Page 49 of My Wedding Night Massacre

He pulls back slowly, the drag of his cock through my ass making me gasp, the friction of it everywhere, then drives back in, not slowly this time. I cry out, my back arching, my hand flying between my thighs to find my clit because the need for it is desperate and immediate. He feels me touching myself and makes a sound against my neck that is entirely satisfied.

“That’s right,” he says, pulling back again, driving in again, setting a rhythm now. “Touch yourself while I fuck your ass.”

I do. My fingers work my clit in fast circles while his cock drives into me again and again, the dual sensation overwhelming, my ass stretched around him on every thrust, the fullness of it and the friction of it combining with what my fingers are doing until I can’t separate any of it into components anymore, it’s just everything at once, too much, exactly enough.

He fucks me harder, his hips snapping forward, the sound of his cock driving into my ass filling the kitchen along with my broken gasps and the low sounds he can’t keep behind his teeth. His hands grip the curves of my hips and pull me back onto him with every thrust, making me take every inch, the wet, slick sounds of it obscene in the quiet villa.

“Slava,” I say, my voice dissolving.

“I’ve got you,” he says. He drives in deep and stays, grinding slow circles, his cock buried to the hilt in my ass while my fingers work frantically against my clit. “Come for me.”

I come. The orgasm tears through me from somewhere deep, my ass clenching tight around his cock, my cunt spasming around nothing, my whole body shaking in long, violent waves. He fucks me through every second of it, his rhythm breaking apart, his cock jerking inside me as he follows me over, emptying in hot pulses deep in my ass, his hands pulling me back onto him, grinding every last drop deeper.

He holds me up when my legs give. His arm wraps around my waist, keeping me on my feet, his cock still inside me, both of us breathing in ragged, uneven pulls in the quiet kitchen.

“Still think you’re in charge?” he says against my ear.

I laugh, which is not a sound I expected to make tonight. It comes out raw, real, and slightly broken around the edges.

“Ask me again tomorrow,” I say.

When we’re both satisfied and spent, we end up in bed the way I used to dream we would, his arm around me, my back against his chest, his breath evening out behind me. I pull his arm tighter across myself and look at the dark ceiling.

“I love you,” I say, quietly, almost to myself, directed at the dark. “I never stopped. Even when I was certain you were dead. Even when I was standing at that altar in a dress I didn’t choose.” I pause. “I never stopped.”

He pulls me closer. His arm tightens around me, his lips press once to the back of my head, saying the thing he doesn’t have the words for yet. Three years of armor doesn’t come off in two days. I know that. I’m not asking for it.

His arms say it. His hands say it. The way he holds me says it.

I close my eyes. The loop in my head has finally gone quiet, with the contingency columns, the circled properties, and my father’s voice all still for the first time since the church. Slava’s heartbeat under my ear, slow, steady, and real.

I sleep.

31

Slava

I’m there forty minutes before the meeting time.

The restaurant is Italian, quiet, a private room off the main floor that Misha arranged through channels that don’t connect back to Leoni or the villa. I’ve checked the exits twice, memorized the sightlines from the single window, positioned myself with my back to the wall, and a clear view of the door. Misha is at the entrance to the private room, visible but not intrusive, a man having coffee who happens to be exactly where he needs to be.

I order water and wait.

Gachev arrives at the agreed time. He comes through the door alone, which is the first thing I take in. No security, no assistant, no performance of resources. He’s wearing a dark coat, a suit underneath, nothing that reads as armor or display. He scans the room when he enters, finds me, and crosses to the table without hesitation.

He sits down.

A server appears. He declines coffee, water, everything, with a small gesture that ends the interaction immediately. Then he looks at me across the table with the steady eyes of a man who has already decided what he’s going to say and has no concern about how it lands.

He’s older than I’d cataloged somehow, despite having the number. Not in appearance, he looks exactly his age, but he’s still in a way that doesn’t come from confidence or control. It comes from having already lost the thing that mattered most. His wife died four years ago. He’s been alone since then. I understand that stillness. I’ve been living inside a version of it for three years.

“Denis,” he says, and reaches inside his coat.

He sets a folded paper on the table between us. I don’t touch it yet.

“Outer boroughs,” he says. “A property Bogdan acquired eighteen months ago, not registered to any name that connects to him directly. It was a cash purchase through a subsidiary that doesn’t appear on any organizational chart I’ve seen produced in court or elsewhere.” He folds his hands on the table. “Two guards on rotation, one fixed position at the rear entrance. The rotation runs on a six-hour cycle and was last confirmed two days ago. The entry points.” He nods at the paper. “It’s on there.”

I look at the paper. I don’t pick it up.