Chapter 11 #2
I shrug. "They tried to keep me from leaving based on their own baseless suspicions. I defended myself."
Ilya sucks lightly at his teeth. "And the mission?"
“Not as fruitful as I know you had hoped,” I tell him regretfully, which isn’t difficult. I do regret pretty much everything about the way that situation went down… except for saving Svetlana. I can’t bring myself to regret that.
I can’t bring myself to regret fucking her, either.
Don’t think about that. The slightest hint of that memory makes my cock twitch, threatening to distract me and give me an entirely inappropriate reaction to the conversation we’re having right now.
Ilya studies me for a long moment, his pale eyes sharp and assessing. "Walk me through it," he says. "From the beginning."
I nod sharply, leaning back in my chair and keeping my body language open. Unconcerned. "I arrived at the compound as planned. Iosef was welcoming enough at first. We had dinner, discussed terms. They talked a lot about their businesses, their connections. He was showing off for me.”
"Showing off how?" Ilya’s mouth is tight.
“Expensive vodka, cigars, women. He bragged a lot about the women, which is how I learned about their trafficking on the side.”
Ilya nods slowly. “And the violence started off because?”
I draw in a slow breath. “I don’t think I was as appreciative of the women as Iosef would have liked.
They had one kept in their cells under the compound, apparently.
She got out. Iosef thought I had something to do with it, that you’d sent me to undermine him.
Things got out of hand quickly, as they do when men like that have been drinking.
” I shrug. “I tried to de-escalate, but I defended myself when it became clear that he wasn’t going to listen to reason.
It spilled out into the compound. Some of them chased me into the woods. "
Ilya’s jaw twitches. "And you killed them all there?"
"Most of them. A few I took out on my way back to the vehicle."
"Impressive. And you didn't think to call for backup?"
"No signal. The storm was interfering with communications."
Ilya nods. “So that’s why you were radio silent for what… two days?”
“I called as soon as I got to a safe house where I could get a signal and call for an extraction.” I also paid the men who got us out handsomely, along with various unsubtle threats, to ensure that they wouldn’t share who else was with me, and got on that plane. But that’s going to my grave with me.
Hopefully, I’m not digging it right now.
“It’s a shame to lose a business partner that had such promise.
” Ilya cracks his neck, standing up and walking toward the window.
“But if he was trafficking women, then I would have had no interest in continuing to work with Iosef, anyway. So good riddance, as far as I’m concerned.
” He looks back at me. “I’m glad you made it back in one piece.
I would have been pissed if men like that took out my best man. ”
His mouth twitches with a hint of amusement at the double meaning—not only have I been his right hand for a long time now, but I was also the best man at his wedding to Mara.
“It would take more than that to get rid of me.” I manage an answering chuckle, and Ilya looks back out at the setting sun beyond the large windows of the office.
"You know, I've been thinking about Svetlana lately."
Every muscle in my body wants to tense. I don't let them.
"Yeah?" I keep my tone neutral.
"I should have protected her better." He's still looking at that distant point. "When everything happened in that warehouse, I should have… I don't know. Done something different."
"You did what you had to do.” I shrug again. “Mara was your focus. You couldn’t help it. And she got away safely because you put an end to Sergei. You did enough.”
The lie comes easily enough, partially because it’s not Ilya I blame for what happened next to Svetlana.
I don’t know how she got from Sergei’s place to a cell in a Russian compound, and I’m sure if we’d known more, Ilya could have stopped it…
but the truth of the matter is that, that day, I wanted to go to her.
I wanted to help her, to ensure she was safe after she left that warehouse.
I should have told Ilya no when he told me to stand down. I should have done something. Instead, I obeyed thoughtlessly, and now…
Now I’ll never be able to forget what I saw in that cell.
"Did I?" He shoves his hands into his pockets. "Sometimes I wonder. She was going to be my wife, Kazimir. And I just… told her to leave. I didn’t think twice about her. Mara wasn’t pleased with how I treated her, I can tell you that."
For a moment, I almost tell him the truth.
That someone got to Svetlana afterward. That she was sold, trafficked, that our failure to help her brought about something much worse than what Sergei would have done to her in that warehouse.
But that would mean admitting that I’ve been lying to Ilya since I called in the extraction.
That I helped her. Maybe even that I fucked her.
I’ve always thought I wasn’t afraid of anything. But I feel like a fucking coward when the next words come out of my mouth.
“There’s nothing you can do about it now.”
That’s a lie, too. Ilya could do plenty. He could give her money, protection, find out who did this to her and see to it that those lives are ended and Svetlana is safe. But if I tell him…
If I tell him, that might mean my life. And a small, guilty part of me knows that it’s more than that, too.
A truth surfaces that I didn’t want to admit until now… that I still don’t want to admit.
I don’t want Ilya to save her. I want to be the one to find out who hurt her. I want to make them bleed.
I want to protect her. Me. Not the man who doesn’t want her any longer, and never really did in the first place.
Ilya comes back to the desk, and we talk a little more about business and what to do next. By the time I’m excused, I’m exhausted, and I fall into bed after tossing back a couple shots of vodka, hoping for a dreamless sleep.
I’m not so lucky.
My dreams are full of her. I wake in the morning hard and aching, head foggy, without any of the clarity that I hoped for. My hand is on my cock before I’ve barely even woken up, sliding over the straining flesh as I cling to the last heated scraps of my dreams.
I'm already leaking, already desperate. I shouldn't do this—shouldn't feed the obsession.
But I can’t fucking stop.
I remember watching her dry off after her bath. The way she'd stood there in just that shirt, the fabric clinging to her damp skin. The top buttons undone, showing the curve of her breasts. The hem barely covering her ass.
I'd wanted to cross that room and take her right there, push her against the wall, and fuck her until she forgot her own name.
My cock throbs in my hand. I'm gripping myself too hard, but I can't seem to ease up. The pressure feels good, just on the edge of pain, a punishment as well as the pleasure I’m panting for.
That must be what she felt when I spanked her.
When her ass turned pink under my palm, when she gasped and arched and pushed back for more.
I remember the moment I'd slid my hand between her legs and found her wet. So fucking wet. The way she'd moaned when I'd touched her clit. The way her whole body had trembled.
My hand speeds up. I'm breathing hard now, my hips starting to move, fucking up into my fist. I remember licking that vodka away from her mouth, tasting her skin, how hot and wet she felt against my cock… the way she'd looked at me—challenging me, daring me to take what I wanted.
I remember pushing inside her for the first time.
The tight, wet heat of her. The way she'd gasped and arched and taken me deeper.
My hips jerk up into my fist. I'm close already, wound too tight, too desperate, and I let it go, because I should be trying to exorcise this, trying to rid myself of a desire that only ends in blood… my blood.
But as I spurt over my fist, groaning her name into the early morning light as I wish to fucking God I was thrusting into her instead of my hand, I know there’s no getting rid of this.
Once wasn’t enough.
I need to find her. I need to find out where she is, and I need to have her again. Just once more, maybe. In a bed, in a place where we’re not running for our lives, somewhere I can take my time with her.
Maybe that will be enough.
I know I need to let this go. But I’ve wanted her for so fucking long, and for the first time, she’s here, within my grasp, and she belongs to no one else.
She’s free.
And she could be mine.
If I’m willing to risk everything for one more chance.