“You don’t know what it would mean to be my wife. A Bratva wife.” I finally say when I break away from her. I keep my eyes closed while I cage the beast inside me that became all too fucking excited at the prospect of making her mine in every fucking way.
She pulls back from me, putting a small amount of distance between us so she can look me in the eyes. Hers are so vivid in the sunlight that they look purple. Actually fucking purple. She is extraordinary. She tips her head slightly, her expression serious as she takes a breath that makes her nostrils flare.
“Whatever it means, every part of it, the good, the bad, the ‘fixing’, the killing, the choices…all of it. I’m in.”
I glance at the facility behind her, beautiful gold stone and windows that shimmer in their cleanliness…it’s a far cry from York Bridgeway Care Facility. She catches my train of thought and takes my hands in hers.
“Not because of what you did for my grandma, even though I appreciate that more than I could ever express. But because last night you claimed me, and somewhere along the way I claimed you right back. I don’t know what it is, but I feel it, and I know it. I know I’m strong enough to be your wife, to carry your children, to face a future neither of us can predict.”
I look back at her, knowing she is right. She is strong enough. I knew the minute she knocked back that whiskey and looked me straight in the eyes when she thought I was going to kill her.
She stands there looking at me like she has already made up her mind. Marriage doesn’t scare her. She doesn’t see the blood on my hands, the ghosts that follow me home like loyal dogs, or the hungry eyes of enemies who would carve her open just to hurt me.
“You are strong enough,” I tell her quietly. “I knew it last night when you didn’t turn and run.”
She nods once, slowly. She truly doesn’t understand the danger she’s in. What marrying me would mean. So I make it plain.
“In my world,” I say, stepping closer, “marriage is permanent. When I put a ring on your finger, there is no leaving. No divorce. No running. The only way out, for either of us, is death.” I hold her gaze, letting that truth carve itself into the air around us.
Most people would break under that. Most would beg to reconsider. She doesn’t even blink.
“I’m not planning to leave,” she says, soft but unwavering. “Ever.”
“You become a Korolyov wife,” I add. “Mine in every sense that word can mean. And then I will fuck you every minute of the day until you are pregnant, and I will keep you that way until we have a house full of kids. I will devote myself to you and the family we make, and you will devote yourself to me.”
Wanting something has always been weakness I avoided. But wanting her feels like an inevitable collapse. Like the side of a mountain falling into the sea. The ramifications massive and unpredictable, and deadly.
“If you think this is love,” I force out, “it isn’t. Not yet. It’s adrenaline. Fear. Proximity. Lust. You’re clinging to the only solid thing in your storm.”
“Perhaps, “ she says. “But you’re doing the same.”
I huff a dark laugh. “You believe you’re ready for my life?”
“No,” she says. “But I’m ready for you.”
Those five words strike deep. Too deep. The idea of claiming her legally, publicly, permanently… it’s a fire I’ve been trying to smother since the moment she whispered her grandmother’s name like a final wish she expected me to refuse.
If I allow this, if I make her mine in the eyes of the Bratva, she inherits every enemy I’ve ever made. She becomes leverage. She becomes a target. She becomes the one thing they know I can’t lose.
She tilts her head to the side and says, “So I suppose the question is whether you really want this, or if you’re looking for reasons to let me go.”
I immediately know the answer when something sharp twists in my chest and my mouth tastes bitter.
“I want you. Every part of you. But that is going to look like obsession and possession and claiming you every godforsaken second of the day and night.” I pull her back towards me, reclaiming the distance she put between us. “I will marry you, Callie, and I will breed you.”
She moves a little and I know she is pressing her thighs together.
“Don’t,” I say against her ear, “I want to smell your arousal.”
She moans quietly as I force my knee between her legs, parting her thighs. “I know you’re as aroused as I am right now, krasótka. I’m just trying to figure out why.”
I trace my lips down the line of her jaw, nipping her soft skin as I move lower over her neck.
“Is it that I’m obsessed with you?” I ask, she responds with a whimper, but I don’t feel that’s entirely it.
“No. Perhaps it’s the danger of becoming my wife.” I wait, flicking my tongue against her pulse point until she moans softly again.
“No, it must have been when I mentioned breeding you.” She exhales long and slow, shuddering as her nipples harden and peak beneath the soft knit of her sweater. Interesting.
