The blood in my veins boils and threatens to spill over.
Partly because I’m seeing Anastasia after a long time of living with her ghost and imagining her in every corner.
So seeing her right in front of me is no different than crashing into the wall created by my shadows.
Ever since I was young, they’ve tried everything to confine me within forts no one has access to.
But then Anastasia came along and she didn’t even search for the keys. She went for the walls themselves, demolishing them one by each and every one.
Then she had the audacity to leave as if she hadn’t inflicted that much damage.
As if she has no hold on my fucking soul.
My gaze rakes over her appearance, getting caught in her elegant dress and the way it fits her delicate curves.
She’s not hiding behind glasses or a different hair color. I almost forgot how blonde her hair is—icy, bordering on white, framing her face in a halo. She’s like an angel with her soft features, pale skin, and those blue, blue eyes.
Back then at the bar, they resembled a bright morning sky, but they’re gloomy right now, filled with moisture and a somber edge that stabs my gut.
It’s part of why I can’t contain my rage, why it’s treading on the edge of my control, about to snap it and wreak havoc on everything in its path.
But the biggest part is what I just overheard her say over the phone.
I’m engaged to be married.
As in, another fucker is calling her “fiancée” and he’ll put a ring on her finger and make her his wife.
A pressing weight perches on my chest at the thought and it’s hard to breathe properly. It’s even more difficult to keep myself in check and not destroy everything in my path.
Starting with him.
The fucker who thinks he could take Anastasia away from me.
“K-Knox…?” she stammers, her soft voice unsure, as if she doesn’t believe I’m standing here.
I wouldn’t have believed it either a week ago. But ever since Daniel confirmed my doubts about her and I put all the pieces of the puzzle together, I had to find her again.
I had to rectify things.
“You were expecting someone else?” I can’t control the venom in my tone. “Your fiancé perhaps?”
“Oh my God, you’re really here…” I expected anything from her reaction—the initial shock, shame, maybe even anger, but when she starts shaking and her grip releases her phone, letting it clatter to the floor, the last emotion I expected takes refuge in her eyes.
Fear.
Deep, raw, and absolutely gutting. It’s like she’s seeing her worst nightmare coming true.
Or maybe the scariest ghost from her childhood nightmares.
She lunges at me, grabbing my arm with her unsteady one. “You have to go. You can’t be here…”
I effortlessly pull free of her hold. “This is exactly where I’m supposed to be.”
“No…” She’s shaking her head, her frantic gaze searching behind me for something or someone, I’m not sure.
“On the contrary, it’s a fucking yes, beautiful.”
“You don’t understand…”
I grab her by her slim shoulders, shaking her. “It’s you who doesn’t seem to understand the reality of things. Did you really think pulling that stunt with Daniel and disappearing on me would mean I’d let you go? You can run to the other side of the world, invent a new fucking identity and name and life, and I would still find you. You’re mine, fucking mine, and that means there’s no fucking escaping me. There’s no escaping us.”
A tear slides down her cheek and clings to her upper lip. I don’t think as I lean over and lick it, my tongue clinging to her skin as I taste the saltiness. Then I drag my tongue up her cheek, licking the tear, and when I reach her eyes, I kiss the closed lid. I kiss those ethereally blue eyes that I haven’t stopped thinking about since the first time I saw them.
Her nails sink into my forearms and she digs them in deeply, but nothing is deep enough to push me off her, so I continue kissing her tears and feasting on her taste.
“I lied to you,” she murmurs, her voice barely audible.
I pull back but don’t let her go. “About what?”
“About who I am. Where I come from. My family. All of it.”
“You didn’t lie. You just hid it. I knew all along there was more to the birth of Jane’s identity.”
“It’s because…I’m…I’m…”
“The daughter of the New York Bratva’s Pakhan. I know.”
“And you still came?” She stares incredulously, some of her earlier fear slipping back into her eyes. “What is wrong with you?”
“You.” I breathe out the word, leaning my forehead against hers. “You are everything that’s wrong with me, beautiful. You took something of mine and I need it back.”
“Stop saying things like that…Knox…please, listen to me, you have to go. If Papa or any of the others see you—”
“I’m not scared of them.”
She pushes at my chest with her fists, but there’s no energy behind it, as if she doesn’t want to be doing it. “Any person in their right mind would be. They kill in the blink of an eye and without any remorse. You’ll just be another nameless person on their list.”
