Chapter 14 Ilya
ILYA
My penthouse is silent when I return, the only sound the whisper of the elevator doors closing behind me.
I shrug off my coat and drop it on the nearest chair, my blood still burning from the kiss.
My hands are steady as I pour myself vodka, but my mind is anything but calm.
I hesitate before taking a sip, then set the glass back down.
I don’t want to wash away the taste of her just yet.
She’s still so fucking sweet on my tongue, the taste of her mouth making me ache to find out what the rest of her would be like under my mouth.
I can still feel the way her body responded to mine, the way her fingers curled into my coat, the way she kissed me back before fear made her push away.
That moment of surrender, brief as it was, told me everything I needed to know.
She wants this. She wants me. She's just too afraid to admit it yet.
I’m aching, so hard it hurts, my erection refusing to abate. I’ve been hard since the moment I set eyes on her in the flesh again, and I feel desperate for a release, but not from my own hand. Not right now. Not yet.
I carry my vodka to the windows, looking out over the city. My gaze snaps back to her apartment as the lights start to come on, and I see her walking through her living room.
My cock throbs, and I reach down, adjusting myself with a rough groan.
She knows now. Knows my name, knows my face, knows that the man from Boston and the stalker who's been sending her gifts are the same person.
She can't unknow it, can't pretend anymore that this is just some anonymous admirer she can ignore.
I'm real now. Undeniable.
I take a sip of vodka finally, feeling the cold burn of it down my throat, and I wonder if I should feel regret—feel guilty for scaring her, for cornering her outside her gallery.
But I don't feel guilty. I feel satisfied.
She finally knows I exist. She finally understands that someone sees her, wants her… will do anything to have her. And more importantly, she finally had to confront the truth she's been avoiding: that she wants me too.
She can lie to herself all she wants. But she can't lie to me.
I’m sure she’s thinking about running right now, considering if there’s anywhere she could go that I wouldn’t find her.
I’m sure going to the police again has crossed her mind, that she’s wondered if they might take her more seriously now.
They won’t, of course, I’ve made sure of that.
But I do wonder what her next move will be.
I watch her go into her kitchen and emerge with a bowl in her hands.
I watch her set it down on the coffee table and leave it there, staring at it as if there’s answers there she can somehow parse out.
And then she drops her face into her hands.
I can see her shoulders shaking slightly, and I realize she's crying.
My chest tightens, an uncomfortable, unfamiliar sensation that I don’t want to think about too hard.
I don't want her to cry. Don't want her to be afraid or hurt or traumatized by what I've done. I want her to understand why. That I’m protecting her, claiming her, ensuring that she will be desired and wanted and known as deeply as she could have ever dreamed of. That lesser men will never touch her again. That she’ll be treated as the treasure she deserves to be.
The fear is a part of that understanding, I think. Part of breaking down her resistance, part of making her understand that fighting me is useless. She needs to be afraid before she can surrender, to understand what I'm capable of before she can accept what I am.
She stands finally and moves to her bathroom. She’s gone for a long time, and when she comes out, wrapped in a familiar white towel, my body tightens with a pavlovian response, pre-cum leaking down my shaft as my cock jerks with an urgency that warns me how badly I’m in need of release.
Even from this distance, I can see how tired she looks. She needs someone to take care of her, I think, tossing back the last of the vodka and setting my glass aside. She needs me.
She looks toward the window, her hand tightening on the towel. She stands there for a long moment, and I wonder if she’s guessing that I’m watching her. That she’s finally piecing together the vantage point I’ve enjoyed up until now.
I watch, my cock throbbing and my body knotting with dread as she walks to her dresser, yanks out clothing, and disappears into her bathroom.
When she comes back, she's wearing pajamas—soft cotton pants and a tank top.
I watch her climb into bed, pulling the covers up to her chin.
She doesn't turn off the light immediately.
Instead, she lies there staring at the ceiling, and I wonder what she's thinking.
Is she replaying the kiss the way I am? Is she trying to understand why she kissed me back?
Is she planning to run, to go to the police, to do something to escape this?
Or is she accepting the inevitability of what's happening between us?
She reaches for her phone on the nightstand, and for a moment I tense, wondering if she's going to call someone.
But she just looks at the screen for a moment, then sets it back down.
She's alone with this. Alone with the knowledge of who I am and what I've done.
Alone with the memory of that kiss and the confusion of her own response to it.
Good. I want her alone. Want her to have no one to turn to, no one to help her make sense of this except me. My jaw tightens, and I watch her with a building ache at the base of my spine, knowing that I’ll get no release tonight. That she’s going to deny me that, after the way she kissed me today.
I’m so hard it hurts, but I don’t touch myself. If she won’t give me her pleasure tonight, then I won’t take my own, unless my own body betrays me again in my sleep. That, I have no control over, especially not when I’m caught in this state of near-constant need.
She turns off the light finally, and the room goes dark except for the ambient glow from the city outside her window. I can imagine her lying there, curled on her side, one hand tucked under her pillow.
But this time is different. This time she knows I exist. This time she's lying there thinking about me, probably unable to sleep because her mind is racing with questions and fears and unwanted desires.
This time, I'm not just a shadow in her apartment. I'm real.
I watch her for a long time, my own body tense with need. I want to be there with her. I want to climb into that bed and pull her against me, to make her understand that she's safe with me, that I'll protect her from everything except myself.
I’m still watching the dark window of her bedroom when I hear the front door of the penthouse open. I don't turn around. There's only one person with access to my penthouse besides me, and I've been expecting him.
"You're back," Kazimir says, his voice carefully neutral. "How did it go?"
