He slams the phone down and sweeps the glasses off his desk in a sudden, violent motion. They shatter against the floor, but I don’t flinch. I watch him tremble, the weight of the betrayal crushing him. Dmitri quietly slips out of the room, closing the doors behind him, leaving us in the wreckage of the truth. Razvan sinks back into his chair, his head dropping into his hands.
“I’m so sorry,” he chokes out. “My family…we’re a curse. We took everything from you.”
I don’t say a word. I walk around the desk, navigating the broken glass, and stand between his knees. I reach down and lift his chin, forcing him to look at me. His eyes are full of shame and agony. This man, the monster, is completely undone. And for the first time in my life, I feel a power that has nothing to do with leverage or secrets. It’s the power of choice. I lean down, my heart soaring and sinking all at once, and I press my lips to his. It’s a quiet kiss. Deliberate. I’m not being forced. I’m not trading my body for Theo’s safety. I am choosing him.
Razvan lets out a broken sound, his hands flying to my waist, pulling me into him as if I’m the only thing keeping him from drifting into the void. The kiss deepens, turning from a comfort into a desperate, burning need. He tastes like Scotch and sorrow, and I meet him with everything I have. He lifts me onto the desk, clearing the remaining papers with one sweep of his arm.
“Lena,” he gasps against my neck, his hands fumbling with the silk of my robe. “Are you sure? I don’t want to take anything else from you.”
My own hands are steadier. I find the buttons of his shirt. “You aren’t taking,” I whisper, my voice low and certain. The first button pops open. I feel the heat of his skin beneath. “I’m giving.”
The second button. The third. His chest is solid, muscular, the heartbeat beneath my palm frantic. “Take me to bed, Razvan. Now.”
He doesn’t hesitate. He stands, lifting me with him. My legs wrap around his hips instinctively as he carries me from the office, through the quiet hallway, into our bedroom. The room is dark, lit only by the moon through the tall windows. He doesn’tset me down on the bed gently. He lays me back onto the cool sheets, his movements urgent but impossibly careful.
Everything here is different. There’s no ghost of my father watching. There’s only the truth between us, and the raw, aching space it has carved out.
He strips off his shirt, letting it fall to the floor. The moonlight paints his body in shades of silver and shadow. The serpent tattoo on his arm—once a brand of murder, a mark of the Bratva—looks like something else now. A protector. A guardian. He moves over me, his weight settling beside me on the bed, one hand coming up to brush my hair back from my face.
His fingers shake. “I love you,” he whispers, his voice so raw it scrapes against my heart. “I have loved you since the moment I saw you, even when I was trying to hate you. I’m so sorry for what my blood did to yours. I will spend every second of my life making it up to you.”
I can’t answer with words. My throat is too tight. So I answer with my body. I pull him down to me, my mouth seeking his again. This kiss is slower, deeper. An exploration. His hands move to the tie of my robe, finally finding it, loosening it. The silk parts, and the cool air touches my skin. He doesn’t rush. He looks at me, his eyes tracing the lines of my body revealed in the dim light.
His touch is reverence. His palm skims over my hip, up my side, his thumb brushing the underside of my breast. A shiver runs through me, sharp and sweet. He lowers his head, his lips leaving mine to trail down my jaw, to my neck. His mouth is warm, open against my skin. He doesn’t bite, doesn’t claim with violence. He tastes. He savors.
My hands are on his back, feeling the powerful muscles there, the hidden scars. I shift under him, and he moves with me, his body aligning over mine. The hard line of his arousal presses against my thigh through his pants. The sensation is electric, a promise of what’s to come.
He kisses my collarbone, then lower, his mouth finding the swell of my breast. His tongue touches my skin, a wet, hot point of contact that makes my breath catch. My back arches slightly, a silent invitation. He takes it. His hand cups me, his thumb circling my nipple until it tightens into a sensitive peak. Then his lips close over it.
The feeling is intense. It’s not just physical. It’s a connection. A direct line from his mouth to my core, pulling a low, soft moan from my lips. My fingers dig into his shoulders.
He moves lower. His kisses travel down my stomach, each one a soft, warm brand. His hands help my robe open fully, until I’m bare before him in the moonlight. He looks up at me from between my thighs, his eyes dark and full of a hunger that’s tempered by something else—by awe.
“You’re perfect,” he says, his voice thick. “All this time…I had perfection in my house, and I was too blind to see it.”
His head dips. His mouth finds the inside of my thigh. He kisses there, softly, then with more pressure. His breath is hot. He’s moving closer, and my body tenses with anticipation, with a need that’s beginning to throb. He stops. His lips are a whisper away from where I want them most.
He looks up at me again, his gaze holding mine. “This is yours,” he says. “This moment. This feeling. I’m just here to worship it.”
Then he closes the distance.
His mouth is on me, not with frantic greed, but with a slow, devoted attention. His tongue strokes, explores. The pleasure builds like a wave, starting deep and rising slowly. It’s not a tsunami. It’s a tide, inevitable and powerful. My hips move against his mouth, a slow rhythm finding its own pace. One of his hands rests on my stomach, holding me steady, while the other cups my knee, urging me open for him.
The sounds I make are unfamiliar to me. Soft gasps. Whispers of his name. His name becomes a prayer on my lips. “Razvan…” The pleasure crests, not in a sharp peak, but in a long, rolling swell of sensation that leaves my legs trembling and my skin flushed.
He rises from between my thighs, his own breathing uneven. He kisses my stomach again, then my breast, then finally my mouth. He tastes of me now. Of us.
His pants are still between us. He stands, just for a moment, to remove them. I watch him, the moonlight outlining his powerful form. He returns to the bed, to me, and his body settles over mine again. The heat of him, the full, naked weight of him, is a comfort.
He doesn’t enter me. He holds himself above me, his body aligned, his forehead touching mine. “I want to stay here,” he whispers. “Just like this. With you. For as long as I can.”
I wrap my arms around him, pulling him down until his chest is against mine. We lie like that, skin to skin, heartbeat to heartbeat, in the silent room. The world outside—Viktor, the Bratva, the war—it all feels distant. Here, there’s only this. The choice I made. The man I chose.
His lips find my ear. “I’m going to kill him, Lena,” he says quietly, and I know he means Viktor. “Not for the Bratva. Not for the throne. For you. For what he took from you.”
I turn my head, my lips brushing his cheek. “Do what you have to do,” I say, my voice steady now. “Just come back to us.”
“Always,” he promises.
