Chapter One
LYAH
Niko surges into me from behind, violently yanking me out of my slumber and leaving me slightly disoriented, just like always.
I’m wet enough. I always am where my husband is concerned. He may be dangerous, and not a man you’d ever want to cross, being pakhan of the New York Bratva, but no hot-blooded woman would ever say he’s not a sexy son of a bitch.
“Emylyah,” he murmurs, bucking against me as his arm bands tightly around my waist to keep me in place, even though he sounds half asleep himself. At least it’s my name he whispers; I should be grateful for that, since none of those same hot-blooded women who lust after him think twice at throwing themselves at him, whether he has a wife or not. Like Catriona freaking Smith, the conniving daughter of someone Niko does a lot of business with.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t wonder if he takes any of them up on the offers I know he gets. Especially her.
Ours is not a love match. Well, not on Niko’s side, anyway. My own foolish heart races only for him, whatever I really mean to him. Nikolai Radaeva is a hard man to know, and even as his wife of three years, he still holds back from any true closeness between us. It makes me sad; but at least I have this much. No matter what, I am the woman he’s married to. I’m the woman who lives in his home and warms his bed at night. The nights when he’s home at least. I try not to think about the nights when he’s not.
Niko growls, low in his throat, and rolls me onto my stomach, pulling my hips up to meet his forceful thrusts. As he pounds into me with increasing urgency, I arch my back and press against him, desperate to feel closer. My fingers clutch the sheets, and I bite back a moan. I want to cry out his name, to beg him to look at me, to see me as more than just his wife in title. But I know better. Niko doesn't respond well to emotional displays.
His grip on my hips tightens, and I feel the familiar build of pleasure coiling low in my belly. Despite the lack of tenderness, my traitorous body responds to his every touch. I hate how easily he can reduce me to a quivering mess, how much power he holds over me.
With a final, deep thrust, Niko grunts and stills. I feel him pulsing inside me, but my own release remains frustratingly out of reach. He pulls out abruptly and stomps towards our ensuite bathroom, leaving me empty and aching while I stay frozen in place, my face buried in the pillow as I wish he’d show me a little more affection.
My entire life has been a drought of tenderness. A bleak and sunbaked landscape devoid of compassion.
My father was mostly absent. And while I know my mother cared, she was completely nuts, constantly uprooting us and fleeing from ghosts that were never really there, making it hard for me to make friends.
My foremost memories are a dizzying spin of whatever house or apartment we called home that month and being drilled to remember whatever new past Lenka made up, complete with a new name, birthday, and age. My things were usually left behind when we moved in the dead of night, my birthday cakes were sometimes just a gas station muffin with a single candle jabbed in it, and from necessity, I learned to keep my own secrets, not that there was anyone to tell them to.
There are girls who grow into women who know their worth instinctively; I grew up with a hollow in my chest, a bottomless sinkhole of need. Looking back, I can count on one hand the times I felt truly wanted: a teacher’s brief praise, a friend’s fleeting hug, the love bites of stray cats I fed since I wasn’t allowed a pet of my own. Not much to fill a heart with, but I dreamed it would be enough to keep me going until I was old enough to escape my mother’s madness, her suffocating paranoia, and her tendency to yank up stakes at the first sign of imagined danger.
Then, after a crazy, terrifying shooting at a courthouse, which was the first inkling I had that maybe there was a real danger out there, Lenka did the single, most amazing thing ever. She enrolled me into boarding school.
I don’t know what lies she told, or what strings she pulled to get me there, but since the place was like a fortress, filled with a surfeit of children from wealthy, and sometimes deadly, backgrounds, she was content with the security.
That’s where I met my best friend, Roisin. She was the year below me, but that didn’t make any difference since we were both full-time boarders. For the very first time I had a stable life, and I soaked up all the new discoveries like a sponge, wanting to experience everything.
It was through her that I first met Niko, and back then, like every other woman, I swooned in his presence and stared at him with heart eyes.
Of course, as soon as my crazy mother caught onto my interest, she swooped in to manipulate things.
I’d hoped my arranged marriage to Niko, which she somehow managed to contrive, would be different, the start of some amazing new life, but it’s not been that. Although he agreed to marry me, and made me his, it felt less like a rescue and more like being claimed as a commodity. But even so, the little girl inside me, the one who remembers every missed birthday and every lonely, new apartment, still hopes - pathetically hungrily - that this man’s arms might someday feel like my safe harbor. That time will bring with it familiarity and in turn maybe fondness and friendship. But we’re into our third year of marriage and it hasn’t happened yet. Now the fabled ‘honeymoon’ period is well and truly over, I guess it never will.
Oh, he’s possessive all right. I most certainly belong to him; but more like a possession than a person. Meanwhile, I crave his touch, his approval, even the smallest sign that I mean something to him beyond a convenient body to warm his bed, or who looks good on his arm.
Instead, he barely looks at me as he walks back into our bedroom suite after showering. With the towel slung low on his hips, he’s a work of art.
My eyes trace the sculpted planes of his chest, the dark tattoos etched across his skin telling stories I'll never fully understand. Droplets of water cling to his shoulders, and I long to reach out and brush them away. But I don't dare.
Niko moves to the closet, dropping the towel without a glance in my direction. I avert my gaze, giving him privacy he doesn't seem to care about. The rustle of fabric tells me he's dressing for the day. My stomach churns with a mix of desire and despair.
"I have meetings all day," he says, his voice gruff. "Don't wait up."
I nod, not trusting my voice. He doesn't expect a response anyway. As he strides out of the room, the scent of his cologne lingers, teasing me with its familiar warmth. The click of the door closing behind him feels like a physical blow.
Slowly, I uncurl from the bed, wincing at the soreness between my thighs. I pad to the bathroom, avoiding my reflection in the mirror. I know what I'll see – tousled hair, flushed cheeks, and eyes brimming with unshed tears. I've seen it too many times before. It’s an expression I remember all too well from my childhood. I can’t believe my future turned out the same, when I was so adamant I’d build myself something better.
The hot water of the shower stings my skin, but I welcome the pain. It's a distraction from the ache in my chest. As I lather my body, I can't help but wonder if Niko's ‘meetings’ involve other women, and once again my insecurities drift to Catriona. She’s beautiful and confident and has been far too present this past year. The thought makes me sick, but I can't shake it. Especially since she visits occasionally with her father and takes great joy in implying there might be something more between her and Niko with her veiled hints and the way she paws at him. I never rise to the bait. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction, but I still wonder.
I step out of the shower and wrap myself in a plush towel, finally daring to look in the mirror. My reflection stares back at me, blue eyes too big for my face, hollow cheeks, and an unflattering gauntness. I've lost weight recently, often feeling sick and unsettled. Not that Niko’s noticed.
I’d previously put it down to worry over Roisin. She’s been through hell this past year and scared the life out of me. First getting abducted, then falling pregnant by a man from a rival organization whom her brothers wanted to kill. Her response was to sneak around, meeting with Dominic on the quiet, while using me as a cover. Not that I begrudged Roisin her happiness, but boy did I pay for it when Niko learned my part in the deception. I couldn’t sit for a week after he took his belt to my ass. But that was many months ago. Now I’d welcome the same punishment if it meant I captured his attention for that long again.
