Page 51 of Hateful Vows

Muscle memory and soul-deep need guide my movements. She's still coming when I grab underneath her arms, lift her up enough to sit her down on my aching cock on one go. Her walls spasm against me, accepting my flesh into her body.

“Fuck, it’s too much,” she cries out.

“You can take it,” I answer sternly, grunting as I thrust into her from below.

There’s nothing but my wife in my head as she takes me deep.

The past isn’t a shadow looming over us, the future holds no weight.

It’s just us, our bodies, our need, our desires and worship.

No amount of therapy can come close to what I share with Aleksei and Irina.

It helps, but giving in to our base urges does, too.

Irina slumps against my chest and my heart swells, proud that despite everything, we still fit so perfectly. It’s not only sex we share, but something deeper, written in the grooves of our bodies and the taste of our sweat.

“I want to feel you, too, amore ,” I tell Aleksei. His throat bobs at the endearment. Even if they don’t speak Italian, they know what that word means, it’s transparent enough to speak for itself.

And Aleksei knows what I’m asking. It’s a promise we made to each other months ago, when we called our love ‘lust’.

He pulls the drawer of the nightstand open to retrieve a thick bottle of lube, coating himself. Reverently, taking his time, he positions himself behind Irina, who tenses as his fingers caress us both.

“Relax, cuore mio . You can take us. You were made for us, and we were made for you.”

Aleksei adds more lube onto his fingers, rimming the place where Irina and I connect, the cold liquid seeping down our skin and onto the sheets underneath. She’s incredibly tight already, but she lets go on top of me, closing her eyes and breathing deeply. She feels incredible and so wholly mine.

Aleksei starts slowly, first using his fingers to open her up, caressing my shaft already nestled inside Irina’s pussy. “Fuck, you’re tight,” he whispers with awe.

“Shh,” I soothe them both. “It will fit.”

Because we do. We always have. Aleksei and Irina were meant to be mine from the first moment Aleksei approached me at that party months ago.

Our road has been paved with pain and growth and I need to feel them both embedded into my body like they are in my heart, their names a permanent tattoo written in blood.

“Oh fuck.”

All four of Aleksei’s fingers glide against my shaft and Irina’s inner walls as he scissors and thrusts gently, letting us both relax into the sensation of utter fullness. Then, he withdraws and the head of his cock skims alongside my length.

“Oh shit. Fuck, Lyosha . Please.”

Irina’s words are strangled as Aleksei keeps thrusting inside, nestling against me in my wife’s tight channel.

We all stop breathing.

Aleksei’s eyes are wide, his jaw hanging open above us, his chest plastered to Irina’s back. I kiss the corner of his mouth over her shoulder, licking the scar before I pepper his throat with gentler kisses. “I love you, Aleksei,” I say.

“I love you, Dante.”

“I love you both. Now please, please , fuck us, Lyosha . I’m about to come and you haven’t even moved,” Irina complains.

I chuckle and grasp Aleksei’s throat in one hand, the other indenting Irina’s hip with bruises.

He moves, and my world shifts.

I’m getting fucked, inside my wife’s perfect cunt, and there will be no coming back from this.

It’s an out of body experience, my nerve endings firing with the need to come.

Aleksei’s cock is warm against mine, gliding smoothly with the lube and Irina’s wetness that drips down onto my balls. She’s wet and aching and perfect.

“I’m gonna come,” I say between clenched teeth, the admission setting everyone off.

Aleksei’s rhythm doesn’t falter as he fucks us both in long, steady strokes, ruining us for everyone else.

I come with a cry, followed by the two people I love most in this fucked up world.

Irina clenches around us and Aleksei’s moans fill the room last, hips stuttering as he releases inside her, the warmth of his cum a delicious and forbidden sensation I’ll never get enough of.

We remain like this for a while.

Irina lets out a grunt.

“You’ve murdered my pussy.”

“Damn right, we did. Get ready to be full of our cum every fucking night, cuore mio . I’ll never get enough of filling you up.”

Her pussy tightens around us and both Aleksei and I groan. I might own her body but we all know who’s running this fucking show.

When we withdraw and lay down on the bed, I’m weaker than I’ve been in days but for once, it isn’t because I’m missing nutrients or craving a drug my system will forever be demanding. My legs don’t support my weight because two Russians just blew my mind to smithereens.

Irina and Aleksei support me as we walk to the en-suite bathroom and wash ourselves, the post-coital kisses turning languid and solemn, a quiet worship we all partake in.

Then, we eat the dinner Francisco and Magda left for us.

Our home is quiet and warm, delicious smell coming from the kitchen making my stomach rumble, reminding me that I haven’t eaten since after my swim this morning.

We eat in silence, soft touches the only thing between us, keeping us grounded.

When we go back to the bedroom and the light has been switched off, only the distant sounds of the city can be heard in the silent room. I whisper the words that fill my chest, echoed by two voices that will forever occupy my mind, my heart, my life and my bed.

“I love you,” I say.

“I love you, too,” they answer in unison.

“I wish I could make Gio pay for what he did to us,” I tell them when I think they are both asleep. But I should have known better.

“You can,” Irina answers in the dark.

I straighten up and light up the side lamp again. The soft glow illuminates both their faces, and they look like nightmare monsters, eyes dark and faces shifting with the light.

