Epilogue Ana
Janson beeps the horn a couple times before he hits the gas and the car drives off, cans noisily bouncing around down the Los Angeles street. Dima leans down to me and mutters, “Do you think he knows she’s undercover ATF?”
I roll my eyes.
Vasily on my other side murmurs, “Do you think she knows he’s a rogue FBI agent?”
“You two are awful!” I snort. “Can’t you just be happy for them? They love each other.”
Which was a wild, unexpected surprise when they announced their engagement last fall, only a couple weeks after Dima conference called Vasily and me to say he’d just walked in on Janson and Maria having sex, and why was he always the one having to see this, and did we know they had a thing going on.
We did not.
“It’s weird,” Dima says now, and Vasily nods.
“Oh my God, you two were his groomsmen.”
“Yeah, and what kind of FBI agent has two Bratva thugs as his groomsmen?”
I shake my head and turn to go back inside the banquet hall on the ground level of our office building. I like spending half the year in Flagstaff, where everything is a little slower and cozier, but I love the convenience of Los Angeles, where the furthest I ever have to go is across the street.
Literally. We bought that café across the street from our building. There’s a lot to do in LA, but it’s rare for us to actually go anywhere that’s driving distance.
It’s late. I should let the boys’ silliness go. Instead, I call over my shoulder, “Thugs? You live in penthouse apartments and wear Armani suits. Some real thugs you are.”
“Zvyozdochka, you are bold tonight,” Vasily growls with a twinkle in his blue eyes. “I should spank you.”
He follows after me, slow, confident strides to the rapid clicking of my heels. Dima stays right where he is, knowing better than to get in the elevator with us.
He’s our neighbor when we’re here. I’m not supposed to know this, but he’s made his own fortune with those ridiculously illegal ghost guns.
Dima took over that operation to keep it out of Benedetti’s sight— but Vasily still gets a cut, of course.
I’ve yet to hear any real horror stories about the guns on the news, so I assume they’re going to people who aren’t looking to shoot up schools or mow down innocent bystanders.
No plane hijackings. No assassinations .
I was born a Mafia princess. I always knew I was going to marry for wealth and ignore the crimes that built it. I just got lucky and married for love, too.
Well, ‘marry’ is a strong word. The closest we’ve ever gotten to an actual altar was when Alex got married last year. Vasily asked me if I wanted my own wedding. I immediately said yes then changed my mind within the hour.
He’s my husband. I’m his wife. Father Niko gave us his blessing a decade ago. That was enough. If I want a fancy party to celebrate our love, we’ll have a fancy party. We don’t need a wedding.
I race into the elevator and hit the button. The door is nearly closed when Vasily’s hand shoots through it. The door is nearly closed the second time before he’s got my panties off.
He spins me over, bends me in half, and spanks me.
“Vasya!” I squeal. “You said should spank me!”
He grabs me by a handful of dark curls, perfectly styled for me to stand next to Maria as her bridesmaid, and yanks me upright. “Yep. So I did.”
The elevator dings and announces 37th Floor.
Vasily’s pupils dilate. “Ohhh, do you want to show the world what a slut you are? Do you think all the wedding guests are down below, waiting to see your pussy, you little whore?”
I bite my lip and nod. Vasily insisted on adding a finish to his windows ages ago so no one can see inside anymore, no matter how much light we have in here. “So we can play without you worrying about anyone really seeing us,” he said, and I nodded in agreement.
I’m a mom. I’m a successful businessperson. I don’t want anyone really seeing me.
That’s the right answer, at least .
But I always wonder if I angle myself just right, if someone across the street looks at just the right time or with the right kind of camera lens or glasses, if they can see me. If they can see everything.
I tug my dress off and throw it over a chair before Vasily can do anything terrible with it. It’s a cute dress. Prettiest bridesmaid dress I can remember, although it’s been four years, and I’m still missing a lot. But I’ve gotten a lot back, and I make new memories every day.
I unhook my strapless bra, and Vasily pounces on me, as ravenous as ever for my breasts.
I can taste the vodka on his breath, see the haze in his eyes.
He’s not a big drinker, and the medication his psychiatrist recently switched him to has tanked his already low tolerance.
I only saw him take three shots, but his hands are fumbling, rougher than usual.
I love it.
I love how seriously he’s taken my demand that he get his medication use under control.
I love him.
“Vasya!” I groan against his lips. “Oh God, I need you, please!”
He fumbles with his belt buckle as he walks me back up against the glass. It’s going to be fast tonight. That’s okay. He’ll probably wake me up halfway through the night and decide he can’t exist without his cock inside me, and then he’ll make love to me for hours.
At least until a kid wakes up.
He thrusts into me, and I melt around him. I’ll never get over this, over us. He’s my first, last, always.
“I love you,” I whimper.
“Ya tebya lyublyu,” he mutters in my ear before letting loose an entire obscene soliloquy in Russian as he drills me into the reinforced window .
I hope the whole world can see him splitting me in half with his fat cock. I hope the whole world sees how wet I am for him.
“I’m going to put a baby in you,” he says on a particularly hard thrust. “I’m going to fill you with my baby.”
I giggle, loving when he’s like this. I grab him by the cheeks, kiss him hard, consuming him as he consumes me, until he pulls away to lift my legs, curling my body to change the angle so I can feel his piercings scrape better.
We’re back up to five, a new one every year, but it’s January; our anniversary is in a month, and then it’ll be another six weeks of torturing him with the gentlest hand jobs ever while he heals from the sixth.
Last year, in a moment of absolute weakness, he talked me into pegging him. I’m secretly hoping to dust off the strap-on again in February.
“More babies,” he groans. “You’re going to give me more babies.”
He’s going to come soon, I can feel it and I can hear it in his voice, but I’m going to come first. Still, I manage to say, “Haven’t I given you enough babies?”
Give might not be the right word, but Artom has a little sister and a baby brother now.
“I want another,” Vasily insists, and I swear he’s saying this now like he’s concerned I’d say no in a more suitable moment.
Thanks to a successful egg retrieval, we have four more viable embryos we just need surrogates for. I don’t know that we’ll go through with all of them, but one more?
He plows into me, and I scream, “Yes, yes, oh my God, yes!”
That’s all he needs. He leans into me and groans as he empties himself inside me and my pussy squeezes around him.
Together, we slide down to the floor, where we’ve replaced the utilitarian carpet with a far plusher shag for these moments.
“We’re going to have a baby,” Vasily whispers, so sex-drunk and vodka-drunk that he giggles.
“You’re baby crazy.”
“Mmm.” He grunts, rolls me over, and nudges his cock at my entrance.
He’s already hard again.
“Now, I teach you to count , zvyozdochka. But only to five.”