Chapter Eighteen
Alexei’s POV
I woke before dawn. The room was still dark, winter pressing against the windows. But I didn’t move. I didn’t reach for my phone or the gun under my pillow.
I watched her sleep instead.
Mila lay curled on her side, one hand tucked under her cheek, dark hair spilling across the pillow like ink.
My shirt—the one she’d stolen last night—had ridden up her thighs.
In sleep, she looked impossibly young, impossibly soft.
Nothing like the woman who’d met my violence with her own kind of fire just hours ago.
The marks I’d left on her throat were still visible. Dark bruises blooming purple against pale skin, trailing down to her collarbone. Evidence of my mouth, my teeth, my complete inability to touch her gently.
I shouldn’t have liked seeing them there. But I did. Hell, I did.
It was the part of myself I’d stopped trying to hide—from her, from anyone. The possessive, territorial animal that wanted to mark her, claim her, make sure every person who looked at her knew exactly who she belonged to.
She was mine. That truth had rooted too deep to tear out now, had wound itself around my ribs and squeezed until breathing without her felt impossible.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand. I grabbed it before the sound could wake her, already knowing what I’d find.
Third warehouse. One hour. —K
Konstantin.
Which meant something had developed overnight, something that couldn’t wait. I typed back a confirmation and slipped from the bed, careful not to disturb her. She murmured something in her sleep, reaching for the space I’d left, and I had to force myself not to climb back in beside her.
**********
The warehouse district was gray and frozen, abandoned buildings squatting like tombstones in the dawn light. I’d owned this particular warehouse for three years—used it for storage, for meetings, and for things that needed to happen away from prying eyes.
Konstantin was waiting inside, along with Dimitri and a half-dozen of our best men. A laptop sat open on a metal table, displaying intercepted communications that made my jaw tighten.
“Show me,” I said.
Konstantin hit play. Radio chatter filled the space, and Italian accents and code words we’d already broken rang out. We listened to our enemies' plan like they were reading us their diaries.
“The river docks,” Konstantin translated unnecessarily. “They’re moving something tonight. Something big.”
“Weapons?” Dimitri asked.
“No.” I studied the transcripts, the timing, and the personnel mentioned. “Money. They’re funneling cash through the docks, probably washing it through one of the shipping companies. They think we’re distracted.”
“Are we?” Konstantin’s eyebrow lifted.
I smiled without humor. “Not anymore.”
The truth was, I’d been distracted. By Mila, by the complications she’d brought into my carefully ordered world, by the way she’d cracked open something in my chest I’d thought dead and buried. But this—this was familiar territory. This was the violence and strategy I understood.
“I’ll lead the raid,” I said.
“Alexei, you don’t need to—”
“I know.” I cut Konstantin off, already planning the approach in my head. “But I want to.”
Because violence calmed me. It reminded me of who I was beneath the softness Mila had somehow carved into me. It centered me in a way nothing else could—the weight of a gun in my hand, the clarity of immediate danger, the simple mathematics of survival.
Kill or be killed. Protect what’s yours. Show no mercy.
These were rules I understood.
**********
We hit the docks at 11:15, just as the Italians were moving their cargo from the warehouse to waiting trucks. Six vehicles, a dozen men, enough money to fund a small war.
The ambush was clean and brutal.
We came from three sides—Dimitri’s team blocking the exit, my team from the front, and Konstantin’s from the water. The Italians were good, I knew that. They didn’t panic, didn’t scatter. They took cover and returned fire with professional efficiency. But we were better.
I moved through the chaos like I’d been born to it, each shot precise, each decision automatic.
One of their men tried to flank us from behind a shipping container.
I put two rounds in his chest before he’d finished raising his weapon.
Another went for the trucks—probably planning to ram through our blockade.
Dimitri took him out with a headshot that painted the inside of the windshield red.
Their lieutenant was the last one standing, cornered near the water with nowhere to run. He was young, maybe twenty-five, with the kind of expensive haircut that said he was somebody’s nephew, somebody’s favorite. His hand shook as he aimed at me.
“Drop it,” I instructed in Italian.
“Fuck you!”
I shot him in the shoulder. He went down screaming, gun clattering across concrete. I walked over calmly, kicked the weapon away, and pressed my boot against the wound. He screamed louder.
“Petrov,” he uttered as he gurgled blood. Then he went stiff.
“Boss?” Dimitri appeared at my elbow. “Clean sweep. The money’s ours, and no witnesses.”
“Good.” I holstered my weapon, but I was still staring at the dead lieutenant, replaying his final words. “Get everything back to the warehouse. I want the money counted and the trucks stripped for tracking devices.”
Why did he mention Mila’s father?
I shouldn’t have been in such a hurry. I shouldn’t have let the dead man’s words crawl under my skin like that. But something was wrong—I could feel it.
And Mila was at the center of it.
**********
I found her in the hallway outside our bedroom, her hair still messy from sleep. She looked up when I approached, and something flickered in her eyes.
Fear? Guilt?
Both, maybe.
Or was it just my mind?
“You’re back,” she said softly.
“I’m back.”
She should have looked innocent, standing there in the early afternoon light, drowning in my clothes.
She should have looked like the psychology student I’d married, out of place in this world of violence.
But something in her expression made me pause.
Something made that instinct I’d honed over fifteen years of survival start screaming warnings.