“What do you mean?”

“He’s in the basement at the mansion,” Aleksei answers.

I jump up, grimacing at how my muscles scream at the effort. “At the mansion? Are you out of your mind? My mother’s there. If she finds him?—”

“He’s in solitary confinement. Guards are permanently posted in front of the cell and Lucie’s moved there to take care of your mother.”

“Fuck.” I pull at my roots, and sit on the plush chair, dropping my elbows to my knees, head in between. The clock indicates eleven pm in bright red. I’m never going to be able to sleep. Not now. Not until Gio and I meet.

M y hands shake the whole drive to the Ventura’s mansion.

I might be wearing a custom suit, a new jewelled cross against my throat, sent by the Cosa Nostra’s higher ups with their "deepest sympathy”—though they’ll be looking our way to see if I fail to recover quick enough and need to be replaced—everything to project strength, I feel nothing but desperation.

I try to deny my body’s reaction to Gio, the deep rooted pain in my stomach, the roiling nausea, the cold sweat. It doesn’t work. I grieved someone who didn’t die, and his rebirth almost caused me my life.

The silhouette of the mansion stands proud even in the dark of night.

Pebbles crunch under our feet, and I hope it won’t wake my mother. She hasn’t had a good day in weeks, Irina told me, and I haven’t been able to visit her, show her she still has a son who loves her and will do anything for her. I can’t focus on the guilt, though.

When we descend the steps to the basement, the three men posted in front of Gio’s cell door nod with respectful bows. If they’re surprised to see me, they don’t show it and I appreciate it. One of them is Lorenzo.

“Dante.”

“ Amico ,” I greet him. Then, he embraces me, his strong arms lending me strength. Lorenzo didn’t grow up with Gio. He’ll act for me and me alone. I’m sure he’d even carry out my revenge if I so much as asked for it. But I won’t. This is between me and my twin.

“Are you sure you don’t need us?” Aleksei asks, and I shake my head.

“Okay, we’ll be here. Whatever you need.

” Irina’s fingers lace with mine and she kisses the back of my hand.

She’d never have been caught doing any sort of public display of affection, but down here, with only a few men who are loyal to me, she shows once more that she is a queen at my side, supporting my choices. No matter what they are.

I enter the cell and close the door behind me.

It’s much more than he offered me.

A mattress is laid down on the cement floor, a toilet right next to it.

The chains locked around Gio’s wrists and ankles are just long enough to allow him to sit on the bed, lay down for sleep and relieve himself.

His cheeks are gaunt and his complexion has turned ashen.

He looks even more like me like this, two ends of a snake that keeps eating itself up.

“I wondered when you’d finally show up,” he says, voice raspy and underused.

His fucking voice.

It’s Pavlovian. I shiver, my mind playing memories without conscious thought. Flashes of my bound body, of clear liquid in a syringe assault me. I can even smell the stench of my own filth, though the room is clean and probably disinfected with detergent daily.

Irina and Aleksei have given him more dignity than he afforded me.

I don’t know how to feel about that. I want the man who hurt me to suffer but I want my brother, the man I missed so much, to be treated with respect.

It’s confusing. I wait for anger to take over but it doesn’t come.

I’m just so tired. Exhausted with the abuse and the confusion, with love melding with betrayal.

Under Gio’s assessing gaze, I take hold of my gun and unlock the safety. The sound is ominous.

“Tell me why I shouldn’t shoot you like a dog,” I demand, raising to aim at his head.

Hate is written on his features, but he doesn’t cower. This is a man who has come close to death and worse, and lived, unaware that he might not survive this time.

“You won’t shoot me.”

“Tell me why,” I yell, the walls absorbing my pain.

“I don’t care if I live or die, Dante. But you do,” he says like he’s not being held at gunpoint. “You said you grieved for me, but I know the truth. Now you get to have your empire and have your brother. What a little happy family we make.”

He stands and the chains rattle. They keep him at a safe distance from me, and I’m grateful.

I still don’t know if I can pull the trigger, but I know what he is capable of and I’m not taking any unnecessary risks.

I have so many reasons to live. The two people I love most, just outside of this room, Lucie, my mother, Lorenzo.

My men. Like Gio said, I have an Empire. And he has nothing.

My arm drops but I keep a finger over the trigger.

“I know what you did,” Gio spits.

“I told you already, Gio. I thought you were dead.”

“Liar!”

“The church burnt and we found your tee-shirt, we thought you burnt with it.”

“But you never found my corpse, did you? I saw the photos. You laughed at my funeral. You laughed with Tino. Fucking Tino. You had a life. You had everything. Misha showed me how happy you were without me. Don’t lie to me. I know you.”

“You know nothing about me, Gio. I love you.” My voice breaks but I force myself to breathe. He won’t ever listen to me. And even if he does, he’ll always be a step away from hurting the people I love.

I raise my arm again.

“You won’t shoot me,” he repeats, then shakes his head and sits back down like our conversation bores him.

“I’ve loved a ghost. For years, I grieved for you. For years, I looked at mamma grieving for you. I kept the memory of you alive. And I’ll continue to do so. You died that day. As far as I’m concerned, you stayed dead.”

His eyes shine with renewed hatred.

“Goodbye, brother.”

Then, I pull the trigger, the bullet hitting him between his eyes.