“I’m not in my right fucking mind, Anastasia. I told you just now, you took something of mine. My fucking sanity included.”
She clutches my hand, her grip clammy and still shaking, then guides me in from the balcony, her gaze watching every nook and cranny like a hawk.
“Where are you taking me, beautiful?”
“Shh.” She shakes her head at me, then leads me to some stairs that are hidden from the main staircase.
I’ve been in mafia leaders’ houses before when I was either investigating something or on a case. But the Russian Bratva’s compound, aka Sergei Sokolov’s mansion, is more like a billionaire’s home that you could easily get lost in.
That’s Anastasia’s real last name. Sokolov. I finally have a full profile of the mysterious girl with the bright eyes and soft smile.
She basically drags me up the stairs, down a hall, and then pushes me into a room. The moment she closes the door, she releases a breath, but she doesn’t relax her hold on my hand.
I throw a quick glance at the room and it doesn’t take me long to realize it’s hers.
There’s a giant desk on the corner with three monitors, but the rest of it is girly. The bedsheets have a butterfly motif and the creamy wallpaper has flowers on it.
She’s always been a conundrum of opposing things, but they still fit her character so well.
They still speak so much of her and who she is.
A soft woman with a secret wild side.
“So this is where you lived all this time.”
She gives me the stink eye. “That’s not what should be important right now.”
“Then what is?” I step to her and she visibly swallows. “I think it’s hot to see where you sleep every night in nothing but shorts. Maybe even naked?”
“S-stop it.” Her voice is breathy, but arousal coats it.
My hand reaches forward and I wrap it around her throat, squeezing the sides a little. She briefly closes her eyes, releasing a chopped exhale, and I tighten my hold. I need to feel her, to be able to breathe again, but the fact that she’s relieved as well? That when she opens her eyes, they’re filled with a wave of longing that’s as strong as mine? Those facts nearly make me go crazy.
And I have to grip her harder, to sink my fingers into her flesh and make sure she’s here.
She’s right here.
“Knox…I…”
“Shhh.” I place a finger to her mouth and push her back with my hold on her throat.
A yelp echoes in the air as she trips on the edge of the bed and falls on her back. I follow with her, my free hand gripping her hip.
She slams her hands on my chest. “D-don’t.”
“Don’t?”
“Don’t turn me onto my stomach. I want to look at you,” she whispers, her tone as vulnerable as the look on her face.
My fingers dig into her hips and I’m about to refuse that, I’m about to do as I’m used to, but something stops me.
The pleading in her eyes, the vulnerability in them.
Also, a part of me is fighting it, too. It’s the same part that couldn’t survive without her and has turned my life into a living hell since she’s been gone.
Her palms flatten on my chest and she softens her voice. “I know, Knox…I know about your past and why you find it hard to get close and I understand, I—”
“Stop talking.” The rage from earlier resurfaces again and this time, it’s for entirely different reasons.
The shadows swirl around my head in a thick fog with the need to hurt her.
To shut up the woman who shouldn’t have seen them in the first place.
But I clamp that need down, my fingers flexing so I don’t hurt her. “How the fuck do you know?”
“P-Papa…he can find out everything about anyone.”
“Fuck.” My fist clenches and I realize it’s on her throat. She’s wheezing, her face reddening from the lack of air, and I release her with a jerk and start to sit up, but she grabs my cheeks, pulling me back down.
I use my arms to keep from crushing her with my weight, but Anastasia doesn’t stop there, she doesn’t stop with her fingers stroking my face or when her tits are inches from my heaving chest.
Her eyes trap mine and her voice trembles a little when she speaks, “It’s okay, you don’t have to hide from me. You don’t have to look the other way or be ashamed of who you are.”
“Even though I was a whore?”
“You weren’t.” The certainty and power in her voice stabs me in the fucking part of my chest I thought died twenty years ago. “You were an abused child and it wasn’t your fault. It was theirs, your mother’s and whoever she brought over. Just like it was my stepfather’s fault that my mom was abused and beaten to death. It’s never the victim’s fault, no matter what anyone says.”
I wipe the tears that have escaped her lids with my thumb. “Don’t cry, not for this.”
She shakes her head, her hold tightening on my cheeks. “Don’t you get it? Ever since I learned about your past, I couldn’t sleep at night. I wanted to run away again, to find you and just hold you close. If I could, I would take it all for myself so you wouldn’t have to be shackled by it anymore. Your pain is mine, Knox. I feel it deep in my heart and I can’t stop thinking about it.”
