“She’s not going anywhere.” My reply leaves no room for negotiation.
“Then find a way to manage both. But stop pretending that keeping her is a business decision when it’s obviously personal. If you can’t juggle both, then you have a choice to make.”
Alexei turns and walks toward his car, leaving me alone in the parking garage with the weight of his ultimatum.
He’s right about the financial drain. He’s right about my distraction from business operations. He’s probably right that keeping Katya is more about my obsession than revenge.
But he’s wrong about one thing. This isn’t just about choosing between the organization and a woman.
It’s about choosing between the man I was before I tasted her surrender, before I heard my name on her lips when she comes apart in my arms, and before I knew what it felt like to own someone completely.
The addiction to her submission and the way she looks at me like I'm her entire world has become more necessary than breathing. And despite everything logical and rational and businesslike that argues against it, I’m not ready to give up the man I’ve become.
Even if it costs me everything else.
19
Katya
Dmitri drives us through winding country roads with the windows down and music playing, acting like this is the most normal thing in the world instead of the first time I’ve been outside Moscow since I woke up in that hospital bed.
“Where are we going?” I ask for the third time in an hour.
“My family’s estate. About twenty minutes from here.” He glances at me sideways with one hand on the steering wheel, and the way his eyes linger on my legs before returning to the road makes heat curl in my stomach. “I thought we could use some time away from the city. Just us.”
The idea should make me nervous. After all, I’ve never really spent time with Dmitri without security guards and staff around us. Part of me knows I should be more cautious about isolating myself with a man I still don’t fully understand. But the larger part of me craves this chance to be alone with him, consequences be damned.
So instead, warmth spreads through my chest, and it has nothing to do with the afternoon sun streaming through the car windows. “‘Just us’ sounds dangerous.”
“Good dangerous, or bad dangerous?”
“I’ll let you know.”
Dmitri laughs, and the sound makes me glance over at him. When he’s relaxed like this, driving through the countryside with no business associates or security concerns demanding his attention, he looks younger. Less like a crime boss and more like someone I might have met under normal circumstances.
Whatever “normal circumstances” would look like for someone like me.
The estate appears around a bend in the road, and I find myself staring at something that belongs in a fairy tale rather than real life. Cobblestone buildings with red-tile roofs covered in vines, surrounded by gardens that look like they’ve been tended by professional landscapers for decades.
“This is yours?”
“My family’s. Has been for three generations.” He pulls through ornate iron gates and up a circular drive. “My great-grandfather built it as a wedding gift for his wife. Now, it’s somewhere we can be alone. And alone is easier to secure. One road in. One road out.”
The main house is smaller than his Moscow penthouse but infinitely more welcoming. Dark wood floors, comfortable furniture that shows signs of use, and bookshelves filled with volumes that look like they’ve been read rather than just displayed.
“It’s beautiful,” I tell him as we enter the main room.
“It’s home. Or was, before I moved to the city full-time.”
“Do you miss it?”
“I miss having somewhere to go that isn’t connected to business.” He sets our bags down near the staircase. “Somewhere that feels separate from everything else.”
I wander through the room, noting family photographs on side tables and artwork that seems chosen for personal meaning rather than monetary value. Dmitri follows closely enough that I can feel his presence like a physical thing, making me hyperaware of every move I make.
“Your parents lived here?”
“My mother did. Father preferred the city, but she loved this place.” Dmitri picks up one of the photographs and smiles at it. “She said it was the only place she could remember who she was before she married into the family business.”
