Page 36 of Punish Me, Daddy (Boston Kings #8)

S loane

I decided that I didn’t want to run anymore.

Sure, I could disappear and make a new life for myself somewhere on a beach with those deliciously boozy drinks with the cute little umbrellas, but that wasn’t what I wanted anymore. That was boring.

This? This was living. Maybe I was sick for liking it. Maybe it said something about the way I was wired that I didn’t flinch when Nikolai opened the car door and ordered me to get in.

I slid into the passenger seat without asking where we were going, or what we were doing. He climbed into the driver’s seat and the low rumble of the engine purred to life. In moments, the city of Boston was sliding by like a moving picture.

“I meant what I said back there,” he said finally, his voice breaking through the quiet.

I glanced at him, cautious. “Which part?”

“The part where I said I was proud of you.”

My stomach flipped.

I looked away too fast, eyes flicking to the city like the skyline might rescue me from that kind of sincerity. It didn’t. The window only reflected my own stunned face back at me.

“People don’t say that kind of thing unless they want something,” I muttered.

“I already have what I want.”

I swallowed. Hard.

“You’re dangerous when you talk like that,” I said, trying to smirk, trying to hold back the part of me that needed that sentence to be true more than I cared to admit.

“I’m always dangerous,” he said, turning the wheel with one hand, eyes still fixed on the road. “But I’m never careless. And I don’t hand out praise like candy.”

“You’re not exactly a Hallmark card, no.”

“And yet,” he said, glancing at me for just a second, “you stood in a room full of men who run this city, and you didn’t even flinch.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I didn’t say anything at all.

I just let the quiet fall again, heavier this time. Like it meant something. The dynamic between us had shifted and we were both waiting to see what would settle in its place.

He didn’t speak again until we pulled up to the curb at what appeared to be a really nice steakhouse. The valet opened my door before I could really get a look at anything beside the name of the restaurant.

Relic.

Nikolai was already at my side.

He didn’t offer his arm. Just placed a hand on my lower back like a silent claim. We went through the doors and into the warmth of candlelight and stone walls, velvet booths and shadows. We stepped into the kind of hush that only came with raw power and exclusivity.

He didn’t have a reservation, per se. He didn’t need one. Apparently, he’d bought the whole place out.

Because of course he had.

The host led us to a table at the far end of the room, semi-private, lit by the flicker of soft gold light from a hanging lantern.

At the table, he pulled out my chair, not as a gentleman, but as someone who knew I would sit where he wanted me to.

As someone who expected obedience without demanding it.

He ordered our food without asking me what I wanted, and I let him.

The truth was my thoughts were still spinning, still tangled around what had happened back at the Iron Wolf. I’d stood up to my father. I’d told a room full of criminals exactly how to burn a man to the ground. I’d claimed a seat I was never supposed to have.

Now here I was, being rewarded for it. Seen for it.

I glanced at Nikolai as he studied the wine list, as calm and collected as ever, like the war we were about to wage was just another business transaction.

The waiter came back, and he ordered a bottle of red.

I was too lost in my own head to pay attention to what kind it was, but when a portion was poured into my glass, I nodded, sipped it, and groaned with pleasure at the taste of rich blackberries and smoky bourbon exploding across my tongue.

The first course arrived without fanfare, just the soft thump of porcelain against the wooden tabletop and the quiet clink of silverware.

The waiter didn’t speak. He just placed the plates down with a practiced grace and disappeared into the velvet-lined shadows like he hadn’t even been there at all.

In front of me, a delicate starter: charred bone marrow with sea salt and thyme, served beside torn hunks of warm baguette and a smear of smoked garlic butter that made my mouth water.

Across from me, Nikolai’s plate held a twelve-ounce wagyu ribeye, cooked rare—still bleeding slightly at the center—and sliced perfectly across the grain.

It glistened under the low lighting, juice pooling on the plate.

He cut into it without a word, like it wasn’t unusual to be dining alone with the woman you’d taken from her own apartment and were going to force to walk down the aisle in a few days.

As if this wasn’t the aftermath of a political war meeting where I’d nearly come to blows with my father in a room full of Russian power.

I watched him chew slowly, savoring the bite. I didn’t know why, but it did something to me. The way he ate. Calm. Intentional.

I hadn’t even touched my fork yet.

Instead, I tilted my head slightly and asked, “What do you think it’s going to be like?”

