Chapter Twenty-Seven
In which we learn Oksana can take a punch.
Vadim…
I stay buried in my wife, kissing her carefully, avoiding her poor, bruised cheek.
Now that I'm finally inside her, it's hard to leave.
She lets out a little groan as I finally settle her on her side, curving around her protectively.
The scent of her skin, cherries and cinnamon, both sweet and warm makes me run my tongue along her neck.
Most of the covers have been kicked off the bed, but I locate the sheet, draping it over her.
"Are you all right?" I ask.
"Very much all right," Oksana sighs. She's wearing a dreamy little smile and it's making me hard again.
"I should call Dr. Landon to come take a look at your cheek," I say.
Rolling over, she runs her finger along the line of my jaw. "It was just a punch, it glanced off my cheekbone. No loose teeth. I'm all right. Besides…" she gives me a little grin, "all those endorphins are doing a fine job of keeping me from feeling a thing."
"Are you telling me that you used me medicinally?" I ask, fighting a grin.
"You look terribly wounded," she laughs. "Think of it as a helpful byproduct."
Sliding my fingers over her sore pussy, I say, "I could throw in a few more, if you like."
My wife giggles. I've never heard her giggle before and it's oddly charming. "Maybe when I get the feeling back in my legs."
"Hmm," I agree. "That would be for the best, though I wouldn't mind carrying you everywhere." I pull my hand away from her pussy with some reluctance. "Would you like a bath? That will help with the soreness."
The smile drops from her face. "I don't like baths."
Ah. Of course. A shower isn't like a bath, where her head could be dunked underwater.
Kissing her, I slide out of bed, procuring an ice pack for her cheek and her hair brush, before wrapping my wife in my robe and settling her between my legs.
"I can brush it," she says, shifting uncomfortably and not helping the erection I've been ordering to go down. "I'm sure my hair looks like an abandoned opossum den right now."
Her wet hair makes me recall ten-year-old Oksana, with her tangled locks hanging in strings around her pale face and my gut twists.
"Let me." I start slowly, separating her tangled strands. "Who hit you tonight?"
"Rossi." She spits his name out like it's poison.
"Would you like to be the one to shoot him?" I ask.
She turns her head, her startled gaze meeting mine.
"Not yet," she says, far more steadily than I would expect.
"They know something. The mercenaries who extracted Luciana and the girls with me betrayed us to Rossi.
His brother, though, said that there were others who needed to be part of a group punishment. We should find out who first."
I can't help the slow curl of a smile inching up the left side of my mouth. I lean close, my lips barely touching her skin. "Clever girl."
Shaking her head as if trying to clear it, she asks, "I know I was… not really present there for a moment. Are Luciana and the girls safe?"
"Ivan brought Yvette to me after she extracted the boy and his nanny," I say. "She's taken them to the next person in the chain. I had Ivan follow her with a team in case there were complications, I followed you. She took the Rossi family and handed them off to the next link in your chain."
"How…?" Oksana tries to gather her thoughts. "How did you know?"
"You're my wife. Your safety is my first concern, even above your privacy." She pulls away from me, wincing as the hairbrush tugs on a snarl.
"That camera in my bedroom in Moscow was not for my safety," she says haughtily. A smile tugs at the corner of my mouth, it's an expression that feels rusty, rarely used, though with Oksana as my wife, that's changing rapidly.
"This is true," I allow gravely. "It was for my prurient interests."
She's trying valiantly not to smile, but the blush says it all. "Okay," she says, clearing her throat. "Will you tell me how you found me?"
"There's a tracker in your wedding ring," I say.
She holds up her hand, examining the ring. "What- really? They make one small enough to fit under a diamond? Of course, this is a very large one."
"Tell me something," I ask. "How long have you been doing this work?"
Oksana looks up, the ice pack still held to her face.
"Two years," she says quietly. "I started with the original charity.
I found out what Yvette was really doing when I came back to the office late one night.
I'd been creating some promotional fundraising materials and needed some paperwork to finish it all.
