Chapter 24
HELENA
Konstantin’s hands are under my arms, pulling me up from the bloody concrete floor. I don't remember him gently prying my father’s body from my hands or him wrapping his wool coat over my shaking shoulders.
My ears are ringing with a high pitch that drowns out the sound of the fires and the soldiers shouting around us.
Konstantin keeps an arm wrapped around my waist, holding me up as he guides me out of the control room. We walk back out through the huge processing plant.
For the first time, I see the real scale of the violence my husband unleashed tonight.
The walls are scorched black. The ground is covered in shattered concrete, twisted metal, and bodies.
There are so many of them. Dozens of Italians lie still in the debris with their blood pooling on the cracked asphalt.
Konstantin ordered a massacre, and his men didn't leave anyone alive.
When we reach the freezing air in the courtyard, the armored SUV is already waiting with the engine idling. Konstantin opens the door for me, but he stops before getting in.
He turns to Ivan and speaks in a low, fast voice. I can't hear what he's saying over the ringing in my ears, but I see the serious look on his face and the way Ivan nods back at him.
Then Konstantin climbs into the back seat beside me. The door slams shut and seals us in the dark.
The blood on my hands is starting to dry. It coats my palms in a dark crust that settles into my skin and flakes under my fingernails.
I sit in the back of the SUV and stare at my lap, completely hollow.
The doors block out the sound of the cars rushing through the dark city. Inside, the silence is so loud it rings in my ears. I'm staring at my hands, but I'm not seeing them. Every time I blink, I'm dragged right back into the nightmare.
I can still smell the sulfur from the flashbangs in the vehicle. I feel those massive hands yanking me backward into the dark tunnels. I feel the freezing bite of the knife pressed so hard against my throat that I didn't dare breathe.
But the image that keeps looping in my mind, the one that really shatters me, is Konstantin.
The most dangerous man I've ever met, staring down the barrel of Moretti’s gun. I saw the exact second he gave in. The moment he dropped his weapon, surrendering himself to keep a bullet out of my head.
And then there was my father.
A violent shiver runs through me and rattles my teeth. I wrap my bloody hands around my stomach and lean forward as the reality of it all finally hits me.
I squeeze my eyes shut, and the image of my mother flashes in my mind. For five years, I've stared at that photo of her laughing on the deck of a ship. She was so happy and carefree.
She was untouched by the world. She had no idea the man she loved was caught up with the Italian mafia.
All this time, I've been mourning a tragedy that never actually happened.
My mother wasn’t a victim of fate. She was executed.
The rain and the slick road were excuses for a murder. I thought my father was a man broken by loss, but he was hiding from the blood on his hands.
I squeeze my eyes shut, and the first tear breaks free, burning as it tracks through the soot on my cheek.
My father sold out Konstantin's family for money.
My mother was murdered to break my father and show him what happened when he tried to walk away.
And the millions in debt he couldn't pay weren't business losses.
They were protection payments. He paid them every single month to keep the Italians from killing me, too.
Everything I thought I knew about my life was a lie. A sob claws its way up my throat, finally breaking the twenty minutes of silence in the SUV.
"Helena." The deep voice pulls me out of the spiral. I slowly turn my head.
Konstantin is sitting right beside me. He's covered in gray dust and splattered with blood. His tactical vest is on the floor, leaving him in his combat shirt. Through a tear in the fabric, I can see a deep gash on his arm. Fresh blood soaks his sleeve.
"You're bleeding," I whisper, my voice cracking as I stare at the wound.
He barely looks at his arm. "It's nothing.”
He hasn't pushed me to talk once during the ride. He's been a silent, steady weight beside me, keeping me grounded. He reaches out, and his bruised hand gently wraps around my shaking, bloody fingers, pulling them away from my stomach.
"I left Ivan and my men to secure the refinery," he says. "They're taking your father's body to a private mortuary so the police don't get involved. You won't have to look at paperwork or answer questions. I'll take care of the funeral whenever you're ready."
I stare at him, my throat stinging so bad I can barely swallow. "You hated him," I whisper. "Why would you do this?"
Konstantin doesn't flinch. He doesn't give me a comforting lie.
"I did hate him," Konstantin says. His honesty grounds me.
"I wanted him dead for a long time. But tonight," he says, his jaw tightening, "he threw himself in front of a gun to save my wife. The debt’s paid, Helena.
I'm not burying him as an enemy. I'll bury him with the respect he earned in his final moments. "
Hearing him say it out loud, with so much finality, breaks whatever is left of my composure.
I slump sideways and bury my face against his shoulder. The tears come fast.
I cry for the mother I lost to a lie. For the cowardly father who sold his soul for me. And I cry out of pure, terrifying relief that the man holding me right now survived the night.
Konstantin wraps an arm around my shoulders, pulling me into his side. He shuts out the rest of the world, keeping me anchored against him until the SUV finally pulls into the garage at the penthouse.
The ride up the elevator is quiet.
When the doors open, the quiet luxury of the home welcomes us. The soft lights and clean floors make it feel like a different universe compared to the slaughterhouse we left.
Konstantin leads me down the hall to the master suite. When we reach the bedroom door, he stops.
