Page 40 of Scarlet Promise (Yegorov Bratva #4)

Chapter Thirty-Four

ILYA

I leave early the next morning, and for once, I’m going to miss my workout with Isaak.

He stands outside the gym, bag in hand, and raises a brow. “You? You’re missing workout time? Voluntarily?”

I scowl at him, my stomach a bundle of nerves. “Yes. Are you going to help me?”

“Depends.”

He’s going to help. Of course he’s going to help. It doesn’t matter that I haven’t told him why, but when I do, a smile blooms on his face.

“You had me at Alina,” he says. “What do you want me to do?”

I hand him the piece of paper with Isla’s address and number. “Pick her up with her daughter, Maize?—”

“She’s—”

“Divorced.”

A muscle beats in his jaw. “Not that. I meant she’s in on this?”

“She will be.”

“Will be?”

“Is there an echo out here, Isaak?” I mutter. “Yes, she will be. The woman’s already planning play dates with the baby.”

“Baby? Do I fucking want to know?”

“Alina’s pregnant, but I didn’t tell you that,” I say.

I glance at my watch. Time ticks down on the appointments I finagled last night with offers of money and a few veiled threats.

I may not want to be a pakhan, but I’m still a bratva man. I’m still Demyan’s second.

“Look, I’m sure Isla will fill you in. But your job is to get her ass to my place, and then the two of you get her out of there, without Albert, until I text you. Got it?”

“Gotta love some bratva drama,” he says. But then his humor drains away. “I’ve got it. Good luck, man.”

Yeah, I’m probably gonna need it.

Albert and I wait in the bedroom, nervous as shit. We keep looking at each other. When the front door slams, we know it’s her.

Even before Alina speaks, it’s obvious.

The air’s alive, and so am I.

Then I hear her voice and Svetlana’s.

After an almost unbearable forever, the door opens, and she steps in.

A vision.

My love.

Everything I’ve ever dreamed of.

The dress I picked flows in green and blue flowers with touches of gold here and there. It’s the color of summer, of her eyes, and it flatters her pale skin and dark hair.

Her flush is all the makeup this woman ever needs.

Albert barks once as she takes us in, a trembling hand to her mouth.

“Tuxes?” she asks.

“Albert thought we should all dress for the occasion.”

He barks again and wags his tail as I sink down to one knee.

“What are you doing?” she whispers.

“Alina, I love you. I’ve been in love with you for so long, and the fact that you love me back is incredible, precious, and I intend to do right by you. I intend to make you the happiest woman on the earth.”

“I am.”

I take a breath. “Will you marry me?”

“We’re already married…”

“For real. Without a deal or anything else. Just a marriage based on love.” I glance at Albert. “Go to her.”

He barks again, trots up, and licks her hand as she comes down to her knees, too.

Then she gasps when she catches sight of the string around his neck and what’s hanging from it.

Gently, she pulls it from him.

The ring is an oval diamond. I forget the number of carats. I don’t really care. All I care about is the classic platinum setting, the way the gem shines like she does.

“I’m in love with you, too,” she says. “And you’re my gift, my precious gift. You and our baby.” She pauses. “And Albert. But mostly you, Ilya, the man who’s always been there. I’ve always seen you, and now is our time, so yes. Yes. Yes! I’ll marry you.”

Grinning, I get up, slip the ring onto her finger, pick her up, and take her to the bed. Once I lay her down, I slide my tongue into her mouth, letting the heat and passion rock up over us.

Everything about her is familiar and always thrillingly new, like there’s a well in her where all the wonders of the universe are hidden, and I’ll never, ever reach the bottom.

I pull off her dress and underwear and strip off my clothes too. Then I push two fingers into her as she wraps her hand around my cock.

I’m desperate to be inside her, whether it’s her mouth, ass, or cunt. I love all of it. But this is about her. And I want to show her exactly who and what she is to me. My queen, my girl, the love of my life.

So I kiss my way down her body, thrusting my fingers into her as I curl them to drive her higher into pleasure, and because I need to, I suck and lick her clit.

She always tastes good, but today, she tastes even better because this is the real start of our lives together. Just us and our love.

As her tight, wet heat grips my fingers, her clit hardens. She pushes into my face as her canal flutters. I pull out because I want to be inside her. I need that.

I surge up and plunder her mouth as I push into her, all that tightness gripping me. The growing flutters almost push me over the edge. I roll us, keeping her mouth on mine as I push up into her, one hand at her hip, the other tangled in her hair.

She tries to ride me, to find her own rhythm. She grunts and whimpers, her body’s flutters coming together into deep throbs and spasms.

We’re both on the edge, both ready to lose it, but I need to hold out. I need her flooded with orgasmic bliss, need her to know that this is just the start.

I drop my hand from her hair as I kiss and bite down along her throat, sucking on her artery, the hot throb of blood in time with the spasms in her cunt.

I find her clit and rub it. She flies over the edge, a scream of pleasure on her lips as her head tilts back and she arches, spasming hard on my cock, setting me off. My balls are so tight, they may have retracted into me.

My orgasm barrels forward, my seed shooting into her, the same seed that made our baby. It turns me on, the thought of this act doing something so incredible. I lose myself completely, pulling her into me, dragging her mouth to mine as I hammer into her, pushing every last drop from me.

We drift, wrapped in each other. While I stroke her back, she succumbs to our early morning workout.

As Albert climbs on the bed to curl into her sleeping form, I slide out of bed and dress in black. Then I take my phone and head downstairs, where I wait outside for Demyan.

