Chapter 23
Honey On My Tongue
Jade
In his arms, I became someone else. Someone more like myself. Alex was slow and deliberate. He gave me the space and time to think and to decide. The space to take my power back, and fuck, did that work like magic.
Men didn’t know that their biggest strength—their biggest superpower—was making a woman feel safe. And with Alex, I felt bulletproof.
But Gianna possessed something stronger than bullets. She held all the power to rip our world apart. Refusing to climb off Alex’s chest, I stared at the photo of me and Xavier on his phone. Xavier used a photo of us when we first started dating. The love of his life. What a delusional clown.
Slowly, I slid off Alex and grabbed the phone, rereading her text.
The bitch did recognize me. She put it all together quickly, which meant that she either knew Xavier or maybe had been to one of his parties.
He loved to throw extravagant, over-the-top parties where everyone was invited.
I’ve seen you somewhere before. At some party, with someone else. Another man.
Yes, she looked like the type who might show up.
“Fucking will have to wait,” I said, passing the phone back to Alex and slumping down on the bed, letting the dread wash over me. I closed my eyes and just sighed, disappearing into that inevitable dark feeling.
We were fucked.
If Gianna told Xavier where we were, he would tell my father, and this place would be swarming with federal agents by lunchtime.
“Not too long, though,” Alex’s deep voice sounded right in my ear, his hand sliding on my stomach. “We have to leave right now, but I am going to fuck you as soon as I can.”
Even during this calamity, he was a tether. I watched the way he climbed off the bed and turned around to look for something.
He was naked. Naked. I’d thought about him naked, many, many times, but living through it was different. My soul shook inside me at the sight. He towered in the room, the tattoos on his back moving with every pull of his muscles, and somehow, this man was naked in front of me.
He turned back to me and my eyes inevitably jumped to… Fuck. I stared. He was definitely well hung. Definitely a shower but also…a grower. Because I had sucked his cock and I remembered how I struggled to shove him down my throat.
“What?” He got my attention and my eyes jumped to his, realizing that I had been checking him out without shame. “You like to watch?” He threw my question back at me, and yeah. Yeah, I did.
“I like to watch you.”
Alex spent exactly seven minutes packing up. He grabbed some of my and his clothes, a few water bottles, my favorite snacks, and then asked, “Anything else you’d like to take?”
I stood in the middle of the living room and looked around. I didn’t want to leave. This had become the coziest and most joyful place I’d ever lived in.
Instead of dwelling on it, I shook my head and placed my hand in his, following him out of the house and ignoring that sinking feeling inside me. Once outside, he barked something at Maksim and opened my car door before getting in himself and absolutely flooring it out of there.
Ten minutes. That’s how long it took us to abandon the house that had become a home for me.
Raindrops pattered against the windshield, the weather mirroring my inner state. What on earth would happen next?
“Does Gianna know what you do?” I asked as soon as we got on the freeway, trying to calculate how quickly my father could find out where I’d been.
“No. She thinks I sell used cars.” Alex kept his eyes on the road, but his hand was on my thigh. He was so calm, so unshaken.
I slumped against the soft leather of the car seat and let the dark images permeate me. Alex in prison. Me returning to my old life. Seeing Xavier, seeing my father, seeing my office.
Maybe we could just drive forever. Drive to Canada or in the opposite direction, to Mexico. And after that, just keep driving because anything was better than going back.
“What’s your favorite color, Jade?” Alex asked me out of the blue, interrupting my spiral. The question was both silly and somehow flattering.
“I don’t know. Maybe blue. What’s yours?”
“Green,” Alex said immediately, inching his hand higher up my thigh, never taking his eyes off the road. “Like the color of your eyes.”
Heat burned my cheeks for some reason. Like my eyes.
“How did you get that scar on your knee?” Alex asked another simple question. It was warm and dry in the car, but the world outside was flooding in rain, turning darker with every passing mile.
I knew what he was doing—he noticed I’d been quieter than ever. Noticed that I was anxious and possibly even knew that I was scared. But his tone was light and curious, and he asked simple questions, doing his best to keep my mind off the impending doom. And it was working.
“I fell off my bike when I was a teenager. Had to get stitches.”
“Mm. Do you like biking?”
And that’s how an hour flew by in a blur of questions, laughter, and stolen kisses.
***
Alex pulled up to what I could only call a castle. My mouth hung open as I stared out the window at the mature palm trees lining the longest driveway in the world. The house was modern and absolutely massive, with glass walls and windows offering a glimpse inside.
With my hand in his, Alex walked to the front door and picked a key on his keychain, like this was all normal life. He swung the door open and pulled me in after him into the cool and quiet home.
I took it all in, a little shocked. Everything screamed money. The floors gleamed, the furniture was all soft and designer, and it smelled divine. Rich.
“Wow.” I wandered further inside, following him. “Grand theft auto pays well, huh?” I eyed the curved staircase leading upstairs, noticing the steps were made of marble. There was a grand piano standing underneath the stairs, right in front of a window facing the ocean. That was the hallway.
Alex chuckled, pulling me into a sitting room designed for a king. Leisurely, like we were back at the beach house and not in a replica of Versailles, he walked through it and into the kitchen, which was more like one slab of continuous stone.
“Actually, car thefts didn’t pay for this house.” He pointed to an island chair, and I dared to plant my butt on it, feeling incredibly out of place.
