Page 24

Daniil

I keep my eyes glued to my watch, not wanting to go over the five-minute mark by even a second.

Aria is too perfect to be real. Too perfect and too much exactly what I need in a woman to keep me on my toes and interested. She’s the first woman to ever intrigue me, and that’s a far more dangerous quality than simply having a magic pussy that I can’t get enough of.

Rex trots over to me and I look up at the house. Clever girl.

“Did Aria let you out so I couldn’t use you to find her?”

Rex whines and pushes his nose at my hand. I give him a scratch and he lays at my feet.

“You stay out here, boy. Wait until I call you to come in, okay?”

He looks at me and then rests his head on his front paws, getting comfortable.

“You like her, huh? You listen to her.”

Rex whines and I give him another scratch.

A part of me hopes she’s simply waiting for me on one of the beds, while another, larger part, hopes she makes this game harder for me so I can fuck her without restraint.

I want to bruise her pussy.

I want her to not be able to walk for hours afterwards.

I want her to still feel me inside of her when we’re done.

I want her to want that side of me. Every side of me. The darkest parts of me that should get me locked the fuck up. Like wanting to chain her to my goddamn bed so I can fuck her endlessly and be the one to bring her everything she needs to survive.

I want her to crave all of it as I do.

And so far, she has.

But how far is she willing to go down this path with me?

When the five minutes are up, I head inside to claim my prey and start at the top floor, checking all the bedrooms first. I look under the beds, in the closets, and in the bathtubs, but she’s not anywhere up here.

I move down to the next floor and search every room, including my office. I even look out the windows to see if she somehow snuck past me and is hiding in the garden.

I’ve looked everywhere but the basement, and as I head down the stairs, I can’t remember if I closed the door to my saferoom after I was in there today. I went up to grab something from my office, but then didn’t go back down because I got a call.

Fuck.

If she’s down here, then she found the room that houses more secrets than I’m willing to share with her. Secrets that no one knows and no one should know. Secrets that would land me in prison for the rest of my life should the right people discover them.

One of the main reasons I bought this house was because of the saferoom. It’s hidden from the house’s blueprints on file with the county because the previous owner smuggled artifacts from his travels around the world and needed a room to keep them safe and away from everyone’s eyes but his. The room blends into the wall in the basement, so unless you know it’s there, the only way to know is if the door is left slightly ajar like I think I did while adding some information to a file.

I got too complacent.

Aria has my mind on her rather than my work, and I’m starting to cut corners on my privacy and safety.

I check the bathroom down here first, hoping to find her in there. But when I find it empty, I stalk across the basement and move a movie poster out of the way to reveal a biometric panel. I type in the passcode as well as scan my fingerprint, and the saferoom’s door unlocks and pops open for me.

I step inside and close it behind me, not wanting her to escape. She can’t leave without putting in another code.

Aria is standing at my table with a file open, so engrossed in what she’s looking at, she didn’t notice my entrance.

“No one is allowed in here but me,”

I tell her, announcing my presence. Aria jumps at the sound of my voice and her wide eyes meet mine, showing me a mix of surprise, fear, and apprehension.

“No one knows it exists. Not even my brothers.”

She blinks at me, opening and closing her mouth before swallowing hard and asking, “No?”

“No.”

“Wha-what is all this?”

She waves a hand at the wall behind her and the open files on the table beside her.

“What does it look like?”

“Like you’re a…”

Her eyes dart around before coming back to mine bravely.

“A what?”

“A serial killer,”

she whispers, and my lips turn up in a grin that has more fear flashing in her eyes.

“I suppose it would look like that to someone who doesn’t know what they’re looking at.”

“What’s to misinterpret? You have a wall filled with pictures of people, some with red exes through them, and all of these folders are filled with detailed information of more people. That pile”–she points to a large stack at the end of the table–“all say terminated on them.”

“They do.”

I nod, not denying anything.

“So do the ones in that box.”

I point to the file box on the floor by the table.

