Chapter 13
Alexei
What we did together just confirmed how fucked I am.
I’m going to get both of us killed, and I know it. I can’t stop. The need consumes everything else. I got to taste him, and now there’s no going back.
My phone keeps lighting up with missed calls. I turn it off. Turn it back on. Then off again. They know something is wrong. I never disappear like this. Never ignore them.
But I can’t leave. Can’t care about anything except the way Kelly looks at me, the way he tastes, the way he says my name. I am choosing him over everything I was raised to be. Over duty. Over survival.
And I still can’t fucking stop.
If I could lock him in a room with no windows and doors, just me and him forever until the world forgets we ever existed, I would. The thought almost makes me smile.
When he fell asleep on me last night, I counted every single freckle on his face and memorized them so I can close my eyes and still see him when I’m not with him.
The way he looks at me when I touch him, the sounds he made, it’s burned into my brain like a brand. I want to hear it again and again. Want to make him fall apart under my hands until he forgets his own name and knows only mine.
I should walk away right now while I still can, but the thought of leaving him makes my heart ache. He’s mine now, whether he fully understands that or not, and I’d rather die than let anyone else have him.
“What are you thinking about so hard?” Kelly’s voice cuts through my thoughts.
“Nothing,” I say, then pop another piece of pancake into my mouth.
I brought breakfast for us after my morning run.
I’m not letting him starve himself to death just because he’s too stubborn to ask for help.
I even scheduled groceries to be delivered every week since he survives on almond milk and whatever sad excuse for a sandwich he calls a meal, which is completely unacceptable.
He mumbles something into his plate.
I narrow my eyes. “You do that a lot. Say things low so I don’t hear. What is it, zaychik?”
“I said you look like you want to murder someone.” He swallows, jaw twitching. “Do you regret being with me?”
“Nyet. But I want to know the name of the lady who made you look like that so I can rip her head off.”
“Ugh, please not that again,” he mutters.
Judging by his face, that wasn’t the right thing to say. Most people don’t consider homicide comforting. I’m bad at this.
He stands with a wince, takes another bite mid-motion.
I think he’s determined to eat and escape at the same time.
The sound he makes when he moves is soft but strained, pain leaking out despite his attempts to hide it.
He walks away from the bed with a slight limp, then bends slowly to scratch behind Clover’s ears.
I stare at his back, the way the morning light hits the curve of his spine through that thin T-shirt. The hem’s riding up just enough to show the waistband of those navy boxers.
That ass is going to be the death of me. I slip my finger into my mouth, tongue swirling around the syrup while I ogle without shame. My phone rings on the nightstand, and I sigh, already feeling the headache behind my eyes.
I pick it up, and the second I see my father’s name flash, I mutter a curse in Russian and tighten my grip around the phone.
Fuck.
Kelly looks over at me with immediate concern in his eyes. “What is it?”
I press the answer button, bring the phone to my ear, raising a finger to my lips for silence. He nods.
“Father,” I say.
“Your brother finally grew a spine and told me everything.” His voice is calm, too calm, which means he’s furious.
“You had your chance. The moment it happened, you could have come forward, but the three of you stayed silent.” He exhales, then continues, “If you think I didn’t know, Alexei, you’re more foolish than I thought. ”
He’s been sitting on this information the whole time, waiting for us to confess. I fucking knew it.
“Come home. We’ll have lunch. Your brothers will be here, and we’ll discuss this properly.”
“I’ll be there.”
“Good.”
The line goes dead.
I stare at the phone. “Polnyy yebannyy pizdets.” Complete fucking disaster.
I toss it at the bed hard enough it bounces off and hits the floor with a loud thump. Kelly looks at me with concern written all over his bruised face.
I wave him off before he can start asking questions.
It’s not that I’m scared of my father exactly.
But he can be terrifying when he decides to be, and he’s decided to be plenty of times. He and my mother raised us well, gave us everything. Mother never laid a hand on us even when we were little shits testing every limit. Our father … had different methods.
I love him, love all of them despite their faults. Even Mikhail with his drug problems and constant chaos. People know us as this disciplined old family dynasty running the underworld.
