CHAPTER 15 – Leona
The city pulses beneath me, a maze of lights and shadows, of power and secrets. From the penthouse windows, everything looks small and distant, like a model I could rearrange with my fingertips.
Is this how Marcus sees the world? As a game board where people are pieces to be moved at will?
Today at the Ivanov meeting, I felt it—the current of power flowing beneath polite conversation, the dangerous dance of men who kill with words before they reach for weapons. And I wasn't repulsed by it—I was exhilarated.
That's what keeps me standing here, hours after Marcus went to bed, staring at a city that suddenly looks different to me. Not because it's changed, but because I have.
I was supposed to be playing a role today. The dutiful wife, the silent observer. Instead, I found myself engaging, analyzing, calculating risks and advantages like I'd been part of this world all my life instead of only three months.
When John Ivanov mentioned Cody—not by name, but the implication was clear—I should have been focused solely on the fact that my brother is alive, moving through Colombia, still running. That Marcus has been tracking him without telling me.
Instead, I found myself assessing Ivanov's leverage, the threat beneath his words, the shifting alliances his questions implied. Like a player, not a pawn.
"You should be sleeping."
I don't turn at Marcus's voice.
"I'm thinking."
"About today?"
"Yes."
He moves closer, stopping just behind me. "Having regrets about how well you performed?"
The question strikes at the heart of my unease. I did perform well—too well for someone who's supposed to be a reluctant captive.
"I should be disgusted," I admit, watching a helicopter cut through the night sky. "By them. By the entire situation."
"But you're not."
"No." The confession feels like release. "And that terrifies me more than anything that was said in that room."
His reflection appears in the window beside mine, his face unreadable in the darkened glass. "Why?"
"Because I understood it all. The subtext, the positioning, the threats wrapped in pleasantries." I finally turn to face him. "I've spent my entire adult life running from this world, and now I find I speak its language fluently."
Marcus studies me, his eyes catching the city lights. He's wearing only sleep pants, his chest bare, the scars of his violent life visible as pale marks against tanned skin.
"You've always spoken it," he says finally. "You simply refused to acknowledge it."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Your career choice. Analyzing violence, categorizing it, extracting meaning from blood and bone. You didn't run from this world, Leona. You just found a sanctioned way to participate in it."
I want to deny it, to defend the scientific purity of forensic analysis against the barbarism of organized crime. But the words stick in my throat, because some part of me recognizes the truth in what he's saying.
"Today wasn't an anomaly," he continues, moving to the bar to pour himself a whiskey. "It was an awakening."
"To what?"
"To whom you really are." He doesn't offer me a drink. Knows I'll refuse as I always do when I'm processing something difficult. "To who we are together."
That's the crux of it, isn't it? Not just my disturbing comfort in his world, but how naturally we functioned as a unit today. How easily we communicated without words, how effectively we balanced each other's approaches.
"I shouldn't want this," I whisper, more to myself than to him.
"Yet you do." He takes a sip of his whiskey, watching me over the rim of his glass. "The question is what you intend to do about it."
"What options do I have?" I move away from the window, needing distance to think clearly. "I'm still your prisoner, regardless of how golden the cage has become."
"Are you?" He sets down his glass. "The door hasn't been physically locked in weeks. Your access to the building is unrestricted. You have your own security codes, your own car and driver at your disposal."
He's right. The physical restraints have gradually dissolved as I've adapted to my new reality. I could walk out right now, call a taxi, and disappear into the night.
But I won't. We both know it.
"Why are you doing this?" I ask, needing to understand. "Why give me freedom when you know what I could do with it?"
"Because true power isn't about locks and chains." He approaches slowly, deliberately. "It's about making someone stay when every door is open."
The words sink into me, a truth I've been avoiding since that first night in his bed. I'm not here anymore because I can't leave. I'm here because I don't want to.
"I hate that you know me better than I know myself," I say.
"I don't." His hand rises, fingers brushing my cheek with unexpected gentleness. "I simply recognize what you're not ready to see."
"Which is?"
"That you weren't born for the sterile safety of a lab. You were born for this. For power. For the edge where decisions matter and consequences are real."
His fingers trail down my neck, leaving fire in their wake.
"What does that make me?" My voice is barely audible as I lean into his touch.
"Mine," he says simply. "In every way that matters."
Weeks ago, that declaration would have sparked resistance, defiance. Tonight, it settles into me like a key turning in a lock, opening something I've kept carefully secured.
I reach for him first.
My hands slide up his chest, feeling the steady beat of his heart beneath my palms. He remains still, letting me initiate, letting me choose this moment without the excuse of force or circumstance.
When our lips meet, it's different from every kiss we've shared before. Not a battle, not a surrender, but a claiming—mutual, deliberate, honest in a way we've never allowed ourselves to be.
His hands frame my face, holding me as if I'm something precious rather than possessed. The tenderness is more devastating than any display of dominance could be.
He lifts me effortlessly, carrying me to our bed. Not his bed where I sleep, but ours—the distinction suddenly, vitally important. My arms wrap around his neck, unwilling to release him even for the seconds it takes to cross the room.
