Chapter 35 Ivan
IVAN
I lean back against the kitchen island, far away from the girls where I’ve just installed them with bowls of Lucky Charms and sliced banana at the table. I open the camera app on my phone and select Gabriella’s bathroom. She’ll be coming down soon, but I can watch the recorded footage.
Earlier, she shot out of my bed so fast, with a tell-tale blush I couldn’t ignore.
What did she dream about? With a wicked smile toying on my lips, I acknowledge I haven’t had enough of her yet.
I’ve had nothing of her this morning, and with the camera so neatly installed, I can dip into my obsession and see what I want to see.
The relevant camera’s footage opens on my phone screen, showing an empty bathroom. I rewind until I get her shape in the picture, go right to the moment she walks into the bathroom and starts to strip.
Yep, I’m that fucker. I watch as my future wife takes off her pajama shirt, revealing pert, perfect breasts with sweet, blush-pink nipples. Just the right size for a handful, and I can already hear her catching her breath as I squeeze and suck a hardened peak into my mouth.
The golden cross resting on her chest reminds me this is fucked-up and Hell is waiting. Good. I’m going there already so no point in changing my ways. I’m not going to be a good boy for anybody soon.
She bundles her thick tresses up into a messy concoction on her head, only accentuating the elegant lines of her cheekbones, her jaw, the graceful column of her neck.
I’m getting so hard that I turn my back to the girls, pressing my cock into the kitchen island. There’s no sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander here. Just a shit ton of jizz that will soak my pants if I don’t get off soon.
Next goes the pajama bottoms, and my breathing stalls.
Fuck. She is gorgeous. Smooth, unmarred skin, pure and rich as cream, with not a single mark on it.
Nothing of Randazzo, no circular tattoo marking ownership, if the information Yuri sourced tracks.
As she turns her back and steps into the shower, it’s all perfectly rounded butt, dimples just above, guiding my gaze to her shoulders, to the dip I want to lick and kiss from her neck to her shoulder as I come from behind, trace my hands over her hips, up her sides, and cup her breasts.
The way I placed the camera, I can see most of her, everything except her feet. She’s all virgin territory, and as she steps underneath the shower, she does a full turn to wet her body, leaving me with zero doubts.
Next, she angles her face right into the spray as her hands run over her hips, to her breasts, the rosy peaks, hard little pebbles now. Then she fists her one hand to her mouth as her other glides down with the run of the water to where dark curls triangle between her legs.
God, yes. She’s all woman. Not waxed or lasered to the point where she looks like a girl again.
I bet that is a conscious decision, and I approve.
Our spectacular age difference fucks with my head every now and again and seeing her like this gives me some assurance.
She might be young, but she’s all woman.
But this one…she craves release. I watch as her fingers slip between her legs, but they’re barely there for two seconds before she pulls back, drops her head forward to the wall, and just stands there.
It’s only from the shaking of her shoulders that I realize she’s crying.
Fuck.
My hard-on retreats as my heart pounds seeing her like this. Time ticks by, and it slowly sinks in that she’s taking a cold shower. There’s no steam filling the glass cubicle, fogging up my view.
I’m all for cold showers when life calls for it, but this feels like Gabriella is punishing herself—fuck, she’s crying—and it’s heartbreaking to watch.
Last night was too much, and the repercussions will ripple through to this morning, but I can’t hug her to me and tell her to stay put. The kids, work, everything.
Worst of all is I can’t take the stairs two at a time to get to her and pull her out of that shower and into my arms to comfort her.
Help her…show her that what she’s experienced isn’t how it is.
I can’t drop to my knees, splay her open with a leg over my shoulder, and kiss her, lick and suck her until she comes, her hands clinging to my hair, dripping cold water all over me.
This is fucking madness.
I swipe to close the app on my phone, put it down on the counter, and drag my fingers through my hair. She isn’t going to get off while I watch her like the fucking stalker I am, because she’s a good Catholic girl and doesn’t do that type of thing, or?
There are so many reasons, so many layers to this woman, and I can’t just tear through them. On the other hand, every day waited is a day wasted.
“Pakhan.”
Yuri’s footsteps sound behind me, and I suppress a groan.
“Yes?” I hate the intrusion, but already, Irisha and Katya are making a mess behind my back, and I need my thoughts channeled away from Gabriella. “Morning.”
“Morning.”
He comes around to me, and I nod toward the coffee machine when I spot the brown envelope in his hand. Letter-sized. Blank. No label. Slightly wet as if it lay in the dew.
“Another drone-drop this morning.”
Fuck. It’s unopened, but our security team would have subjected it to standard protocol tests for poison before sending it my way. “It’s clean?”