He looked up from his plate. “What?”

“Us. You and me. As husband and wife.”

A flicker of something passed through his eyes, amusement maybe, but not mocking. “Bold question.”

I shrugged, tearing off a corner of the baguette and dragging it through the marrow, not looking at him. “You’re the one who just decided you were going to marry me, Morozov. Don’t act surprised that I’m trying to understand the terms of my impending captivity.”

That earned the barest twitch of his lips. “Captivity?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t like the word.”

“I like what it means when you say it.”

I rolled my eyes. He set his knife down gently, wiped his mouth with the linen napkin, and leaned back in the booth.

“It will be loud. And chaotic. Because you are. It’ll be a constant battle of wills until you realize I’m always going to win, each and every time.”

I huffed, even as heat swirled low in my belly. “Sounds exhausting.”

“It’ll be worth it.”

He spoke with conviction, certain what he said was true.

Maybe that’s what threw me off the most—how damn certain he was. Like he wasn’t just hoping this would work. He’d already decided it would. He’d chosen it. Chosen me.

“You ever wanted someone like me before?” I asked, my voice softer now.

“No.”

“Why now?”

His eyes met mine, unflinching.

“Because you don’t need saving. You need containment and I know how to do that without putting out your fire.”

The breath left my lungs in a long, slow exhale.

I tried to deflect. “Your brothers think this is a good idea?”

“They trust me,” he said, cutting another bite of steak, the sound of the knife against the plate oddly grounding. “They’ve seen what happens when I decide something is mine.”

I stared at him for a moment. “And the fighting? Is that going to keep going?”

He nodded. “I fight because I’m good at it.”

“How good?”

“Undefeated.”

The word landed in my chest like a fist.

I twisted the stem of my wineglass between my fingers. “You love it, don’t you?”

“I love what it does to the men who step in the ring with me.”

That made me shiver.

I took a sip of my wine. Let it settle. Then asked carefully, “What about the Bratva side of things?”

He didn’t even blink. “What about it?”

“You’re still going to run it? With your brothers?”

He tilted his head. “Yes.”

“And… is it all fight rings and smuggling and dirty money, or?—”

“Be specific, Sloane.”

I exhaled. “Have you ever killed anyone?”

He didn’t answer right away, just stared at me: flat, composed, calculating. Then he nodded. Once.

Something in my chest twisted—half fear, half something darker. A throb in the base of my spine, the kind of instinctive thrill that came with knowing the man across from me could end lives… yet had chosen not to hurt me even when I’d messed around in his world.

I didn’t look away, and neither did he.

He lifted his wineglass, drank slowly, and when he set it down again, I knew we’d just crossed into something else entirely.

“You still want to marry me?” I asked, voice too breathless for my own comfort.

“Yes,” he said, with a finality that sent heat rushing through every inch of me.

The second course came and went.

Some kind of roasted duck with glazed figs and wild mushroom risotto, perfect and delicious and expensive, but my fork barely moved.

I took another sip of wine, letting the decadent red glide down my throat as I tried not to think about how deeply I was already in this.

I so badly wanted to lean across the table and touch the hand he wasn’t using to eat, just to feel the heat of it, just to remind myself that he was real. That this was all real.

When dessert arrived—a dark chocolate tart with raspberry coulis and a little dollop of cream so perfect it looked like art—I finally broke the silence.

“This was…” I cleared my throat. “A lot of effort.”

“I like feeding what’s mine,” he said simply.

I looked down at the tart, then back at him. “So that’s what I am now? Yours?”

His eyes didn’t flinch. “You were always going to be. From the second I saw you watching me at that fight.”

I should have rolled my eyes. Should have laughed, maybe. But instead, I picked up my spoon and tasted the dessert. It melted on my tongue: dark, rich, a little bitter, a little sweet. Like something self-indulgent and wrong and impossible to walk away from.

Like him .

That’s when it really hit me. I’d never been with a man like Nikolai Morozov. Not even close.

The guys I’d dated—boys, really—had been pretty and messy.

All cocky grins and soft hands. Sloppy kisses that didn’t go anywhere.

Fingers that fumbled and begged. All ego and nothing to back it up.

All play, no purpose. They wanted attention.

Nikolai wanted obedience. They wanted to be adored. Nikolai wanted to own.

Fuck.