Chapter Nineteen - Felix
The port negotiation runs three hours longer than scheduled, stretched thin by posturing and territorial displays that accomplish nothing except wasting time I don’t have.
By the time I’m back in the SUV heading toward the estate, it’s past six and the sun is setting across fields that blur into darkness beyond the highway.
Oleg drives in silence, aware that I’m not in the mood for conversation.
My mind cycles through the same calculations I’ve been running for days—Sartore pressure points, senator alignments, shipment rerouting that costs more than projected, the expanding web of complications that all trace back to Diana’s protection.
It’s worth it, I remind myself. Every lost contract, every strained alliance, every resource diverted from routine operations—all of it justified by keeping her alive.
The rational part of my brain questions that logic. The rest of me doesn’t care.
We exit the highway onto rural roads that wind through farmland and scattered woods. Oleg slows for a sharp curve, and something catches my eye near the shoulder—a flash of white against dark asphalt.
“Stop,” I say.
Oleg pulls over smoothly, hazards flashing. “What’s the problem?”
“Wait here.”
I step out into cold evening air that smells like rain and distant wood smoke. The shoulder is narrow, gravel crunching beneath my shoes as I walk back toward what caught my attention.
A single white wildflower grows through a crack in the pavement, petals intact despite the location’s hostility to life. It’s small, unimpressive, the kind of thing I’d normally walk past without noticing.
Something about its persistence—blooming despite concrete and exhaust and the certainty of being crushed eventually—makes me pause.
Diana would appreciate this. The thought surfaces unbidden, instinctive. She’d find meaning in something fragile surviving where it shouldn’t, would probably turn it into a metaphor about resistance and beauty in unexpected places.
I crouch and carefully extract the flower from its crack, roots and dirt still attached. The gesture feels absurd the moment I’m holding it—a Bratva captain stopping his convoy to pick wildflowers like some romantic fool from a movie even Diana would probably mock.
I return to the SUV, cradling the flower carefully, aware that Oleg is watching with an expression I don’t acknowledge. Strategic detachment would dictate leaving it where it grew. Personal attachment makes me carry it home.
The distinction between those two states has collapsed entirely where Diana is concerned.
Something’s wrong the moment I enter the estate. The air feels different—charged in ways that suggest confrontation rather than routine evening.
Taras meets me at the entrance, his expression carefully neutral.
“Mrs. Rudenko is in the living room,” he says quietly. “She’s been waiting since four.”
The phrasing carries weight. Waiting implies purpose, preparation. I nod once and head toward the living room, still holding the ridiculous flower I picked with intentions I can’t fully articulate.
Diana sits in one of the armchairs near the fireplace, documents spread across the coffee table in organized arrays that suggest hours of review. She looks up when I enter, and the expression on her face stops me in the doorway.
Her dark eyes are red-rimmed, tears already shed or barely held back. The composure she usually maintains has fractured into something raw and vulnerable that makes my chest tighten with immediate alarm.
“What happened?” I cross to her quickly, scanning the room for threats that don’t exist. “Are you hurt?”
She gestures toward the documents without speaking.
I recognize them immediately—printouts from the filing cabinet in my office, emails and memos I knew existed but hadn’t thought about in months.
The timeline aligns with Ethan’s death. The market repositioning memo sits on top, my own clinical assessment of how his investigation’s termination would benefit Rudenko interests.
The flower is still in my hand, absurdly incongruous with the evidence of my complicity spread across the table.
Diana’s gaze drops to it briefly. Something that might be pain flickers across her expression before she looks away.
“You knew,” she says, her voice hollow. “Not just that Lorenzo was going to kill him. You knew it would benefit you. You positioned to profit from his death.”
The accusation I’ve been dreading since she started asking questions about Ethan lands with the weight I anticipated. No deflection will work here. No strategic framing can soften what those documents prove.
I set the flower on the side table carefully and move closer, settling into the chair across from her. “Yes.”
Her breath catches. She’d been expecting denial, or justification, or something other than blunt confirmation. The honesty strips away whatever composure she’d maintained.
“You wrote a memo.” Her voice shakes. “About market opportunities. About contracts you could absorb. You calculated profit margins from my brother’s corpse.”
“I assessed operational impacts and positioned accordingly.” The clinical phrasing sounds monstrous spoken aloud. “That’s what the role requires, identifying opportunities regardless of their source.”
“Their source was murder.” She stands abruptly, papers scattering. “Ethan’s murder, and you treated it like a business acquisition.”
I remain seated, forcing myself to accept her fury without deflecting it.
“I didn’t kill him. I didn’t order it or facilitate it.
When Lorenzo informed me he was moving forward with containment, I recognized the fallout would create opportunities.
Not capitalizing on them wouldn’t have brought your brother back.
It would just mean someone else absorbed those contracts. ”
“So you’re the ethical opportunist?” Her laugh is bitter. “That’s your defense?”
“I’m not defending it.” I stand slowly, needing her to understand even if she can’t forgive.
“I’m explaining the reality I operated within.
Sartore was handling Ethan regardless of what I did.
The choice wasn’t between saving him or profiting—it was between profiting or letting competitors capitalize on the same market gap. ”
Diana crosses to me suddenly, her hand striking my chest hard enough that I feel the impact through my shirt.
“You should have saved him.” Tears stream down her face now, the devastation complete. “You had resources, connections, the ability to intervene in ways that might have mattered. But you chose money over his life.”
“I chose organizational stability over starting a war.” My voice roughens despite my effort to maintain control. “Yes, I profited from that choice. I won’t apologize for that because the alternative wouldn’t have changed Ethan’s outcome.”
