Chapter 23
Vivi
I’m probably biased, but my niece is a bright child.
Her genius is clear to me as we sit on the floor in what used to be the master suite in my childhood home. Once my parents’ room and then Angel’s, it’s now Damon and Lulu’s.
Even though Angel is not really gone, it’s still painful to be here. I had thought that being back in my family home would make me feel safe and secure amid all the chaos surrounding everything that has happened, but every board and nail feels soaked in the essence of memory.
I have no desire to be here anymore. And whatever new world Ivan creates, I know we will need our own home for ourselves. Something new. Something that’s purely ours, unhaunted by any ghosts.
Now, though, I sit on the plush area rug with Giorgia and Lulu, sorting blocks by shape into a plastic contraption. Giorgia takes a block in her hand, studies it, and places it into the appropriate slot.
“Should she be able to do that?” I marvel aloud. “She’s so young.”
Lulu shrugs a little, brushing back a silky lock of her daughter’s hair with her fingertip. “She’s a smart cookie.”
Watching her stirs something within me. Was it really just days past I was pondering motherhood? I’m essentially homeless right now. I have so many other important things to worry about.
With the same finger she used to caress Giorgia’s hair, Lulu touches my knee. “Is he kind to you?”
Lulu’s question breaks into my thoughts. I lift my gaze, focusing on my older sister. The fact that Lulu is sitting here in front of me after being gone for so long is a miracle in itself. Her skin is still tanned from living in a warmer climate and her hair has grown longer, but she’s still Lulu. Still the spunky older sister who used to move my bookmarks around to tease me.
Right now, she’s worried. I can see it in her eyes.
I offer her a half-smile. “His is a strange sort of kindness, but yes. I know he seems rough and grumpy, but I promise it is there.”
“Rough and grumpy.” Lulu chuckles. “I would have said ‘brutal,’ but okay. Grumpy works, I suppose.”
“Do you remember how we used to steal those romances Mother hid in her nightstand? The heroes were all knights and princes and pirates, and they all had one thing in common.”
Lulu grins. “A big cock?”
“Lulu!” I feel a blush heat my skin, even as I grin.
“Well, it’s true.”
“I was thinking more about how in tune with their feelings they all were. How it was easy for them to spout declarations of love and be tender with their lady loves.”
“Hmm. Okay, that too, I guess.”
“What I feel for Ivan…what I know he feels for me…it’s different. Deeper. He doesn’t have to say the words. I know what he feels.”
“Okay.” She watches me for several minutes, the weight of her gaze a tangible thing. Something is on her mind; I can feel it. Finally, she shifts her weight a bit, seeming to come to a decision. “I trust you know your heart. And his. You were made to be happy, cara .”
I nod. “I know. And I am. It’s just…”
“Everything,” Lulu finishes. I flash her another semblance of a smile. She always did know me. “How are you doing?” she continues. “With it all?”
A heavy question, one without easy answers. We just buried Eduardo. I just killed someone. I don’t have a home, and faceless assassins are after us.
And I really don’t want to talk about any of it.
I offer her the standard reply to that question. “I’m as well as can be expected, under the circumstances.”
It’s polite. A sort-of truth spoken from behind a wall.
I have never been this distant with Lulu, and I’m not sure what has changed. I still feel the same amount of affection for my sister, still feel that anything that I share with her would be information given into the strictest of confidences.
I trust her. And yet…
Lulu isn’t my safe person anymore. That person is Ivan.
If I’m upset or struggling, I want Ivan to help me get through it.
This is a natural inevitability of life, graduating from the person who was your childhood safe haven to your spouse, but there is something bittersweet in the realization. I’m sure Lulu feels the same way about Damon. She understands how I feel, probably better than I even do.
A knock comes softly upon the door, and at Lulu’s response, a maid I’ve never seen before pokes her head around the doorjamb. “Dinner is served, ma’am.”
Lulu nods her thanks, and standing, she bends to pick up the baby.
It’s just me, Lulu, and Giorgia at the long dinner table. The polished mahogany…the delicate bone china…the low, genteel lighting…it’s all a reminder of the meals we ate here as a family.
