CHAPTER 4
LIAM P.O.V.
The taste of stale coffee and the acrid tang of burnt ambition clung to the air in my command center.
Hours had blurred into a single, brutal stretch, each minute a new layer of shit piled on top of the last. Dmitri was dead.
Volkov was in the shadows, orchestrating a fucking symphony of betrayal.
And Rose... she was behind a heavy mahogany door, locked away in her gilded cage, nursing a wound I’d inflicted.
My empire was bleeding, and I was patching wounds with brute force and cold steel.
Vasily and Sergei moved with grim efficiency, their reports sharp, concise.
Oleg Volkov was still a ghost, but we were squeezing his known associates.
The council members, those parasitic old fucks, were being reminded, one by one, of who held the goddamn reins.
Every contact made, every threat issued, every piece of information extracted, was a nail in Konstantin’s coffin.
But the fucking silence from Rose’s room was louder than any of it.
I slammed a fist on the desk, rattling the coffee cup. “Find him,” I bit out, my voice a low, gravelly snarl. “I don’t care if you have to tear every whorehouse and dirty alley apart. Oleg. Alive. I want him to sing.”
Vasily nodded, his eyes devoid of emotion. “It’s being handled, Pakhan.”
But my mind was already elsewhere. It kept drifting back to her pale face in the foundry, the horror in her blue-green eyes.
The way her body had stiffened in my arms. The absence of her usual defiant fire, replaced by a deep, shattering emptiness.
She looked at me like I was a stranger. No.
Worse. Like I was the fucking monster she always feared.
The anger was a hot, familiar burn in my gut.
I’d saved her. Pulled the trigger on my own blood to keep her breathing, to keep her safe.
And she recoiled from me. It was a fucking insult.
A betrayal worse than Dmitri’s, because it cut deeper.
To the raw, bleeding core of me that only she seemed able to reach.
My cock stirred, thick and heavy against my jeans, an insistent throb that demanded release, demanded ownership.
It was a primal need, born of the chaos, the blood, the sheer fucking terror of almost losing her.
I needed to bury myself inside her, to feel her body wrap around mine, to hear her screams and groans, to silence the accusations in her eyes with her own desperate pleasure.
“Continue the sweeps. Isolate Volkov’s remaining assets.
No fucking sleep until he’s a memory,” I commanded, my voice colder than ice.
They didn’t need to know the desperation clawing at my chest. They saw the Pakhan, ruthless and unyielding.
The man who had just put down his own brother without a flicker of remorse.
I stood, the chair scraping loudly against the polished floor. My ribs ached, a dull, bruising pain where Dmitri had gotten a lucky elbow in. A reminder of the fight. A reminder of the cost.
My men looked up, expecting more orders.
But I only stared at them for a long moment, my eyes conveying a message that needed no words.
Don’t fuck up. Don’t question me. Don’t dare cross me.
Then I turned and walked out, leaving them to their work, to the cold, calculating machinations of my empire.
The corridor was silent. Too silent. It stretched before me, long and pristine, leading to her room.
Each step was a battle. My mind raged, caught between the brutal pragmatism of my world and the aching, infuriating need for her.
She was a weakness. A vulnerability. And yet, she was the only thing that made any of this goddamn existence bearable.
I reached her door. The heavy mahogany mocked me with its polished surface, a barrier between us. I stood there for a beat, my hand hovering, then I clenched my jaw and twisted the handle. It opened without a sound.
The room was bathed in the soft, diffused light of the rising sun, filtering through the heavy curtains.
She was by the window, a silk robe—sapphire blue, I remembered picking it out—clinging to her curves.
Her hair, the color of autumn leaves, spilled over her shoulders, a vibrant contrast to the cool tones of the room.
Her back was to me, her posture rigid, a fragile defiance in the slight tremble of her shoulders.
My gaze drifted to the antique writing desk in the corner. The leather-bound journal was there, closed. She had been writing. Pouring out her fucking thoughts. Probably cataloging my sins, preserving the record of her horror. The thought twisted something ugly in my gut.
“Rose.” My voice was a low growl, rough with exhaustion and a desperation I refused to acknowledge.
She flinched, her body tensing, but didn’t turn immediately. I watched her shoulders rise and fall with a shallow breath. Then, slowly, she pivoted.