Growing up with four brothers meant the house was never quiet.
Someone was always in trouble, always getting punished, always plotting revenge on whoever got them into trouble.
My mother spent most of her time playing referee or patching us up.
They’re mine, my family, no matter how fucked up we all are.
But my father doesn’t bend on anything. Doesn’t listen to excuses.
Lives by rules older than any of us, treats them like they were carved in stone.
If he finds out I’ve been with a man, touching him, kissing him, getting him off, he won’t just disown me, he’ll destroy that part of me.
Cut it out like a tumor, burn it away until there’s nothing left but what he thinks a son should be.
“I need to go. My father called a family meeting.” I close my eyes. “That means someone fucked up badly enough that multiple people need to die for it. And he’s going to make me do it.”
“Stop,” he says too loud, then winces. “Can we pretend you have a normal, boring desk job? Like you need to go to the office and handle paperwork or something?”
I blink at him. “My father’s about to ask me to shove someone into the paper shredder until it breaks.”
“That’s not what people do at offices. You print papers and attend meetings. So go print some papers, and maybe we can meet later when you’re done being a normal person with a normal job.”
I scoff but play along because it seems important to him. “Fine. I’m going to the office to do some very important printing and filing. I don’t know when I’ll be back, and I probably won’t answer my phone during business hours.”
“Jesus Christ, okay. Close enough.”
Kelly eyes me as I dress, biting his lip and holding onto Clover. “Just please don’t break into any more vet clinics if you get hurt. Actually, no, don’t get hurt at all. Wait, you’re going to the office, and people don’t get hurt at offices, so please just go have a boring, normal day, okay?”
If pretending what I do is normal office work makes him feel better, then I’ll pretend for him. I hum and pocket my phone, walk over to him, scratch Clover between the ears, and then kiss him on his perfect lips.
I look at him right before I leave, and something cracks open inside me.
My stomach churns thinking about all the times I forced myself to fuck women, knowing everything about it felt wrong.
I wanted to skin myself alive after. The disgust was so overwhelming that the aftermath became routine.
I’d shower immediately, scrubbing my skin until it was raw and red, like I could wash away what I’d done.
Once was never enough. I’d go back in. Three times minimum, water scalding, soap burning into the raw patches. Still felt filthy. When I looked in the mirror, all I saw was a coward staring back, someone pretending to be something he wasn’t.
I’ve been suffocating since I realized I wanted men. Kept telling myself it was just a phase, something that would pass if I tried hard enough. It didn’t work. Just hollowed me out until I was a shell walking around pretending to be alive while everything real about me rotted inside.
I had good reason to keep pretending.
Part of me hoped death would catch up eventually, that one of those high-risk jobs I volunteered for would finally work.
The ones nobody else wanted because the odds of walking out alive were zero.
Would have been easier than going back to my world and listening to my father, every underboss who’s sat at our table, everyone I work with talk about how disgusting it is when men fuck men.
A disease. Something that needs to be eliminated.
Hearing that over and over while knowing that’s what I am.
I can’t go back to that. Not after having him. There’s no disgust now. No need to shower until my skin bleeds. No drowning in shame every time I look at myself.
All I feel is whole.
I push open the black door to the house I grew up in. My boots click against the marble floor as I walk in. The place is huge and cold, decorated exactly how my mother likes it with dark floors and gold accents everywhere.
Nothing’s changed since we moved here from Russia when I was a kid.
We live about an hour outside the city on our own land, fenced in and guarded constantly.
It started as just our parents’ house, but once we got older, Father had houses put up for each of us.
Daniil and Mikhail refused and chose to stay in the city instead, living in that apartment together because those two can’t do anything the normal way.
The house feels more like a crypt than a home sometimes.
Black walls, dark everything with no warmth anywhere.
“Alexei.”
My mother, Lina, stands in the hallway with long black hair braided down her back, those bright blue eyes locked on mine. She looks so much like Mikhail and Yulian, it’s almost eerie. Lev and I got our father’s brown eyes and his face structure.
I walk over to her, and she pats my cheek with more force than necessary.
“How mad is he?” I ask.