Chapter 15
Dominik
Another knock comes an hour later, brisk, businesslike. Definitely not Alina returning with pills, water, or food for me.
Viktor steps inside only after I answer.
His expression is stony, but I catch the flicker of relief when he sees me upright.
“Boss,” he says, then pauses as if he wants to comment on things that will get him a month of outside guard duty.
He knows what Alina is to me, certainly more than a hostage.
He also knows what she’s becoming: the reason my brother tried to push me and the reason I bled yesterday.
“Give me an update,” I say.
He lays it out clean. Every man on the street knows what happened with the bikers, and they’re already spinning it.
The Morozov underboss bled, the Pakhan’s brother, so maybe the Bratva’s control is slipping.
Rumors spread faster than bullets in this city, and if I don’t crush them, they’ll bloom into weeds that threaten everything we’ve built.
“Do we know the numbers for the bikers?” I ask.
“Three are confirmed dead. One badly injured. The rest scattered. They won’t stay quiet for long.”
“They’ll wish they had,” I mutter.
We discuss our next steps until Alina walks into the room without knocking.
“Oh. Sorry,” she says when she sees Viktor, whose mouth is gaping at her audacity.
“He was just leaving,” I tell her.
Viktor exits with his orders while I study Alina. She fidgets under my gaze, shifting from one foot to the other, and finally blurts out, “You’re not going to find Archer…are you?”
My jaw tightens. “I’ll find him.”
“And you’ll try to keep him alive when you find him?” she presses, her voice trembling just enough to betray her.
My answer isn’t the one she wants. “That’s up to him now,” I say, deliberately slow and cruel because she needs to understand the stakes. “And it depends on whether or not he gives me a good reason to keep him breathing.”
Her lips part, eyes wide, horrified. She takes a step closer, then stops herself like she’s testing how far she can push me. “You promised me.”
“We agreed on the terms, yes. He would give back what he stole, you would spend a week with me, and he would get to live. He didn’t hold up his end of the bargain, did he?”
She flinches, but her chin lifts. “So, I have to give up my freedom now because he chose his own?”
The pain is making me moodier than usual. I hate feeling weak, looking weak in front of my men or her.
I stand, ignoring the pull of stitches, and cross the room.
Alina backs up, one step, then another, until her spine meets the wall.
I cage her there without touching her. Her breath hitches, quick, shallow.
Her fear is real, but so is the spark underneath it.
I can see it in the way her pupils dilate, in the way her lips part like she wants to argue but can’t decide if it’s safer to speak or to stay silent.
“You and I have a deal. One that you agreed to postpone after your brother got me shot and ran off, abandoning you.”
“Extended for how long? A week? Okay, fine. But what if that turns into two or more? This doesn’t feel…temporary anymore.”
“It’s not temporary,” I say quietly. “You’re mine now.”
That truth is one I didn’t mean to give her but couldn’t take back if I tried.
Alina’s pulse jumps in her throat, and I feel it like it’s under my own skin. She whispers, “You can’t keep saying that. You can’t just decide something like that without giving me a choice.”
I lean closer, brushing a strand of her hair back with deliberate slowness until my knuckles graze her cheek. She shivers, betraying herself. “You and I don’t need to decide anything, because it’s a simple truth.”
For a long moment, neither of us moves. The world narrows to her breath against my mouth, the faint tremor of her body, the way the heat between us turns into something dangerous.
I want to taste the defiance on her lips again, to claim her fear and her fire.
My restraint snaps and I act on the impulse, the one I’ve had since the moment I saw her.
I slam my mouth over hers, taking what I don’t deserve, but needing it all the same.
If this is a mistake, it’s the kind you make twice.
Alina doesn’t push me away, but she doesn’t kiss me back either.
Not at first. Not until my tongue strokes along hers.
With a whimper, she sinks a few inches down the wall, grabbing onto my neck with both hands as if to keep herself upright, just like she did the other night.
Finally, fucking finally, her lips move, and her tongue seeks mine out eagerly.
My hands grip her waist, my bigger, harder body pinning her to the wall.
She makes a gasping sound of surprise and concern when she feels how much I want her, like she isn’t sure if she can take all of me.
Then she rubs herself against me and moans like she’s desperate and wet enough to try and take every inch.
Those little noises are the sexiest things I’ve heard, telling me everything I need to know.
Alina wants me too.
But a second later, she’s shaking her head, breaking our kiss and urging me back from her by grasping my shoulders. “No… exertion.”
“I’ll lay down and let you ride me,” I suggest as I steal another kiss.
“Dom,” she huffs in warning against my lips.
That’s all it takes for me to step back, to lower my hands.
Now isn’t the time, even if my wounds didn’t need more time to close.
First, before I can cross that line with Alina, I need to handle shit with Archer.
I need her to see that it’s handled, and then choose me, if I’m still who she wants afterward.
“You’re right,” I tell her. “No exertion… yet.”
She nods and licks her lips, and I know she’s tasting me on them.
“Go rest,” I order, my voice low. “You shouldn’t have slept in here last night.”
“I couldn’t sleep alone,” she admits. Her words hang in the air, as if she wants me to extend an invitation to her. One I can’t give her.
“Yesterday was stressful. You’ll sleep better tonight,” I say instead.
I turn away from her before I betray how badly I want her to lay down beside me, to have her in my bed with me, even if all we do is sleep without even touching.
The stitches tug with every step away from her, but I welcome the pain.
It reminds me nothing worth holding comes without spilling blood.
And before I hold Alina, Archer has to be dealt with.
When the door opens and shuts with her departure, I force my feet to not chase after her.
Because if I catch her, I won’t be able to let her go.