Her eyes met mine. They were wide, haunted, and that chasm was still there. Not hatred. Not fear, exactly. Something worse. A deep, profound mágoa that felt like a physical blow. A silent accusation that screamed louder than any shout.
“Liam.” Her voice was barely a whisper, thin and fragile.
I hated that sound. Hated the way her name felt like ash on her tongue when she spoke it. I took a step into the room, then another. My boots thudded softly on the thick rug, each sound an intrusion in her silent world.
“We need to talk.” My words felt flat, inadequate, even to my own ears. What was there to say? I did it for you. I’d do it again. Would she understand? No. Not with that look in her eyes.
She shook her head, a slow, deliberate movement.
“There’s nothing to talk about.” Her gaze dropped, fixing on the blood-splatter on my freshly changed shirt, even though I’d scrubbed myself raw in the shower in the office before coming.
I swore under my breath. The stain was metaphorical, not physical. But she saw it just the same.
“Don’t look at me like that, moya roza,” I said, my voice hardening, the cold control I usually wielded returning, a desperate shield against the raw pain her rejection inflicted. “Don’t you dare. I saved your life.”
“At what cost?” she whispered, her eyes finally lifting again, bright with unshed tears. “Your brother’s life? Your soul?”
My jaw clenched. “He made his choice. He sided with a man who wanted to destroy everything. Who wanted to destroy you. What did you expect me to do?”
“I don’t know!” Her voice cracked, a sob catching in her throat. “I don’t know, Liam! But... but not like that. Not... him.”
She was crying now, silent tears tracking paths down her pale cheeks. It ripped through me, a raw, unfamiliar pain. I hated seeing her cry. Hated knowing I was the cause. But her tears were also a weapon, chipping away at my resolve, at the brutal fortress I’d built around myself.
“Stop it.” I closed the distance between us in two powerful strides. My hands reached for her, grasping her shoulders, pulling her against my chest. Her body was rigid, resisting. “Stop crying, Rose. Don’t you dare break like this.”
“You broke me!” she choked out, her small hands coming up, pushing against my chest, her fists clenching on the fabric of my shirt. “You fucking broke me!”
Her words were like daggers, plunging deep. The rage flared, hot and sharp, but it was mixed with a desperate, suffocating need. I couldn’t stand her pushing me away. Couldn’t stand the distance. I needed her to feel me, to remember what we were. What we could be.
“No.” My voice was a low snarl, rough and possessive. “You are not broken. You are mine. And you will remember that.”
My mouth descended on hers, brutal and demanding.
I kissed her with all the desperation, all the fury, all the fear and possessiveness that had been churning inside me.
My tongue plunged into her mouth, claiming, devouring, tasting the salt of her tears, the sweetness of her protest. It was not a kiss of love, not in the gentle sense.
It was a brand. A claim. A furious assertion of ownership.
She fought me. Her hands, small and surprisingly strong, beat against my chest, trying to push me away.
Her head thrashed from side to side, whimpering protests muffled by my lips.
But I wouldn’t let her go. Couldn’t. I caged her against me, one hand tangling in her hair, pulling her head back, deepening the kiss, forcing her to accept it.
My other hand slid down her back, pressing her hips against mine, letting her feel the hard ridge of my erection, the undeniable proof of my desperate need.
Her struggles weakened. A soft moan escaped her throat, a sound of surrender mixed with pain.
Her body, the traitorous thing, began to soften against mine, responding to the raw, visceral force of my desire.
I felt her lips part further, felt her tongue tentatively meet mine, not in passion, but in a confused, desperate response to the inferno I was creating between us.
I tore my mouth from hers, dragging my lips across her cheek, down her jaw, to the pulse hammering frantically at the base of her throat. “You are mine, Rose. Mine. Say it. Say my fucking name.”
Her eyes fluttered open, unfocused, glazed with tears and a burgeoning desire. “Liam,” she gasped, the single word a mix of accusation and plea.
“Good girl.” I lifted her, my arms strong beneath her thighs, ignoring the wince that tore through her as her injured foot took a momentary strain.
She cried out, her legs wrapping instinctively around my waist as I held her flush against me.
I carried her the few steps to the bed, the opulent king-sized mattress, and dropped her onto the plush covers.
She landed with a soft bounce, her robe riding up her thighs, exposing her pale skin. Her eyes, wide and bewildered, stared up at me. I stood over her, breathing hard, my body screaming for release.