Page 36 of Only for Him (Starkov Bratva #1)

ROMAN

Giselle and I take dinner alone.

Dakota’s holed up after this morning. Rosa’s with her, cradling her through the aftermath like she’s still a child. I don’t blame the girl. She’s seen hell, and it left its fingerprints all over her.

I want the people who did this to suffer. Slowly. Publicly.

I know my little viper does too. It’s just a matter of showing her that the way I deal with them will always be superior to the “official channels” she’s still clinging to.

She’s close. Closer than she thinks.

I note the tension in her jaw, the fury coiled in her shoulders. It won’t take much more before she snaps the leash herself.

Has she even noticed the way she leans toward me now, the way her voice softens when she says my name?

She’s shedding her skin.

Not fast enough for me, but faster than I expected.

And God help me, I’m proud of her.

Giselle chews her food slowly, methodically. Her mind’s spinning—I can feel it from across the table. She’s cataloging the last twenty-four hours, replaying every moment, every touch, every confession I shouldn’t have given her.

The bite I left on her shoulder peeks out from under her shirt.

Mine.

A flag plunged into fertile soil.

I’m poised for negotiation, but the truth is sharper than that: I’m not here to make deals. I’m here to keep her close.

Because fuck, I need her close.

It’s why I found myself spilling my guts about the maestro, letting that old story crawl out of my mouth and into her lap. I should’ve buried it deep where it belonged.

She should fear me. Obey me. Crave me. That’s it. Nothing else.

Her heart should never ache for the monster in front of her.

But it does. I saw it in her face.

As soon as she left that goddamn room, I knew I’d never sit at a piano again without feeling her shadow beside me. Never press a single key without tasting her in the silence that followed.

She’s in me now. In every breath I take.

I’ve absolutely fucked myself.

“Who exactly do you have in mind for this little venture?” I ask, voice too calm. A thread pulled tight and straining. Whatever name comes out of her mouth next, I’m not going to like it.

She meets my gaze with that polished defiance I’ve come to crave and hate in equal measure.

A wildfire barely contained by skin.

She doesn’t answer right away. Just lifts her wine glass with careful deliberation, the light from the chandelier catching the ruthless, elegant curve of her jaw.

When she turns, I catch it again: that faint, shadowed mark where my teeth broke her skin.

My claim.

My punishment.

My mistake.

I instinctively close the hand she bit, pressing my fingernails into the indentations her teeth left.

“Arata,” she replies, her eyes flicking up to meet mine. “And the man whose name you don’t want to hear.”

The mention of her little agent boyfriend strikes like ice through my heart.

She brings ideas up like they’re chess pieces. Like she doesn’t know what it fucking does to me.

Two men who’ve done nothing but orbit her since the beginning. Two men who look at her like they know her. Like they’ve earned the right.

They haven’t.

They’ve never touched her like I have. Never made her bleed for them. Never seen her break and beg and come undone.

And they never will.

No one will come after me. I’ll make sure of it.

I set my fork down, slow and deliberate.

“You want to bring them in?” I ask, voice serrated. “That’s your plan?”

She doesn’t flinch, but I see the way her pulse jumps in her neck. I see everything, and she fucking knows it.

“They’re capable,” she says. “They’re trustworthy. And we’ll need both if this gets bigger.”

She says “we” like we’re on the same side. I swallow heat with a growl. I imagine this woman standing beside me, wreaking havoc hand in hand.

It’s the stuff dreams are made of.

I lean back in my chair, letting my eyes rake over her. She’s all angles in this light: sharp cheekbones, sharper eyes. Lovely and infuriating.

She doesn’t even know how fucking gorgeous she is when she’s pushing me to the edge.

It reminds me of that first night, how the streetlights brought out her shadows rather than concealing them. That slender finger running across her neck.

She hadn’t been infuriating then, just lovely. I like her all the more for it. She’s fragile in ways she sees, dangerous in ways she doesn’t.

“They’re too close to the law,” I say, keeping my voice even. “They’ll want procedure. Statements. Chain of evidence. All the shit that gets people killed.”

It’s a solid excuse. One that makes sense. One she shouldn’t argue with.

And it’s a goddamn lie.

I don’t want either of them breathing the same air as her. I don’t want the agent’s soft eyes looking at her like she’s a puzzle he still has time to solve. I don’t want Arata hovering like he’s just waiting for her to stumble so he can catch her.

