Page 58 of Only for Him (Starkov Bratva #1)

GISELLE

I sit in the passenger seat, hands fisted in my lap, watching the convoy of black SUVs a block ahead. Each one’s packed with Afanasy’s men and weapons, enough to take out half of Bushwick.

It’s enough to make me feel like I should feel safe.

I don’t, though.

Of course I don’t.

This is what we’ve been running up to, and against, this whole fucking time.

Roman hasn’t spoken in ten minutes. His jaw works, tight and rhythmic, like he’s chewing through the night. Good. I want him feral for this. That’s the only way he’ll survive.

My own weapon digs into my ribs. I check the magazine, again, like I’ve forgotten how to count to seventeen. My fingers won’t stop trembling.

In less than an hour, one or both of us might be dead.

I hate that it’s that simple.

“You’re thinking too loud,” Roman says.

“Don’t eavesdrop,” I mutter. “It’s rude.”

He shakes his head, lips twitching upwards, eyes fixed on the road.

The engine’s drone fills the silence. I focus on his breathing, how it stays level no matter how fast we take the corners.

“You ever wish you could just skip to the ending? Know if it’s worth it?” I ask,=.

He glances at me, a flicker of blue in the dashboard light. “It already has been, little viper.”

He looks back at the road, but I feel his attention like a hand around my throat.

Outside, New York thrums with its usual chaos. But in the car, it feels like we’re the only two people left alive.

My grip on the armrest tightens, knuckles whitening.

Teddy keeps texting me and asking for updates in a way that really means don’t fuck this up . But the next time a phone goes off, it’s Roman’s.

We both glance at the screen: Afanasy.

Roman answers, his tone sharp, like the predator he is. I lean in, catching fragments, the urgency weaving its way through every syllable. They’re speaking Russian, of course, so even if I could hear, I wouldn’t understand.

His expression shifts, his voice deepens. Something sharp and potent curls in my belly.

Then: one last word, absolute and harsh. He hangs up.

“Change of plans.” Roman tosses the phone onto the dash. “Pavel isn’t at the penthouse. He’s moved.”

My heart sinks, a cold weight pressing against my ribs.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck!

Did you really think this would be easy? That you’d just roll up with a small army, take out Pavel, and skip into the fucking sunset?

“He knew we were coming?” I worry that Teddy or Arata tipped him off—that Roman let these men in, for me, and that will have ruined everything.

“No,” Roman says. “He’s paranoid, alienating his inner circle. Acting erratic.” There’s a dark, calculating edge in his voice. “Afanasy paid off one of his men for the intel. We’ve got a location.”

“So now what?” I ask, even though I already know the answer. The right answer, and the Roman answer.

The right answer? We tell Teddy, pass along the new plan, alert him of the change in tactics. A calculated approach. Maybe this is a sign that we shouldn’t just go in guns blazing after all. We should just arrest Pavel…

Great idea. Then you can arrest the boogeyman, and throw in a sleep paralysis demon for good measure.

Roman’s eyes pin me to my seat. I remember that night outside the gala and the feeling of being frozen in place by his gaze.

“I need to do this my way.”

He’s vibrating with that need I’ve always recognized in myself. The one I’ve spent a lifetime hiding. The one he saw, and craved, and set free.

But something else tries to grip me: a memory of oaths and duty, an inner compass that spins wildly out of control.

You can still go back to being Detective Cantiano. You can snap the fuck out of it.

He catches my hesitation, brow furrowing.

“I need you with me, Giselle,” he says. “Only you.”

The words shred me. It’s all I ever wanted, and the thing I fear the most.

This isn’t just about justice anymore. This is about us: two forces colliding, trying to make sense of the wreckage we carry.

Roman is asking me, one last time, if I trust his way of doing things.

If I trust him.

“Okay,” I say. The finality of it hits me like cold water. “Whatever it takes.”

A flicker of something warm passes through his features—pride, perhaps, or gratitude.

“Together,” he says. It’s a pact sealed in unsteady breaths and fervent stares.

He takes a left, hard, and we leave the convoy behind.

Each heartbeat syncs to the night’s pulse. We are threading a fine line between love and ruin.

Love?

Of course, that’s what’s been at the bottom of this well all along.

People want love that’s clean, simple, obvious.

This isn’t any of those things.

I glance at him, the taut lines of his jaw, the wild confidence in the way he grips the wheel. I want to tell him how I feel, how he’s a chasm I willingly plunge into, again and again.