Arguments.
Mother and her liquor.
Father and his decrees.
Angel pushing back at every turn.
It’s so different now. It’s just me, Lulu, and Giorgia. The men do not join us, still busy with whatever ‘surprise’ Damon had arranged for the two of them.
Tonight, Giorgia is beginning to try table food. Lulu cuts up tiny portions of the meal for her, praising her with enthusiasm when she likes something.
As sweet and pleasant as the scene is, uneasiness makes the food taste like dirt. With everything that’s going on, I can’t shake the fear that something awful is happening.
I lower my fork to my plate and study my sister. Yes, there’s a distance between us now, but I don’t think Lulu is capable of mothering so calmly while betraying her only sister.
No, it’s not possible. Ivan is fine.
But I still can’t eat.
Later, Lulu sets Ivan and me up in my old bedroom. It still looks exactly the same, with no dust or evidence that time has passed at all. I walk through my room and run my hand over the furniture and across the spines of my book collection on the bookcase, all too aware that the person I was last time I was here is not the same person who stands here now.
Still, I feel connected to this girl I used to be. I wish I could go back in time and tell her that things are going to work out for her.
It’s late when Ivan finally appears. I dressed for sleep in a silky nightgown and laid down, but I haven’t been asleep.
How could I sleep? I’m not sure I’ll ever truly rest without him again.
When he comes into the room, he’s not wearing the same clothing that he was wearing for the funeral. He’s wearing a sturdy-looking pair of work pants, and a plain, dark shirt tucked in. His face and hands are red, obvious victims of a fresh scrubbing.
He eyes me broodingly as he unbuttons his cuffs and pulls his shirt from his pants, leaving it gaping over his chest. He doesn’t greet me or say anything. He just watches me. It’s unnerving.
“Ivan? Are you—”
I start to rise from the bed but hesitate as he stalks closer. There’s a wildness about his eyes, something that should terrify me. It doesn’t, though.
Ivan places one big palm on my sternum, between my breasts, and pushes. I fall back to the mattress, a willing participant to whatever madness he decrees.
I watch, heavy-lidded, as he strips himself of his shirt, then unbuttons his pants. His cock rises, thick and ready, between the plackets of his pants, and I feel an answering wetness dampen my panties. His hands grip my knees almost painfully as he holds them for a moment, then wrenches them apart. He slides his palms up the skin of my thighs, pushing my gown out of the way.
My heart pounds in my chest, heat flushing through me. I want to reach for him, to touch him, but instinctively I know that’s not what he needs tonight.
For whatever reason, Ivan needs control right now. Mastery.
Ivan’s hands continue their rough journey, kneading my flesh through the silk of my gown until he places them beside me, his fists balling into the coverlet.
Leaning over me, he nuzzles his face into my neck and drags his nose along my skin, inhaling deeply. His arms bracket me, the muscles of his forearms cording with the intensity of his posture. Lifting his head, he meets my gaze across the length of my torso.
“I won’t be gentle tonight, pet.” The words are a low rumble, the timbre primal and beastly. They make the hair rise on my arms, and my stomach clench with need.
“I don’t need gentle,” I manage.
His eyes darken with approval and lust, and he lowers his head once again. He bites the side of my breast, not hard enough to break the skin, but firmly. “Good.”
There are no words after that. His hands grip me, hard and sure as they shove my gown out of the way and rip my panties down my hips. He twists me beneath him until I’m face down on the bedding, pushing my shoulders down with one hand as he lifts my hips with the other, and I feel the fabric of his pants scratch against the backs of my thighs an instant before he drives his cock home, sliding me up the mattress with the force of his thrust.
I cry out, but not in pain. Never in pain. It feels too good.
Ivan yanks me back against him, pulls almost all the way out, and shoves himself back in again.
One hand moves to grip the hair at the base of my skull and hold me in place, and then he sets a punishing rhythm.
I should hate what he’s doing to me, how he’s holding me down and fucking me, especially after our tender lovemaking the time before…but I don’t. I revel in it.