Because Giselle doesn’t stumble.

She breaks.

And she’s mine to break.

She opens her mouth to respond, and I already feel the burn in my gut. If she defends them—if she says either of their names again—I don’t know if I’ll be able to sit still.

I might just lunge across the table, grab her by the neck and bite her until she’s nothing but beautiful scar tissue.

Giselle leans back, raising an eyebrow, seemingly unfazed by my aggression.

“They’ll do the right thing, Roman. Even if it’s not by the books. Neither of them will step on your toes if it means the difference between someone’s life or death.”

I clench my jaw. What if she’s right? What if I’m hindering my own progress out of pride and possessiveness? Even Rosa was amenable to the idea, and Rosa is rarely ever amenable to ideas she hasn’t come up with herself.

Lives are on the line. If I let girls suffer just because I don’t want to share my obsession...

No. We can’t trust the feds, or the NYPD. I know we can’t, and we won’t.

The fact that she’s making me question it at all is bad news.

“So you say, little viper,” I growl. “What are you going to do? Make them pinky-promise not to leave a paper trail?”

I lean forward, just enough for her to feel the weight behind my next words. “You can’t promise me their loyalty. If you try to, it’ll be a lie. We’re well past lying to each other.”

The air between us crackles, each word straining against the current of our conversation. Something flashes in her eyes. Not fear. I know what fear looks like on her: I know it intimately, the shape of it, the taste. This is something else.

Guilt? Doubt?

“Do you trust my judgement or not?” Giselle says, laying her fork down like a line in the sand.

Fuck. That’s the question, isn’t it? The one Rosa keeps asking each time she looks at me and the one keeping me up at night.

I shouldn’t, because trusting the wrong person is a thousand times worse than not trusting the right person.

But I clearly fucking do. I trust her enough to give her a glimpse of my past. I’ve trusted her with my fingerprints. I’ve trusted her not to scream when cornered. I’ve even trusted her to accompany me on a mission.

I’m even trusting her now to keep her end of the bargain and stay here, with me, rather than running off as soon as my back is turned.

I’m about to respond that it’s not that simple when her expression suddenly fractures, throwing me off guard.

Whatever’s happening in her thoughts, it’s hurting her.

It’s enough to stoke something else: protectiveness. The need to eradicate anything that causes her suffering, even her own mind.

Because seeing her like this?

I feel like I’m being fucking tortured.

I want to reshape her into something that cannot be hurt, because I don’t know when it happened, but at some point her pain became mine.

Unlike my own pain, which I’ve forced into submission, her pain is venom in my veins. It stirs and tears and howls as it courses through me.

“What’s wrong?” I lean in closer, compelled to push her. But I don’t have to.

She wants to walk into my fold. Her eyes are plaintive as they surrender to me in some new, devastating way.

“You’re right,” she whispers. “We’re past lying to each other. So I’ll be honest with you: the law has never been able to offer me what you have.”

Shit .

Hearing her admit that is fucking everything.

All the hollow places inside me temporarily fill with light. It’s uncomfortable and embarrassing and I don’t deserve it.

“I know that, little viper,” I murmur, hungry for more. “But I want to hear it from you. What is it that you want? What is it that you know only I can give you?”

Her gaze drops to her plate, candlelight catching whatever turmoil brews inside her. I want to drink every cracked edge she gives me.

“Vengeance,” she says, quiet, like she’s still hoping to keep it secret from herself.

I’ve known that since the start.

But for her to finally say it aloud like this?

It feels like a prayer. A-fucking-men .

And I will give her vengeance. I will give her everything she’s ever asked for, and some things she doesn’t yet know she needs.

Like the gift I’ve been holding in my jacket pocket, beside my heart.

She’s earned them.

Has she? Or have you just lost control over yourself?

“I brought you something,” I say, pulling out the small velvet pouch and laying it between us on the table.

Her gaze lifts, wary. There’s that familiar flash of suspicion in her eyes, the kind I’ve earned and deserve. She doesn’t trust gifts. Good.

Her resistance is the last thing keeping me tethered to reality. If she ever trusted me fully, turned to me as easily as a sunflower to the sky, I might do stupid, stupid things.

“Go on,” I say, soft but commanding.

She pulls the strings apart, the sound of the fabric brushing against itself loud in the silence. When the earrings tumble into her palm, she freezes.

Her breath hitches. Her fingers curl protectively around them. The metal catches the light.