“Yup.”
Of course it’s fucking clean. It’s extortion, not assassination. I take it from him and place it on the counter next to my phone. I can’t deal with this shit right now.
Yuri’s gaze jumps over my shoulder, and I curse my life as I hear my sister’s footsteps.
“What’s this?” Milana’s soft voice cuts through the silence.
I close my eyes, suppressing another groan. Should have stayed in bed this morning. Even better, should have gotten into it with Gabriella and the girls and cuddled.
But this… For weeks, I would have given anything for Milana to stroll into the kitchen at this time of the morning as she used to, getting coffee before she warms up at the piano.
More than an hour of scales, arpeggios, octaves, drills, and everything else she does.
Breakfast. Two hours of practice, polishing difficult passages. Lunch. Walk. Repeat. More coffee.
Now all I want is for her to leave. I place my hand over the envelope, already knowing what it is, wanting to protect her.
“Ivan?” she asks as she comes up to the kitchen island, eyes on the envelope.
I take it off the counter and glance at her. She looks better. Probably had a good night’s rest for the first time in months. Thanks to Gabriella. “It’s nothing.”
“And yet, every time there’s one of these that’s never for me, everybody goes around as if I’ve drowned a litter of kittens.”
Yuri raises his hands in the classic I-give-up gesture, walks over to the coffee machine, and starts making a cup. “You can’t hide it from her forever, Pakhan.”
With one word, he’s put me in that godawful position. The one where she is no longer my sister to protect, but a woman in the Bratva—one that’s been causing trouble. Trouble I need to deal with.
Ice-blue eyes meet ice-blue eyes in a dare as Milana reaches for the envelope in my hand and tugs.
I let go. Let her have a look. At erotic photos of her, taken by who knows, that some fucker has been dropping via drones lately into our property.
No longer just by the gate. It took us a hot minute to figure this out and now the fuckers are getting cocky.
“Thank you,” she says as she turns away from me, already ripping at the envelope.
I rub at my eyes and drag my hand down my face with a sigh, waiting for her reaction.
She knew about the photos I got the hacker to scrub off the internet, but this… I’ve been able to protect her from this since the first fucking envelope. Now I feel like a failure. I don’t know who sends the shit, or what to do about it, or even worse, what the fuck do they want?
Gabriella, gorgeous, beautiful, sweet Gabriella, chooses this moment to walk into the room. She homes in on the girls, who have been left to their own devices with the Lucky Charms. “Oh, gosh, girls, what a party!”
I only notice now that Irisha tried to pour more into her bowl, but something went wrong, and the entire contents of the box is overflowing from her bowl onto the table.
Milana shoots the spectacle a quick glance, but she has the envelope open now and she pulls out a photo. She freezes, the photo only out halfway. I can’t see what’s printed on it, but I don’t care to. I’ve had my fill. She pulls out another, also only halfway, and now she’s visibly quivering.
“Milana—” I start, reliving the same shock I had when I first saw these photos. I thought we’d put all this shit behind us.
She looks up at me. Our gazes clash, tears flowing down her cheeks, eyes wide in horror.
“Have you seen these?” she asks on a strangled sob. “Who else has seen these?”
“That envelope? Nobody but you. But there have been others.”
She snatches in a desperate breath. “Others? How many?”
“Three. All the same photos we got the hacker to remove—” I start, stepping up to her.
“No, no-no-no,” she says as she steps away from me, holding her hand up, clutching the envelope to her chest. “No! NO!”
She looks like she’s going to collapse, but Gabriella is suddenly beside her, and Milana doesn’t ward her off like she wards me and Yuri off.
One of the girls starts crying.
Gabriella meets my gaze as Milana shoves her face into her shoulder. She wraps her arms around my sister, literally holding her up.
“Please, help her,” I desperately mouth to Gabriella, not knowing what else to do.
Milana needs help. She doesn’t want mine.
“I’ve got this,” I add, waving to where Irisha and Katya are now sitting frozen at the table, with toppled milk dripping onto the floor, taking Lucky Charms with it like doomed canoes heading for a waterfall.
Gabriella nods.
“Come, Milana,” she says softly, calmly, as if she’s dealt with women in crisis all her life.
It hits me then this convent girl has wisdom despite her age, that she’s lived through so much, and that despite all her issues, she’s strong for others when everybody else is failing. She’s calm in a crisis. She does what needs to be done. She’s level-headed and in control.
Until she isn’t, and then she’ll lean on me.
She’s everything I could ever need.
She is my godsend, even if just to help my sister out of this fog she’s lost in.