Chapter Twenty One
Alexei
Hm.”
Anatoli makes this sound as he lingers in the doorway of the security room while I review the security footage from the day Katya took her naked stroll through the house. Wisely, he positions himself away from the monitors, and he guards the door from anyone who might enter.
From anyone else, the small sound would be ignorable, beneath my notice. From Anatoli, it’s as good as a shout of surprise. His interest piques mine. “What is it?” I ask him in Russian.
“Russo’s wife is divorcing him.”
“Is she, then?” Interesting. I would never have thought the woman would have it in her.
They are devout Catholics, the Italians—death before divorce is their general philosophy on marriage.
Still, it satisfies some vengeful part of me to know that I have fucked up Giulio’s life so severely.
Probably the stupid motherfucker is panicking right now, knowing full well that the financial support he has always received from his wife’s family will soon no longer be coming.
He has lost his son. His wife. The respect of his own famiglia. Whatever shreds of his fortune might be leftover. And his daughter. I can imagine him sweating bullets, wondering how he is meant to extract himself from his unenviable position.
Possibly he will attempt to prevail upon some of the wealthier of his distant relatives; those from the more prominent branches of the Russo crime family.
Possibly he will also consider that I could so easily set off a chain of events that would result in that very family hunting him down like a fucking dog.
That maybe it is best to fade into the background and make himself invisible.
I wonder if his brothers think the same. If they fully understand how badly Giulio has fucked them all over, how they will be held every bit as responsible for his actions.
I must have laughed, because Anatoli scowls at me.
“A cornered dog is dangerous,” he says, and he is right. But there is so little that Giulio can do—and he will do nothing at all to me. So long as I have evidence of his worthless dead son’s treachery in my hands, I also have his balls in the clench of my fist. I am untouchable.
“I’m not worried about him,” I say. But I know from the severe expression Anatoli wears that he will continue to investigate this, to keep a digital eye on the Russo family, just in case.
“Maybe he wants Catalina back,” Anatoli says absently as his fingers fly across the screen of his phone. “Since he has nothing else.” He offers a short, careless shrug. “It would be convenient, when you’re finished with her. Maybe you can—”
Anger surges up my spine. “Do pizdy. I don’t give a fuck what he wants. She isn’t going back.”
“When did you get so fucking boring?” Anatoli says, with an exaggerated roll of his eyes. “You don’t go out anymore. You only follow after her like she is a bitch in heat.”
“Because I don’t want easy pussy anymore, I’m boring? Because I like having her around, I’m boring?”
“You ignore matters of business to go fucking swimming,” he says. “You sleep with the goddamned light on.”
I ignore matters of business because it is my prerogative to do so. What is the use in being the fucking boss if you do not enjoy this? And the light stays on because Katya is afraid of the dark. I am not ashamed that I don’t make her be afraid.
“The whole fucking house thinks she carries your balls around in her purse,” Anatoli says.
“I don’t give a fuck what the whole fucking house thinks.” I never have. This is also something I do not have to care about.
“Your men think you are weak,” he says. “That is a problem.”
If this is true, soon enough they will be disabused of this notion. “Do you think I’m weak?” I ask.
Anatoli’s scowl deepens. “No,” he admits, though his voice is resentful. “But I don’t understand you anymore. Not since her.”
Of course he does not. He has never met a woman he has wanted for more than a night. There was a time, years ago, I might have explained myself to him, because before Anatoli was my second, he was my closest friend.
I don’t explain Katya to him. How could I do this thing when I don’t even think I can explain her to myself? But the days when I had to explain myself to anyone have long since passed. Katya stays. And if anyone else has a problem with this?
Do pizdy. I don’t give a fuck.
The security feed from days and days ago slows, stops. I have the information I need, now. I wind the footage back once more and erase it, clearing all evidence of Katya’s nakedness from the recording. And then I push back my chair.
“Tonight,” I say to Anatoli, “you bring me Piotr and Ivan.”
Anatoli’s brows lift. “Piotr? Really?”
He is not so surprised about Ivan, but then Ivan is one of those men who will never rise past foot soldier.
He likes the perks of this life, but he is lazy.
He is content to make some quick, easy cash, to throw his weight around.
He likes presenting himself as a dangerous man, when mostly he is just a fool.
