Chapter 25 Dimitri
DIMITRI
I’d woken early this morning after a fitful night’s sleep.
After spending five minutes pacing outside Sienna’s bedroom door, trying to decide if I should knock, I’d stormed out of the house to inspect the security at one of my warehouses.
Once we started getting shipments in through Boston and New York, we would need a larger fulfillment warehouse.
Now I was back home and couldn’t put off this conversation, but Sienna was nowhere to be found.
The guards said she’d headed into the woods an hour ago.
The fucking woods.
By herself.
Leonid’s bruised jaw should serve as a reminder not to let my wife go wandering off without a guard.
I stormed through the back door, determined to track down my wife, just to find her walking towards me down the garden path. The tension in my chest didn’t ease, though, because beside her was my fucking wolf.
The hair stood up on the back of my neck and my jaw clenched as I approached them, tamping down the urge to shout. I couldn’t risk startling Vovk, who was nudging her stomach with his nose. Panic shot through me, sharp and unfamiliar.
“Vovk, pridi,” I said firmly but evenly.
Vovk lazily turned his head to look at me. I waited, expecting him to trot to my side, but he stayed where he was, urging Sienna to keep petting his ears.
“Wait, you two know each other?” she asked.
My jaw ached. “Yes,” I said through gritted teeth. “Vovk, pridi.”
“Ooohh. Well, this is embarrassing. When I saw him in the woods, I thought he was a wolf, but it makes so much more sense that he’s your dog. Is that his name? Vovk?”
My jaw clenched so tight I would be lucky to have any molars left after this interaction. “Yes. It means wolf in Ukrainian, because that’s what he is. He is dangerous.”
Sienna’s fingers froze, hovering over Vovk’s ear. He let out another little rumble and bumped his head against her stomach.
My hand moved to the gun holstered at my side, heart pounding.
Then she laughed. “You need all the attention today, don’t you? I understand that.” She redoubled her efforts, scratching his ears. His tail wagged. Fucking wagged. I had rescued him, brought him back from the brink of death, kept him with me all these years, and had never seen his tail wag.
“But he’s really a wolf? That’s amazing.” Sienna tilted her head back, her deep brown eyes peering up at me.
I grunted. “He was supposed to be used in a breeding program for wolf dogs, but he was injured as a pup and abandoned.”
“Did you rescue him?”
I stared at Vovk’s lolling tongue while he preened under Sienna’s touch. “I thought he could be useful to me.”
She pursed her lips like she knew I was full of shit. “Well, I’m sure he has been. Where does he sleep?”
“He lives outside. He doesn’t like people.”
Vovk chose that moment to lick Sienna’s hand. What the fuck?
“We need to talk.” I jerked my head at the house.
The smile fell off her lips, and she gave me a tiny nod.
I turned away and stalked back inside. This house already felt suffocating, but now it felt even more claustrophobic, and it was all because of her.
She’d been here less than twenty-four hours and signs of her were all over the house.
A coffee cup abandoned on the dining room table.
A single sock in the middle of the hallway.
The scent of her vanilla shampoo lingering in the air. It was all too much.
Sienna followed me inside, Vovk in tow.
I let out a curse. “No. He lives outside. He’s a wild animal with unpredictable behavior.”
She would not win this one. Vovk had spent the last three years at the Russian compound with me, but he had never shown the slightest interest in coming inside.
He roamed the frost-covered grounds, returning every few days.
I’d considered leaving him there, but I had no idea what they might do to him at the compound without me there, so I brought him with me to Chicago.
He was too used to people—and the supplemental food I gave him—to live in the wild, but this behavior was wholly unexpected. He was acting like a domestic pet.
I opened the patio door and commanded Vovk to leave. He leveled his yellow eyes at me and cocked his head like he’d never heard Russian before.
“Wolves are not good companions or guard dogs,” I continued. “They’re skittish and only look out for themselves.” Not that I should have to explain myself in my own home.
“I don’t need him to guard me,” Sienna said, fire flashing in her eyes with the imperious expression of someone who had grown up getting everything she wanted. I withheld a groan. Mila often had the same look these days. “If you don’t want him in the house, you’ll have to get him to leave.”
I sucked in a long breath. The longer I remained in her presence, the more this tiny woman in front of me eroded my control. I snapped my fingers at Vovk, who huffed before slowly, slowly making his way outside. I closed the door behind him and turned back to my wife, my crossed arms matching hers.
“I need to ensure you understand the rules here. All of your movements will be monitored, including any use of electronics. If you do anything to jeopardize my operations, which includes communicating any Bratva intel to your brother, you will regret it.”
“God, you’re paranoid,” she said, chin raised. “What operations would I even jeopardize?”
Rage burst through me, white-hot and all-consuming.
I closed the space between us. “What you call paranoia, I call survival. Not all of us have lived pampered, sheltered lives. You might be used to getting whatever you want, but in this house, I’m in charge.
And if you do anything to harm me, my staff, my family, or Bratva operations, it won’t fucking matter that you’re carrying my child. Have I made myself clear?”
She swallowed hard, her eyes wide with a flash of fear. But then her lip curled in disgust and she shoved my chest.
“You might be used to ordering everyone around, but I am not in this house as your prisoner or slave. I am your wife, which makes me a queen, and I will be treated accordingly.”
Something about the hard set of her jaw and her haughty tone made desire burn through my body.
I fisted my hands to stop myself from bending her over the kitchen counter and fucking her until she screamed her pleasure.
Although, maybe that would make her more compliant.
She had become softer and sweeter in Paris after each time we fucked.
“In the Bratva, loyalty is earned.”
Her lips curled with a smirk. “Then you had better earn it.”
The fucking brat. I snarled as I stepped forward. My hand went to her jaw, gripping it in my tight hold. “This is not a game.”
She didn’t break eye contact as she trailed her fingers up my forearm, her touch sending sparks of electricity through each of my limbs. When she reached my hand, she lifted my thumb from her cheek and took it in her mouth, sucking hard.
My cock strained against my pants, and my mind grew clouded with arousal. I wound my fingers through her hair and pressed my thumb deeper into her hot mouth.
“Have you missed me, malyshka? Have you laid in bed at night, soaking and needy for my touch?”
The same heat I felt reflected itself in her face. She sucked harder.
A sound at the front door snapped me back to reality. I ripped my hands from her and stepped back, breathing hard.
“Remember what I said. I do not give second chances.”