“Oh?” The rain still pattered outside, right into the pool beyond the windows. “Do you have another hobby? Saving kittens , perhaps?”
I rested my chin in my hands and just watched Alex move around the kitchen. He withdrew a kettle from a cabinet and filled it up, plugging it in somewhere beside the fridge. He knew the kitchen well.
“I’m more of a dog person, but I like cats too. You ever had a pet?” He glanced at me before withdrawing two glasses from another cabinet and filling them with ice.
“No, but I’d like a pet one day. Maybe a chinchilla?”
I burst out laughing at the way Alex stilled, turning back to me with confusion on his face. “I draw the line at hamsters.” He made a karate chop motion with his hand. “It goes dogs,” Alex said, holding up one finger. “Cats.” A second finger popped up. “Hamsters. We can’t get anything else.”
The kettle boiled while I watched him with glee on my face. “We? We’re getting a pet?” My heart raced just at the thought.
His eyes darkened and he abandoned whatever he was doing, rounding the island and strolling closer. Confidently, he swiveled my chair until I was right in front of him. I stared up at him, forgetting to breathe.
“We,” he stated. “We. Are you planning on getting a pet with another boyfriend? In which case, I’ll need his address so I can...” Keeping his eyes on mine, Alex dragged his thumb across his throat.
Oh dear Jesus fuck. He was serious about everything—immediately.
“I-I have a boyfriend?” I whispered, blinking innocently and fully aware of the way his fingers gripped my waist.
My words were like delicious, dark witchcraft.
“Tell me you don’t think that.” His voice turned deeper, slower. Dangerous. “Tell me I’m not your boyfriend.”
Lazily, his hand drifted from my waist to my neck, but he held me tenderly, grazing his thumb on my jawline.
“You’re my boyfriend,” I squeaked out, mesmerized by the darkness in his eyes. Alex was gentle, careful, and accommodating, but I had just caught a glimpse of something unhinged. He was jealous, and it was like tasting honey on my tongue.
He nodded diligently, picking up my hands and bringing them to his neck. “Good. Now say it like you believe it, Malyshka.”
“I-I believe it,” I stammered, still not sounding convincing, so I cleared my throat, trying again. “You’re my boyfriend.”
Alex was my boyfriend. My reality turned upside down in a very short time.
He seemed satisfied, the smile on his face growing wider and his grip tightening. “Better.”
“Is my boyfriend going to return to my original question? Did he save kittens to have this house? Is this his house?”
Alex stepped closer, wedging his leg between my thighs and letting his hands roam my back. “It’s one of my houses. It belonged to my father and he left it for me when he passed away. We couldn't go to my house right now. Not safe enough.”
His nose brushed mine, the closeness more intimate than anything we’d ever participated in before. I tightened my grip on him and closed my eyes, drowning in the sensation.
“I’m sorry your dad passed away.”
“Don’t be,” Alex assured me quietly. “He lived a dangerous lifestyle.”
Thunder rumbled outside, but it was all quiet and warm with him.
“Dangerous like you?”
He chuckled into my neck, sending wild shivers through all of me. “No. I lead a very safe lifestyle in comparison to him.”
I pulled back slightly, showing him my disbelief. “We had to leave in a matter of minutes. Sounds like a dangerous lifestyle.”
“That’s just crazy Gianna.” The softest kiss landed on my forehead. “I still have to figure out how the hell she found me.”
“Wait…what did your father do?"
Alex sighed, his hands settling on my hips.
“He worked for a big organization, and for a while, he split his time between Russia and here, maybe until I was twelve.” He looked me over, such tenderness in his eyes.
“He was…” Alex trailed off, searching for words.
I sat there quietly, not daring to interrupt.
“My father was a drug dealer. He was the head of the Miami chapter. He sold cocaine."
I blinked at him, feeling my face turn red at this new development. It all rolled off his tongue so easily—my father was a drug dealer.
There was a little knock on my conscience, because my father was the law.
“Which…large organization?” I held my breath, afraid of any answer at that point, but Alex didn’t hesitate.
“Bratva.”
The word oscillated in my mind, the heaviness of it seeping into my chest. Well, fuck. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but not that.
One second. Three. Five.
He waited for me to ask.
“And you? Do you work for the…Bratva too?” My tongue could barely turn to say the word, and I was sure Alex would say no. I was sure he’d shake his head side to side—
“Yes.”
The true meaning of it all descended on me at once. Alex was part of an empire. One of the largest criminal organizations in the world.
It made perfect sense now—why it had been so difficult to get any real information out of the informants. They were under pressure we didn’t even know about. It wasn’t only their life on the line; it was probably their families’ too.
“Andrei and I have always done our own thing, but yes. We’re part of something bigger.”
Easy. Simple. He said it all without hesitation.
“Does my father know that?” I stuttered again, trying to come to terms with what I’d just heard. Was my father aware of who he was facing? Maybe if he knew the extent of it all, he wouldn’t have been so dedicated to bringing down The Nightcrawlers.
“He does.” Alex shattered all my deductions. “He was passed a message about the depth of it all. About who we were, but I guess he didn’t care.”
I looked into his eyes—his tender, gentle eyes—and realized Alex wasn’t just a thief.
He was a killer, too.
And he was mine.