I crossed to her slowly, watching her pulse jump at her throat as I approached. When I was close enough to touch, I reached out and brushed my knuckles against her jaw, gentle despite the blood still under my fingernails.
“Has he contacted you again?” I asked quietly.
Her breath caught. “Who?”
“Don’t.” I slid my hand to cup her face, thumb pressing against the rapid flutter of her pulse. “Don’t lie to me, Mila. Your father. Has he contacted you?”
I watched the war play out across her features—the urge to deny, to protect, to maintain whatever fiction she’d been building. But her body betrayed her. The way her pulse spiked, the way her pupils dilated, the slight tremor that ran through her.
She was lying. And I could feel it.
“No,” she whispered. “Alexei, I haven’t—”
“Stop.” My voice came out harder than intended, and she flinched. I gentled my grip but didn’t let go. “I know you’re lying. I can always tell when you’re lying.”
“Then why ask?” Fire flashed in her eyes suddenly, her chin lifting in defiance. “If you already know, why make me say it?”
“Because I want to hear you choose me.” The admission scraped out of my throat. “I want to hear you choose us over him.”
“He’s my father—”
“He’s a dead man.” I stepped closer, backing her against the wall, my hand still cradling her face. “Do you understand that? The Italians are looking for him. Others too, probably. And when they find him—and they will find him—anyone near him dies.”
Her eyes were wet now, tears threatening to spill. “So what, I’m just supposed to let you kill him? What happens to me if you kill the only family I have left?”
The question hit harder than any bullet.
I wanted to say it—the words that sat heavy on my tongue, burning to get out.
You still have me.
But I couldn’t force the words past my teeth. Because the truth was uglier, more complicated. She didn’t want an empire. She wanted her father. And I would take that from her without hesitation if it meant keeping her alive.
“Then you’ll have to live with my hands soaked in his blood,” I said instead, my voice deadly quiet. “Because I won’t choose him over you. Not ever.”
Something broke in her expression. Rage and grief and desperation all tangled together. She shoved at my chest hard enough to make me step back.
“You bastard—”
I grabbed her wrists before she could shove me again, pinning them against the wall above her head. “Say it again.”
“You’re a callous bastard and I—”
I kissed her. It was hard and bruising, swallowing whatever she’d been about to say. She tried to fight it for about three seconds before she was kissing me back just as ardently, her teeth catching my bottom lip hard enough to draw blood.
The fight turned to fire between one breath and the next.
I released her wrists only to grip her hips, lifting her against the wall.
Her legs wrapped around my waist on instinct, her fingers tangling in my hair and pulling hard enough to hurt.
Good. I wanted it to hurt. I wanted to feel something, anything, other than this sick fear that I was losing her to a ghost.
“I hate you,” she gasped against my mouth.
“I know.” I bit down on her throat, right over one of the marks from last night, and she moaned. “Hate me more.”
I carried her down the hall toward our room, but we didn’t make it that far. I couldn’t wait that long. I pressed her against the wall outside the study and yanked my shirt up her thighs, finding her already wet for me despite her anger.
“Alexei—”
“Tell me to stop.” I freed myself from my pants with one hand, the other gripping her hip hard enough to bruise. “Tell me you don’t want this.”
She glared at me, eyes blazing. Then she reached down between us and guided me to her entrance. “Shut up and take me.”
I slammed into her with enough force to rattle the painting on the wall, both of us groaning at the impact. This wasn’t gentle. This was war translated into flesh. It was anger, fear, and desperate need all tangled together until we couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.
I fucked her against the wall like I was trying to prove something—to her, to myself, to the universe. That she was mine despite her lies. She was mine despite her doubts. That she was mine even when she hated me for it.
“You’re mine,” I growled against her throat, my accent thickening with each brutal thrust. “Always mine.”
She couldn’t speak, she could only hold on as I drove into her harder, faster, chasing something I couldn’t name. Her nails raked down my back through my shirt, leaving marks I’d feel for days. Which was perfect, considering that I wanted to wear her violence the way she wore mine.
When she came, it was with my name on her lips and her body clenching around me like a vice. I followed seconds later, burying myself as deep as I could go and spilling into her with a groan.
We stayed like that for a long moment, both breathing hard, her legs still wrapped around my waist. When I finally set her down, her legs were shaking so badly she had to hold onto me for balance.
I straightened her shirt, smoothed her hair, gentle in the aftermath the way I couldn’t be during. She wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“Mila—”
“Don’t.” Her voice was hoarse. “Just… don’t.”
I cupped her face, forcing her to look at me. “I’m not sorry.”
“I know.”
“And I won’t apologize for protecting you. Not from your father, not from anyone.”
Her jaw tightened. “Even if it destroys me?”
The question hung between us, unanswerable.
Because the truth was, I would destroy her if it meant keeping her alive. Would burn down everything she loved, everyone she’d known before me. Her father, her old life, her illusions about who I was and what this world demanded.
Then I remembered the dying man’s word: Petrov.
Her father. Italians weren’t just circling.
They’d already sunk their claws in, already found their leverage.
And when they came for her—and they would come, I could feel it building like pressure before an explosion—I would do whatever it took to keep her safe.
Even if it meant becoming exactly the monster she feared.
I closed my eyes and held her tighter, feeling her heartbeat steady against my ribs.