by Loki Renard
* * *
Vadim
I am seething. Ivan’s blood is on my hands, and though I know he deserved to die, it did not make the job any more pleasant to carry out. I was conflicted until the end, trying to rationalize how I might be about to end the same man who saved me from a life on the streets, then turned me into a weapon. Part of me wanted to come back to the world I knew, to be embraced as a son and a brother. Instead, I committed an act that will change the course of a thousand lives. Ivan was important in a variety of ways, and his death will be mourned, even if Sophie can’t understand that.
I don’t regret what I did. I had many reasons to need Ivan dead. While he lived, Sophie was at risk, and so was I. I made sure Ivan’s eyes met mine as he died. I wanted him to see me. I wanted him to know that justice had been done. Now he lies at my feet, his corpse lifeless, while the woman I love more than anything lectures me and seems so proud of her deception.
“God, Vadim, you don’t have to be a dick about this,” she says, her voice a unique mixture of haughty exasperation and valley girl attitude. She is a brat. She is a rich, powerful, spoiled woman, and she will be brought to her knees for her role in all of this. Ivan has been punished for his crimes, and Sophie will pay for hers too.
“I will come for you,” I tell her. “And you will accept punishment.”
“No, I fucking won’t.”
“Sophie, you contributed to this as much as Ivan did.”
“Oh, I killed my own parents, is that it? I left myself an orphan because I wanted to enter a feud with a crusty old asshole who was determined to ruin my life from the moment I was born?” She’s outraged, but that is because she is refusing to acknowledge her role in this. It would always have been bad, but she made it so much worse.
“I had to survive, Vadim.”
“You did more than survive.”
She smirks. She can’t help it. She’s proud of what she did. I think she’s proud of this outcome. She has my baby inside her, and she has slain her enemy without having to lift a finger. Sophie is at risk of suffering under the most dangerous delusion anyone can fall prey to: thinking that she is in control. I love her, but I am going to whip that idea out of her.
* * *
Sophie
It is really pissing me off that we just won this whole thing and he doesn’t seem to be impressed, or happy, or anything positive. He’s just glowering at me from several time zones away, like a career assassin has any right to judge me.
“How many people did you kill in your life?” I point out spitefully. “You kill all the time. I killed nobody. I’m a nice person.”
“Nice? You argue with me while I stand in a pool of your greatest enemy’s blood.”
“That’s because you’re arguing with me!”
“Ungrateful little...”
I don’t hear how he finishes the sentence because I slam my hand down on the keyboard, and a second later I hear a chime that tells me the call has been disconnected. I’m not sure if I did that, or if he did. I don’t know if it matters. I am vibrating with anger at Vadim. How dare he take this moment of triumph from me with his whining about past wrongs? Who cares what I did to the Vristok? They deserved every bit of it, and I would do it all again.
Chapter Twelve
Sophie
I have not heard from Vadim in weeks. After he left the Bratva compound, he disappeared. My gut tells me that he is coming back, that he needs to get his head right, but there is a small, regretful part of me that is terrified he is just done with me. He was so angry when we fought. I could tell that he was more than surprised. He felt betrayed by me, because I didn’t tell him all I had done. But I don’t tell anyone what I do, and it never occurred to me that Vadim needed to know. We were both little vaults of secrets, and his was worse than mine. I wasn’t secretly trying to kill him, which means I’m automatically in the right. Whoever isn’t trying to murder the other person is the better person in a relationship. I could have spent the last ten years tormenting the Vristok in a variety of inventive and nasty ways, and it wouldn’t matter because I never tried to hurt him specifically.
I don’t get to argue any of these rationalizations because there is nobody to argue them with. There is only myself and the solitude of my fortress, which is back to being guarded by a skeleton crew.
Every day I wake hoping that I will hear from Vadim. And every night, I go to sleep with an ache in my belly, knowing that he might be gone forever.
Until...
I wake up in the middle of the night, a hand wrapped around my mouth.
“Mine,” a male voice growls in my ear. It’s Vadim. He’s back. And he is in my bedroom, on top of me, holding me down completely at his mercy.
I stiffen with fear, not knowing what he intends to do. Is his old programming still in place? Is this where I die? I don’t know. I have the most powerful mixture of adrenaline and relief coursing through me as he manhandles me without any kind of modern concern for my person.
“Fucking. Mine.”
He starts stripping me, ripping my clothes off. His big hand finds the soft swell of my belly, where I am beginning to rise with his seed, and rubs across it in a soft caress.
“Mine,” he repeats.
I stare up at him in the moonlight and give him a small smile.
“Yours.”
* * *
Vadim
I waited to come to her until I was certain I would be in full control of myself. I knew she was safe, but I needed to think and to undergo deprogramming. It was not easy to free myself of Ivan’s influence.
I am now more clear in mind than ever.
She is a bad girl. She has done some very bad things, but she is mine. Nobody else can possibly have her. And that baby inside her, that is mine too. Neither of them were ever supposed to survive. But they both will.
