Chapter Seventeen
Valentina
The days after the reception passed in a strange quiet.
The estate stayed under reinforced security, extra men stationed at every entrance, cameras rerouted through systems I didn’t understand but had learned meant something serious was being managed behind the scenes.
My own movement narrowed considerably, security shadowing me even for the short walk between rooms in Dmitri’s absence, a level of restriction that made the penthouse feel smaller than it actually was.
Dmitri grew more absent than ever. He disappeared for hours at a stretch, returning with a tightness around his eyes that told me whatever he was handling required all the focus he had left to give.
When he was present, something in him had shifted from the protective vigilance I’d gotten used to into something colder and more strategic.
It was a version of him I hadn’t seen since the earliest days of knowing him, even before any of the softness had crept in.
I felt the shift without needing him to explain it. Something had changed about whatever war was quietly unfolding beneath the surface of our lives. I understood, without being told, that it had escalated past whatever careful handling had defined the weeks before.
I also knew that prodding him wouldn’t make him explain it all to me like magic. Just that waiting wasn’t enjoyable.
*****
Three days after the reception attack, Dmitri entered the kitchen with an expression that told me he had decided to tell me something.
“The reception wasn’t random,” he said, settling across from me at the kitchen island. “It was orchestrated. A man named Adrian Vale is behind it.”
He mentioned the name in a calm, deliberate manner—and, knowing him, it meant the name carried more threat than he wanted to let on. I caught on anyway.
“Who is he?” I asked, my calm tone matching his.
“A rival. He’s run an operation two territories over for years, circling our family without ever making a direct move until now.
The breach in the systems, the raid on the lounge, the reception, all of it traces back to him.
He’s escalating pressure deliberately, targeting our visibility and stability rather than trying to bankrupt us outright.
The reception was meant to destabilize how people perceive our security, and to test exactly how fast we could respond to a coordinated attack. ”
“Why now? What changed?”
“You did, in a sense. Not that it’s your fault,” he added quickly, catching my expression.
“But once I married you, once that story spread through every circle that matters in this city, Vale saw an opening. A man distracted by something he cares about is a man who makes mistakes, or at least that’s the theory he seems to be testing. ”
“So this is happening because of me.”
“This is happening because Vale is opportunistic and patient, and he’d have found some angle eventually regardless of whether you existed in my life at all. You’re not the cause, Val.”
I listened in silence, fear building steadily beneath my ribs even as I tried to keep my expression composed the way I’d learned to over the last several weeks.
“What happens now?”
Dmitri was quiet a moment, choosing his next words carefully.
“We’re planning a retaliation. A controlled strike on one of Vale’s affiliated pubs, during a high-traffic poker night.
Precise. Public enough that the message lands clearly.
Anyone watching needs to understand that attacking Golovin territory gets answered immediately. ”
My reaction was sharp and immediate.
“That’s not safe, Dmitri. You can’t retaliate inside a crowded environment without massive risk to everyone involved, including you.
After what happened at the reception, after watching you pull me through that darkness while gunfire went off somewhere behind us, I can’t just sit here and pretend I’m fine with you walking into another situation exactly like it,” I rushed.
“It’s not exactly like the reception. This is planned, controlled, with contingencies built in that the reception attack never had time to prepare for.”
“Plans fail. You know that.”
He didn’t argue that point, which frightened me more than if he had.
“Who’s going with you?” I asked, my mind already racing ahead to logistics I had no real authority to question. “Roman? How many men?”
“Enough. That’s all I can tell you right now, and honestly, all that would help you to know.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I have that doesn’t compromise the plan by saying it out loud.
” He held my gaze steadily. “I know that’s not satisfying.
I know you want details that would let you feel like you have some control over the outcome.
I can’t give you that, Val. Not because I don’t trust you.
Because the fewer people who know the specifics, the safer everyone involved actually is, including you. ”
“I don’t want to lose you,” I said, my voice cracking as the emotions I was trying to hold back gushed out anyway, the real fear underneath every practical argument I’d been making finally surfacing on its own.
