Chapter 35
Kira
The weight of what we’ve just planned settles over me like a shroud as we save the fabricated messages and close the surveillance programs. In seventy-two hours, I’ll watch my father walk into a trap I helped design.
I’ll inherit an organization built on his corpse.
I’ll become someone I didn’t plan to be.
Someone I never thought I’d want to be.
“Second thoughts?” Rafa asks, noting my stillness.
“No. Just... processing.” I lean back in my chair, suddenly exhausted by the magnitude of the choice I’ve made. “Three days from now, I’ll be responsible for hundreds of lives, millions of dollars, and operations spanning three continents. Are you sure I’m ready for that?”
“I’m sure you’re more ready than your father ever was.”
“That’s not exactly a high bar.”
“Then I’m sure you’re the most capable person I’ve ever met. If anyone can transform that organization into something better, it’s you.”
The certainty in his voice steadies something in my chest. “And if I make mistakes? If I’m not the leader they need?”
“Then you’ll learn from those mistakes and become better. That’s what good leaders do.” He reaches over to take my hand. “That’s what you do.”
I study our intertwined fingers—his slightly larger, bearing small scars from years of technical work, warm and sure around mine. These hands have killed for me. Will probably have to kill again in the service of what we’re building.
“I’ve never been anyone’s first choice before,” I admit quietly.
“Always the backup plan, the contingency option, the useful tool kept in reserve. My father chose Alexei as his heir, chose Nicolai as his strategist, and chose Misha as his diplomatic face. I was just... the smart daughter who could be married off when politically convenient.”
“Their loss.”
“Was it? Because choosing me over them means those relationships are over forever. Means I’ll be responsible for their deaths, directly or indirectly.”
“Do you want to call it off?”
I consider this seriously, weighing love against duty, future against past, the woman I’m becoming against the daughter I’ve always been.
“No,” I say finally. “I want to stop pretending I don’t deserve better than being someone’s contingency plan.”
“You deserve everything. Everything you want, everything you’re willing to fight for.”
The way he says it—like it’s a simple fact rather than a revolutionary concept—makes something warm unfurl in my chest. How did I get so lucky? How did an arranged marriage designed to use me as a weapon somehow give me this instead? Rafa values me… sees me.
“Come here,” I whisper, standing and moving toward the couch in the corner of his workspace.
He follows without question, settling beside me in the soft lighting. The monitors continue their quiet humming, casting everything in blue shadows that separate the moment from the rest of the world.
“I need you to know something,” I say, turning to face him fully. “What happens in three days, what I become after this—it’s going to change me. Make me harder, more calculating, less... innocent, I suppose.”
“You were never innocent, Kira. That’s part of what I love about you.”
“I was naive about some things. About the cost of power, about what it really means to choose pragmatism over idealism.” I reach up to trace the line of his cheekbone. “After this, I won’t be. I’ll be someone who can order executions over breakfast and sleep soundly afterward.”
“Will that bother you?”
“Probably not. Which should bother me, but doesn’t.” I smile ruefully. “See what I mean about changing?”
“You’re not changing into someone unrecognizable.
You’re just becoming more yourself—more of who you’ve always had the potential to be.
It’s in your DNA. Hidden because your father sees you as a potential threat.
” I take a deep breath. Does he know what my father said about him taking me out if I mess with his perfect plan to bring down the Rossos?
What would he think, do, if he knew everything?
“And if who I have the potential to be scares people?”
“Then they’re not worth your concern.” His hands frame my face with careful reverence. “I’m not scared of your potential. I’m excited by it, and so should you.”
“Even if it means being married to someone more dangerous than you ever imagined?”
“You’re not dangerous. You are becoming the woman I know you were born to be. All I care is us, me standing beside you.”
The certainty in his voice breaks something loose in my chest—some final wall I’ve been maintaining between who I was and who I’m becoming. Between the careful distance I’ve always kept and the intimacy I’ve been afraid to fully embrace.
“Make love to me,” I whisper. “Before everything changes. Before I have to become someone who can’t afford this kind of vulnerability.”
His answer isn’t words.
It’s the way his hands cup my face like I’m something sacred. The way his mouth brushes over mine with slow reverence, not urgency. His kiss is an unraveling, not a claim like he’s memorizing me, piece by piece, in case I’m never quite this version of myself again.
He undresses me slowly, methodically, like he’s unwrapping something precious. Every button he slips free, every piece he eases off, is met with a kiss to bare skin. My shoulder. My ribs. The soft underside of my breast. The inside of my thigh. Worship, not just want.
He looks at me like he’s starving but refuses to rush the meal.