“Daniil–”

she starts, then stops, taking in a shaky breath. “You–”

She does it again and I take a step towards her, only for her to skirt around me and run for the door that’s no longer there.

“Let me out.”

“No.”

She hasn’t run from me yet, and I won’t have her running now.

“Daniil.”

Her voice breaks on my name and a piece of my fucking heart that hasn’t worked all my life, breaks off at the sound.

Her shoulders sag and she turns back around, her eyes wary.

“I already accepted that you killed your dad because you said he was the reason your mom killed herself. I get that.”

She places her hand over her heart.

“I’d do the same thing if he was my dad. I’ve accepted that you’re the head of your family and organization just as Leo is. I know what he does and has done. I know my dad did bad shit and I know my brother, who I love dearly, has done bad shit that would no doubt land him in jail.”

Tears fall from her gorgeous eyes, and it takes everything in me not to go to her right now.

“But this…”

she shakes her head, looking at my darkest secret like I’m the worst of what’s walking this earth.

“Who are these people? Why did you kill them? Why do you have files on at least a dozen more with detailed information on their daily schedules and habits?”

She finally pauses her line of questioning and I have a choice. I can tell her everything, or I can lie and tell her some version of the truth that makes me look better.

“No lies, Daniil,”

she says fiercely, her fists balled at her side.

“No lies? Fine.”

I spread my hands out and try not to let the panic rising up from my depths take over. I haven’t let it since I was a kid, but Aria seems to bring it out in me. If she’s going to be afraid of me and disgusted by what she sees, then she might as well know the entire story.

“I don’t know what to do with the anger inside of me,”

I begin telling her and she scoffs, swiping tears from her cheeks.

I start to unbutton my shirt and she sputters.

“What are you doing? You can’t fuck your way out of this.”

Ignoring her, I keep going and shrug my shirt off, then turn around so she can get a good look at my back and the marred skin I haven’t even looked at in about a decade.

“My father treated my mother like a punching bag. Worse than one. He used to only do it behind closed doors and she’d wear makeup to cover the bruises on her face, then tell me the bruises on her body were because she fell down the stairs again while carrying too much laundry and she missed a few steps. She always had a list of believable excuses at the ready to use to explain away her injuries. Believable to a little kid, that is. There came a point when my father no longer wanted to keep it a secret, though, and he started doing shit to her for me and my brothers to see. I’d make my brothers hide and I’d watch, waiting for the moment he was done so I could run to my mom and help her.”

The hatred and anger I always have bubbling inside of me comes to the surface like it all just happened today, and I wish I could resurrect my father so I could kill him all over again.

“When I was seven, I had enough, and I stepped in to take the beating instead of my mom. He was an evil son-of-a-bitch. Bratva means brotherhood, and he took that to an extreme, deciding that meant only men were worthy of anything in this world, and his wife was only there to fuck and birth his heirs.”

Aria gasps, and I whirl around to face her again.

“I was supposed to have sisters,”

I say angrily.

“My mom gave birth to six boys only because my father made sure he killed the babies that were going to be girls.”

Aria covers her mouth as tears stream freely down her angelic face, but I can’t stop now. It’s spilling from me like a broken damn, and I can’t stop until she knows everything.

“I don’t even know how many miscarriages he caused her. How many came before I was born or how many after, between my brothers being born. I didn’t know he was doing it until I was ten and my mom was so broken and depressed after the last one, that she told me everything. That’s when I went to my father and told him he was never going to lay a hand on my mother again. He’d lay them on me instead. He wouldn’t touch my brothers either.”

“Daniil,”

Aria says, but I’m not done yet.

“That night was the first of many for these.”

I slap my hand over my shoulder and catch a mess of raised scars.

“I didn’t care, though. It was my job to protect my family. Andrei and Maksim would clean my wounds and bandage them the best they could, but they’d just get ripped open a week or so later. Sometimes only a day or two.”