But Piotr—Piotr earned his present position.
He was a good enforcer; trustworthy, loyal.
Was.
Now he is something else.
Maybe he is one of those men Anatoli says believes me to have become weak. Tonight, he will learn otherwise.
∞∞∞
Katya wakes to the slide of my hand down the length of her spine. She stretches, her little toes curling and her arms stretching over her head. “What time is it?” she asks on the back of a yawn, her fingers covering her mouth and muffling her words slightly.
“Not so late,” I tell her. “Maybe I just wear you out, hm?”
Her blue eyes darken, brows drawing down into a glower. “Go fuck yourself, Alexei,” she says petulantly as she turns over onto her stomach, sliding her arms beneath the pillow.
The flat of my hand swats her upturned ass, and she buries her face into her pillow, muffling her surprised screech. “What was that, Katya?” I ask as I shove my legs into a pair of jeans.
“Alyosha,” she grumbles sullenly.
Better. She is still spicy, most of the day.
Like a wild animal, she paces the confines of her cage and resents the bars that surround her.
She is difficult and argumentative. She is contrary and spiteful and disrespectful.
And nothing is so satisfying to me as kissing the spice out of her.
Fucking her until she is again sweet for me.
Until she makes her soft little sounds of pleasure as she comes on my tongue, my fingers, my cock.
She holds onto her anger because she needs it still.
But every day, she settles a little more.
She is sweet for me a little longer. I think she resents this.
That for hours I can make her forget her fury.
That she finds it a little more difficult each time to call it back.
That she is capable of less heat every time.
Right now she is still soft, mostly compliant. Exhausted from an afternoon of swimming and fucking in the pool, she has been sleeping now for a few hours. But it is—as I told her—not so late, and tonight I do not want her wandering if she wakes. So I have to wake her up myself and tell her this.
“What are you doing?” she asks as she curls onto her side and props her head up in her hand.
“I have business,” I tell her brusquely. “You stay here tonight, Katya. No wandering.”
Her lower lip thrusts out in a pout, already spicy again to have been so commanded. “I’m hungry,” she says. “It’s past dinner time, isn’t it?”
Long past. But this is no problem. “I will send dinner to you,” I tell her. “What do you want?”
“Sweet wine,” she says, and in the purse of her lips I can see her contriving to make herself as demanding and difficult as possible out of sheer stubbornness. “Blini and caviar. Beef Wellington. Lobster and scallops. And cheesecake for dessert. A whole one.”
She is so fucking adorable when she is trying to be irritating. “You cannot eat a whole cheesecake by yourself, Katya.”
“I can try.” She climbs up onto her knees, dragging the blankets with her as she eases toward me. “Strawberry cheesecake, specifically.”
A laugh shakes my shoulders. “Okay, koshechka. Strawberry cheesecake. Specifically.”
She squints at me in rank suspicion, as if she cannot believe how easily I have acquiesced to her absurd requests. “Really? It takes like, eight hours to make a cheesecake.”
It is not the first time Katya has requested cheesecake.
Probably there is one already made, waiting upon her request. But if not, someone will go buy one.
“You will have your cheesecake, Katya,” I assure her, and I slide my fingers into her disheveled hair and cup the nape of her neck in my hand. “And maybe tomorrow, I take you out.”
Her gold brows lift. “Out?” she asks, as if she no longer knows the meaning of this word. “Like out out?”
“Da. Out out. Since you are going—what did you say?”
“Stir crazy,” she says absently. With one hand she reaches out and plucks at the chain around my neck, catching the medallion between her fingers. There is a little crease in her brow, a twist to the corner of her lips. I know what she is thinking.
She could try to run from me. But does she want to? Is her life here so bad? Does she hate me as much as once she did? Where would she go that I could not find her? What does it mean for her if her cage is not so much a prison anymore?
I think she worries more about these things than I do. Whether she even has the answers to these questions. What the significance of them might be.
With her thumb she rubs my medallion. “What is this?” she asks.
“Icon pendant. Of St. Nicholas.”
Her face scrunches. “Like Santa Claus? You wear a Santa Claus pendant?”
I chuckle. “Not quite, koshechka.” Even if St. Nicholas is the inspiration for this fairy tale. “St. Nicholas is patron saint of repentant thieves.”