Page 30 of His Darkest Obsession (Baryshev Bratva #1)

INDIGO

He ordered me to look at him while I come for him.

And I did.

I can't stop staring at my hands.

I can still feel the phantom heat of Anatoly’s skin, the weight and thickness of his cock in my palm, and the sticky ropes of semen that coated my fingers.

Outside, night blankets the world as storm clouds roll in from the sea. Every once in a while, the sky murmurs with lightning and distant thunder. My fingers flex involuntarily, as if they're trying to recapture that exact moment from three days ago.

Turning from the window, I pace the length of my bedroom.

Every step sends little aftershocks through my body. Even after three days, I can still feel his fingers buried deep inside me, hear the command in his voice, and see his eyes drilling into mine as I came for him.

Everything we did was wrong, and somehow, we did it anyways.

We didn’t do it because I thought he’s serious about protecting me, even though I felt the protective rage rolling off his body in waves as he sent his family out on the threat of death.

We didn’t do it because his touch sets me on fire every time he comes close to me, even though the moment his hand brushed skin, I’m powerless to stop myself from opening up for him.

We didn’t do it because I started the day wanting to see what just happens when I push him to his own breaking point. Or what happens if he loses control.

Yet all of those are exactly why we got to that moment.

And now that we’ve done it and I let him inside—limited as it might’ve been—I know that I can’t dig him out even if I try. A breathless shiver runs through me.

I can’t stop thinking about it. About him. About how good he made me feel. How safe I felt both in and around his hands.

And like a man dying of thirst who’s had just a small sip of water, I want more.

So much more.

Even now, days later, my body is still humming with need. Had I been able to speak back in that study, I know I would’ve begged him right then and there. And nothing in the world would’ve stopped him from doing exactly what he wanted.

Exactly what I wanted.

That’s the truth, isn’t it? I want this. Maybe as badly as him. Maybe even more badly than he wants it. And I wonder just how much he knows I want it.

Is this why he’s still waiting for me to beg him? Because he knows he’s already won the game and he wants to see just how long I’m willing to keep pretending? The thought sends another wave of heat shivering up my face, and I force my eyes to the darkness outside of my window.

A soft knock at the door and thankfully interrupts my spiral of self-recrimination.

"Come in," I call.

Svetlana walks in. I sit up a little straighter. I haven’t seen her all day since I sent her out this morning to look on Amara. And if she’s here, then maybe she finally has some news.

"I saw your sister today,” she says. “From the distance of course.”

My heart leaps to my throat. "Is she okay?"

"She’s fine physically," Svetlana replies.

"But she's worried about you after a week of no contact.

Very worried. She's been walking all over the neighborhood. Asking questions. I saw her at the barbershop and she stayed there chatting with the owner for a few hours, refusing to believe that you didn’t show up to work for all these days. "

She’s been talking to Marcus? About me?

Guilt crashes over me at the fact that I’ve effectively abandoned both of them, and I cling to it because it’s the only way I can chase away the undeserved desire and heat that continues to squeeze at my heart.

“Did she notice you?” I start. “And she hasn’t gone back to our apartment, did she?”

“No on both counts.” Svetlana shakes her head. “She’s staying over at a friend’s place, like you said. A girl named Demaris Lewis, if I’m remembering correctly.”

I let out a small sigh of relief and nod. “Demaris is her best friend.”

“If you’d like me to pass her a message, something that will let her know that you are okay, I can do that. And I can still be discreet.”

I look at Svetlana, grateful for her offer, and think slowly about what I can say to Amara that only Amara would understand. But no matter what I can come up with, I know it’ll only compound her worry. And if she worries about me, she’s never going to stop looking.

But still… I have to tell her something. I owe her that much. Chewing my bottom lip, I wrack my brains for something, and slowly, an answer takes shape.

“If you can find a way, tell her this.” I look at Svetlana. “Miels is fine, and she just needs a couple of weeks to figure things out.”

“Miels?” Svetlana raises an eyebrow and she cocks her head in curiosity.

“It’s what she used to call me.” I look away and stare at my ghostly reflection in the dark window. “Before—” I stop myself just in time and force the words back down. “Before everything changed.”

“Miels,” Svetlana repeats the name softly. “I like it. It suits you much better than Indigo.”

“I know.” I nod, and suddenly my eyes are wet with tears.

