17. Viktor
VIKTOR
Wren fell asleep quickly, probably worn out from the emotional aftermath of someone trying to kill her again. I held her until I drifted off as well, too sated to get up.
I didn’t like to cuddle, so that was saying something. Since Wren had taken her place in my bed, I had shifted to always wanting her in my arms.
Generally, before her, after I had a woman, I would let them go and that would be it. It had been years since I’d committed to the same pussy more than once. And it had taken me my entire life—until I met this federal agent—to want a woman to stay in my bed, in my space, night after night.
In the quiet moments of the night like this when I had the downtime to decompress and consider how domestic we were, I wasn’t intimidated.
Maybe it had something to do with Adrik, Maksim, and Lev settling down with women to make me more open-minded to having a woman like this. Or perhaps it was my father dying and reminding me that I had to have someone of my own to look forward to sharing my life with.
Someone I would want to come back to every night. Someone I would look forward to talking about my day with while I held them all night long. Someone who would convince me to protect them, no matter what.
But you just have to be… you.
A fucking federal agent, of all people.
I lay there thinking back to how my brothers had insinuated that she could be a spy.
The fact that she’d entered my periphery as a spy, sent there by Smithson on a stakeout to watch Rico Johnson, spoke volumes.
But since she’d been here, she had been putting effort into winning and earning our trust. If anyone were to ask me, she was thriving with the chance to investigate the trails that hinted at the bribes we needed to track.
I brushed her auburn hair back, gazing at her face as she slept half draped over me, her head on my chest.
Maybe you were never cut out to be a field agent, Red.
Maybe you were supposed to just end up being caught by me.
“I can hear you thinking,” she muttered, proving she wasn’t asleep after all.
“Yeah?”
She opened one eye to peer at me sleepily. “I didn’t say that I know what you’re thinking. Just that you are.”
“Hmm.” I stroked her cheek.
“All right.” She cleared her throat and nestled closer to face me. “What are you thinking? Am I allowed to ask you that?”
“You’re allowed to ask me anything you want.”
“You just won’t answer everything.” She smirked.
“I’m thinking about what the biggest threat is in my life at the moment.”
“Me?” She huffed.
Losing you is.
“No, but on that note, my brothers are wondering if you’re a spy.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, sure. Since I’ve got contact with my superior who set me up to do a stakeout where I was almost killed.”
I furrowed my brow, studying her. “You’re not afraid of that?”
“Of what?”
“Dying.”
She shrugged, and I nearly groaned at the rub of her bare breasts against my chest with that motion.
“Isn’t everyone? It’s inevitable. And with any law enforcement job, the risk is inherent.
” She gazed at me with something like respect in her green eyes, softened by the darkness of the room.
“And with any Mafia job, that same risk is inherent as well.”
I nodded.
“But I knew that when I wanted to go into the academy and college for law enforcement. I knew that when my mom told me that my father was killed in the line of duty. I knew that again when she was killed on her shift.”
“And none of that deterred you from wanting the same future?” I asked.
“No. I would be more upset if I lived whatever lifetime I have and wasted it by not doing something good, protecting those that I could by bringing down criminals.”
“My self-righteous little martyr.” I completed the mockery by kissing her brow.
“Tell me you have a different attitude,” she challenged. “You’re born and raised in this Bratva. Your family members have been killed and hurt in the line of ‘duty’. Yet you’re only following in their footsteps. Tell me how it’s different.”
“It’s not.” I cleared my throat. “Except in one way.”
“And what’s that?” She traced her fingertip back and forth on my chest. It was an idle motion for her but it was a soothing tease for me.
“Family. Everything I do in the name of duty is for my family. My legacy. Everything you do as a cop or agent would only be following the rules of whichever department or agency wants to hire you for however long they will. To serve a loose idea of a governmental body that may or may not be corrupt.”
She twitched her lips in a sad frown, probably too proud to admit that I was right.
Sensing that this topic was always going to end with us not seeing eye-to-eye with us on opposite sides of the spectrum where seeking justice was concerned, I changed the subject.
“My brothers asked if I thought you might be a spy based on an email that Adrik received through one of his business accounts.”
She didn’t reply as I reached for my phone off the nightstand. Adrik had sent the email from Smithson to me, and I showed it to Wren now.
She shook her head and tossed my phone to the bed on the opposite side of where she lay.
“Like he cares that ‘one of his own’ is missing.” She huffed angrily.
“He doesn’t care that I was kidnapped. He sent me on that stakeout for a reason.
Besides, even if he wanted to lie that I’m here to spy, I wouldn’t have known what to do.
I just transferred to this department. I wasn’t given any cases yet. ”
“I know.” I kissed her. “And they know that too.”
She sighed and nestled her head against my chest. “Smithson emailing that means he’s vulnerable about my being here.”
“Obviously,” I replied.
“I would have to imagine he’s more vulnerable about it because he’s clearly connected to this bribing scheme. But I can’t tell who is trying to infiltrate the agency, who is so determined to pay for favors.”
I do.
My brothers and cousins and I did. We were well aware of how Gregori wanted to put pressure on us from the law enforcement front. And I would stand by my hope that Wren would be able to help us find the proof of that so we could expose it all and counter-attack Gregori like that in the meantime.
“In conclusion, though,” she said sleepily, “I’m damned if I do, damned if I don’t. If I’m not here, Smithson can try to have me killed. If I’m here, I’m a target through association anyway.”
“If you’re not here,” I added, borrowing her words, “you also won’t be safe.”
I held her tight and closed my eyes, letting the warmth from her body seep into mine. It was too damn easy to imagine her just wanting to be with me. To stay and choose my “team”.
But to hope for that meant she would need to give up her beliefs in her career.
She wanted to feel like she was contributing something to society by having a job in law enforcement.
By siding with me, that drive wouldn’t be as applicable.
She would be working for the security and wealth of my family, not the rest of the free world.
Yet, that would be a much harder sell. It wouldn’t be a matter of convincing her to see this as a career change. It would be more like wishing she could also want to prioritize my family’s success and stability.
And wishing for her to care about me was starting to sound like a pipe dream.
We were too different.
From completely opposing worlds.
With totally contrasting ethics and moral compasses.
Still, with her in my arms, I refused to lose a glimmer of hope that I could be the only one between us who was feeling like I’d met my other half.
Feeling her pressed up against me like this, I was convinced that I shared her sentiment tenfold.
That I would be more upset if I lived whatever lifetime I had and wasted it by not doing something good—like protecting her and showing her how much I cared.