I’m going to teach her a lesson in obedience. She will never hide anything from me again. She did more than send a black widow bride to Ivan. She systematically taunted him from the moment her parents passed.
“I know what you’ve been doing,” I growl in her ear, feeling the thrill run through her. She likes being told that she is bad. She has always responded to discipline, and now I know why. It’s because she knows she deserves to be punished.
I pull her from the bed and I cuff her hands. When we met, I was the one in cuffs, but she’s the one who is going to wear them now. She doesn’t fight me. She doesn’t even try to. She lets me attach chains to the cuffs and then hook them up high so she is stretched before me, so fucking beautiful. Everything I have ever loved is in this room with me. Sophie, and the life inside her.
But first, I have to deal with her. Over the last weeks, I have learned much about her wickedness. She was merciless in her tormenting of Ivan, always staying at a distance, but making his life miserable in ways big and small, from arranging a poisoning to having his birthday celebration interrupted by a troupe of circus clowns. She was a thorn in his side until the day I ended him, and she should have told me that instead of giving me the little innocent girl act. For that, she will be punished.
I pull my belt free and take her by the chin, pressing a rough kiss to her lips. It has been far too long since I have tasted her. She is intoxicating in every way.
“Vadim...”
“Yes?”
“Did you kill my parents?”
“No.”
She lets out a breath. “Thank god. I don’t think I could have forgiven that.”
That would usually be a much longer conversation, but now is not the time for talking. With that concern out of the way, I step around behind her and line her ass up with the leather. She is going to be punished. I know she doesn’t care. I know she wants me back as much as I want to be back. But I am going to deal with her first, punish her for her sins. Teach her to never lie to me again.
Swish... Slap!
My belt lands across her ass, makes her soft skin blush immediate red. I love how she reacts to
leather, how she lifts her hips and makes little moaning sounds that are undeniable requests for more. She might have tried to defy me when I was far away, but now that I am here, she knows her place. Under my belt, over my knee, at my feet. I will make this girl mine in every possible way, and by the time the baby is born, there will be no more question as to the order of things. She will call me master, and she will obey my every command.
“I’m sorry!” she calls out. Too late to make a difference, but the sentiment is nice. I walk around to face her, to see if she truly is sorry. She’s not, of course.
“At least I won. I destroyed the Vristok,” she says, still clinging to that rebellion, not to mention the delusion that is at the heart of her assertions.
I smile faintly and run my hand over her flank, cupping her breasts and caressing her belly. She gives me a catlike expression of satisfaction. I can’t hurt her very much, can I? Not a pregnant woman. She has to be taken care of. And she will be.
“I killed Ivan,” I tell her, taking her by the chin again, wanting to see the look in her eyes when she hears what I have to say. “I did not destroy the order itself. The order has a new leader.”
There is utter horror in her gaze. She tries to pull free of my grasp, but I hold her easily, the chains keeping her hands in place while I explore her impudent, arrogant body. I have been keeping this particular piece of news to myself until I found her again. I wanted to see her reaction. I wanted to be there when she realized that she has not won anything.
“Who?” She breathes the question as I slide my hand down her belly and curl two fingers up inside her pussy, toying with the wet little hole. I have missed this so much, the way her cream coats my fingers, how her inner walls grip me with a rhythm that is entirely unique to her body. She pulses with desire, trying to pull me deeper. She needs to be fucked long and hard, and she will be—but not yet. For now, I play with her. I watch her spread her legs, putting more pressure on her sore bottom, and I sink my fingers just a little deeper to reward her for the way she acknowledges my ownership of her pussy.
“Who is it, Vadim?” Her voice is halting as I slowly twist my fingers back and forth inside her. This is not an answer I am in any hurry to give her. I like watching her body respond to the tension, her nipples tightening and standing taller, the muscles in her belly and thighs flexing as she lifts her hips up in a futile attempt to grind her clit against the heel of my palm.
I keep fingering her, giving her the bare minimum of what she needs to be whipped up into the kind of erotic desire that will make her mad with lust. I want her to lose all control. I want to have her sweating and quivering beneath me, whimpering for the release only I can give her.
I have killed for this woman, and I would again, if I had to. I would do absolutely anything for her. It is impossible to express how much I love her. She is beautiful, but my desire for her goes beyond her physical form. She is strong, and she is wrong. She is not a good girl. She lies. She plots. She schemes. She fights. And all those things will make our lives together a constant wrestling match that I cannot wait to engage in.
“Who?” She whines the question again, her voice ripe with desperation. I want to be inside her properly when I tell her. I want my cock to be buried deep inside this greedy little hole. I want to feel her contract around me and squeeze me tight.
I pull my fingers free and move them to her lips, glistening slick with her juices. Her mouth is open in a little pout, so I push them straight in and drag them over her tongue, making her taste her desire.
She suckles nicely like a good girl, and I keep my fingers in her mouth, giving her something to keep working on as I move around and push my thickness between her thighs. She’s so ready for me there is little resistance as I slide in, not until her inner walls contract and draw me in.
“Who?”
