Sasha is alive.
My wife isn’t lying six feet under in a cold grave.
I buried her bones with my own hands and forced myself to look at her disfigured skeletal face because I thought that was the last time I’d see her.
Even if she didn’t look like my Sasha anymore, I had to engrave the last image of her in my memory.
But it turns out that it was all an act to fool me.
She wanted to leave me so badly that she faked her own death and, consequently, drove a sharp spear into my chest.
The wound is gaping open and bleeding worse than the literal bullet she put in my arm.
Yes, she shot me, but it was less because she wanted to kill me and more because she was scared I’d touch her.
The mere thought of my skin on hers terrified her so much that it triggered her defense mechanism. Her non-dominant leg was literally bent back in case she decided to run.
I wonder if she had the same reaction when she decided to leave me that fake corpse.
More accurately, she probably thought she’d left me for good.
That she can still leave me.
In her fucking dreams.
The only reason I agreed to her absurd three-month condition is because that was the only way to make her come with me.
Do I plan to keep my part of the deal? Fuck no.
But she doesn’t need to know that.
I catch up to her forceful strides but linger a step behind to admire the way her combat clothes stretch over the dip in her waist and her hips.
For the first time—probably ever—she’s wearing women’s combat gear instead of the unflattering male ones.
She’s dyed her hair back to blonde. It’s now held in a low ponytail that stops at her shoulders. I knew her hair grew fast, but I didn’t realize it was this fast.
I’ve often tried to imagine her with her natural hair color, but none of the pictures I’ve conjured in my brain have done her justice.
She’s glowing as a blonde.
Also fierce.
Angry as fuck, too.
And that makes my dick twitch with the need to fuck that anger out of both of us.
Yes, I could’ve chosen not to make things worse and not taken Yuri—sorry, I mean Anton—but there was virtually no other method to force her to stay.
She might not have killed me, but she would’ve tortured me by another highly effective method—disappearing on me.
Forbidding me from seeing her ever again.
She would’ve vanished to where I couldn’t find her and punished both of us for the rest of our lives.
And we can’t have that, now, can we?
I take a step in front of her and lead her to where I parked the car. Sasha doesn’t look at me, keeping her entire focus on the faraway horizon or the trees that are indistinguishable in the dark.
She’s either escaping in her mind or giving me the silent treatment or both.
Not that I mind. I didn’t expect her to come around this fast, but as long as she’s here, I can come up with multiple methods to win her back.
When we arrive at the car, I open the driver’s door with my good hand. However, my wound pulses with pain that travels all the way to my chest. I groan deep in my throat and close my eyes for a brief second to control the discomfort.
The bleeding isn’t as severe as earlier, but there’s still hemorrhaging, and I might have lost more blood than my body can afford to.
I’m still not interested in treating it until I get Sasha back home. What if she runs off on me again?
In the mansion, I have enough power to stop her from leaving.
She steps between me and the driver’s door. Her face is still closed off, lips pursed, and brows pulled together in an adorable frown. “I’ll drive.”
I smile. “Worried about me?”
“More like I don’t want to get into an accident if you drop dead against the steering wheel.”
“You wound me in my little black heart, Solnyshko.”
She grinds her teeth and glares up at me with her ethereal eyes. They look brown now, dark, and infested with an unhealthy dose of hate.
Her face is soft and delicate but a bit pale. She’s lost weight and some of her natural glow. Dark circles line the contours of her tired eyes.
I hope she’s suffered as badly as I have.
I hope she couldn’t fucking sleep at night, and I infiltrated her nightmares as brutally as she invaded mine.
She sinks her fingers into my wound and then digs them inside with the intention of inflicting pain. “I told you to stop calling me that.”
I groan as my arm catches fire and pulses. Yes, it hurts, but I don’t give a fuck. “It feels good when you touch me.”
Sasha releases me with a jerk, her hand all messed up with my blood. If we add my cum to the equation, it will look like a masterpiece.
But that’s a thought for another occasion.
“You must really have some screws loose.” She clicks her tongue. “How come you’re not threatening me back with bodily harm?”
“You’re the only one on the list of people I refrain from threatening.”
“Funny because you’re holding my brother’s life for ransom.”
“That’s a different issue.”
“How is it different? You know what? Forget it. You’ll just twist the words around so that the situation plays in your favor, and it’ll just piss me off more. Let’s get this over with.”
I smile.
She really is able to read me better than anyone else. Not even Viktor and his shadowing skills could measure up to her.
Sasha is trying to have a clean break, but she’s failing miserably. The more I hear her talk, the deeper she gets herself into the exact situation she’s running away from.