When he lowers me to the mattress, there's reverence in his touch, a care I've never associated with the ruthless man I watched execute a cartel enforcer without hesitation.
"No masks tonight," he says, hovering above me. "No games. Just us."
The vulnerability in his voice catches me off guard. This isn't the calculating kingpin or the dominant lover I've come to know. This is something else—someone else. The man beneath the monster, offering himself alongside the power he wields.
I reach up, tracing the line of his jaw, the curve of his mouth, rediscovering him without the filters of captor and captive, predator and prey.
"Just us," I agree, the words sealing something irrevocable between us.
Marcus kisses me again, but it’s nothing like the bruising, hungry collisions we’ve shared before. This is slow—reverent. His lips move against mine with aching gentleness.
His body settles over mine, warm and solid, every inch of his skin pressed to mine as he peels my sleep shirt away, exposing me by degrees. There’s no rush in his hands—just patience and certainty, the kind of touch that says you’re safe with me even when you shouldn’t be.
When his mouth finds my neck, he lingers. Not biting, not claiming, just breathing me in. His tongue traces the hollow of my throat, lips following the rhythm of my pulse. Every inch he kisses feels like it’s being etched into memory—like he's worshipping, not seducing.
His fingers skim down my ribcage, dragging goosebumps in their wake as he pushes the covers down, baring my body to the ambient heat of the room. He stares for a beat—just stares—his eyes dark, reverent, wrecked.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he whispers, like it hurts to say it out loud.
His mouth moves lower, tongue teasing one breast while his palm cups the other. He doesn’t rush—he licks, then sucks slowly, drawing my nipple into the heat of his mouth until my back arches off the bed with a gasp.
“Marcus...”
“Shh,” he murmurs. “I want to make you feel everything. No more hiding.”
His kisses trail down my stomach, slow and reverent, as though he’s exploring sacred ground. When he reaches the apex of my thighs, he parts them with a careful, gentle insistence—no command, no force, just invitation.
I open for him.
He dives in, tongue parting my folds with purpose, dragging a slow, wet line from my entrance to my clit.
A gasp tears from my throat.
He groans into me like he’s starved, licking deeper, firmer. His tongue circles my clit, then flattens over it with steady, relentless pressure.
My hips jerk. My thighs tremble.
He licks me again—slow, filthy, patient—savoring every flick, every reaction. I feel everything. His mouth. His stubble scraping my inner thighs. The heat of his breath when he pulls back just to watch me writhe.
Then he dives back in.
He sucks my clit into his mouth, gentle at first, then harder, teasing it with his tongue in tight, controlled flicks that make my legs spasm.
“Fuck,” I moan. “Don’t stop.”
He doesn’t.
Two fingers slide inside me—deep, slow, curling until I see stars. His mouth never leaves my clit. His tongue and fingers move together, drawing me tighter and tighter.
I’m soaked. Dripping. The obscene sounds of his mouth on me echo off the walls.
He groans like I taste like sin. Like he’d drown in me if I let him.
“Come for me,” he growls. “I want to feel you break on my tongue.”
He sucks me hard, tongue flicking fast now, fingers pumping deeper. The pressure explodes.
I come with a scream, back arching, thighs clamping around his head. My pussy clenches, pulsing around his fingers, flooding his mouth with my release.
And he doesn’t stop.
He licks me through it—messy, hungry—until my moans turn to whimpers and I’m shaking from overstimulation.
He only pulls away when I collapse back onto the bed, gasping, ruined.
His lips shine with me. His eyes are pure fire.
And I’ve never been so completely, shamelessly, fucked by just a mouth.
He kisses his way back up my body, tasting me on my lips as he whispers, “I need to be inside you now.”
“Yes,” I breathe, wrapping my arms around his neck. “Please.”
He slides into me slowly—so slowly—filling me inch by inch until our bodies are completely joined. We both gasp at the sensation, at the way we fit, the heat, the intimacy.
He doesn’t thrust. He just holds himself there, forehead pressed to mine, letting the connection bloom between us, raw and real.
Then he moves.
Slow, deliberate strokes that drive me insane. He makes love to me like it’s a language only we speak—no dirty talk, no demands, just presence. Every roll of his hips feels like a promise. Every kiss, a confession.
I lose track of time, of the world beyond this bed. The only thing that exists is Marcus—his breath against my skin, his body moving inside mine, the emotion tangled in every touch.
We come together slowly, like we’re unraveling into each other. My release hits me like a tide, stealing my breath as I clutch at him. He follows with a deep groan, burying himself to the hilt as he spills inside me, his entire body shuddering with the force of it.
We don’t separate.
He stays inside me, cradling me against him, one hand tangled in my hair, the other splayed protectively over my lower back. His breath is hot against my neck, our hearts racing in tandem.
For a long time, there’s no sound but our breathing. No movement but the subtle tremble of aftershocks.
Then, softly, he whispers, “You’re not mine because I claimed you. You’re mine because you chose this. Because you chose me.”
I hold him tighter.
And for the first time, I let that truth settle into my bones.