Page 21

There was no room for doubt anymore, no room for debate with myself.

After our time at the club together, after the moment of pure passion we shared, I knew I couldn’t let anyone get between us.

I wouldn’t. Not some random on the street. Not a bartender. Nobody.

Aria was my fiery wife—a leader in her own right, and the only woman I could ever imagine ruling beside.

While I had been reluctant to say it before, I had no problem admitting just how much I respected her more and more with every passing day—how she managed to demand that quiet praise from me without even needing to try.

Not only did she have an impressive grip on her role at work, but she also had an unwavering chokehold over my life. Over my needs and desires. But I wasn’t complaining about it anymore.

Even if I was used to working beside her and enjoyed watching how she handled problems of all multitudes, a part of me was glad she wasn’t at the warehouse when the trade incident happened earlier that day.

There was an interference right out back—an unidentifiable group we had never seen before came in and tried to hijack the shipment right as the product was coming off the truck.

Though we’d managed to get a grip on it and stopped the robbery before it could be fully carried out, it had still been a mess. Both sides lost numbers, even if ours managed to snuff them out fast.

I didn’t like the way the reminder sat on my shoulders. It felt heavy all the way home, almost like a gut feeling that was trying to warn me about something bigger ahead. Something significant enough to put more at risk.

It was easy to make those assumptions, though—especially when we had built so much and had more to lose than most others.

But I couldn’t focus on that. I had to remember it wasn’t all bad. Especially not when we managed to catch a hostage and locked him up for the time being. He wasn’t ready to talk yet, despite the initial shakedown I gave him.

He would crack eventually, and I’d be there when he did.

After damage control had been well underway and everyone was put back in line again, I left, only able to feel a faint soreness in my limbs after sitting through the car ride home.

With the adrenaline wearing off, I turned the car off, got out stiffly, and made my way inside the house. I smelled like gunpowder, sweat, and debris, but I didn’t care.

It didn’t take long for Aria to find me in the foyer, eyes full of more concern than usual while she approached.

“Daniil…” she murmured, phone in hand while she cut the space between us, immediately scanning my face. “How bad was it? Gabriel and some others told me about the hit…are you hurt anywhere else?”

I didn’t have the chance to look at the state of my face, but given how my skin burned slightly and felt tight in some places, I could only imagine how I looked in the moment.

“No…just what you see,” I murmured, not realizing until that moment how the aftermath of the attack left me slightly stunned.

I couldn’t stop myself from imagining how much worse it could’ve been if she had been there, if she somehow found herself in the middle of that gunfire.

The thought alone was enough to make me want to rage.

But I was too exhausted. Too drained from fighting back.

Aria let out a gentle breath and her features softened a bit. Carefully, she reached for my hand and saw the broken skin around my bruised knuckles. Without applying too much pressure, she placed her palm against mine and guided me through the house.

A protest died on my tongue the moment I came to terms with how much energy it required, and I opted to stay silent instead.

I didn’t want to talk about what happened, even if I had the feeling she already had questions queued up for me. Either way, I let her pull me into the bathroom before directing me to sit on the closed toilet lid.

Wordlessly, Aria moved to the stocked medicine cabinet and pulled out a few supplies before turning back to me.

I hissed at a slight twinge of pain in my side despite not moving, and the sound immediately caught her attention.

With a brow raised, she set the supplies down and gestured to my side. “Shirt up...let me see.”

Knowing she wouldn’t accept my refusal, I reluctantly edged the hem of my tee up until an open cut on my side came into view. The skin was scratched and torn in a jagged line, and while it looked bad, I had the feeling it wasn’t as deep as it seemed.

I had no idea my shirt had been ripped in the process.

“Liar,” Aria muttered disapprovingly before she took the fabric in her hands and gently edged it up and over my head, making me grimace at having to hold my arms up.

“I promise I didn’t notice it,” I murmured, feeling more drained after everything. Still, I obliged her and allowed her to do whatever she wanted with me. “I didn’t even feel it.”

“You were likely hyped up on adrenaline. But it’s wearing off now, isn’t it?”

Nodding, I sighed and leaned back while she grabbed some cotton balls and drenched them in antiseptic. The moment it touched the cut on my side, my whole body tensed.

“Jesus fucking Christ…” I uttered, fighting back against the roaring pain of it.

“Don’t be a baby,” Aria returned, more knowingly than anything while she used the lightest touch to carefully disinfect the wound. “Hold still.”

“Bite me.”

She hummed her faint amusement despite the lingering concern in her eyes. “Careful…I might take you up on that.”

Regardless of the pain, those words stirred something in my chest, and I huffed to myself. Even if I gripped the side of the tub next to me with seemingly enough strength to crack it, something about her light teasing eased some of that sting.

“Yeah, I know you would.”

A small smile lingered on her lips while she worked carefully yet slowly, cleaning up the cut to the best of her ability with what she had.

Clenching my jaw, I schooled my pain as best as I could and let her continue.

After a moment of silence between us, Aria spoke up quietly, “Did they get anything from the shipment?”

