he’s reading from my file, and maybe he is.
Maybe he has pages of intel on me now. Who I am, where I come from, what I’m capable of.
It’s terrifying, yet he knows all this and I’m still sitting here wearing his ring.
“I get how this looks, but the Syndicate didn’t send me. No one knows the real reason I’m here. They think I’m living my best New York life attending MTI. That’s it.”
He crosses his arms, biceps flexing. I’m prepared for his doubt, but instead, he says, “I know.”
I shake my head, caught off guard. “What do you mean, you know?”
“I found the burner phone you kept taped under your kitchen shelf.”
Shit. I wipe that phone after every communication, but Kirill wouldn’t mention it unless he found something.
“While you’ve been here, your father texted you.
It looks like a text chain with Pavel Fedorov and his wife.
It’s clear they have no idea why you’re here and what you’ve been up to.
It’s also clear they love you.” He runs his thumb down the centerline of his lips.
“They’re thinking of visiting for Christmas by the way. ”
“You read my personal messages?”
“Is that what you want to focus on?” He reaches behind himself and slides my phone across the counter. “You should be happy I found them. They convinced me you’re not a spy.”
My shoulders drop, my lungs expand, and for the first time since our wedding, I breathe properly. “Well, I guess that’s something.”
He tilts his head, considering. “There’s one thing I don’t understand. The Belov Syndicate has unlimited resources. If you wanted to find out what happened to your mother, why not ask Pavel for help? You’re obviously close.”
I take a breath, trying to put everything into words.
“We are, and if I had asked Pavel for help, he wouldn’t have hesitated.
But bringing the Syndicate in would turn this into an international incident.
Pavel would send soldiers, demand answers, probably start a war.
I needed to know what I was dealing with before I dragged everyone into it. ”
He nudges my chin up with two fingers. “It’s time you told me the whole story, don’t you think, malyshka?” Baby girl.
I’ve never shared this story with anyone, and it will be painful to recount but weirdly, I want him to know. Maybe because he’s already been through his own version of hell with his mother dying and his sister’s cancer treatment, so he’ll understand.
“My mother disappeared when I was six,” I say, meeting his eyes briefly.
“She tucked me in that night, kissed my forehead, told me she loved me. When I woke up the next morning, she was gone. At first my father said she had to go back to her family. That something important had happened. But when I was older, he told me my mother had left a Dear John letter saying she couldn’t stand living paycheck to paycheck, scraping by.
” Pain flashes through me, raw and unfiltered.
“My mother came from a wealthy St. Petersburg family who disowned her when she refused the future they wanted and moved to Moscow to do what she loved. To sing.”
I force myself to keep going even though the words hurt.
“She met my dad at some underground jazz club she was performing in, and apparently it was love at first sight, at least according to him. They got married quickly, had me shortly after. She always seemed happy. My memories are of a smiling, loving woman who danced around the kitchen and sang me to sleep. But I guess looks can be deceiving.”
Kirill reaches across the counter and takes my hand, his palm warm against mine.
“When she left it destroyed my father. He never recovered, never dated anyone else, just raised me alone while carrying that grief every single day.” What I don’t say is it defined me in ways I didn’t fully understand until I was older.
Like if your own mother rejects you, if the one person who’s supposed to love you unconditionally chooses to leave, what does that say about you?
That you’re not enough. Not worth staying for.
He turns my hand over in his, palm up, and traces the lines there absently.
“A few months ago, I started having these vivid dreams about the night she left. At first I thought they were nightmares, but they kept coming back with the exact same details, the same scenes playing over and over.” I take a shaky breath.
“So I saw a therapist. Something I never thought I’d do.
After weeks of working with her, she helped me realize they weren’t dreams. They were repressed memories finally surfacing. ”