“I have.”
“No, you haven’t. You just pretend you have, and I know it’s a coping mechanism, but I just want you to know that it’s okay if you’re tired of holding the mask in place. It’s okay if you want to drop it and just be you. I won’t look the other way. I promise.”
My hand finds her throat again, and I revel in the gulp and slight moan she releases. “You’re a fucking nuisance, did you know that? You’re not supposed to go digging in the darkest parts of me.”
“They’re still you and that’s all I care about.”
Well, fuck.
Just when I thought this woman couldn’t engrave herself under my skin any deeper, she goes ahead and digs herself a cozier nook where I’ll never be able to remove her.
And I want to shake her for it.
“You shouldn’t like those parts of me, not when I hate them myself.”
“You don’t get to tell me what I like about you.”
“Are you sure about that, Anastasia? Because there’s a shitload of fucking skeletons in my closet that you didn’t even know existed. I’ve been in bed with my demons for as long as I lived, ever since I was a clueless fucking child who still didn’t know what the world is all about. Ever since I had strange men touch me inappropriately and was too weak to stop them and save myself or my sister.”
“But you did.” Her voice is low, but it’s determined, as if she’s making sure to drive a point home. “You ran away. You saved both yourself and your sister. When no one stepped up to be your hero, you became one yourself. So no, Knox, you won’t scare me away. Those skeletons? I want to see them. And those demons? I will eventually chase them away.”
My jaw aches from how much I’m clenching it. I want to tell her no, that she’s not allowed near my fucking demons or else they will swallow her whole, but judging by the assertiveness written all over her delicate features, there’s no way in fuck I would change her mind.
And it boggles the shit out of me. The fact that she wants me, that she won’t shy away from any part of me.
Hell, she even wants to see me. All of me.
Not only the beautiful façade or the charming character, but also every fucked up side I’ve swept under the rug for decades.
Bloody decades.
And yet, she manages to drag everything out in no time.
“Besides,” she continues. “Those who pick and choose what parts of you to keep and what to throw away should rot in the darkest pit of hell. Because those parts? Those are what made you the man you are. Those are what brought you to Jersey the day I decided to go against my upbringing and do one thing for me, not for my family or what’s expected of me. You are that thing, Knox. That night might’ve been about sex, but it was so much more afterward. You showed me things I didn’t know existed and opened my eyes to the world. You gave me the safety I didn’t realize I was searching for.”
“Then why did you leave?”
“I told you. It was to protect you.”
I squeeze my fingers on the side of her neck, my voice tight. “Can’t you fucking understand that what you’ve done is no different than stabbing me and letting me bleed to death? I got so used to your lively presence and nerdy talk, and now that you’re gone, my flat feels like a tomb. I used to fall asleep listening to you narrate those long fantasy books in an awed tone, but now I can’t sleep anymore. So I smell your orange shampoo like a damn junkie to get a whiff of you and still fail to fill the gap you fucking left behind. So if protecting me means I’ll live without you, I don’t fucking want it.”
A lone tear slides down her cheek. “Knox…”
I cut her off with my lips on hers and I kiss her with a ferocity that hardens my dick and tightens my balls. I kiss her while holding her neck, and she continues to clutch my cheeks.
I kiss her until she’s struggling for air and her tongue is so entangled with mine, I don’t know where she starts and I end. But she kisses me back with the same heat, my Anastasia, as if she’s waited as much as I have for a taste, for a fragment of what we have.
Still kissing her, I reach between us and lift her dress to her waist. She mindlessly clutches my belt and helps me unzip my trousers and free my hard cock.
It’s been in a constant state of arousal ever since she left, and no amount of hand jobs could substitute for her warmth.
I move her panties to the side, groaning at how soaking wet she is, then I drive inside her without breaking the kiss.
Her body instantly welcomes me, opening up and arching in invitation. It’s like she’s been waiting for me as long as I’ve waited for her. Her back lifts off the bed and she shudders, her mouth parting from mine as she moans.
“Fuck, baby.” I dig my fingers in her throat. “I missed you.”
“I…I…missed you, too. I missed you so much, it hurt.”
I lose control at the sound of her needy words, not that I have any when it comes to her.
