4. Viktor
VIKTOR
Ileft her on the terrace because if I stayed another second, I was going to kiss her.
Now I'm in a basement in Brooklyn, and I'm going to do something far less gentle.
The man's name is Sergei. Mid-level enforcer. Never been particularly smart, but useful enough for simple jobs. He's tied to a chair in the center of the room, blood already dripping from his split lip where Dmitri got enthusiastic during transport.
I pull up a chair and sit across from him, close enough that he can see every scar on my face, every detail of the damage I've accumulated over the years.
"You were told no one goes near her. Explicit instructions."
Sergei tries to speak, but his voice comes out as a hoarse croak, his throat working convulsively. "I didn't know— I just wanted to see what all the fuss was about?—"
"You called her a pet." My voice is flat, devoid of inflection.
His face goes ashen, the color draining so fast I can watch it happen. "I was just— it was a joke, Viktor. Just a stupid joke between the guys."
I lean back in my chair, perfectly calm, my posture relaxed despite the tension crackling in the air. "Tell me what you were going to do. When you reached for her arm in that restaurant."
"Nothing! I swear on my mother's grave, I wasn't going to?—"
"You called her a pet." I repeat the words slowly, deliberately, letting each syllable land like a physical blow. "You said she belonged in a cell, like some kind of animal. You reached out and touched her."
"I didn't touch her! You stopped me before I could even?—"
"You would have. Your intention was clear."
He opens his mouth to deny it, but the look in my eyes stops him cold. He knows what I am. Everyone in the Bratva knows what I am. The enforcer who doesn't hesitate. The monster who does what needs to be done without flinching.
He just forgot that the monster has claimed something for himself.
What follows is methodical. Controlled. I don't raise my voice. I don't lose my temper. I simply make sure that Sergei understands, in terms he'll never forget, that Celeste Duval is untouchable. And I make sure the message will spread through the ranks by morning.
After, I wash my hands in the industrial sink, watching the water run clear, and feel nothing about the violence I just inflicted. No guilt. No satisfaction. Nothing.
What I feel instead is the ghost of her cheek under my palm from that night on the terrace.
The warmth of her skin. The way she leaned into my touch like it was something she craved.
The way her eyes fluttered closed, like she trusted me completely, like she wanted me closer instead of running away screaming.
She should be afraid of me. She should be terrified. I just systematically broke a man's fingers for daring to look at her wrong, for daring to speak to her like she was less than human.
Instead, she looked at me on that terrace like I was something worth trusting. Like I was a man capable of gentleness, not the monster everyone knows me to be.
I don't know what to do with that truth.
Two days later, I invite her to dinner.
It's not really an invitation. Marta escorts her to the dining room at seven, but I'm trying. I've never tried before. I've never had anyone I wanted to try for.
When she walks into the room, I forget how to breathe.
She's wearing one of the dresses I had bought for her. Deep green, elegant, skimming her curves in a way that makes my hands itch to touch. Her hair is down, framing her face, and she's looking at me with those dark eyes that see too much.
I stand as she enters, pulling out her chair like a gentleman, which is laughable given what I did in that basement forty-eight hours ago.
"Thank you," she says as she sits. Her voice is polite, careful.
I take my seat across from her, and for a long moment, neither of us speaks.
The silence is thick enough to choke on.
There's a distance between us that didn't exist on that terrace, and I know I'm the one who put it there.
I pulled away. I ran. And now she's guarded again, watching me like she's waiting for the trap to spring.
The first course arrives—a delicate butternut squash soup, garnished with sage and cream. We eat in strained silence, the clink of silverware against porcelain the only sound breaking the tension.
Finally, she sets down her fork with deliberate care and looks at me directly, unflinchingly. "You killed that man. The one from the basement."
I don't insult her intelligence by denying it. I hold her gaze, steady and unwavering. "Yes."
"Because he touched me." It's not quite a question, more like she's testing the words, trying to understand the logic behind my violence.
"Because he would have hurt you," I correct, my voice low and rough. "Because he thought he could put his hands on what's mine."
She absorbs this, her expression carefully unreadable, those dark eyes searching my face for something I'm not sure I can give her. "What is this, Viktor? What are we doing here?"
I don't have an answer. For the first time in my life, I don't have a plan. I've always known what came next. Always had a strategy, a contingency, a way to control every variable. But she's not a variable. She's chaos wrapped in grace, and I have no idea how to navigate what she's doing to me.
"You were supposed to be leverage," I admit, the words feeling foreign on my tongue.
The truth feels strange in my mouth, uncomfortable and sharp-edged.
I'm not used to giving it away so freely, especially not to someone who could use it against me.
"A tool to make your father behave. A piece on the chessboard. "
"And now?" Her voice is barely above a whisper, but it cuts through the space between us.
I meet her eyes across the flickering candlelight, across the remains of our meal, across the impossible distance that somehow feels like nothing at all. "Now I don't know what you are. I just know I can't let you go."
She should call me a monster. Should demand her freedom, should scream for help, should do any number of rational things. Should throw her wine in my face and tell me I'm insane, that I'm no better than the men I've killed.