“You’re perfect. So fucking beautiful,” he murmurs, voice thick with something that almost sounds like awe.
By the time I’m laid bare on the bed, I’m trembling not with fear, but with the weight of being seen.
Truly seen. With his thumb, he traces my bottom lip.
Then, his hand travels down my throat, leaving a trail of electricity behind.
Rafa strokes my breasts with the back of his hand.
My nipples instantly get hard. I close my eyes, giving in to every sensation I’m feeling.
“I’m going to suck you dry!”
Then he lowers himself between my legs, and everything fades.
The plan. The war. The countdown. His words vibrate through my body.
I lose myself in his eyes. There is hunger in his eyes.
He covers my pussy before I take my next breath.
I scream his name the moment his mouth touches me.
I’m seconds from an orgasm, and he hasn’t done a darn thing.
“All your screams and orgasms belong to me.” His voice vibrates, driving me wild.
I grip the sheets, searching for an anchor I will never find. I’m a slave to my desires, and Rafa is my keeper. But even as that thought flashes through me, I know the truth: I’m choosing this. I’m choosing him.
He sucks harder, alternating with his tongue sliding in and out of my pussy. The sensation is so intense that I know it won’t be much longer. He slides two fingers and all it takes is two strokes.
The orgasm tears through me without mercy, my body arching, my mind going blank except for the way he holds me in place as if he refuses to let even my pleasure escape him.
He stays with me through it, coaxing every last tremor with devotion so intense it borders on unbearable. Not rushing. Not stopping. Like he wants to wring every last drop of surrender from me.
When he finally moves above me, slides into me with one long, aching thrust, the world goes still. Time. Stops. The first slow movement steals the air from my lungs. It isn’t frantic. It isn’t rushed. It’s claiming.
He slides inside me with slow, devastating precision, like this is the only thing that matters in the universe—this connection. This claiming. This moment stolen from chaos. My legs wrap around him, hands gripping his back. I let go of everything except how he makes me feel.
My legs wrap around him, hands gripping his back. I let go of everything except how he makes me feel. Wanted. Chosen. Loved.
Do I love Rafa?
The question hits me mid-breath.
Is this Love?
Or is it obsession born in violence? Two predators recognizing themselves in each other and deciding to burn together instead of apart?
His hand finds my clit, thumb circling with practiced ease, and I break again—louder this time, crying out his name as he grinds into me, mouth on my neck, his own control shattering in the face of my surrender.
“Rafa—”
My voice cracks on it. There’s no heiress in that sound. No strategist. Just a woman unraveling in the arms of the only man who has ever seen her completely and wanted her anyway. He groans, hips stuttering, then lets go with a shudder that rocks through both of us.
For a moment, everything fractures—control, composure, the careful distance we both maintain in every other part of our lives. His mouth finds mine again, messy and desperate, and for a long moment, we simply exist like that—skin to skin, breath to breath, heart to heart.
No Bratva.
No crown.
No blood waiting on the horizon.
Just us. Suspended in the fragile calm before the storm. I realize something that terrifies me more than the war coming in seventy-two hours—
If this is love, it’s the kind that doesn’t make you weaker. It makes you ruthless. Because now, I have something worth burning the world down for.
When it’s over, we lie tangled in the aftermath. Quiet. Spent. The hum of the monitors returns, grounding us in reality, but neither of us moves. His fingers trace lazy patterns over my bare shoulder as I curl into his side.
“Any regrets?” he asks softly.
“About what we just did? Never.” I press a kiss to his chest. “About what we’re planning to do? Ask me in a week.”
“Fair enough.”
“Rafa?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For seeing who I could become before I saw it myself. For wanting that person instead of trying to keep me safely contained.” I tilt my head to look at him. “For making me believe I deserve to be someone’s first choice.”
“Always,” he promises, and I hear the vow beneath the simple word.
Always chosen. Always supported. Always loved for who I am and who I’m becoming.
It’s more than I ever dared to hope for, and exactly what I’ll need to survive what comes next.
Because in three days, I’ll have to be strong enough to watch my father die. Smart enough to claim power without triggering chaos. Ruthless enough to consolidate control while maintaining key alliances.
I’ll have to become someone worthy of the crown I’m about to claim through violence.
But tonight, in the sanctuary of Rafa’s arms, I can just be Kira. The woman who chose love over duty, partnership over isolation, and future over past.
The woman who’s about to discover exactly how much she’s capable of when she finally stops limiting herself to other people’s expectations.
Tomorrow, we begin the final phase of our plan.
Tonight, he made love to all the versions of me I’ve ever been and showed me I can be more.
And for the first time in my life, I believe it.