Chapter 20
ANDREI
She's tight around me. So fucking tight I can barely think.
I thrust into her again, feeling every inch of her grip me, shifting the piercings beneath my skin and sending pleasure shooting through me.
Her legs are wrapped around my waist, her nails digging into my shoulders.
The pain grounds me, keeps me from losing myself completely in the sensation of being inside her.
Her head is thrown back against the wall, exposing the long line of her throat. I want to bite it. Want to mark her there where everyone can see. I want to leave evidence of this—of us—on her skin.
"Andrei—" My name breaks on her lips, and the sound goes straight through me. She makes a sound that's half sob, half moan, and her pussy clenches around me so tight I see stars. I'm not going to last. Not with her like this, not with the way she's looking at me.
I've fucked a lot of women. More than I can count—more than I should probably admit. But none of them felt like this. None of them made me feel like I was coming apart at the seams, like I was losing pieces of myself inside them that I'd never get back.
None of them were her.
"Look at me," I command, my voice rough. Her eyes open, and they're glazed with pleasure, wet with tears, and so fucking beautiful I can barely stand it.
"You feel me?" I thrust harder, and she cries out. "You feel what you do to me?"
"Yes." The word is barely a whisper.
"This is what you do to me, Liesl. This." Another thrust, deeper, and I feel one of my piercings drag against something inside her that makes her whole body convulse. "You make me lose control. You make me want things I shouldn't want. You make me—fuck—"
I can't finish the sentence because she's coming again, her pussy clamping down on me like a vise, her nails raking down my back through my shirt and her mouth open in a silent scream.
The sensation is too much. I thrust into her twice more, three times, and then I'm coming too, emptying myself inside her with a groan that sounds like it's being torn from my chest.
For a moment, we just stay like that—her back against the wall and my hips pinning her there, both of us breathing like we've run a marathon. I can feel my release inside her, warm and wet, mixing with hers.
Mine. She's mine.
Slowly, carefully, I lower her legs to the floor and keep one arm around her waist to hold her up. With my other hand, I brush the hair back from her face and tuck it behind her ear. "Okay?" I ask.
She nods, but she won't look at me now. Her gaze is fixed somewhere over my shoulder, and I can see her starting to retreat, pull back into herself and put distance between us even though we're still pressed together, even though I'm still inside her.
I pull out slowly, and she winces. The loss of connection feels wrong. I want to be back inside of her now, to fuck her again until I'm imprinted on every inch of her body, inside and out.
I lift her into my arms and carry her to the bed.
She doesn't protest, just lets me settle her on the mattress, and lets me lie down beside her and pull her against my chest. For a few minutes, we just breathe together.
Her heart is racing against my ribs and mine is doing the same.
The room smells like sex and sweat, and this feels dangerously close to intimacy.
I stare down at her, at her beautiful face, and the possessiveness that sweeps through me is crushing.
"How can you say you're not mine?" The question comes out before I can stop it. "How can you say that when you touch me like that? When you beg me like that? When your body responds to me like that?"
She goes very still in my arms. Then, slowly, she pulls back so she can look at me. Her eyes are serious now, all the pleasure-haze burned away.
"I don't know," she whispers. "But I want to be my own person. I've been my own person for a long time, Andrei. I've lived my own life. I can't just... disappear into someone else. Even someone I want."
My chest tightens. "You want me."
"Yes," she whispers. "I want you. But this life terrifies me. You terrify me."
"I would never hurt you—"
"That's not what I mean." She sits up, pulling the top blanket around herself, and I immediately miss the warmth of her against me. "Do you know why I've barely spoken to any of your guards since we got here?"
I frown. "Because you're angry with me?"
"No. Because I'm terrified of what you'll do to them if you think I'm being too friendly.
" She looks at me as if I'm taking too long to catch up, her gaze guarded and tired.
"You reassigned Dmitri because he talked to me.
You killed that guard because he looked at me.
How am I supposed to interact with anyone when I know that any conversation, any smile, any moment of basic human connection could get them killed? "
The accusation stings because it's true. I did those things. I would do them again. "They need to know you're off-limits."
"I'm not a possession, Andrei. I'm a person.
" She wraps her arms around herself. "I've been locked in rooms, isolated, cut off from everyone except you.
And yes, part of that is the situation. Part of that is the war.
But part of it is you. Your jealousy. Your possessiveness.
Your need to control everything around you. "
"That's what keeps you safe—"
"That's what keeps me imprisoned." She stares at me, shaking her head.
"If we were going to be together—if there was going to be any chance of that—you need to trust me.
You need to give me space to be myself. To talk to people without worrying you'll hurt them.
To have some autonomy, some freedom, some sense that I'm still me and not just.. . yours."
The words settle between us heavily. I want to argue and tell her that she doesn't understand how dangerous this world is, how many threats there are, how the only way to keep her safe is to keep her close and keep everyone else away.
But I can see the truth in her eyes. She's not asking for much. Just the basic dignity of being treated like a person instead of something I own and control.
And I don't know if I can give her that.
"All I know is being consumed by something," I hear myself say. The admission feels like pulling out my own teeth. "The Bratva. The organization. The need for power, for control, for dominance. That's all there's ever been. That's all I know how to be."
She's quiet for a moment, but her gaze softens a little. "There has to be more than that."
"Why?"
"Because you're more than that." She reaches out, touches my face. "I've seen it in the moments when you let your guard down. When you held me while I cried. When you told me it wasn't my fault. When you look at me like I'm something you wanted to keep instead of something to own."