Talking about them has my scars itching like they’re still fresh wounds healing.

“I stopped going to school so I could be around for my mom during the day in case he came home and thought he could pull some shit while I wasn’t there. I couldn’t go to school anyway, or too many questions would be raised. I did end up getting my GED online as a ‘fuck you’ to him when I could sneak away to the library to study and take the exam.”

“No one saw my pain,”

I continue. "I learned to mask it. For my mom, my brothers, the world. All while the rage and anger built inside me. And the day my mom killed herself, the day after my eighteenth birthday, I’m the one who found her. I found her,”

I grind out.

“Along with the note she left me telling me she couldn’t handle the pain anymore and how now she could give into it because I was old enough to take care of my brothers. She knew I was going to kill my dad and she left me the responsibility of raising my five younger brothers from the age of fucking eighteen!”

I yell, pounding my chest.

“I took eighteen years of anger out on my father that night, and when he was dead, and the anger and pain still didn’t subside, I had to find a way to combat it. I had to find a way to do something so this planet had less men like my father alive and breathing on it. That’s what this is,”

I tell her, spreading my arms out to the room.

“All of this is my way of handling what’s going on in here.”

I jab my temples.

“If I didn’t find an outlet, then I’d have gone insane over a decade ago or be six feet under. These are all men like my father. Abusers, rapists, killers. Evil. They have no remorse for their actions, and neither do I when I end their lives. They all deserve it, and now they can’t hurt anyone else.”

Her eyes have been drained of the fear they held, and the fist squeezing my heart loosens just the slightest so I can feel it beating again.

“But how do you find out about them?” she asks.

“Their names and crimes are posted anonymously to a bulletin site on the dark web. Victims, family members, friends, and even cops and government agents who are restricted by the law but know what needs to be done, post names. Then I gather all the information I can on each target in case someone is posting a name simply because they want someone dead.”

“How many have there been? How have you not been caught?”

“I’m careful. I don’t take action until I’ve planned out every detail, then do it in a way that won’t raise suspicion. Well, too much suspicion. Some are well planned accidents that happen during their everyday normal activities so it seems like a fluke. But others, the ones that deserve it the most, get the full treatment.”

“The full treatment?”

“Yes, Aria.”

I pull a file from the completed pile and toss it to the center of the table.

“This one was a pedophile and trafficked and abused children. He lived in Florida, so I smeared peanut butter on his dick and balls and tied him to a tree in the glades so the wild hogs, who love peanut butter by the way, would go for them first. He screamed and screamed, and it was music to my ears. Then I took care of the rest by cutting him up so the hogs and gators could have the rest of him.”

She stares at me like she doesn’t know how to process what I’m telling her.

“And this one,”

I continue, grabbing another file from the completed pile and tossing to the center of the table.

“beat his wife. The neighbors called in noise complaints but the cops couldn’t do anything because the wife never filed charges. She knew if she did, then he’d be out pretty quickly pending a trial and beat her even more. Probably kill her. So, I beat him until he was crying and begging for mercy.”

I look into Aria’s eyes.

“I showed him no mercy.”

She swallows hard, but doesn’t move or try and make an escape.

“You travel around to do this?”

“I go where I’m needed. I use fake IDs for everything when I travel so my name never even comes up. But why would it? I’m a fucking ghost. I wear just enough of a disguise so if I’m seen on cameras nearby, facial recognition won’t make the connection. There’s a lot I’ve done to maintain my anonymity, and yet you’ve walked right into my best kept secret.”

“I didn’t mean to,”

she says wearily, her eyes back to darting around.

“This”–I wave my hand at everything–“keeps the demons in my head at bay.”

“You kill bad people who hurt kids and other vulnerable people.”

“Yes.”

“Your brothers don’t know?”

“No, they don’t, and I don’t want them to. I don’t want them to know how fucked-up I am, or how badly our father messed me up. I need to be strong for them and not draw them into my darkness. I want them to have a better life that’s not haunted by our father with every turn.”

