ROMAN — Volkovskaya Mansion Study, 2334
The violin is in pieces on the floor before I even realize I threw it.
Three hundred years old, my mother’s Stradivarius, the one thing I had left of her, and I just put it through the wall because Vadim smiled at Yuri during that toast.
I grab the scotch bottle and drink straight from it, the burn sliding down my throat while I stare at the wreckage and tell myself it doesn’t matter because nothing is irreplaceable.
Vadim taught me that’s what I’ve been telling myself since I was twelve years old, and learned that sentiment is just another weakness people use against you.
I take another long pull, and my hand is shaking, actually shaking.
I haven’t felt that since I was hiding in the dark while my family died above me.
Twenty years of control and discipline and never letting anyone get close enough to matter, and one woman has reduced me to this—standing in the wreckage of my mother’s violin, drinking myself stupid, calculating how many bodies I’d stack to keep her safe.
The number keeps climbing, and I don’t even care.
Glass crunches behind me, and I know who it is before I turn.
“Get out.”
“That violin was three hundred years old.” Her voice cuts through the scotch haze, and something in my chest loosens at the sound, which pisses me off even more because I don’t want to feel relief that she’s here; I want to feel nothing at all.
“I’ll buy another one.”
“With what money?” She walks further into the study, and wood crunches under her heels. “Vadim’s or yours? Do you even know the difference anymore?”
I turn around.
She’s still wearing the grey silk dress from the banquet, her hair falling out of the braid Galina spent an hour creating, mascara smudged under eyes that haven’t slept since she watched me execute Alexei thirty-six hours ago.
She did it. She created what I needed. She looks wrecked and furious and so fucking beautiful it makes my chest hurt in a way I don’t know how to handle.
“You need to leave before I do something we can’t take back.”
“Like torture someone?” Her chin lifts, and her throat works when she swallows. “Like execute a man while I watch? You’re going to have to be more specific about which line we’re not crossing tonight, Roman.”
“Like tell you what’s actually happening with the antidote you created.”
The words come out before I can stop them, and I blame the scotch, blame the rage, blame whatever part of me apparently wants to watch her face when she realizes what she’s done.
“Like explain exactly what Vadim is doing with your brilliant research while you sleep in my bed thinking you’re saving lives.”
She goes still.
“They’re not going to hospitals.” Her voice has gone quiet and flat. “What are they—”
She stops. Comprehension spreads across her face like poison through a bloodstream.
“Demonstrations. You said demonstrations at the banquet. You were talking about—”
Her breathing gets faster.
“Aerosolized. You need aerosolized compounds for—”
“Chechen negotiations.” I move closer, and she doesn’t back away. Ventilation systems. Body counts high enough to make territorial disputes seem less appealing than cooperation.”
I take another step toward her, close enough now to see the exact moment her entire world restructures around what I just told her.
“You created a mass destruction weapon, solnyshko. Be proud.”
“Don’t.” Her voice cracks, and she’s shaking her head like she can physically reject what I’m telling her. “Don’t you dare call me that while you’re telling me I just—while you’re saying I—”
She presses her hand against her stomach.
“Tonight. You delivered them tonight. I saw you carry the case to Vadim’s car, and you told me they were going to regional hospitals for the antidote trials, and I believed you because I thought—”
She stops, and her hand comes up to her mouth.
“You thought what?”
“I thought you were different.” Barely above a whisper now, and the sound of her voice breaking does something to me I don’t want to examine. “I thought the man who plays Tchaikovsky at three in the morning and washes blood off his hands before he touches me couldn’t possibly—wouldn’t—”
Her voice hardens.
“But you can. You did. You looked me in the eyes while I sealed those vials and let me believe I was saving people when really I was just helping you murder them.”
“Your chemistry buys me time to burn Vadim’s trafficking networks.
” I don’t soften it because she deserves to hear it straight, even if the words taste like ash in my mouth.
“They buy Mishka safety in Belgium. They buy you a laboratory instead of a shallow grave. You think I give a shit about hypothetical casualties when the alternative is you and your brother in actual body bags?”
“Hypothetical?” Her voice goes shrill, and she’s stepping toward me instead of away, getting in my face.