Melor hangs from a hook. Bloodied. Bruised. Battered.

It’s not enough.

But it’s a start.

This isn’t something I enjoy normally.

“He awake?” I ask Demyan’s henchman.

The guy grunts and nods.

I’d normally speak Russian, but with this fuck hanging from the wall, speaking our mother tongue may bring some form of comfort, something I’m not willing to give him.

“Got news,” Demyan says to me, loud enough so Melor can hear.

I pull on the knuckle dusters as Demyan smiles and Melor whimpers. “Good?”

“The best. Our new friend Santo…”

It’s an exaggeration, but Santo’s also smart and understands buttering the right bread.

“He contacted me. Simonov is no more. His bratva’s dead, and those who remain are aligning with Santo.”

“Looks like you’re on your own, Melor.” I smile and grab his hair, dragging his head up as he struggles to open his one good eye. “This could have been so easy. I’d have probably given you the bratva in a year. Instead, Demyan’s getting it.”

“Screw you.” His words slur.

I punch him in the face, relishing the sound of bone cracking. “You had to hurt my woman, his sister.”

I hit him in the fucking balls this time, making him howl. Pity he can’t move, considering he’s chained in place.

“You put hands on her. You fucking bruised her. Threatened her.” I go in close, pulling off the glove.

I don’t want to end him too soon, though it’s tempting to do so. Maybe too tempting.

“Worse, you found out she was pregnant and decided to take her anyway.” I lower my voice.

“I’d have been tempted to just break your bones and send you off to Siberia to work for one of the nastier parts of the Belov Bratva as a slave.

No tongue, of course. Maybe no cock, but… alive. But you used a pregnant woman.”

“You don’t get to live,” Demyan says. “And you don’t know what it took for me not to end you, though, I admit, my men and I had fun getting you on this wall here.”

He laughs.

“Alina’s his sister. And my wife. To say we are protective is to understate it.”

I hold out my hand, and Demyan gives me the scalpel. I start to carve off parts of his flesh, leaving him to bleed and scream and cry and plead.

It all falls on our ears, deaf to him. But we take pleasure in the pain there.

There is no one else on this planet I would turn into a monster for. But Alina is that one person.

I would do anything for her. And I am.

“Hold his hand down.” I look up, and Demyan comes over, as does the henchman with a selection of tools.

Secateurs. A hammer.

Demyan holds his hand, and I smile, his hysterical whimpers music to me.

I pick up the hammer and tap one knee then the other. “These or the hands first?”

“Both,” Demyan says. “Hard. My normal way would be fingers and then a few days later a knee. Then a few days later…”

He shrugs.

Melor lets out a scream.

Demyan’s tone hardens. “How many have you tortured? How many lives have you taken? I’d say be a man, but a man doesn’t touch a pregnant woman. Doesn’t ever hurt anyone like my sister. And I’d say you’re lucky this is Ilya hurting you, but this time round, I’m not so sure who’d be worse. Me or him.”

“Both.”

Demyan laughs at my response. “Both. Hand first and then the knee.”

As Melor screams in terror, Demyan holds out the man’s hand. I take his thumb off at the bottom joint.

Blood sprays, and the stench of urine and the sound of high-pitched screams fill the room.

I take my time with each finger. Some I take off joint by joint; others, I take apart even slower. When he’s fingerless, I hand Demyan the hammer.

He smashes in one knee.

As the screams and sobs die down a little, Demyan says, “There are some who take the tongue, the eyes, the toes, and the fingers and leave them alive, long enough to wish they were dead.”

“Let’s do that,” I say.

Demyan then starts in on the other hand as I hold it.

Then I smash in his other knee.

When we finish, we retreat to the background, and Demyan looks at me.

“We could do that, if you wish. We can keep him alive as long as you want.”

I’d do anything for Alina. Be a monster and also not.

Right now, I’m monster enough.

Right now, I’ve gone further than I know she’d like.

But I also know if I continue this path and take my time, it may change something between us. Some parts I could tell her about. But anything more? No.

Then those unsaid things would lie there. A bad start, a festering wound. And more…it would hurt her that I crossed so many lines for her. That’s what I can’t live with. I love Alina enough to end this now.

“I think it ends now, Demyan.”

He may think I’m a coward or even unworthy. Or he may understand.

“For Alina,” he says. “You’d deny the pleasure of making this piece of shit suffer for her. Because I know my sister, and it would kill her to know you kept going.” He raises a brow. “Right?”

“Right.”

“Then it’s done.”

I nod, take my gun, and head back into the room. Melor’s hanging on, and I look him in the eye.

“You’re getting out easily.”

I point the gun at him and pull the trigger.

I feel cleansed, not just from the shower I’ve taken, but from walking away.

Melor’s gone, and if Alina ever asks, I’ll tell her what we did and how it ended.

If she asks.

But now that he’s dead, that chapter is, too. The page has turned, and I’m home in every sense of the word.

I cross from the bathroom, naked, to the bed, where an exhausted Alina still sleeps. Albert lifts his head and huffs at me for disturbing him, but he moves a little to let me climb back into the bed.

Alina, my malyshka , my love, turns, sighs, and snuggles into me in her sleep, a smile blooming.

I brush a kiss over her forehead, my heart filled with hope, happiness, and love.

And I realize what that means.

For the first time in my life, I’m content.

I’m happy.

I’m loved.

I’m home.

Truly home.