"I need to make a few calls," he says softly. He looks at my pale face. "I'll give you some privacy. Take whatever time you need."
Panic spikes in my chest, sharp and painful.
The thought of being alone in this quiet room with nothing but the echo of that gunshot in my head is terrifying. I can't be alone. If I am, I'll fall completely apart.
"No," I protest, gripping his shirt with my bloody fingers. "Don't leave me. Please. Stay."
His eyes soften. He doesn't argue or hesitate. "I'm right here.”
He leads me into the master bathroom. I catch a glimpse of myself in the huge mirror, and my breath hitches at the crime scene canvas I’ve become. My lip is bruised and split. My black sweater is soaked and stiff with my father's blood.
I need it off me.
My hands shake so badly that the wool of my sweater slips through my fingers. It’s dragged over my head and dropped onto the white tile in a blood-soaked heap. Numb fingers fumble with the buttons of my jeans before they fall away, boots kicked aside until nothing is left.
Completely stripped, I stand shivering in front of the most dangerous man I know.
My husband watches with an unreadable intensity. He says nothing. Reaching past me, he turns on the shower and lets steam slowly fill the glass enclosure.
The spray hits my skin as I step beneath it, and he quietly slides the door shut behind me, keeping his promise to stay in the room.
The second the hot water touches me, something inside fractures.
A sob rips free. My knees give out. Arms wrap around my stomach as I slide down the wet glass and collapse onto the floor.
The crying comes hard.
My face disappears into my hands, a broken wail echoing off the marble. It doesn’t stop. Not as my throat turns raw. Not as my chest burns. Back and forth beneath the spray, rocking under the crushing weight of the night.
A moment later, the glass door slides open.
Konstantin steps into the shower, fully naked. He doesn't tell me to stop crying or offer any empty words. He crouches down on the floor in front of me, ignoring the hot water pouring over his scarred shoulders.
A bar of soap and a cloth appear in his hands, and with surprising gentleness, he begins to wash me.
The tears are wiped from my cheeks before he lifts my hands and carefully scrubs the dried blood from my palms. Through blurred vision, I watch the water in the drain turn pink, then slowly run clear.
My head tips back against the cool glass as shampoo works through my hair. His fingers move in slow, steady circles over my scalp, easing the tight panic in my chest with every stroke. Each touch anchors me, pulling me back to the present and washing the death from my skin.
As the last traces of blood disappear, my emotions shift. The numbness fractures, giving way to urgency and aching.
After everything that happened tonight, I need to feel alive. I need warmth. Something real.
Through wet lashes, I look up at my husband. His chest rises and falls faster now, water tracing over the scars carved across his torso.
My hand finds his arm, fingers sliding down to his wrist. My thumb traces the dark star inked there, the mark of his world, before both palms flatten against his chest, where the steady beat of his heart thumps beneath them.
He goes still, registering the change in me.
Slowly, I sink to my knees, pressing my wet body against his before claiming his mouth.
The kiss isn’t gentle. My lips part, tasting water and salt and grief, giving him what I have left.
He groans into my mouth, his hands sliding to my waist and pulling me flush against him.. His mouth trails from my lips to my jaw, then down the sensitive curve of my neck.
Lower.
One hand cups my breast, lifting it as his mouth closes over my nipple.
Heat blooms through me as he sucks, his tongue flicking with deliberate pressure, teeth grazing to make me gasp.
Water streams between us while he pulls harder, as if he needs the taste of me, needs to feel me unravel beneath him.
A broken moan slips free. My back arches from the glass, fingers tangling in his wet hair to hold him there as pleasure rushes through my body.
The water shuts off abruptly.
Strong arms lift me again, carrying me dripping to the bed. Cool air skims over overheated skin as he lowers me onto the sheets, his body following, heavy and protective.
He moves down my body with slow intent, spreading my thighs wide before lowering himself between them. His mouth claims me, slow at first, deliberate, his tongue steady and sure. A cry tears from my throat as my hips lift helplessly toward him.
A low growl vibrates against me. He draws deeper pleasure from me, fingers sliding inside with controlled pressure while my hands fist the sheets and my legs tremble.
The last of my grief fractures beneath the weight of sensation.
His hands roam upward again, strong and certain. My wrists are pinned above my head, thighs guided wider. He presses against me before he drives forward in one powerful thrust.
The breath leaves my lungs as he fills me completely.
My legs lock around his waist, holding him close as he moves, relentless and steady. His mouth finds mine again, swallowing my cries as he turns pain into a molten hunger that belongs only to us.
When it's finally over, the adrenaline drains from my veins.
I lie exhausted with my cheek on Konstantin’s scarred chest, listening to his heart.
He has one arm wrapped around my waist, pinning me against his side in the dark.
I'm physically and emotionally empty, but for the first time in twenty-four hours, my mind is quiet.
The storm has passed. The war is over.
I close my eyes and finally let my body rest. I know the man holding me is a monster to the rest of the world and that he's ruthless and capable of so much violence.
But as I drift off to sleep, feeling his chest rise and fall, I know he's the only place I'll ever belong.
He's the one person I’ll never let go of.