He owns me, body and soul. I am his, and he is mine.
My breath quickens, and when he reaches beneath me to thumb my clit, I climax hard and fast.
With a groan, Ivan follows moments later, his big body collapsing over mine and pushing me flat into the mattress. His hand loosens its grip on my hair, moving to stroke it softly, and I feel his lips ghost against my shoulder before he withdraws from my body and rolls to the side.
Afterward, he cradles me against him as he stares at the ceiling, a slight smile on his face while he catches his breath.
“That was nice,” I murmur. From where I recline against his chest, I raise up and kiss him.
“Nice.” He grunts. “I did something wrong.” Pulling himself into a seated position, he pulls me onto his lap and kisses me, his cock already hard at my core and his touches getting rougher. Something clicks suddenly, my memory sliding back to a night at the Romanov mansion. I remember him being this way with me, before.
I remember that most of the time, when Ivan was like this, he had had to wash blood from his hands before he began.
I pull away from his questing lips and hands, but undeterred, he returns to kissing my neck. Placing my hands on his chest, I push him back.
“Ivan, wait.”
“Shh, pet,” he shushes me, pulling me to him again.
“No—” I flatten my palm over his heart and sit upright on his lap. “Ivan, stop.”
When he realizes that I’m serious, he stops.
My eyes meet his, searching. “You’ve killed someone.”
He laughs. “Not entirely.”
My fingers curl against his chest. “What does that mean?”
Ivan sighs. “I’ve been asked by your brother-in-law to make use of my expertise. We are trying to crack Azrael.”
“The gift?”
Ivan’s nod is short. “Damon’s men caught one of them.”
I whisper the next question, holding his gaze when he tries to look away. “And you’re torturing him?”
“It’s the only way. He has been trained to only answer ‘I am Azrael’ to all of our questions. I’m applying some…persuasion.”
I feel my lips trembling and firm them. No matter how much Azrael deserves this…persuasion, it’s not worth the price of Ivan’s soul. And whether he admits it or not, that’s what it costs him every time. His soul.
“Ivan, no.”
His hold on me tightens. “It is a job that needs to be done, my pet.”
“It doesn’t. If it hasn’t worked so far, it isn’t going to.”
“Some nuts take longer to crack, but I always end up finding out what they have inside.”
“There has to be another way.”
Ivan tenses. “What? I should ask ‘please’?”
I sit up straight in his lap, dropping my hands from his chest. “I am asking, as your wife, to find another way to get this information.”
“And I am telling you, as your husband, that there isn’t another way to get information out of someone who is not willing to give it.”
“Ivan, please. It’s not worth the expense to you—”
“I love your soft heart and soft everything else, but this isn’t your concern, pet.” His palm strokes my breast, clearly trying to get me on track.
“Ivan, you are not the monster you believe yourself to be. You are a good man—”
“Only to you, love.”
“No, Ivan. We are setting up a new era for the Five Families. What is the point of doing all of this if we are going to carry on exactly as we have in the past? If we’re going to be exactly what we already are?”
“We are who we are. You dream too big, my pet.”
“And you dream too small.”
Sliding off Ivan’s lap, I climb from the bed and bend, plucking my nightgown from the floor. I begin to dress.
“What are you doing?”
My slippers are beneath the bed. I slide my feet into them and move toward the door. “I’m going for a walk,” I reply.
“Get back in the bed, Vivi.”
“I need to walk, Ivan.”
“I forbid it.” His voice is soft, but the command is undeniable. My body hesitates, yearning to respond.
I hover at the door, my fingers curling around the knob and tightening.
“Vivi.”
As much as I want to leave the room, to storm angrily away, I don’t want that between us. My hand drops from the doorknob, and I look back at Ivan.
“Find another way. Please.” I beg with my eyes, with the tone of my voice. I drop the robe, letting it puddle on the floor.
I’ll beg with my body if I must. It belongs to him, anyway.
Ivan’s eyes darken with heat and lust, but his jaw is steely. “I can’t promise that.”
Bending my head, I walk back to the bed. He didn’t say ‘no.’ For now, it’s enough.