I will never—and I mean ever—let her go.
Not even if I have to suffocate her in the process.
She puts her rifle in the back and settles into the driver’s seat as I struggle to get in.
Sasha reaches into the glove compartment, her hand touching my thigh, and that slight movement twitches my dick against its confinement.
It’s been too long since I got a taste of her and let’s just say my cock has been having a strained affair with my hand that he’s ready to end.
My wife retrieves a first aid kit and then turns me around so that I’m facing her. She doesn’t look at me as she wraps a bandage around my bicep and over the gash she gave me as a reunion gift. The first few wraps soak with blood immediately, but she keeps going while applying pressure.
Her brow is furrowed, but I can’t help the smile that lifts my lips.
It doesn’t matter how long we’ve been apart; she’ll always worry about me and make sure I’m not hurt.
“Your care is touching.”
“Get over yourself. If you die, Viktor will kill Anton. This is only for my brother.”
“Hmm. We’ll have to agree to have different definitions for this gesture—fuck.”
Sasha smiles sweetly after she ties the bandage against my injury and then practically throws my arm aside.
She wants to prove that she could and would hurt me? Fine. I’ll let her do that to her heart’s content.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” She feigns innocence. “Did that hurt?”
“Anything for my beautiful wife.” I smile even as pain throbs in my arm and extends to the rest of my body.
Her humor disappears, and she hits the engine button and then speeds down the dirt road.
She’s caught off-balance.
Good.
As long as I still affect her, I’ll get to her. Whether it’s today, tomorrow, or next month. I don’t give a fuck.
One day, she’ll get tired of this silent treatment kink and go back to other entertaining kinks.
I lean on the headrest and stare at her as she drives with pursed lips and hawk-like concentration.
The more I watch, the tighter she grips the steering wheel. It’s subtle at first, but in no time, her knuckles turn white.
“Stop looking at me like that,” she grinds out without looking at me.
“Like what?”
She casts a fleeting glance my way and waves her hand in a vague gesture. “Like whatever that is.”
“This is me getting my fill of you after two months of believing you were dead.”
Her attention remains on the road, but her lips part before she clamps them shut again. “How did you fall for that? Just because I left the ring and the bracelet?”
“The DNA test was a perfect match. I suppose you falsified it so your careful plot would drive me up the fucking wall.” The fact that I didn’t double-check the DNA results makes me want to strangle the me from two months ago.
“I…didn’t falsify anything.”
“Maybe your damn brother did.” I can’t believe I didn’t see the Yuri angle coming.
According to Maksim, Anton Ivanov switched places with my guard after his ‘accident.’ Yuri didn’t want to join me and the others when I decided to go to the army, so I found it weird that he caught up to us later. However, it wasn’t weird enough to suspect him since a few other men did the same.
I’d barely noticed him before. He was incompetent and slow. But after he followed us post-accident, it was like a different person had come along.
Turns out, that’s exactly what happened.
He fooled me in the sense of his loyalty, but for some reason, I always kept him at arm’s length, compared to, say, Viktor or Maksim. I liked his plans, but I always made my own tweaks before I employed them.
I also never sent him on solo missions or let him in on the Belsky Organization investigation I assigned Viktor with.
Maybe I didn’t suspect him, but something inside me was wary of him. For all the right reasons.
He’s good, though. Not only did he manage to fool me, but his own sister and best friend didn’t know either.
Now, I need to decide how to deal with the motherfucker.
The trickiest part is that he’s related to Sasha, and I can’t exactly kill him and still have her.
“No, he didn’t,” she says to my earlier statement. “We barely had time to plant the corpse. How could we falsify the DNA when we were in Russia?”
Hmm.
Interesting.
Since she has no reason to lie, that means someone else did it.
Namely, the one who got in bed with the Albanians to plot her death. If the person who did this could plant the DNA test so effectively, that means they might be a lot closer than I thought.
Now, I have to rip their hearts out and watch as life leaves their miserable eyes.
The nerve of making me believe she’d died.
The fucking audacity.
By the time we arrive at the house, I’m boiling with a flood of rage.
At Sasha for daring to leave.
At the fucker who must’ve been watching from the shadows as I slowly decimated into the abyss of nothingness.
They must’ve been laughing as their plan came to fruition.
I hope they’re also watching now as I bring Sasha back. I won’t look for them. Sooner or later, they’ll let their true colors shine through.
Sasha opens the door with more force than needed and jumps out as if she can’t stand being with me in the same space for another second.
Fuck that.
I refuse to believe that she forgot us in the span of two months.
