28. Damir
DAMIR
Grigori texts me while Sofia is asleep against my chest.
Pressing matters. Need you downstairs.
I read the message once and put the phone face down on the bedside table.
Sofia shifts against me, her hair across my shoulder, one bare thigh over mine beneath the sheet. She’s warm, heavy with sleep, and still marked at the throat. Every time I look at those marks, I want the man from the club brought back so I can make the punishment slower.
My phone vibrates again. I don’t reach for it.
Sofia opens her eyes. “You’re ignoring someone important,” she says, voice rough from sleep.
“Yes.”
“Is that allowed?”
“I allow it.”
Her mouth moves slightly. “Convenient.”
I slide my hand over her back. “Sleep.”
“I slept.”
“For less than an hour.”
“Then I’m well rested.”
I look at her. She looks back at me, stubborn and naked in my bed, with my sheet pulled to her chest as if I have not already had my hands and mouth on every inch of her.
“You’re not leaving?” she asks.
The question is too casual. I hear the part under it.
I left last time.
“No,” I say.
Her expression changes before she hides it.
I don’t let her hide it completely. I touch her chin and turn her face back to mine. “I should not have left that morning,” I say. She goes still. “After the first time.”
Her eyes lower. “I know.”
“I thought distance would make it easier,” I murmur.
“Did it?”
“No.”
She looks at me then, and I see too much in her face. Anger. Hurt. The memory of waking alone. The fear she will not admit. The new thing between us from last night that neither of us has named.
“Why did you marry Elena?” she asks. The question is quiet, but direct.
I expected it eventually. Not now.
Still, she deserves the truth.
“We were young,” I say.
“How young?”
“I was twenty-two. She was nineteen.”
Sofia blinks. “That young?”
“Yes.”
I lie on my back and stare at the ceiling for a moment, not because I can’t look at Sofia, but because Elena’s story has too many pieces and none of them fit well in my mouth.
“Our families wanted the marriage. At first, I didn’t fight it. Elena was beautiful, intelligent, careful. She had been raised to be useful to powerful men, and I was arrogant enough to think I could give her a better life because I wanted to.”
Sofia stays quiet.
“Elena was ill even before we married,” I continue. “But there were fevers, pain, weakness, moods that changed without warning, doctors who gave one answer and then another. Her family hid most of it because they wanted the marriage done.”
Sofia’s fingers move lightly over my chest. Not to distract me. To remind me she is listening.
“She hated being weak,” I say. “She hated doctors. She hated being watched. Some days she was bright and sharp and cruel enough to make a room bleed without raising her voice. Other days she would not leave bed. There were months when I thought she was improving, then one bad week would undo everything.”
“That sounds lonely,” Sofia says.
“For her, yes.”
“For you too.”
I look at her. She doesn’t look away.
“It was,” I admit. “We were married on paper, in public, in photographs. In private, it became more complicated. Some years were decent. Some were not. After the fire, after my father and brother died and I became Pakhan, everything changed. I had no time, and she needed more than I could give. I sent doctors. Nurses. Guards. I told myself protection was the same thing as presence.”
Sofia’s hand stills. I know she hears the similarity.
So do I.
“She fell from the terrace,” I say.
Her breath catches.
“I was right here in the house when it happened. But I didn’t even know she fell until Mikhail told me.”
Sofia pushes herself up on one elbow, the sheet slipping lower on her chest. “Damir.”
“I should have been there.”
“You don’t know that you could have stopped it.”
“I was her husband.”
“That doesn’t make you God.”
My mouth tightens.
She touches my face, forcing me to look at her. “It doesn’t,” she says again. “You can blame yourself but that doesn’t mean it was yours to control.”
I close my hand over hers. “She was my wife,” I say.
“And you are still allowed to survive her.”
The room goes quiet.
No one has said it to me like that before. Sofia says it like she’s angry on my behalf, and somehow that is worse than pity. Pity I can reject. This, I can’t.
I pull her down to me and kiss her.
At first, it’s only a kiss. Then she opens her mouth, and her body melts against mine, and the grief turns into heat because she is alive under my hands and I need that more than I want to admit.
“Sofia,” I say against her mouth.
“I’m here.”
That’s all she says. It’s enough.
I roll her onto her back and cover her with my body, careful of her throat, careful not to cage her even while I keep her beneath me. She parts her thighs for me without being asked. My hand slides over her breast, and she arches, giving me a sound that goes straight through my restraint.
I lower my mouth to her nipple and suck it into my mouth.
Her hand grips my hair at once. “Damir.”