“And this doesn’t drag you further into the darkness? Always seeing the worst in people and learning how many more there are out there?”

“No. I eliminate darkness. I wipe it from this earth so other kids and families can be saved from a fate like mine. I turned eighteen and had no parents and five brothers ranging from seven to sixteen to raise.”

“That must’ve been hard,”

she says gently.

“I don’t need your pity,”

I scoff like an asshole.

“I did what was needed, and Andrei and Maksim were old enough to help me.”

“It’s not pity, it’s sympathy. I can’t begin to know how it feels to go through what you did.”

“Good. You shouldn’t.”

“But it confirms what I already thought I knew about you.”

“And what’s that?”

Aria takes a step closer to me and I take one back.

“That you’re strong. Physically and mentally. You may not show your emotions outwardly, but I knew there was a storm brewing in you that you keep all to yourself. You care about your brothers more than anything and would do anything for them, but you still keep yourself separate from them. At the club, you sat quietly while they were all talking to each other. You observe, you learn, and then you act.”

“So, you have me all figured out?”

“Not even close.”

She takes another step towards me and I take another back. She stands still and looks at me in confusion.

“Why are you backing away from me?”

“Why do you want to get closer to me?”

“Why wouldn’t I? I’ve been trying to get closer to you since I set foot in this house, but you won’t let me, despite our rules.”

“You think because we’re fucking, that means I have to cut myself open and fall to my knees, spilling my guts to you?”

Aria narrows her eyes.

“Don’t be an asshole.”

“That’s all I know how to be, Aria. I was made that way. I’m the son of one of the devil’s personal friends and that means I have the same fire running through my veins. I have the same capabilities and the same temper.”

“Do you? Have you ever beat a woman simply because you could?”

I grind my molars.

“No. But I hurt you when I didn’t want to.”

“What are you talking about?”

I look at her covered neck and she practically spits fire at me through her eyes.

“I told you, you didn’t hurt me!”

she yells, her anger a beautiful look on her.

“I liked what we did in the pool, and I’d like for it to happen again. I didn’t even know you left bruises until you pointed them out. You didn’t hurt me.”

She takes a step towards me again, and this time I stand my ground.

“Not once, have I thought you were going to physically hurt me since we met. Not once. Even when you’ve been angry, I never thought you were going to hurt me. Have you hurt a woman before?”

I shake my head, my tongue thick and stuck to the roof of my mouth.

“Being someone’s kid doesn’t mean you’re your parent or will be like them. The way you reacted when you saw you left bruises on me tells me all I need to know about the man you are.”

She takes another step towards me.

“You couldn’t live with yourself if you hurt a woman, Daniil. You’ve been defending your mom and brothers since you were far too young to need to, and that means you’re a man worthy of a good life.”

I choke on a humorless laugh.

“A good life? Look around, Aria. This is my life.”

“I did look. I am looking, and I see a man making other people’s lives better and safer because you’re able to do what needs to be done that can’t be solved in a courtroom. Your brothers run their own businesses because you raised them to believe in themselves and gave them the ability to stand on their own and have the determination to want more. You’ve kept your family together. You could’ve all been driven apart by what happened, but you didn’t let it. You, Daniil. You didn’t let it happen.”

Her words are a balm to the ragged edges of my frayed soul. My mouth goes dry and my chest is heavy as everything I’ve known and told myself is shattered by this magnificent woman in front of me.

“You don’t know me,”

I counter, needing her to stop. She’s not supposed to like me or want me or see me as anything more than a good time and break from her life. She’s not supposed to find out my deepest, darkest secret, and still look at me like she is. Like I’m hers. Like I’m worth something to her.

I’m not supposed to get the girl.

“It seems I know you more than anyone else, and I don’t think you’re a monster.”

“How?”

Her soft smile makes my chest a little lighter.

“Because you’re only a monster if you hurt innocent people.”

“Aria.”