I haven’t heard someone other than Amara call me Miels in almost two years.

Not since that awful summer. I still remember the first time Amara accidentally called me that after I told her and Mom to call me Indigo.

It was an accident. But I still got so mad at her that she started crying afterwards.

It was only after Mom and Dad died, I told her that if she wanted to call me Miels again, she could. But only when we’re with each other, where no-one else can hear.

Guilt scatters across my tongue, hot and bitter, and I wipe angrily at the tears that keep welling up around my eyes.

“Hey.” Svetlana sits down next to me and drapes her arm around my shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

“I miss her, Svetlana.” I confess. “And I feel like every day that I’m here, I’m just abandoning her when she needs me now more than ever.”

“Your sister is strong, Indigo Malcolmovna. Just like you.”

“I’m not strong.”

“No?” She asks and leans in until I can start counting the strands of her black hair, a slight smile playing at her lips. “I heard from some of the other guards earlier that you stood up to Valentina Ivanovna three days ago.”

“Stood up?” I scoff lightly. “Is that what you call making a complete embarrassment of myself and needing Anatoly to come rescue me?”

Svetlana waves dismissively. “That old bitch hates everyone. Did she do that thing where she grabs you with those claws of hers?”

I reach up and touch my face. The indentations are gone. But the memory still lingers. “Yes.”

“She did it to me as well on the first day I came to this place. Broke skin and made me bleed.” She points to the row of four evenly spaced dots running down the right side of her chin that I noticed the first day I met her. “I don’t see the same on you.”

“Only because her son’s the pakhan.”

“Nonsense,” she breathes. “She’s never cared about that. Take it from me, Indigo Malcolmovna, if she held back her claws, it’s because there’s something about you that she’s afraid of.”

I look at Svetlana, not sure if she’s lying just to make me feel better, and then decide that I don’t really care if she is.

"Why is she like this?" I ask, sitting on the edge of my bed. "I get that she hates me, but she seems to hate everything about her own life. Even her own sons."

Svetlana's lips twitch, like she's debating whether to share a secret. "You really want to know?"

"I'm married to her son," I say. "There are no secrets, remember?"

The smile on Svetlana’s face widens. But there’s no amusement there. And when she closes her eyes for a moment, I can see a carefully masked sadness on her face.

Then, she opens them, and something glimmers in her blue eyes. “Valentina’s husband Stepan was many things. And the most offensive to her was the fact that he was unfaithful to her in the most egregious ways.”

“Like what?”

“Typically, the home is the domain of the pakhan’s wife, but Stepan would override Valentina’s choices in staff.” Now it’s her turn to look away. “And I’m sure you can guess why that is.”

“Oh.”

“One year, he got a poor girl pregnant in the same bed where Valentina conceived three sons with him.”

“That’s terrible!”

“Yes, I suppose it was.” Svetlana’s eyes stare off into space. “And once Valentina found out, she had her personal guards beat the poor girl so savagely that the entire household thought for sure that the girl would lose either her life or the baby. Or maybe even both.”

She stops and takes a long shuddering breath.

“It was only by sheer luck that Stepan stumbled upon the beating and put a stop to it. Not out of the kindness of his heart, but because he thought that only he should have decision over life and death in this house.”

"What happened after?"

“Stepan sent the poor girl away, and for fifteen years, the entire house pretended like what happened was just a bad dream,” she says.

“But one day, Tolya found out that not only did the guards not kill the baby in the girl’s womb, but that the baby had been born and given up for adoption shortly after birth.

In an act that sealed both his father’s fate and his own, Tolya insisted to Stepan that he owes this child a debt of honor.

That this child—a bastard it may be—should still be allowed a seat at his table, a bed in his home, and a place next to his legitimate children. ”

“And Stepan just… agreed?” Somehow that’s the hardest part for me to believe.

“He did.” She nods. “I suspect Stepan agreed not because Tolya made any convincing arguments, but because he wanted just another way to humiliate Valentina for trying to take away a favorite toy of his.”

I shake my head in disbelief. These people are awful in the way that they treat human beings like property!

“Now Valentina…” Svetlana shakes her head, laughing softly. “She was furious. There was no way she would allow such a disrespect to go unpunished. And a few years after the child was brought here, a hit was placed on Stepan. He was shot dead in his office.”

I gasp. “On Valentina’s orders?”