I saw Yvette speaking with a woman. She didn't see me, but I knew her. It was Melina Duvarova."
Placing the name, I say, "The Duvarov Mob. Her husband killed her."
"That's what that prick told everyone. These weak little men have to save face,” she snaps. “It looks so much better if you've murdered your own wife, doesn't it?" She winces, adjusting her ice pack.
"Yvette was horrified and tried to deny what I saw, and who I saw.
It was no secret that I was a Vasiliev. But she knew my feelings about domestic violence and child abuse.
Not that any sane person isn't wildly against it, but…
" Oksana pauses, pulling the brushed portion of her hair over her shoulder.
"It's a given in our world, you know? Women and children, the men just own them.
Like property." The last word comes out in a hiss. "I told Yvette I could help."
"How many?" I ask.
"Twenty-one families," she says, smiling happily.
"I remember them all." Her expression fades a little.
"Not nearly as many as we wanted to. Yvette had a little bit of a network going.
I found some more people. It was hard, since we couldn't reveal our identities. The women aren’t all refugees from the crime world.
There are plenty of rich scumbags who think their money entitles them to do anything they want, no matter how sick. "
"You're very brave," I say, taking another section of her hair and brushing it.
"And apparently stupid," she sighs. "Yvette vouched for those women for the extraction. I had my doubts, there was something wrong, and I didn't... I didn't trust myself. We were in a rush. I should have known better -"
"Stop," I say, cutting off the flow of self-recrimination.
"There are many things we have to tolerate from other families in this world," I say, setting aside the brush and wrapping my arms around her, enjoying the feeling of her relaxing against me.
"Brutalizing women and children? It's contemptible, cowardly.
Turgenev allies who know our stance hide it around us, of course, but... You've done more than we have."
Oksana leans into me. "I blew it all tonight," she says sadly. "I know Luciana won't ever say a word, but her daughters are young. Then, there's the Rossi guards, maybe they got the word out to somebody before you killed them."
Her body's tense, every muscle, but she stays on my lap. "When I was desperate, I used your name, Vadim. I threatened them with the Turgenev name. That was wrong, I had no right to."
She looks heartbroken, my wife, so guilty.
"I would cut through every crime family in this country if it meant keeping you safe." My voice isn't entirely steady. If I hadn't been able to track her. If the Rossi’s took her before I could get to her…
Her face is buried where my neck meets my shoulder, the soft warmth of her breath on my skin. "Vadim." A little shudder goes through her. "Why?"
"I'm your husband," I frown at her. This should be clear to her.
Oksana stops hiding in my shoulder, leaning back to look up at me. "I'm not sure I deserve you," she whispers. "You gave me chances to tell you. Looking back, I can see them now."
Lifting her left hand, I kiss her wedding ring, each knuckle, turning it over, I kiss her palm and the thin skin of her wrist. "Having you as my wife is almost too much good fortune, given that we are Russian."
She breaks out a hoarse little chuckle, her eyes sparkling as she puts her hand against my stubbled cheek. "We're really pushing our luck, aren't we? Our Slavic ancestors must be rolling in their graves." The smile drops from her face. "Where are the Rossi brothers now?"
"In one of my storage facilities on the South Side." I smooth her hair back from her face. "Waiting to have a conversation with me."
"Can I come with you?"
She constantly surprises me. "Milaya devushka, sweet girl…" I say. "This is ugly work. I can do this for you."
"I know you can," she says. In a quick, graceful move, she turns and straddles me, her hands resting on my shoulders. "This is my mess. The way Marco said, the others… Is there a group hunting us? Maybe the other men whose families disappeared, banding together? Because that would be so bad."
Cupping her face very carefully in my hands, I search her eyes. "Are you sure you want to see this?" My bride has had a long day. The botched extraction. Taking a punch to her pretty face. An hour spent out in a torrential downpour.
Oksana climbs off my lap, an action I note with some regret and twists her hair up on top of her head. "Yes. Please."
Reluctantly climbing to my feet as well, I kiss the tip of her nose. "As you wish."