Her eyes are blazing with something that makes me want to grab her and shake her and fuck her until she understands.
“Forty thousand people, Roman. That’s the deployment estimate for concentration I created.
Forty thousand people who are going to die because I believed you when you said—”
“I said what I needed to say to keep you working.”
“You’re a liar.” The words hit harder than any curse would have. “You’re a monster.”
“I protected you.”
“From what?” She shoves my chest, and I have to take a step back. “From the truth? From knowing what kind of monster I married? From understanding that every time you touched me, you were just keeping your little weapon maker happy and compliant?”
“That’s not—”
“You’re exactly what everyone says you are.
” She shoves me again, and tears are streaming down her face now, cutting through the mascara.
“A butcher. My mother died trying to create antidotes, died believing science could fix what men like you destroy, and you took that—you took her legacy, and you made me into the thing that killed her.”
“Your mother was naive.”
The words come out cold, and I regret them immediately, but I can’t take them back. The look on Anya’s face tells me I just crossed a line I can’t uncross.
She slaps me.
Her palm cracks across my cheek, snapping my head to the side. Everything inside me goes very still and very quiet, and something that’s been caged for a very long time opens its eyes.
I turn my head slowly back to face her, and whatever she sees in my expression makes her take a step backward.
“Roman—”
I move before she can finish, before she can run, crowding her backward until her spine hits the wall and my hands slam against the plaster on either side of her head, caging her in with my body. She’s breathing hard now, her chest heaving against mine.
“You hit me.” My voice comes out low and rough, barely recognizable even to myself.
“Get off me.”
“No.”
I lean in closer until my mouth is right next to her ear, until I can smell the winter mint on her skin mixed with fear and something that makes my cock twitch in my pants because even now, even terrified, her body is responding to mine.
“You’re shaking.” I press my hips forward just enough that she can feel how hard I am. “And you’re wet. I can smell it on you.”
“I’m not—”
“Don’t lie to me.” I pull back just enough to look at her face, at the tears still drying on her cheeks and the fury still blazing in her eyes and the flush spreading down her throat. “You hate me right now. You hate what I did. And you’re still soaking through your panties.”
“You’re a monster.”
“Yes.” I grip her jaw in one hand, forcing her to look at me while my other hand slides down to wrap around her throat. “I’m exactly what you called me. A butcher. A liar. The worst thing that ever happened to you.”
I lean in and drag my tongue up the tear track on her cheek.
“And you’re still going to come on my cock tonight, solnyshko. You’re going to scream my name while I’m inside you and hate yourself for it afterward.”
“I won’t—”
I kiss her before she can finish the lie.
It’s not gentle, and it’s not tender. This is teeth and tongue and twenty years of control finally snapping, and when she bites my lip hard, drawing blood, I just growl into her mouth and kiss her harder.
She’s hitting my chest with her fists, still fighting me, but her mouth is opening under mine, and her tongue is tangling with mine, and when I shove my thigh between her legs, she grinds down on it involuntarily before she catches herself.
“Your body is already betraying you.” I pull back just enough to speak against her lips, my hand still on her throat, my thigh pressed against her cunt through her dress. “I can feel how wet you are right through the silk. Does it piss you off that you want the monster this much?”
“I don’t want you.”
“Liar.” I find the zipper at the back of her dress and yank it down, and the grey silk pools around her feet. Black bra. Black panties. Heels still on.
“You’re beautiful when you hate me.” I reach out and hook my fingers into the center of her bra, right between her tits. “Almost as beautiful as you are when you’re coming.”
I rip the bra off her, and she gasps, her hands coming up to cover herself instinctively, but I grab her wrists and pin them against the wall above her head before she can.
“Don’t hide from me.” I’m staring at her tits, at her nipples already peaked and hard, at the way her chest is flushing pink. “I’ve seen every inch of you.”
“This isn’t—” Her voice breaks when I lean down and take one nipple into my mouth, sucking hard, making her cry out. “Roman, we can’t just—this doesn’t fix anything—”
“I’m not trying to fix anything.” I switch to the other nipple and bite down, and the sound she makes goes straight to my cock. “I’m taking what’s mine.”
My vision goes red as I’m biting her nipples.
“On your knees.”