Chapter 8 Isabella
ISABELLA
I wake to kisses sliding down my belly and rough hands easing my thighs apart.
The slight scratches from his five o’clock shadow make me giggle, but I don’t even get a chance to smile before my jaw falls open and I gasp at the feeling of his tongue.
He drags it with such tender assertiveness from my dripping hole all the way up to my clit. It’s like being worshipped and owned at the same time.
I’m still wrapped in sleep as he applies just the right amount of pressure, makes just the right movements that he knows I love. My eyes are still closed as I reach down and take hold of his hair, holding on for dear life as my heart rate increases.
How is it possible he can do this to me? Take me to such heights? We haven’t even been together a week, and it feels like a lifetime.
I never knew this kind of emotion was possible. And now, I’ve been taken to a place where life feels perfect.
My body quivers, and his hands reach up and grasp my breasts. He twists my nipples just slightly, and the little extra added jolt of just the right amount of pain sends me over the edge.
“Baby…” I moan as my climax rolls through me. My thighs clamp down around his face before I can stop them. But it’s fine. He groans into me like he loves it.
His tongue flattens on that special spot, and his lips wrap around my button in a perfect kiss as I ride out this wave of bliss.
How did I get so lucky? All of Dad’s screw-ups ended up leading me to this marvel of a man. It just doesn’t seem possible.
He climbs on top of me and presses his massive bulge against my mound. I can feel how hard he is, and it turns me on even more. Just knowing I can have that effect on him is so wonderful.
The knock at the door is sharp and urgent and knocks me out of my post-orgasmic stupor like I’ve been stung by a bee. Viktor sighs and grumbles angrily.
“What!?” His voice is loud and threatening, like a wild animal’s cry.
“Boss, it’s urgent.” Anton’s voice, carefully neutral. “It’s…well, you’re going to want to hear this.”
“Can it wait?”
“It’s…it’s about the girl’s father.”
My stomach drops.
The girl.
After all we’ve been through, and I’m still just “the girl” to Viktor’s men.
His jaw tightens, and he looks back at me, but only for a second. Then he’s grabbing his pants off the floor, the muscles of his back rippling like volcanic rock.
“One moment, angel,” he says to me with a kiss to my forehead.
In his rush out of the room, he doesn’t even close the door completely. As a result, as he and Anton speak, I hear everything.
“Talk,” he growls. His voice is different now. The warmth he shows me is gone, replaced with ice that could turn the city into a glacier.
“It’s Seth Rossi running his mouth again,” Anton replies. “Every dive bar from here to Brooklyn, telling everyone you kidnapped his daughter and are holding her prisoner.”
“And they believe him?” Viktor snaps. “Everyone knows my one rule.”
“There’s more…” Anton clears his throat. “Seth won fifty grand at a Chinatown game, and he’s been blowing it on girls and booze—”
“Fifty grand!?” I hear the anger growing now. “That could clear most of his debt to me.”
“Hookers, cocaine, top shelf everything. Bragging about how he’s got one over on Viktor Morelli and he’ll never be paying you back.”
The silence that follows has me clenching the sheets, my body trembling with anxiety. When Viktor finally speaks again, his voice sounds like death itself.
“He’s using Bella’s situation to make me look weak…”
“Rumors are spreading fast, boss. Torrino’s people are sniffing around our territories. Cops too. Detective Morrison was asking questions at Luciano’s last night to see if anyone would talk.”
I hear Viktor’s footsteps, the dangerous pacing of a predator deciding how to kill its prey. In any other circumstance, this would turn me on. But this time, it’s my father whose life is on the line.
“He’s trying to make it look like I’ve gone soft. He thinks he can embarrass me, threaten my reputation and walk away breathing.”
“Want me to get the boys together—?”
“No,” Viktor snaps. “This is personal. I’ll handle it myself.”
A chill runs down my spine.
My father—my worthless, selfish father who sold me off as collateral for his debts has just signed his own death warrant. And maybe mine too…
…because if Viktor kills him and becomes that monster again, the man I’ve fallen in love with will be gone.
I’m frozen in bed, unable to think or move. Then, the next thing I know, I’m standing in the doorway, wearing nothing but Viktor’s shirt, my legs barely holding me up.
Both men turn. Anton looks away instantly, but Viktor’s eyes lock on mine, and in them, I see the war—the monster and the man, fighting for control.
“Bella—”
“I heard everything.” My voice sounds small, broken. “Dad’s really…really doing this?”
“Go back to bed, angel. This doesn’t concern you.” He reaches out for me, but I pull away.
“Doesn’t concern me? He’s my father!”
“He’s a degenerate gambler who sold you off to pay for his debts,” he growls. “And he’s a dead man walking.”
Viktor’s eyes flash, and I finally see it—the vicious determination that made him who he is today. The lethal ferocity that brought an entire city to its knees.
“Viktor, please—”
“He’s destroying everything I built!” His roar causes me to step back. My heart is shaking. He runs his hands through his hair, his control fracturing. “Do you know what this means? If I look weak, people will come for me. They’ll come for you!”