“That’s what I’m afraid of, Dmitri. Not the abstract danger. You. I don’t want to lose you.”
The words hung in the air between us, and something in the atmosphere of the kitchen shifted instantly.
Dmitri stepped closer, his expression softening in a way I rarely saw when we were discussing anything chaos-related like this.
“I’m not easy to kill, Val. This plan is structured carefully.
I’ve survived situations far less controlled than this one, more times than I’d like to count.
I don’t say that to dismiss your fear. I say it because I need you to understand that I’m not walking into this recklessly.
I have too much to protect now to take unnecessary chances with my own life. ”
“You say that like it’s reassuring,” I said, my right hand hitting his chest, scared, touched, and frustrated at the same time.
He took hold of my hand. “It’s meant to be.”
Then he reached up and cupped my face gently, his thumb brushing along my cheekbone. Just like that, the fear that had been driving my argument slowly folded into something else entirely, something heavier.
“I need you to trust me,” he said quietly. “Not because the danger isn’t real. Because I’ve spent my entire life learning how to survive exactly this kind of danger, and I intend to keep surviving it, for you, if nothing else.”
I didn’t have another argument left in me, not one that could compete with the gravity of him standing that close, his hand warm against my face, his eyes holding mine with an intensity that had nothing strategic left in it at all.
He stayed close, grounding me with his presence until the frantic edge of my panic began to soften into something quieter.
When he kissed me, I kissed him back with everything I’d been holding onto all evening, every fear I hadn’t fully voiced pouring into the desperate, grounding press of his mouth against mine.
He walked me backward without breaking the kiss, his hands finding my waist, careful even now, even with the urgency running underneath everything we were both feeling. Then he lifted me off the floor altogether.
When we finally reached the bedroom, our clothes landed on the floor before either of us hit the bed. Then he pulled me towards him as he sat at the edge of the bed.
When I raised an eyebrow, he said, “I want you to tell me you trust me when I come inside of you. And I want to see your face when you say it.”
I bit my lips subconsciously, the heat in his eyes already melting something inside me. Something that went beyond the physical.
He positioned me to straddle him, his fingers rubbing my clit and making my whole body tingle with hunger and anticipation.
His eyes remained on mine, and my hands held on to his shoulders as his fingers drove me to the edge of ecstasy.
Then he removed his hands, almost driving me crazy with want as he licked his fingers lazily with his eyes on mine.
I was about to voice my protest when he lifted me slightly, pressing my entrance with his cock. Then he slid me down, entering my pussy and making us both moan in pleasure.
I started to move over him, the fullness of him reaching depths it had never reached. His mouth was everywhere, closing over my nipples, nibbling my neck, kissing my lips.
It felt like anchoring, like two people reminding each other, with everything except words, that they were both still here and choosing each other despite the situation.
Dmitri held me like he was trying to press the memory of my safety into his hands, watching my face throughout with an intensity that had stripped away every last trace of strategy or calculation.
I ground my hips into him without hesitation, driving us both to body-shuddering, back-scratching peaks.
“I trust you, Dmitri,” I breathed as my core tightened around him in preparation for the second orgasm.
He claimed my lips in a hungry kiss, holding me even tighter against his chest.
Afterward, we lay tangled together, my head resting against his chest where I could feel his heartbeat becoming steady and calm.
For a while, the world outside disappeared entirely. No Vale. No retaliation plan waiting to unfold in the coming days. No fear about crowded lounges or the uncertainty of loving a man whose survival was never fully guaranteed.
It was just him. Just the warm, solid weight of his arms around me. The rhythm of his breathing slowly pulling me toward sleep despite everything still waiting.
For once, I didn’t think about danger at all.
I only thought about him.
“Promise me you’ll be careful,” I said.
“I promise to try.”
“That’s not—”
“I know, baby.”