Unless she never really loved you, and she really did have a lover that she went back to.
I shut down that sadistic voice and step out of the car. The moment I stand, dizziness takes hold of me, and I slam against the side of the vehicle.
Did I overestimate my ability to not bleed out? Probably.
Sasha rushes in my direction, then stops at the last second and clenches her fists as if recalling that she shouldn’t be caring about my well-being anymore.
“Can’t keep it together?” She inserts as much venom as possible in her words, but it sounds strained, fake.
“I might die,” I say with a fake groan.
“Good. Less evil in the world.”
“Will you cry for me if I do?”
“No.” She lifts her chin. “In fact, I might celebrate.”
“You look adorable when you say things you don’t mean.” I touch her cheek with the backs of two of my fingers, and she freezes. I freeze, too, as a rush of chaotic emotions stabs me in the chest.
It’s a mere touch, but it’s enough to kill all the dark thoughts I had after I saw her fake corpse.
For the first time in months, I breathe fresh air.
For the first time in months, I feel everything.
She’s here.
She’s mine again—even if she’d argue otherwise.
Her wide eyes fill with fire, and she slaps my hand away. The gesture stings more than the hit itself.
If it were any other time, I’d grab her by the throat, tie her up, and fuck her for the insolence.
But considering the circumstances, I let it go.
For now.
“Don’t touch me.” Her voice drips with tension.
“You’re awfully terrified of my touching you. Have you noticed that?”
She shoots me another glare, which seems to be her modus operandi today, then storms to the house.
I’m about to follow when my phone vibrates. It’s Viktor.
It takes me more effort than needed to answer. “Status.”
“All cleaned out. We’re keeping Anton—aka the fake Yuri—under surveillance. Should we torture him for answers?”
“No. He probably won’t talk.” And I don’t want to lose points with Sasha if she finds out I’ve been beating her brother up.
“Maksim wants to guard him personally.”
Hmm.
There’s been something different about him ever since he came back from Russia. It’s like his soul was crushed, and he struggled to put himself back together again.
He hasn’t joked around with the others and has spent more time alone or with me and Viktor—which is out of character for him. And most importantly, he’s thrown himself into his work again as if nothing had happened. In the beginning, I thought it was because of the torture, but I’ve come to the conclusion that it could be more.
Like being betrayed by who he thought was his best friend.
And who am I if I don’t deliver poetic justice? This way, I’m not torturing Anton or giving the order for him to be tortured.
Maksim will have complete responsibility for it.
“Let Maksim have full custody of him,” I tell Viktor.
After I hang up, I walk to the mansion’s entrance, my steps heavy as fuck.
By the time I catch up to Sasha, a loud gasp echoes in the air, and then Karina is running down the stairs. The little shit trips on her nightgown and falls a few steps, but she catches herself and continues to run the rest of the way.
“Sasha! Oh my God, Sasha!” She throws herself in my wife’s arms. “Please tell me it’s you and that I didn’t actually summon you with the voodoo I performed to call your spirit.”
She did what?
“It’s me.” Sasha pats her head with her clean hand.
My sister doesn’t seem to notice me or my near-unconscious state as she pulls back. Tears cling to her eyes as she smiles wide even as her voice shakes. “It’s really you.”
“How have you been, Kara?”
“Don’t give me that!” She hits her shoulder. “How could you make us believe you’d died? Don’t you know how much you mean to me?”
Little by little, emotions slip into Sasha’s gaze. An acute sense of guilt turns her eyes a deep shade of yellow that wars with the brown.
This isn’t me. This is Karina.
She did nothing to her, but Sasha hurt her and others by faking her death. My wife is slowly but surely realizing her mistake.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I didn’t do it on purpose, and I really thought you’d find out the body wasn’t me.”
“Just don’t do it again, okay?” Karina hugs her once more, and while Sasha tries to remain unaffected, her shoulders droop.
Now, I know it’s inappropriate, but I still want to throw my sister against the wall so that I can take her place.
On the other hand, Karina might be one of the methods I’ll use to keep Sasha here.
You get a pass, Kara. For now.
“Kara?” Kristina appears up the stairs. She’s actually been getting along with my sister, especially after Karina learned she’d be an aunt soon.
Sasha turns into stone as she stares up at Kristina, who’s slowly taking the stairs down.
Huh.
I was about to collapse a minute ago, but I think I’ll stick around and watch this show unfold in real time.
Sasha pretends she doesn’t want me, but the look in her eyes says she wants to strangle Kristina to death.
My wife can lie all she wants, but I’ll bring her back.