She hits my chest again, then a third time, each strike losing force until her hands just rest against me. “You’re disgusting.”
The vulnerability in her voice—the raw admission that she wants me despite everything—hits harder than any accusation. I catch her wrists gently, holding them against my chest where she can feel my heartbeat accelerating.
“I know.” The words come out rougher than intended. “I know what I am. I know the calculations I make are the kind that should make you run. I’m not going to pretend I’m something else just to make this easier for you to accept.”
“I don’t want to accept it.” She tries to pull away; I tighten my grip slightly. “I want to hate you cleanly, without this… this need that makes me weak.”
“You’re not weak.” I release one wrist to cup her jaw, forcing her to meet my eyes. “You’re surviving in a world that’s tried to destroy you multiple times. That takes strength I respect more than you know.”
“Don’t.” Her voice breaks. “Don’t try to make this about respect when we both know you see me as possession.”
“I see you as mine.” The distinction matters even if she can’t recognize it. “That includes respect, protection, and a level of devotion that’s become operationally irrational. It doesn’t erase what I did to position Rudenko interests after your brother’s death.”
Diana stares at me, tears still streaming, her expression shifting through emotions too fast to track. Then she pulls free from my grip and shoves me hard enough that I have to step back.
“I hate that I need you.” She advances on me, each word landing like a physical blow.
“I hate that when I found those files, my immediate reaction was wondering if you’d still want me after I confronted you.
I hate that I’m standing here devastated by your betrayal and all I can think about is how much I want you to touch me. ”
I catch her waist and pull her against me roughly, eliminating distance she’s trying to maintain. “Then let me.”
“This doesn’t fix anything.” Her hands come up to my chest, pushing without real force. “Sex doesn’t make you less complicit in Ethan’s death.”
“No.” I slide one hand into her hair, angling her face up. “It’s what we both need right now.”
She makes a sound between fury and surrender, then kisses me with bruising intensity. There’s no tenderness in it—just desperation and grief and need that’s as much punishment as desire.
I respond in kind, backing her toward the couch while my hands work at her clothing with less finesse than I usually maintain. She tears at my shirt, buttons scattering across hardwood, her nails scraping against skin hard enough to leave marks.
We collapse onto the couch together, mouths never separating, hands mapping each other with possessive urgency. When I finally get her jeans off and position myself between her thighs, she’s already trembling.
“This is a terrible idea,” she gasps against my mouth.
“Probably.” I enter her in one hard thrust that makes her cry out.
The encounter is nothing like our wedding night. There’s no gentleness, no careful attention to her inexperience. Just raw need and anger and grief channeled into physical connection that borders on violence.
I drive into her with a rhythm that’s too hard, too fast, driven by the need to prove she’s mine despite the betrayal she’s just uncovered.
Diana meets every thrust with equal intensity, her nails raking down my back, her mouth finding my throat and biting hard enough to bruise.
“I hate you,” she sobs against my skin, even as her body tightens around me in ways that suggest she’s close.
“I know.” I shift the angle slightly, hitting the spot that makes her gasp. “Hate me all you want. It makes this even hotter.”
The possessive claim pushes her over. She comes with my name torn from her throat, clenching around me in waves that trigger my own release. I finish inside her with a groan that sounds more like pain than pleasure, collapsing partially on top of her while we both struggle to breathe.
The aftermath settles heavy and uncomfortable. My cock is still inside her, our bodies tangled together on the couch, sweat cooling in the air-conditioned room. Diana’s hands rest against my shoulders, no longer clawing, just holding me there.
“This doesn’t change anything,” she whispers eventually. “I still can’t reconcile what you did.”
“I know.” I press my forehead against hers, accepting the truth. “But you’re not leaving.”
“I can’t leave.” Her voice cracks. “That’s the problem. I’m trapped here with you, hating what you’ve done and needing you anyway.”
I pull back enough to meet her eyes, seeing the devastation still raw in her gaze. “I won’t apologize for choices I’d make again, but I am sorry they hurt you.”
She studies my face for a long moment, then pushes at my chest weakly. “Get off me.”
I withdraw carefully and help her sit up, both of us disheveled and exposed in ways that go beyond physical.
Diana reaches for her discarded clothing, dressing mechanically while I do the same.
The scattered documents still cover the coffee table—evidence of complicity neither of us can unsee.
Diana picks up the market repositioning memo, staring at it with an expression I can’t read. “Did you really stop to pick me a flower on your way home?”
The shift in topic catches me off guard. I glance at the white wildflower still sitting on the side table, absurd and fragile and completely out of place in this wreckage.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“It reminded me of you.” The honesty costs more than the admission about Ethan. “Surviving where it shouldn’t. Beautiful despite circumstances designed to destroy it.”
Her laugh is hollow. “That’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me, and it happened on the same night I discovered you profited from my brother’s murder.”
“Ironic, I know.” The attempt at levity falls flat.
Diana sets down the memo and stands, moving toward the door. She pauses at the threshold, looking back with an expression that breaks something inside me.
“I don’t know how to love someone who’s capable of what you did.” Her voice is barely audible. “And I’m afraid I already do.”
She leaves before I can respond, her footsteps fading toward the stairs.
I remain in the living room surrounded by evidence of my opportunism and the wildflower I picked with intentions I still can’t fully articulate.
The devastation on her face when she admitted loving me despite everything should feel like victory.
Instead, it feels like I’ve destroyed something precious I don’t know how to repair.
For the first time in my carefully controlled life, I have no strategy for fixing what I’ve broken.