I do. Clenching hard. Shuddering. His name a broken whisper against his neck. He slams up once, twice, three times. Groans long and rough, cock pulsing, spilling deep again. Hips jerk with every spurt until he's shaking, empty.
We stay like that. My forehead on his. Breathing synced. Swing slowing to a gentle rock. Wind cools the sweat on our skin.
SEVENTEEN
ANYA
Roman’s sideof the bed is already cold when I open my eyes, the sheet beside me flattened and empty, and sunlight cuts through the blinds in thin gold stripes that make the whole room look deceptively calm. For a second I stay still, listening to the house breathe around me. The low hum of the refrigerator downstairs. The faint tick of the old clock in the hallway. No footsteps. No shower running. He’s already gone, probably down at the office handling something small and routine that didn’t justify waking me.
I reach for my phone without thinking. The screen lights up. There’s a secure notification waiting. Not a text. An encrypted drop link. My stomach tightens before I even open it.
Inside are three files. The first is a contract. Wire transfers from a shell company tied to Konstantin’s investment arm. The recipient is a private security firm with federal contracts. The memo line reads “Domestic Disruption Package – Phase II.” I freeze.
I open the second file. Photographs. Roman outside Perdition timestamped from two days ago. Mason. Blade. Dmitri whenhe visited last month. Every face labeled. The header reads “Organized Crime Nexus – Foreign Influence.” My throat goes dry.
The third file is a recording. Konstantin’s voice. Clear. Controlled. “Anonymous tip to federal task force. Tie them to trafficking lanes through Jacksonville. Leak the Dragunov connection. Freeze assets. Seize weapons. Arrest leadership. Make it public before Moscow opens.” Another voice asks “And the family?” Konstantin replies without hesitation. “Accidents happen. Car brakes fail. Construction scaffolding collapses. Patriarch first. The sons if necessary.” Silence. Then “She will come home once she understands the cost.” The audio ends.
I sit very still. My heartbeat doesn’t race. It steadies. He’s not threatening. He’s executing a plan to destroy my entire world. Frame the Iron Reapers as Russian proxies. Trigger a federal sweep. Asset seizure. RICO. Mandatory minimums. Life sentences. And Papa? Brake failure. Dmitri? A fall from a balcony. Mikhail? Financial ruin first. Then exposure. Konstantin isn’t trying to retrieve me. He’s trying to erase everything I chose.
I lower the phone slowly. Roman has no idea. He thinks this is contained. Papa thinks Orlovsky is quiet. They don’t see this angle.
I stand. Because I understand something now. If I tell Roman, he goes to war. If I tell Papa, he counters publicly. Either way Konstantin triggers the federal arm and chaos becomes permanent. This isn’t a negotiation. It’s a preemptive strike. And there is only one way to stop a man who plans like this. You remove him.
My phone rings in my hand, it’s Dima. “Where are you?” he demands.
“At home,” I say. “What happened?”
There’s a pause, and in that silence I hear everything he isn’t saying. “Papa was in an accident.”
The words don’t make sense at first. They hang there, disconnected. “What kind of accident?” I ask, my voice too steady.
“Brake failure,” he says. Then quickly, like he knows exactly where my mind goes, “He’s alive. Surgery. Internal bleeding but stable.”
I close my eyes. Alive. But not safe. “Was it mechanical?” I ask quietly.
Another pause. Longer this time. “No. There was a secondary device placed on the brake line,” Dmitri says, his voice lower now, controlled in that dangerous way he gets when he’s holding himself together by discipline alone. “It was clean. Professional.”
I swing my legs over the side of the bed, feet hitting the hardwood, the cold grounding me. “Send me everything,” I tell him. The files arrive within seconds. Photographs of the car in the underground garage. The brake line cut with surgical precision. The small explosive assist designed to ensure total failure at speed.
I scroll without blinking. Then the security footage loads. A grainy angle from the parking structure. A man in a dark cap and gloves crouched by the rear wheel at 3:12 a.m., movements efficient, unhurried. He stands. For half a second the cameracatches his face as he adjusts the brim of his cap. I know him. He’s one of Konstantin’s. I’ve seen him at board dinners in Moscow. Standing three steps behind and to the left. My heartbeat slows instead of spikes.
“Has Papa woken up?” I ask.
“He’s sedated,” Dmitri says. “We diverted him to a private clinic before public responders arrived. There’s no official report.”
Of course there isn’t. “Does he know what it was?” I ask.
“We haven’t told him.”
I stare at the paused frame of the footage. “Don’t,” I say quietly.
Dmitri goes silent. “What are you thinking?” he asks. “I’m thinking,” I reply, “that this wasn’t a warning.”
The phone buzzes in my hand before I can say more. Unknown number. I already know who it is. “Dima, I’ll take care of this. I have to go now. Love you.”
I answer the call without speaking and Konstantin’s voice comes through smooth and almost sympathetic. “I heard there was an accident.” The way he says it makes something inside me go perfectly still. “I miscalculated,” he continues calmly. “You’re lucky he survived.” I don’t respond. “You see,” he says, like he’s explaining something reasonable, “these things are unpredictable. Machines fail. People get careless.”
“You cut the brakes,” I say flatly.