“Together,” I whisper, because it’s easier and still true.

He speeds up as we hit the bridge. The East River is a black slash below us, current churning with old secrets. The city’s lights try to make it beautiful, but nothing could ever make this place gentle.

I check the mirror. No tails, no threats. For now.

“Roman, I?—”

I want to say it, now. Because there might not be a later.

Serena was brave with this sort of thing. She used love like it cost nothing.

What has all this been for, if not to live a life she’d be happy about?

She’d want me to, and I want to do it for her.

But I can’t.

You can interrogate suspects in a basement then murder them, but you can’t say three measly little words to the man who stood beside you every time? Weird .

When Roman looks back at me, I see the same battle playing out in his eyes. For a second I see the boy he must have been, before the world broke him.

I want to reach back in time and pull him away from everything that ever hurt. Even if it means he never meets me.

If he gets to live, really live, I’d let him go.

And if that isn’t love…

“I want to know if you had a plan,” I say, swallowing the confession. “Rather than just, you know, kill him dead then kill him again to make sure.”

Roman glances at me from the corner of his eyes, giving a small laugh.

“Pavel won’t have much security with him,” he says. “And he has a thing for knives, so–”

I can’t help it and I snort, unable to stop my eyebrow from quirking up.

“What?” Roman says.

“Nothing,” I shrug. “Just, I happen to remember you using a knife for something very off-label.”

“And I remember you loving it,” he growls.

He got me there. That night stands out in bold relief: the visceral heat of being chased, the orgasms that crashed down over and over until I passed out. I blush and squeeze my thighs together.

“It’ll probably come down to me and him,” he says, voice trailing off. “Which is how I want it, little viper. Do you understand? I need to be the one who kills Pavel.”

I chew my lip, annoyed. Don’t I have just as much reason to want Pavel dead as Roman? Russo was involved, yes, but it was Pavel calling the shots. Serena’s death is, ultimately, Pavel’s doing.

But Roman has been pursuing this moment for fifteen years. And he watched Pavel rape and murder Anastasia.

“Promise me, you’ll let me. No matter what happens.”

No matter what happens.

Because anything could.

I shouldn’t make this promise. I know I won’t keep it. If it’s his life or my word, I’ll choose him every time.

But if I can’t say what I feel, I can still give him this.

“I promise,” I say. He nods, but the look on his face tells me the promise isn’t enough.

It wouldn’t be enough for me, either.

I want to hear him say it, too.

He already chose me, once, and has kept choosing me, over and over. Kept letting me come back. Kept giving me Serena’s earrings, every time I thought I lost them forever.

I think of that bathroom, when he first touched me, really touched me, sliding them into place. Making me tremble.

He doesn’t owe me those three words and he doesn’t give them to me, either.

I guess we’re both cowards.

We drive in silence to Red Hook, to a brick building with iron gates wedged between an abandoned grocery and a pawn shop. We drive past and there’s a single light on in the basement window. Roman parks two blocks away.

The car ticks, cooling, but the air between us only gets hotter.

“I can’t do this without you,” Roman says, voice raw as it punctures the air.

There’s only one way I know to respond.

I unbuckle, crawl across the console, and straddle him. My thighs grip his hips, my breath hot against his cheek. I want to fuck him here—hard and fast, with the windows fogging and the doors rattling.

I want to feel his teeth in my neck while bullets fly outside. I want him to fuck the terror out of both of us. The need in me is feral, clawing its way out.

I always want him like that—violence and prayer.

“You don’t have to,” I whisper, and then I’m on him.

My mouth crashes into his, desperate, open, tasting salt and sweat and the blood he hasn’t cleaned from his lip. He groans into me, hands hard on my ass, pulling me tighter.

His tongue invades, demanding and filthy, and I give him everything he wants.

He’s hard below me, straining against his jeans, and I moan as I grind against him. I want to feel the sting of his buckle against my skin, the convulsive pleasure of his cock filling me up.

Most of all, I want to feel him alive and hungry and ready to take control.

I’m panting when I surface.

“You have me,” I say. “You always fucking have me.”

My hips roll against him, a slow grind that makes us both shudder. I breathe him in. Salt, sweat, blood, gun oil. All the things I shouldn’t love, and do.

This is what I’m here for and this is who I’m here for. I was meant to find him. To let him ruin me. To let him own me in the only way he knows how—brutal, consuming, forever.