And Yelena would pour salt in my wound before stitching me up again.
My slow, lonely afternoon turns into a night that stretches long, every hour dragging across my nerves.
I can’t find rest and Alina doesn’t return to keep me company or shove more pills in my mouth.
The bandage pulls tight when I breathe too deep and I’m fucking freezing.
I grit my teeth and force myself upright in bed. The room tilts and I curse.
The sound of light footsteps makes me glance at the door.
Alina stands in the open doorway, framed by the low light, dark hair loose around her shoulders, wearing an oversized shirt.
It hangs off her frame, swallowing her, and for one dangerous second, I wonder if it’s my shirt, then picture what she’d look like wearing nothing at all.
She opens her mouth, but the pleading words don’t make any sense. “I need you, Dom. I need you to make the ache stop. I can’t wait a week.” Her hand reaches underneath the hem of her tee, heading between her legs, making me groan.
“Dom? Are you in pain?”
I blink my eyes open that I don’t even remember closing to find Alina’s face furrowed in concern. Her hand is nowhere near her pussy, but still on the doorknob.
Shit. I guess I can add hallucinations to my list of symptoms.
“Dominik?”
When I don’t answer her, Alina comes over to the side of the bed and places her palm on my cheek. “You’re burning up.”
“That explains the teeth chattering…and hallucinations,” I reply. Even fever-drunk, my mind goes to her first.
“I’ll be right back,” she says before disappearing.
Five minutes or five hours later, I wake sweaty but sitting up, pills pressed to my lips, followed by a glass of water. Alina sits on the side of the bed, her eyes even heavier than before with exhaustion.
“You should be asleep,” I say, sharper than I mean to.
Her chin tips up, stubborn. “So should you once I change your bandage.”
I huff out a humorless laugh. “You think I can rest with half the city smelling weakness on me?”
“You’re not weak.” Her eyes soften, and that infuriates me more than pity ever could. She crosses the room anyway, a small box in her hands. “I brought the supplies from the cabinet. Lift your shirt.”
I shake my head. “No.”
“Yes,” she counters, quiet but firm. “You’re already fighting an infection, don’t fight me too.”
When she climbs up and kneels beside me on the mattress, setting the box down, I feel the last of my resolve snapping. I let her unfasten the old bandage. Her fingers tremble once, brushing the edge of the wound, and I hiss as pain shoots through me. She looks up fast, eyes wide. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.” My voice comes out low, rough. “You didn’t put the bullet in me.”
Her lashes lower. “But if I hadn’t been there, if I hadn’t insisted on coming...”
Her words hurt me more than the wound. I catch her wrist, holding her still. “You still think this is your fault? Your brother’s betrayal caused all of this. You can’t carry the burden of his bad decisions, hellcat.”
Her breath catches at the term of endearment, and her pulse beats against my fingers.
For a second I don’t let go. I don’t want to.
I want to kiss her again, but I know where that would lead.
Finally, I release her, and she goes back to her work, silent except for the soft rustle of the gauze wrapper.
She leans close. The faint scent of her lavender shampoo wraps around me, too sweet for my world.
I feel her breath on my skin as she works.
Too close. Too tempting after that kiss earlier.
Unless…did I dream that too? The sounds she made when I kissed her, then offering to lay down and let her do all the work?
“Did we…did I kiss you earlier?” I ask, needing to know for sure, that it wasn’t just in my fevered mind.
Alina answers without looking at me. “Yes,” she whispers. “If you have trouble remembering it, then we definitely need the doctor to come check on you.”
I smirk, though it hurts. “I don’t need a doctor.
I remembered, I just wanted to be sure since I thought you were just…
never mind,” I say before mentioning I thought about her touching herself.
I can’t imagine how confusing this all must be for her.
If not for her idiot brother, she wouldn’t be going through this shit but having a normal night at work.
“All I need is Archer’s head in my hands for what he did to you. ”
She swallows hard, then tapes down the gauze. “And if you can’t find him?”
My gaze pins her down until she finally meets my eyes. “Then I’ll make the whole world bleed until he crawls out of whatever hole he’s hiding in.”
She flinches, but she doesn’t look away. That’s what kills me. Her fear doesn’t stop her from holding my stare. The fire in her is small, but it burns, and I want to feed it until it’s an inferno.
“You’re mine to protect now,” I murmur then lean closer, so my mouth is near her ear. “Which means nobody gets to hurt you or betray you, not even your own damn brother.”
Her breath shudders, and for one dangerous moment she doesn’t pull away. Then she jerks back, putting distance between us as she climbs off the bed. “Stop saying that,” she warns.
I push myself up, ignoring the pain, my body fighting off a fever. “Would you rather belong to Gavriil?” I ask her, hating the way those words taste on my tongue. The thought of his hands on what I’ve already claimed twists something sharp and unfamiliar in my chest.
“No,” she answers without hesitation.
“Good. Then I’m your only option right now. And I would rather take a hundred bullets than let him have you.”
“That’s ridiculous, Dom. You don’t even know me. You’re just delusional with fever,” she remarks. “I’ll have someone call the doctor.”
I grab her hand to stop her when she starts to leave the room. “See? You’re worried about me because I’m already yours too,” I point out.
The silence stretches between us, thick with everything unsaid. She doesn’t offer her agreement, but at least she doesn’t flat-out deny it either.
Finally, she pulls her hand free and walks away, retreating from the room. But I see the way her hands shake, the way her shoulders tremble. She’s terrified and furious. But she’s mine all the same.
When she’s gone, I let myself fall back against the pillow. Pain lances through my side, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is that the world will know I bled and still stand. What matters is that my brother won’t ever touch her.