Chapter 33 Ivan
IVAN
Fuck.
Those lips were so sweet, her body so hungry, her trust so complete, that walking out of my own bedroom was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
Leaving Gabriella standing, ripe and ready for more, breathlessly anticipating what would happen next, isn’t just control, it’s strategy: I don’t only want her needy for me, I want her willing, eager and needy, dripping wet with desire by the time I make her mine.
I’ll make it so fucking good for her, she’ll beg for more.
She’s going to want me of her own accord and not only because it’s part of the marriage contract.
I pause, my hand still on the gate where I’ve just locked it, a barrier between me and her. Thank fuck for that, because my cock is pulsing with my need for release. What’s sauce for the goose, is sauce for the gander. I won’t get off until it’s with my wife.
Everything she’s disclosed tonight hits me in the gut again. It’s so easy to overpower a woman and force her, but that’s never been a game plan for me or any of the men in my employ. If you want to be culled, fuck with women in this way.
Fact is, Gabriella will always have fears around sex until someone takes time with her, shows her how it should be.
She might not have been abused and raped, but I bet whatever she witnessed in that cellar haunts her.
Nightmares I can only reverse her out of by showing her the exact opposite of what she’s experienced.
I can take my time—I want to take my time—and treasure her innocence.
Isn’t it supposedly a gift to a husband?
I wouldn’t know. The first time round, there was nothing new for either of us.
I want—no, I need this to work. This marriage. This new alliance with Il Consiglio. Her happiness is key to my long-term plans.
Already, this is more than I’ve ever had with my first wife, and it’s a great start. Gabriella’s attracted to me, and I had to physically separate myself from her not to haul her over my shoulder, carry her to the massive bed in her room like a caveman, and fuck her into the next dimension.
What is it with her? I have no clue. Probably the fact that she’s available, she is in my house, she’s fucking gorgeous, and I know my end game. She doesn’t.
Time to give her Don a call. Let Matteo Scalera mentally prepare for a weekend wedding. I bet all her brothers would love to be in attendance to give their new-found little sister away.
But first, I have other plans. I make a quick inspection of her bathroom, make a mental list of what I need, where I’ll place the camera without having to drill at this time of night, then head down to my office, nodding at the security in place along the way.
I still have some extra equipment on hand from the camera installations Yuri and I made to surveil key parts of the house’s interior after we blew up the original security system on the Fourth of July.
Basic stuff you can buy at any security store, small spyware for the home.
Yep, I’m that fucker. And I’m going to install one in her bathroom because I need to see more. I need to be sure.
Fuck. I don’t know what I’m looking for, but if Randazzo was in the picture as her ‘dad,’ he could have left his mark one way or another to prove ownership. It’s not as if I haven’t encountered this shit before, and this is the Mafia.
By the time I’ve done the nasty, because who the fuck spies on their future wife—oh, yes, the fucker who unwittingly married a drug addict the first time round and let her almost get away with fucking murder—it’s almost three in the morning. Never mind, I can function on three hours of sleep.
As I pad out of her bedroom, my gaze snags on the two books on her bedside table.
I switch on the night lamp and pick up her beautifully illustrated fairy tale, reminding myself again how I promised to get her everything she needs to paint more illustrations.
I have no right to let such talent go to waste.
This is the States and we can look into publishing some of her books.
Dragons and fairies are always a hot topic here.
Her Bible’s gold-embossed cover page blinks in the light, and I swap books.
The contradiction of the two is almost comical.
The one all fantasy, mythical, magic, where agency is in the individual; the other all morals, commandments, eternal consequences rooted in the fear of God and Hell.
It’s two worlds, but with overlapping themes—lessons in Good versus Evil, and it’s as if my future wife is straddling both.
The old Italian Bible is heavy in my hand, a beautiful edition with delicate paper, gold-foiled edges, thumbed through thousands of times.
As I flip through it, my gaze catches the odd highlighted word.
I pause, swipe through it slower. It’s just words, in different colors, random, with no sense to them.
Weird. I flip to the first pages, reading the edition number, the year it was printed in, and thumb to the title page.
A chill crawls down my spine as I read the lines I don’t understand. There are only a few words that make sense to me: Bianca, the person who this Bible belonged to, signed by Emilio Randazzo, probably as a gift.
Gabriella’s mom. This was her Bible. Maybe the only two things Gabriella has from her mother is the delicate golden cross she clutches when she prays, the first and last gift from the woman who birthed her, and this book, the last connection to the man who owned her.
But both were her mother’s, and I bet she treasures them just like we all treasure things from people who loved us, even if we didn’t have a chance to love them back.
I carefully place both books back on the nightstand and switch off the light.
As I make my way to my room, I try to shake a new feeling of unease.
During Gabriella’s panic attack, I managed to ground her back to herself—to me, and the present—but there’re still parts of this woman I don’t know, and I don’t have time before our wedding to tease all her secrets out of her.
If only I could speed things up.
As I spot the three precious bodies in my bed, I pause.
Katya’s curls peek out from under the covers, Irisha is already on top of the duvet again, and Gabriella is fast asleep next to her.
My soul softens at this beautiful picture.
Irisha has curled into Gabriella, who has tucked her little body close, protective even in sleep.
They are cuddling like a mom and daughter in a way the girl’s real mother never did with either of them.
Seeing this fucking breaks my heart and heals it at the same time.
Now all I want to do is slow down time. Build on this dream with a strong foundation in place and gain back what I lost during my separation from the girls, only now with Gabriella added to the dream.
I want to make a new life with a woman who knows, who has experienced first-hand, the fate of a Don’s or Pakhan’s daughters caught on the wrong side of a crime ring that’s into human and sex trafficking.
I’ll slow down everything so I could, at leisure, kill with my bare hands—or with the cunning and the brains of a master chess player as I’ve done before—any man or woman who threatens to hurt those I love.