“So that means you just kill him?!” Tears begin to pool in my eyes. I don’t know why I care so much for a father who never showed me love and sold me off without a second thought. I guess it’s just built in.
“What would you suggest?” His laugh is bitter. “Just let him keep going? Turn me into the joke of the town so every two-bit criminal thinks they can cross me because I fell for some girl!?”
Some girl…
The words are like a slap across the face.
“That’s all I am?” I whisper as a tear falls down my cheek. “Some girl?”
His expression softens. It’s barely visible, but I see it. His eyes pull at my heartstrings.
“Of course not, Bella. You’re my queen. My everything. Which is why I have to handle this. To keep you safe.”
“He may be pathetic, selfish, and worthless, Viktor. And he sold me off like property, but he’s still my father. And he’s the only family I have left.”
He steps in and uses his thumb to wipe the tear from my face, such a contrast to the violent temper on display moments ago. “Don’t cry, baby. He doesn’t deserve your tears.”
“I know. But if you kill him, and you turn back into that monster…what happens to us?”
“There is no us without respect. Without fear. That’s the world we live in, Bella.”
“Then change it.”
He pulls away, laughing at the ceiling, but there’s no humor in it. “Change it? This is who I am, Bella. I’ve killed men for less than what your father’s doing!”
“But you don’t have to be that man!” I follow him as he stalks over to his closet, donning a fresh, dark blue suit. “The man who took me to dinner, made me breakfast, held me like I was so precious to him—that’s the man you truly are, Viktor!”
He shakes his head as he buttons his shirt. “That man is weakness…”
“That man is strength!” I grab his arms and turn him to me. “It takes more strength to show mercy than it does to kill.”
He stops, eyeing me with a gaze that holds too much pain to process.
“Viktor, I’m begging you.”
“Don’t.” His voice is soft. He looks away from me. “Don’t ask me this…”
Anton clears his throat. “Boss, the car’s ready.”
Viktor moves quickly, sliding into his jacket and grabbing a gun from a drawer. He slips it into his pants with practiced ease. The sight—the reality of the incoming violence—makes my knees tremble.
“Viktor, please—”
He crushes his lips to mine with a kiss that tastes like loving desperation and a terrible goodbye. When he pulls back, he stares deep into my eyes.
“I’ll handle it, Bella,” he says.
“But how?”
“Stay here,” he says, turning away. “Anton, make sure she doesn’t leave. Lock the place down. Men on the door and the elevator. No one in or out until I return.”
And like that, he’s gone. Out the door, his footsteps thudding down the hallway to the elevator. Anton glances over at me. I see concern in his eyes, but he immediately moves to go.
“He won’t kill him, right?” I ask, hoping for the answer I need.
Anton’s silence goes through me like a knife. He opens his mouth like he’s about to speak but then closes it again and leaves the room.
My legs finally give out, and I sink to the floor.
My father, the man who was meant to protect me, may have just signed both of our death warrants. And Viktor, the monster who became a man for me, will decide which version of him survives—the killer or the lover.
Something moves in my peripheral vision, and I look up to see Anton walking over to me. The sky has gone gray outside. I realize I’ve been kneeling here for hours, lost in my own thoughts.
“Miss Bella, you should eat something. I can have anything brought to you—”
“I can’t.” Just the thought of food right now makes me nauseous.
“He would want you to—”
“He’s about to murder my father!” The words explode out of me. “I don’t care what he would want!”
Anton stays quiet for a moment. My little outburst didn’t faze him. “Your father made his choice. Viktor’s just protecting what is his.”
“And what’s that? Me? I’m not a possession.”
“No.” Anton nods. “But you are his only weakness. And in our world, showing weakness gets you killed.”
I curl up on the floor, pulling my knees to my chin. Viktor’s shirt still carries his scent. And I can’t help but react to it.
“I thought he had changed…”
“He has,” Anton says. “Why do you think he didn’t just send one of us to take care of this?”
I look up at Anton, seeing something like cold sympathy in his eyes.
“He’s going himself because he’s conflicted.” Anton shakes his head. “Christ, I shouldn’t be talking like this…The old Viktor would have had your father’s head brought to him the moment I told him the news.”
“Oh, and that’s supposed to make me feel better?”
My chest is burning. My heart pounding. I’ve never had a panic attack before, but I think I might be on the verge of one.
“It’s supposed to make you understand. You’ve changed him, Isabella. But change doesn’t happen overnight. Nor does it erase who he is.”
Who he is…
A killer. A monster. The Ice Man.
But he’s also the man who loves me.
I close my eyes. I’ve also never prayed before, but I find myself wishing into the ether to anyone out there who might be listening.
Don’t let him kill my father. Please don’t let him become the monster again. Don’t let me lose the man I’ve fallen in love with…
But even as I pray, I know how stupid I’m being. I know the truth.
Viktor is going to do what he’s always done. He’s going to protect his empire. Even if it costs him his soul.
Even if it costs him me.