“Me.”
I hold myself deep inside her as she realizes all the ramifications of that one little word. She didn’t destroy the Vristok. Ivan might be dead, but my blood is still of their line. She is being fucked by it. And now she is owned by it. She hasn’t won. She’s lost.
“How could you?” she gasps. “They swore to destroy me.”
“The mission has changed,” I tell her. “You’re not going to be harmed. You’re going to be owned. You’re going to give birth to my babies. You’re going to be my wife, my pet, my toy. You’re going to be obedient, and you’re never going to have a secret from me again.”
I pull my cock out of her and curl my fingers up inside her, searching for the spot that hides just above her pubic bone. I find it almost instantly, a swelling little gland that will be her undoing. She is already panting, flushing pink, standing on her tiptoes as I start to rub it.
I had to fight more than the Vristok. I had to fight a lifetime of cruelty and pain. I had to discover who I was, so I could know who she was. And I had to kill what was corrupt, so innocence could be reborn again.
Now Sophie Mortari, last of her name, is dancing on my fingers, the juices of orgasm pouring from her sex. I will claim her many more times tonight and in the following days. I will spank her bottom when she needs it, and I will hold her when she needs that. She will have the life Ivan never intended her to have. And so will I.
* * *
Sophie
I’ve been beaten. After generations, the Vristok have finally conquered my familial line. I will be the leader’s fuck toy, his plaything. I feel outrage flood my body even as orgasm overwhelms me, taking the ability to argue away as I instead let out copious wails of pleasure.
Vadim slams himself inside me, claiming me again and again. He grinds me on his dick, using my wet hole, making me take hard thrusts. All the while my body is submitting, my mind is trying to process everything. I love Vadim more than anything. I wanted him back more than I wanted to go on living. If it turned out that he still had plans to kill me, I’d still want him to return, because the pain of his loss is worse than the pain of death.
These are the thoughts of a desperate woman, but I can admit that I am desperate, and have been for a very long time. Even now, in the wake of the unspeakable revelation that he has taken on the mantle of my greatest enemy, I am clinging to him, my legs wrapped around him, drawing him deeper until he spills his seed inside me, giving me his essence.
And then there is peace. Release. Silence.
We lie wrapped in one another’s arms, and I don’t know if the man beside me is the man who loves me, the man who wants to kill me, or the man who is now the head of the dreaded Vristok taking me as his trophy captive. The chilling truth is that he is likely all three. I don’t get to live a life where the man I love is simply a good man. My life is such that the only man who is capable of loving me is also capable of great violence to all those who would harm me—and the life inside me. But head of the Vristok? How can I tolerate that in my bed?
I bite my lower lip, and I consider an emotional gambit. Maybe I can try forbidding him from that position. I can tell him that I love him, but I can’t be with a man who rules my enemies.
“I can’t be with the head of the Vristok. If you choose to have that role...”
“Yes, you can be. You are,” he says bluntly. “You want some other man to start trying to kill us? It has to be me. Only I can hold that role. Only I can keep them from doing harm to you.”
I stare wordlessly at him, knowing immediately that he is correct. Sometimes, being in bed with the enemy is the only safe place in the world. But still... I feel as though I should argue, even if I’m not sure that I am right in doing so.
“You should have told me before we had sex.”
“You should have told me you were at war with Ivan.”
“You should have called while you were away,” I counter.
“I was under heavy chemical sedation and fully restrained.”
“You have an excuse for everything.”
“It’s not an excuse, woman,” he growls, grabbing me and pulling me close to kiss m
e roughly. It is very hard to hate him with his stubble rubbing against my soft skin, his taste in my mouth, his scent filling my nose, his return feeling so incredibly fantastic I cannot begin to really process it. I am used to loss. I am not used to getting anybody back.
“Can’t you just... disband them?” I ask the question when I can breathe again.
“No,” he rumbles. “There is too much money. Too much power. Too many people reliant on the Vristok for their lives. But this feud is over. You are mine. Our son unites the bloodlines...”
“Or daughter.”
“Or son,” he says gruffly.
“Probably a daughter. Don’t tell me you don’t want a girl.”
He shrugs. “Boy is easier.”
“When has anything in our lives ever been easy?”
“True,” he growls, his handsome face pulled into a snarl. I think it’s a playful one, but it is hard to tell with a Russian gangster.
* * *
Vadim
I tease her, but I don’t care if it is a boy or a girl. All that matters is that we have a family. A true family. One born of our love, which survives in spite of the adversities that have threatened to destroy us both. I love this woman with such passion I endured thirty days and nights of intense deprogramming, a process that delved to the very core of my being and tore the pain of the years out of me one awful event at a time until I was purged of all Ivan had ever done to me. I no longer fear harming Sophie, but anyone who tries to continue the old feud will meet with maximum brutality. I have already slain those who acted as spies among her guard, and the men who carried Ivan’s orders out, drawing me into the house explosion that triggered me into a near deadly rage. I have purged the Vristok in blood and fire, and those who remain know better than to cross me.
