Page 123 of Brutal Reign

“Come for me,” I murmur, circling the sensitive bundle of nerves with my thumb. “Let me feel you fall apart on my cock.”

“Pavel.” She gasps, her body tensing beneath mine. “I’m so close?—”

“That’s it, baby,” I praise, feeling her clench around me as her orgasm builds. “Show me how I make you scream.”

She shatters with a cry that echoes through the studio, her body convulsing around me.

“Hope,” I groan, my rhythm faltering as my own release approaches. “I can’t hold back.”

“I don’t want you to,” she says, her nails digging into my shoulders. “Don’t be gentle with me.”

Her words unravel what’s left of my control. I bury myself deep and let go, pumping hard into her welcoming heat. Sheholds me through it, her hands stroking my hair and back, anchoring me, as I shake apart in her arms.

When it’s over, I collapse against her, both of us breathing hard. The leather couch is too small for both of us, but neither of us moves to adjust. She feels just right, and I’m not ready to let her go.

“Hope,” I start, but she silences me with a gentle touch to my lips.

“Not yet,” she whispers. “Just be with me. For right now, just be with me.”

So I hold her close, memorizing the sensation of having her against me.

Minutes pass in heavy silence. Hope’s breathing has steadied, but I can sense the tension in her body. The darkness makes everything feel suspended, like we exist in a space outside of time where consequences don’t matter. But I know that’s an illusion.

Consequences do matter, and very soon, she’ll have a decision to make.

“You know…” she says finally, her voice soft but clear in the quiet studio. “Hiding out with my father in that safe house in Switzerland was the best three weeks of my life. Or at least, it seemed like it then.”

I release a throaty laugh. “That’s not a typical reaction.”

“I know, but it was the most time I’d spent with my dad since I was eight years old. After my mother died he sent me away to boarding school in the UK.”

The sadness in her voice makes my chest tighten. There’s pain there, buried deep but still raw around the edges.

“I’m sorry,” I tell her, because what else can I say?

Her smile is bitter. “He thought he was protecting me. Keeping me away from this world, from the violence. But I felt abandoned. Simon replaced me in my father’s life. The day afterI was shipped off to England, he moved into my childhood home. While I was learning French conjugations, he was learning the family business. While I sat alone in boarding school dining halls, he sat at our family table.”

I’d known she was sent away young, but I’d never considered what that must have felt like. To lose her mother and then be separated from her father, watching another man take what she thought should have been her place.

I press a kiss to the top of her head. “He kept you safe in the only way he knew how.”

“I know he thought he was doing the right thing. But those three weeks were the first time since I was a child that I felt like his daughter instead of an obligation he had to manage from a distance. We talked, really talked. He told me stories about my mother, about their early days together. He taught me how to play chess and how to fold wontons the way his grandmother taught him. But the night of the attack, I knew something was up. He became distant, distracted with whatever was going on.” She releases a tight breath. “Simon showed up that night… joined us for dinner. He hadn’t been hiding out with us until then; he was managing the front lines. Apparently, he had business to discuss with Baba, but I’ll never know the real reason. Things between them felt strained.”

The raw hurt in her voice makes me want to tear something apart.

“I’ve always wondered how you discovered our location in Switzerland. My father was so paranoid about security.”

“Someone tipped us off,” I admit. “A leak from inside the triad. Don’t know who.”

She pushes herself up on her elbow, turning to face me directly. “Tell me exactly what happened after I stabbed you.”

I think back to that night—the chaos, the pain, the confusion. “Roman put a field dressing on me while Maxim went ahead toyour father’s office, alone. The door was locked, but before he could enter, he heard a gunshot. When he finally got in, your father had taken his own life.” I pause, seeing her flinch, but she needs to hear it all. “Afterward, I went to the office to see if I could salvage any files from his computer.”

She sucks in a pained breath. “Y-you saw him?”

I nod slowly. “I’ll never forget it. Your father was slumped forward over his desk, and there was a pistol by his left hand.”

Her eyebrows furrow. “His left hand?”