I pause for a moment. "She knows who I am now."
"I assumed as much." He moves into my peripheral vision, standing a respectful distance away. "And?"
“And now I wait to decide how to bring her here.”
Kazimir is quiet for a moment. "Sergei Kima has been making inquiries."
That makes me tense for an entirely different reason. "What kind of inquiries?"
"About you. About why you've been spending so much time in New York." Kazimir pulls out his phone and shows me a message. "I heard from one of our contacts here. Sergei is asking questions. Why is Sorokov in my territory so often? Is he planning something? Is he making moves I should know about?"
My jaw tightens, the muscle in it ticking.
I knew this was a possibility. Sergei is the pakhan of the most powerful Bratva in New York, and we’ve had an uneasy coexistence for years—I stay mostly in Boston and Moscow, he stays in New York.
He doesn’t encroach on my territory, and I don’t set foot in his.
But Sergei is ambitious. He’s younger than me by five years, hungry for power, and always looking for opportunities to expand his territory and influence. And he's ruthless enough to exploit any weakness he perceives.
"How much does he know?"
"Not much, from what we can tell. Just that you've been here for longer than in the past, and that you’ve rented property here. He’s on guard. I’m not sure how much he knows about Mara.”
The sound of her name makes my teeth grind together. “If that fuck lays so much as a finger on her…”
“He’ll lose it. I know.” Kazimir sounds tired, more so than usual, and once again I know that should make me reflect on what I’m doing here.
But my mind is consumed with Mara, with the kiss, with the feeling of her body and her hands pulling mine against her.
The need I felt in her, and how I can exploit it to make her mine entirely sooner rather than later.
There’s no room in it for other problems right now, for Svetlana and Sergei and the business that has occupied me for years upon years now. That in and of itself is a problem, but that fact only pings in the corners of my mind, searching for a place to land and not finding one.
Kazimir pockets his phone. "If he thinks you're planning to move into his territory, to challenge his control of New York operations, he'll strike first. And if he thinks you're distracted, weak, focused on something other than business, he'll see it as an opportunity to take what's yours."
I move back to the windows, looking out at the city. Sergei's city, technically. His territory.
"What do you think?" I ask finally.
Kazimir lets out a sharp breath, and I can feel him tensing from across the room. I know I’ve asked him a loaded question.
“I want an answer,” I say after a moment. “The truth. I won’t punish you for it.”
He exhales again, more slowly this time.
“ I think you should go back to Boston. Let things cool down. Stop giving Sergei reasons to ask questions." Kazimir moves to stand beside me. "You can’t afford a war right now, Ilya. Especially one that you can’t be certain you’ll win.
And with your engagement to Svetlana up in the air—”
His voice tightens, and he doesn't finish the sentence.
He doesn't need to. I can see the scenario clearly enough: a powerful Bratva organization with allies who could come at me from different directions, testing my territories, intercepting my shipments, targeting my people.
A war that could destroy everything I've built.
And a marriage that I have no intention of going through with, to a woman who was meant to strengthen me financially.
"You want me to leave.”
“I want you to be the man you are. Smart.
Strategic. The way you've always been." Kazimir's voice is careful.
"This woman—Mara—she's making you reckless.
You're close to breaking a promise to a wealthy man who could finance other organizations against you.
You've committed violence that's drawing attention.
You've spent all this time in New York when you should be in Boston or Moscow managing your actual business. And now Sergei is noticing."
I blow out a sharp breath through my nose. "I'm aware of the risks."
"Are you? Because from where I'm standing, it looks like you're willing to burn down everything you've built for a woman who's terrified of you."
It’s probably the most honest he’s ever been with me. And it’s true. I am willing to burn it all down. I have been since the moment I saw Mara.
Kazimir is silent for a long moment. When he speaks again, his voice is quieter. " Ilya, you need to think about what you're risking. Not just for yourself, but for everyone who depends on you. Your people, your organization, the stability you've spent years building. Is she worth all of that?"
I think about Mara sleeping in her apartment across the street. The way she looked at me in Boston, the way she kissed me tonight, the darkness in her that calls to the darkness in me.
"Yes," I say simply. "She is."
Kazimir sighs. "Then you need to be smarter about this. You can't just keep escalating, drawing attention, giving your enemies ammunition to use against you. You need a plan."
That muscle ticks in my jaw again. "I have a plan."
"What plan?" He snorts, and I glare at him, a warning not to push the grace of speaking freely too far.
"I'm going to make her mine. Completely. Irrevocably. And then I'm going to deal with Svetlana and Sergei and anyone else who thinks they can challenge me." I turn to face him. "In that order."
Kazimir raises an eyebrow. "That's not a plan. That's a suicide mission."
"Maybe." I move past him toward the stairs that lead up to my bedroom. "But I've never been good at doing things the safe way."
—
After Kazimir leaves—still disapproving but loyal and smart enough not to argue further—I pour myself another vodka and sit in the dark, thinking.
The situation is more complicated than I'd like. Sergei's attention is dangerous. He's not just angry or insulted, things I could smooth over if that were the case. He's calculating, looking for opportunities, trying to figure out if I'm a threat.
I’m not—not to his territory, anyway. But I can’t stop him from seeing me as one, because I'm in his city, spending time here, establishing a presence that could be the precursor to a territorial challenge.
And worse still, I'm a potential target, because I'm distracted, focused on a woman instead of business, showing weakness that he could exploit.
Any rational person would see the danger and adjust accordingly. But I can’t be rational when it comes to her.
She's mine.
And I always get what's mine.