Forcing out a breath, relieved she was putting a square bandage over the wound finally, I shook my head. “No, we took care of it before they could. They still managed to take out a few of our guys, though.”

“So it wasn’t as devastating as it could’ve been,” she murmured to herself, carefully pressing the adhesive against my side before standing next to me. “Still…it shouldn’t have happened. How did it happen?”

“I don’t know. Somehow, they must’ve known about the drop-off. Whoever it was, they were able to work with that, and they caught us off-guard.”

With a sigh, Aria nodded to herself with better understanding of the situation, and I could tell she was angry on my behalf, despite not voicing it.

It surprised me, even though it shouldn’t have.

From the very beginning, Aria had been honest when it came to our arrangement, and despite the obstacles I put in her path throughout the process, she had been working with me to keep the peace.

In that clouded state while Aria tenderly disinfected the various cuts around my face, something in me felt regret over my old plan…how I wanted and tried to take her power from her. How I was doing everything I could to sabotage her earnest attempts to further her family’s empire.

I wasn’t used to feeling that kind of remorse, especially not after it had been such a deliberate plan. After I was so dead set on getting what I wanted, regardless of what it would cost her.

It was a strange thing to try and come to terms with, especially while knowing I never would’ve reached that place with Aria if I had succeeded.

The privilege of being able to witness her brilliance at work wouldn’t have been mine to have.

She was being so gentle with me, so tender. It wasn’t something I knew well at all, and while somewhat startling and hard to stomach, it wasn’t unwelcome.

It made that regret twist in me even further. And it also pulled at whatever sense of vulnerability I had in me.

“It's been months now, and sometimes I still feel like you don’t know anything about me,” I started, talking much quieter than usual while I swallowed back the instinct to keep my mouth shut to prevent her from hearing and seeing any kind of weakness in me. “Not that I’ve exactly shared anything, anyway…”

Aria hummed to herself while she concentrated on whatever was on my left cheek, using a surprisingly light touch, as if hoping to not make the process burn more than it needed to. “You haven’t exactly been the most open person.”

“I know,” I said with a deep breath, surprised by how willing I was then to admit anything of the sort to her. “It’s something I’ve always struggled with.”

Staying quiet while she tended to me, I knew she was leaving the floor open for me to continue. She was opening up that invitation for me to do whatever I wanted with it.

I pulled my words together through the tired haze in my head. “My parents were junkies—and I’m not using that term lightly. Mom popped us out, gathered those checks from the government, and then the two of them threw it all away. Alex had to waste his childhood looking after us until we were finally taken away.”

I felt the subtle shift in Aria’s demeanor—a notable softening.

I went on anyway. “The five of us were split up based on our age, and I ended up going with Damien to a foster home. We stuck together as best as we could, but we didn’t know what was going on or why we couldn’t see the others. Mind you, that place didn’t give a damn about setting us up for success—it was hell. Without my other brothers, my parents, or any kind of guidance, I felt completely lost. That kind of thing is confusing for a kid...especially when I had no choice but to fight for myself in foster care.”

Aria let that linger between us before she asked me softly, pausing her work to meet my gaze, “What happened with your brothers?”

“Val and Yuri were only young, so they don’t remember much. Damien and I figured out how to hold our own…who to trust and who to avoid. Alex was in a home for older boys until he aged out and landed a job that wasn’t too different from what we do now. He started our family’s empire, then he gained custody of us all one by one. Finally, we were together again, and we didn’t have to worry about anyone else splitting us up,” I explained, feeling the weight of it on my shoulders all over again. “As much as I try to forget about it, I know that place did something to me. It stopped me from feeling the usual remorse and apprehension most people do; it desensitized me in a way, and I guess I learned that if I wanted or needed something, I had no choice but to take it by force. That was how that home worked. And that’s why I’m able to do what I do…why I have the role I do.”

Aria softened further once I finished, and while I half expected her to recoil at the insinuation that my range of empathy was broken because of my upbringing, and that I couldn’t trust easily because of it, she didn’t. Instead, she continued tending to me, with no change in the unfettered tenderness that almost choked me up.

“That sounds painful for a little boy to go through,” she murmured, wearing that understanding better than I expected her to. Almost indiscernibly, her thumb traced against my jaw, making those protective walls of mine shake even further. “I’m sorry that was the childhood you had to experience.”

Feeling simultaneously better and worse for sharing my upbringing with her, I pulled in another breath and held those pieces together anyway. “We can’t pick the hand we’re dealt…we can only choose what we do with it.”

“That’s right,” she said quietly, keeping the mood a bit lighter to my relief. “Despite the disadvantage, you and your brothers are working alongside one of the most notorious families in this city—oh, and the Levovs.”

Unable to help it, a grin pulled at my lips at that, and I managed a faint chuckle. “I’ll let you have that one.”

Regardless of the weight of the day on my shoulders and the heaviness of what I shared with her, in that moment, it felt like just the two of us—like nothing else mattered.

Whether I wanted to dwell on it or not, Aria was changing me. And despite myself, it seemed to be for the better.