I want to believe her—that there's something in me worth saving, worth building a life around. But I've spent so long being what the Bratva needed me to be that I don't know if there's anything else left.
"Tell me about yourself," she says softly. "Who were you before all this?"
No one has ever asked me that. Not once in my entire life.
I should deflect, change the subject, maybe fuck her again until we're both too exhausted to talk.
But I don't.
"There was no me before all of this," I say finally, lying back against the pillows and looking at her.
"My father was pakhan before me. I grew up in this world.
He killed a man in front of me when I was ten.
He killed my mother for supposedly cheating on him, even though I have no idea if that was true or not. "
Her eyes go wide. "Andrei—"
"This has always been me," I say firmly, ignoring the apology I know she wants to make for something that isn't her fault.
"I don't know anything else. No normal life, no peace, no existence that doesn't come with violence and always being on my guard.
But my father didn't know how to delegate.
He was fiercely possessive of everything in his organization, so he never gave me any responsibilities that others could see. Then he died, and—"
"And now you're pakhan," she says quietly.
"And now I'm pakhan." I look at her. "I inherited this, but I didn't earn it.
That's how most of my men see it. I've been pakhan for a year.
Every little bit of weakness makes them more convinced that I don't deserve what I've been given, that any one of them could do it better.
And you've been the most glaring evidence of that. "
She chews on her lower lip. "It's their fault I ended up there, though. In your mansion."
"Sure. And they see it as weakness that I didn't just kill you immediately. Or that I didn't capture your father and torture a ransom out of him."
She looks at me sharply. "Why didn't you?"
"Would you have wanted me, if I had?"
She shakes her head slowly, and I shrug. "There you go."
"So what do you want?" Liesl looks at me. "Is this what you want?"
"I don't know anything else. I can't be anything else. But for the first time… yes." I reach up, trailing my fingers along her hair. "There is something I want. I want you. Not as a captive. Not as leverage. Not as a possession. Just... you."
Her eyes fill with tears. "Andrei—"
"I don't know how to do that," I continue. "I don't know how to want something without consuming it. Without controlling it. Without making it mine in every possible way. That's not how I was taught to survive."
"You could try," she whispers. "Just… try to trust me, Andrei. If you could…"
I narrow my eyes at her. "You want something."
She takes a breath. "I want you to try one more time. With my father."
Every muscle in my body tenses. "No."
"Andrei—"
"He tried to kill me, Liesl. He set up an ambush. Men died because of him. Because of his refusal to negotiate, to pay, to do anything except escalate this war." I pull away from her and sit up. "I'm not giving him another chance to put a bullet in my head."
"Not a meeting like before, on his turf," she says quickly. "Bring him here. To the safe house. Just him, no guards, no weapons. Let me talk to him. Let me convince him to stop this."
I shake my head. "That's insane—"
"Is it?" She sits up too, the blanket falling away.
She doesn't seem to care anymore that she's naked.
"He's my father. He loves me, even if he's terrible at showing it.
If I can make him understand that I'm safe, that I'm choosing to be here, that continuing this war will only get me killed in the crossfire. .. maybe he'll listen."
"And if he doesn't?"
"Then at least we tried." She reaches for my hand.
"Andrei, I know I see things in a brighter light than you do.
I know I'm probably naive about how this world works.
But I also know my father. And I know that the only way this ends is if someone breaks the cycle…
if someone chooses peace instead of revenge. "
I want to tell her it's impossible, that men like Alexander Baumann don't choose peace. They choose victory or death, and nothing in between. But I can see the hope in her eyes, the desperate belief that maybe, just maybe, there's a way out of this that doesn't end in more blood.
And I want to give her that. I want to be the kind of man who can choose hope over cynicism, trust over control.
Even if it kills me.
"If I do this," I say slowly, "and it goes wrong—if he tries anything, if this is another setup—"
"It won't be," she interrupts. "I'll make sure of it. I'll talk to him first, set the terms, make it clear that any violence means I'm the one who gets hurt. He won't risk that."
"You don't know that."
"I know him better than you do." She squeezes my hand. "Please. Let me try. And then... then maybe we can figure out if there's a way forward for us. Something that could actually be... real."
The word hangs between us. Real. Like what we have now isn't real, isn't enough. Like there's something more we could build if we just had the chance.
I should tell her that the risk is too great, that I won't put my life in Alexander Baumann's hands again, that this is a fantasy that will only end in disappointment or death. But I look at her, naked and vulnerable, and so fucking brave to try again, and I can't make myself say the words.
Maybe she's right. Maybe there is a way forward that doesn't involve endless war and bloodshed.
"I'll think about it," I finally say. It's not a yes, but it's not a no either. And from the way her face lights up, I can tell she knows that's the best she's going to get right now.
She leans forward and kisses me softly, like she's trying to show me what real could feel like. And God help me, I want it.
I want her. I want this. I want the impossible future she's offering, even though I know it will probably destroy us both.
I pull her back down onto the bed, wrap my arms around her, and hold her close.
She settles against my chest, her breathing gradually evening out as exhaustion takes over.
I don't sleep, though. My mind is too busy calculating risks, weighing options, trying to figure out if there's any scenario where bringing Alexander Baumann to this safe house doesn't end in disaster.
But even as I run through the possibilities, I know I'm going to do it. Because she asked me to. And I want to be the kind of man who can give her hope instead of just taking everything from her.
Even if it's the last thing I do.
Her breathing deepens, and I know she's asleep. I press a kiss to the top of her head, breathing in the scent of her hair.
"You're going to be the death of me, ptitsa."