Her name is a lifeline I’m throwing out, and she takes it, her smile widening as she slides her hands up my chest and neck to cup my face in her delicate, unmarred hands.

“Daniil.”

I close my eyes at the way she says my name. In reverence, laced with something else. Something deeper.

“You need to let yourself feel something other than disdain for yourself.”

“I don’t feel that way when I’m with you,” I admit.

“Good. You shouldn’t.”

I take a deep breath, the weights that have been keeping me under water are lifting so I can breathe better.

“Give in to me, Daniil. Give me all of you so you can see how much I accept you as you are. Fuck me like you wanted to when you started this game.”

Jesus fucking Christ, she can’t be real.

She’s holding my face and telling me what I never imagined I’d hear coming from a sweet angel’s mouth, and she knows me well enough to know I can’t put into words yet what’s happening inside me because it's never happened before. I can show her, though. I can give her that.

I pull her hands from my face and kiss each palm before circling her wrists and pulling her over to the couch against the wall.

I lift her dress up and off her with ease, and marvel at the sight of her.

“My perfect little doll,”

I murmur, my voice holding the same reverence hers did moments ago.

“Turn around and bend over the arm of the couch.”

She does as I instruct and I palm her ass, then outline my name on her lower back.

“Prekrasnoye.”

I fall to my knees behind her and kiss my way up the backs of her thighs, then spread her legs and marvel at the heaven I’ve found that’s dripping the elixir that gives me life.

With a deep inhale, I swipe my tongue through her pussy and moan at the sweet and tart taste that I don’t ever want to get enough of. Aria wiggles her ass, begging for more, but I need to be inside her. I need to show her what she means to me. What everything she just said means to me.

Standing, I pull a condom from my pocket and shed my pants. But as I rip the packet open, Aria makes a sound and looks over her shoulder at me.

“No condom, Daniil. Let me feel you. Please. You can pull out again, right?”

Jesus fucking Christ, she’s going to be the death of me.

“Yeah, baby, I can.”

She smiles and turns back around, and I toss the condom to the floor. If my girl wants it raw, she gets it raw.

Grabbing her ass, I lift her hips and spread her open, lining myself up at her entrance. This couch is the perfect height and it’s pushed up against the wall to give me all the leverage I need to keep her exactly where she is as I thrust into her, buried to the balls in a single push in my new favorite place in the world. It used to be this room, and now it’s the woman inside of it.

Groaning, I swirl her hips around and Aria moans into the couch.

I pull out almost all the way, pause, and then thrust back in. She cries out and then moans, so I do it again, and seeing my cock coated in her, with my name across her back in diamonds, snaps the thin string of restraint that previously kept me from claiming her like a fucking madman hellbent on making her forget anyone else exists for her.

No words. Just our bodies coming together and making the world around us nonexistent.

Me and her.

Us.

Together.

Fucking has never felt like the world was righting itself before, but the moment my cock enters Aria, that’s exactly what’s happening.

I don’t hold back.

The couch bangs against the wall and Aria is a mess of wails, cries, screams, moans, and grunts. Music to my fucking ears.

Her pussy is a tight hug I never want to end, but I can’t stop what’s coming. The fires of hell are licking at my back, trying to claim me and get me to burn the world for them, but it’s Aria that keeps them at bay.

Her pussy flutters and convulses around me, coating my cock in a flood of her heavenly elixir.

Roaring out like a lion claiming his territory and warning all other males away, I fuck Aria even harder and faster through her orgasm, and she screams into the couch as another builds in her and her pussy squeezes me even tighter, dragging whatever bits of my soul I have left to the surface.

Pulling out of her, I come all over her back, growling like the animal I am when I’m with her.

My name and cum cover her back, and I wish I could tattoo my name all over her so it’s there permanently, but I wouldn’t want to scar her perfect skin.

Stumbling around the couch, I grab her and haul her on top of me, needing to keep her in my grasp so she doesn’t leave me.

I can’t have her leave me.

Not now.

Not ever.