I use my teeth lightly, then my tongue, then suck harder until her hips lift against mine. Her breast fills my hand. Her skin is warm, her body still sensitive from earlier, and I can tell by her breathing that she’s already close to losing patience.
I move to her other breast and give it the same attention, slow at first, then rougher when she pulls at my hair and whispers my name like an accusation.
My fingers slide between her legs.
She is wet. The feel of it almost breaks me.
I rub her clit while my mouth stays on her nipple, and she comes faster than either of us expects. Her body tightens hard, thighs closing around my hand, back arching off the bed as her orgasm takes her. I keep my mouth on her breast until she pushes weakly at my shoulder.
I lift my head. “You came quickly.”
She glares at me, breathless. “Do you want applause?”
“I want you again.”
Her eyes darken. “Then stop talking.”
I enter her slowly because she’s still sore, but once she takes me, she pulls me down and kisses me with no hesitation.
I move inside her with enough control not to hurt her and enough force to make her nails dig into my back.
It’s quieter this time than last night, but not gentle.
Her legs lock around me, and every time I drive deeper, she meets me like she’s choosing me again.
I don’t last long. Not with her looking at me like that.
I come inside her with my mouth against hers, my hand in her hair, her body clenched around me. For a minute after, neither of us speaks.
Then she says, “Your pressing matters are going to be very angry.”
“They can wait.”
“They might start killing each other downstairs.”
“They know better.”
She exhales, almost a laugh, and turns her face into my shoulder.
I hold her for a while. Longer than I should.
Not as long as I want.
By the time we dress, the house is already awake. Sofia wears one of the new dresses from the shopping trip, pale blue and simple, with a high enough neck to cover the marks. I notice that she chooses it deliberately. She notices me noticing.
“Don’t,” she says.
“I said nothing.”
“You were about to.”
“I was not.”
“You look like a man preparing a speech.”
“I am always prepared.”
“That must be exhausting.”
“It’s useful.”
She rolls her eyes, and I feel something in my chest ease because she sounds like herself.
I take her hand. She looks down at our fingers but doesn’t pull away.
“There is something I want to show you,” I say.
“If it’s a dungeon, I’m going back to bed.”
“It’s not a dungeon.”
“That’s exactly what someone with a dungeon would say.”
I lead her down the east corridor, past two guards who look relieved to see her alive and have enough sense not to show too much of it. We reach the music room, a room she hasn’t entered yet because it was locked after Elena died and no one had reason to open it.
Now the doors stand open.
Inside, near the windows, is the piano. Black, polished, tuned yesterday. I had it brought in after Sofia made that stupid comment about knowing piano and knitting and other perfect wife duties. She was joking. I knew that.
I ordered it anyway.
She stops at the doorway. For once, she says nothing.
I let her look.
The morning light cuts across the piano, the bench, the fresh sheet music Marina placed there because she enjoys making small things look complete. Sofia walks in slowly, as if the instrument might accuse her of something.
She turns to me. “I was joking before.”
“I know.”
“Then why did you buy me a piano?”
“So you can learn.”
Her eyebrows lift. “You bought an entire piano because I made one sarcastic comment?”
“Yes.”
“That is insane.”
“It’s practical.”
“It’s absolutely not practical.”
“You need things to do that are not escaping, arguing, or investigating my dead wife.”
She stares at me. Then, against her will, she laughs once.
I prefer the sound more than I should.
“You’re impossible,” she says.
“You have said that before.”
“I will probably say it again.”
I walk farther into the room. “You can learn if you want. Or not. It’s yours either way.”
She looks at the piano again, then touches the edge lightly. “What if I want something more?”
I know what she means. I don’t answer immediately, because if I answer too quickly, she will hear control in it. If I make promises too easily, she will not believe them.
So I step beside her and take her hand. “Come on,” I say. “It’s time for the doctor.”
Her face hardens instantly. “No.”
“Yes.”
“I said no doctors last night.”
“And I listened last night.”
“That wasn’t a permanent victory?”
“No.”
She narrows her eyes. “You’re enjoying this.”
“I’m enjoying that you are alive enough to argue.”
That stops her for a second. Then she looks away.
I squeeze her hand once. “The doctor checks your throat. Nothing more unless you agree.”
“And after?”
“After, we talk.”
She studies me carefully. “About what I want?”
“Yes.”
“About Elena?”
“If you still have questions.”
“About Anya?”
My jaw tightens. She sees it.
“Yes,” I say. “About Anya too.”
Sofia looks at me for a long moment, then nods once.
“Fine. Doctor first,” she says, rolling her eyes.