She effortlessly turns me into a fucking animal who’s unable to survive without her.
My pace picks up and I kiss her as hard as I fuck her until she’s sliding off the bed and my hold on her neck is the only thing keeping her in place.
One thing doesn’t change even as I fuck her hard and rough—the way she’s looking into my eyes while holding my face.
I’m here for you, she says with those expressive blues. I want you no matter what.
And it drives me wild. Looking at her while being inside her, looking at her while her channel tightens around me, strangling me, drives me fucking insane.
But instead of upping my rhythm, I take it slow for the first time ever. I roll my hips and drive deep into her until she’s shuddering again and her walls close around me like a vise.
My kiss becomes more passionate than frantic, my tongue toying with hers as my dick pounds her tight little cunt with measured thrusts. She pulls her legs wider apart, raising one up a little to allow me more access and I take it, going to lengths I’ve never imagined.
And when she starts shaking, her walls clenching around me, and she’s moaning loudly, I’m right there with her. My spine tingles and I shoot my cum inside her in long spurts until my balls are spent.
I’m about to crush her with my weight, so I maneuver us so that she’s on top of me, her icy blonde hair at my chin. But I remain deep inside her. My dick twitching, slowly but surely readying for another round.
We remain like that for a while, until her breathing evens out and I think she’s fallen asleep. It’s a habit of hers after sex.
Still wrapping a hand around her back, I reach into my trouser pocket and retrieve the butterfly pendant. I’ve kept it ever since she forgot it in the hotel room that day.
Every time I’ve looked at it, I recalled how the black wings flattened against her pale back when I first saw her that night.
The memory seems far away, but I can never forget it. If anything, I might have become obsessed with her since then.
I gently fasten the chain around her throat. The other one was ruined so I got her a golden chain to go along with it.
She stirs when the weight of the necklace—or its coldness—rests against her skin. At first, her gaze is confused, but when she looks down, her eyes widen. “My butterfly.”
“You mentioned it has value to you, so I thought I’d bring it. I put it on a chain so you can have it on you all the time.”
“Thank you.” A soft smile lifts her lips. “It’s the only thing I have left of Mom and it means so much to me.”
“I’m glad I was the one who found it then.”
“Me, too.” She runs her fingers over the black wings. “You know, back then, I used to think of myself as the fairy of the forest and used this as my magic wand to order trees and small animals around.”
A smile breaks on my lips. “I can clearly imagine you as a naughty fairy.”
“I…wasn’t naughty.”
“Uh-huh. Did you wear skimpy clothes, too?”
“Stop, you pervert!”
“What? If you have a role-play kink, I’d be happy to oblige.”
“I do not.” She clears her throat. “Anyway, how did you get here?”
“An acquaintance Nate knows is apparently a Bratva associate and she got me here as her plus-one.”
She lifts her head, leaning her elbows on my chest to look me in the eye. “A woman?”
“Yeah.”
A frown appears between her brows. “And do you know her intimately?”
“Hmm. Maybe.”
“It’s a yes or no question.”
“My, my, beautiful, are you jealous?”
“No.” She stares into space.
“You’re so fucking adorable to think I would look at any other woman after I’ve been with you.”
She hiccups and it’s obviously involuntary, because her face and neck become a deep shade of red. “I…can’t look at other men either.”
My eyes narrow. “Is that why you have a fiancé?”
“Papa picked him because he’s Russian and part of the Bratva. I had no say in it.”
“That will change.” I slowly pull out of her, then stand up.
Even though my dick is craving another round, I need to take care of the fucker standing between us.
Anastasia’s face, however, loses the easygoing edge and goes back to that frightened stage. “W-what are you going to do?”
I go to her en-suite bathroom and wipe off my dick, then I return with wet towels, but she’s already cleaned herself with tissues and straightened up her clothes, and is staring at me with that perturbed look, one that I’ll erase from her face, once and for all.
“You need to leave, Knox. I’ll show you a back entrance where there aren’t many cameras…”
I grab her hand and interlink our fingers. “I’m going nowhere. It’s time I meet your family.”
Then I’m pulling her out of the room in the midst of her continuous protests. The moment we step out, she gasps, her hand trembling in mine, and I realize it’s because we’re face to face with an older white-haired man who has Anastasia’s exact eyes but with no innocence in them.
Her relation to him is confirmed when she whispers in a horrified tone, “Papa.”