Instead, after a long moment of silence, she says: "My father hasn't called. Not once. Not to negotiate, not to threaten, not even to confirm I'm alive."
The pain in her voice cracks something in me, something I thought was impenetrable.
The mask I've worn my whole life, the carefully constructed armor I've built up layer by layer since I was old enough to understand what the Bratva was, what it demanded of its sons.
It all feels thin suddenly. Paper-thin. Insufficient against whatever force she's become in my life.
"He doesn't deserve you," I say, and I mean it with every fiber of my being.
"No one's ever thought I was worth deserving." The resignation in her tone, the way she says it like it's a fact of nature rather than a tragedy, guts me.
The words hit me like bullets, each one finding its mark.
I reach across the table before I can stop myself, before I can think better of it, taking her hand in mine.
Her fingers are cold, so delicate in my grip that I'm afraid I might break them.
I wrap them in both of mine, trying to give her warmth, trying to transfer some of the heat that burns constantly beneath my skin.
"You're worth everything," I tell her, my voice rough with conviction. "I've known that since the first moment I saw you. Since you looked at me with those eyes and refused to cower."
She stares at me, those dark eyes wide and glistening with unshed tears, and I watch the walls around her start to crack and crumble. The same walls I built around myself. The same defenses I've relied on for twenty years to keep the world at bay.
"This is insane," she whispers, her voice trembling slightly.
"I know."
"You're a criminal. A killer. You've done terrible things."
"I know."
"I should hate you. I should despise everything you stand for."
"Do you?" I ask, holding my breath, my heart pounding against my ribs.
The pause kills me slowly. Seconds stretch into eternities while I wait for her verdict, for her condemnation, for the rejection I probably deserve and have definitely earned.
Then, so quietly I almost miss it: "No. God help me, no. That's what scares me most."
She says she should hate me, and I think: that would be easier. So much easier. Hate I can fight. Hate I understand. Whatever this is—this connection, this pull, this impossible thing building between us—might destroy us both before it's through.
After dinner, I walk her to her room.
The hallway feels endless, each step bringing us closer to her door, closer to the moment where I'll have to let her go again. The silence between us has changed. It's not uncomfortable anymore. It's charged. Electric. Like the air before a storm.
At her door, she turns to face me. We're standing so close I can smell the faint floral scent of her perfume, can see the subtle rise and fall of her chest as she breathes.
"Thank you," she says, her voice barely above a whisper. "For dinner. For listening. For... all of it."
"You don't have to thank me for treating you like a human being, Celeste."
Her laugh is soft, bitter, tinged with years of disappointment I'm only beginning to understand. "You'd be surprised how rare that is in my life. How rare you are."
My hand comes up before I can stop it, before rational thought can intervene, tracing the delicate line of her jaw with my fingertips.
Her skin is impossibly soft, warm beneath my touch.
She shivers—a visible tremor running through her body—but doesn't pull away. If anything, she leans into my palm.
"Celeste."
Her name is gravel in my throat, rough and raw, dragged up from somewhere deep in my chest where I've buried too many wants for too many years. She looks up at me through dark lashes, those impossibly dark eyes searching my face like she's trying to memorize every scar, every shadow, every failing.
"Viktor."
The way she says my name nearly undoes me.
I should walk away. I should turn around, put distance between us, maintain what's left of my rapidly crumbling control. Instead, I lean closer, drawn by gravity or madness or something stronger than both. Close enough to feel the whisper of her breath ghosting across my lips.
"If I kiss you right now, I won't be able to stop."
Her answer is immediate, breathless, reckless. "Then don't stop."
Something inside me groans, some last restraint I've been clinging to. I press my forehead to hers, trying to hold on, trying to be noble for once in my miserable life.
"You don't know what you're asking for. What I am. The things I've done."
"I know exactly what you are." Her hands come up to my chest, pressing flat against the fabric of my shirt. I can feel the heat of her palms through the cotton. "I see you, Viktor. The monster and the man. I'm not afraid."
I break.
My mouth crashes into hers, and there's nothing gentle about it. It's years of loneliness and a lifetime of hunger, and she meets me with equal fire. Her lips part beneath mine, and I swallow the small sound she makes, the gasp that turns into a moan.
I pin her against the door, one hand in her hair, the other gripping her hip hard enough to bruise. She arches into me, her fingers clutching my shirt, pulling me closer like she can't get enough.
She tastes like wine and desire and something I can't name, something that feels terrifyingly like hope—like redemption, like a future I never thought I deserved.
When I finally pull back, we're both gasping for air. Her lips are swollen and red from my kiss, her eyes dark and dilated with want, her chest heaving against mine in rapid, shallow breaths that match my own ragged breathing.
"Inside," I growl, the word barely more than a rasp, barely recognizing my own voice through the haze of need. "Now."
She reaches behind her with trembling fingers and turns the handle, pushing the door open.
I follow her through the threshold, kick it shut behind us with enough force to rattle the frame, and everything I've been holding back—every restraint, every carefully constructed wall—comes loose all at once.
She's mine. Finally, completely, irrevocably mine.
And I'm never letting her go. Not tonight. Not ever.