dad yelled, glaring down at me.
I hid my smirk behind my coffee mug, snuggling deeper into the couch. The TV played lightly in the background, the relaxing aroma of my lavender-scented candle surrounding me like a comforting hug.
Peter Sutherland in The Night Agent was kicking some major ass, drawing me in completely. I was only up to episode six, and I knew already that it was going to be one of my top ten favourite TV shows. I liked Rose. She was different than a lot of the other female leads. She didn’t run and hide when the male lead was fighting with some bad guy, trying to protect her. She jumped into the fight, swinging logs like they were fucking baseball bats, breaking bones. I loved me a savage queen.
“You said I could go.” I tried to keep the amusement I felt from trickling into my voice, but based on the grumpy-ass look my dad threw my way, I don’t think it worked.
“I said to talk to Illayana.”
“Yep.”
“And did you?”
“Yep,” I repeated, popping the “p”.
“So you agree to it then? Because I’m not joking around, Tatiana,” he said sternly, crossing his arms over his chest.
“I know, Dad.”
“If you want to go to New York, you have to have the microchip put in. That’s the condition.”
I popped a cookie into my mouth, my words coming out in a mumbled mess as I replied, “I know, Dad.”
He slapped me upside the head, like Agent Gibbs does to Tony in NCIS. “Don’t talk with your mouth full.”
I chuckled, rubbing the back of my head with one hand while I took a sip of my coffee with the other. “Face it, Pops. You’re just pissed because you didn’t expect me to agree to your terms. Well, I have. Illayana’s already got me booked in to see the family doc the day after tomorrow. This move is happening.”
He flopped down onto the empty seat next to me, kicking his feet up onto the coffee table in front of him. “It’s like you want to give me a heart attack, moving all the way to New York with no one to watch your back,” he grumbled, pinching the bridge of his nose. “It’s the city where crime never sleeps. Maybe—”
“Nope. Don’t even think about it,” I cut in, elbowing him in the ribs. He grunted, gripping his side. “I don’t want or need a bodyguard. Your only condition was me getting that stupid tracker. You can’t go adding other shit in to try and get me to back out.”
“Who said? I’m the parent here.”
“Don’t be an ass.” I offered him a cookie and he begrudgingly accepted.
“What are we watching?” he asked before stuffing it into his mouth.
“The Night Agent. It’s about a hunky FBI Agent who has to save this girl from a bunch of bad men who are after her.”
“Sounds boring. Put on that show we were watching before I left. You know the one I’m talking about, the one with the scientists.”
I smiled, laughing softly. “You mean Big Bang Theory?” I picked up the remote, switching to Big Bang, and Dad nodded. He settled back further into the couch, holding his hand out for more cookies as we watched TV together, enjoying each other’s company. It might sound super lame, but my dad is my best friend. Without a shadow of a doubt. Don’t tell Illayana.
It’s always been me and him. Him and I. Growing up, I was the textbook definition of a “girly girl”. Everything I owned had to be pink. I liked putting on make-up and wearing pretty dresses. I liked having tea parties with my dolls and doing their hair. I hated getting sweaty or getting dirt under my fingernails. You’d think a man like my dad would struggle raising a daughter; a big, rough, rugged Bratva man who had zero experience with children. But instead of trying to change me, shifting my interests into things he might have been more comfortable with, he embraced me. He would let me paint his nails bright pink, put make-up on him, style his hair with pretty butterfly clips. He’d sit there for hours and play dollies with me, pitching his deep, heavy voice higher to imitate whichever of my Barbies he was holding. He would read me books, fairy tales about princesses and their knights in shining armour.
I would fall asleep every night dreaming of finding my knight. Someone who would love me, protect me, take care of me. Be there for me in every way.
But when I needed my knight, he wasn’t there.
Not once did I ever feel like I was missing something in my life, missing a mother. My dad was everything I ever needed. A father. A mother. A friend.
“You haven’t asked me how my trip was?” Dad asked, giving me the side-eye.
“Maybe because I’m afraid if I ask, you’ll tell me.”
He exhaled an exasperated breath. “We have to talk about it eventually.”
“Do we?”
Dad snatched the remote and turned the TV off. “Tatiana—”
“I don’t even know why you went in the first place. Don’t get me wrong, after what happened with the attack and everything, I’m glad you went. If you stayed, you could have been hurt. But she didn’t deserve you flying halfway around the bloody world to see her.”
“Despite what happened, what she’s done, she’s still my wife.”
“She abandoned us,” I snarled, my anger climbing rapidly. “Just packed up her shit in the middle of the night and left us. Left you, her husband of fifteen years. Left me, her two-week-old infant. She left us like we didn’t mean a damn thing to her. Because guess what? We didn’t. And now what? She thinks that after twenty-four years of silence, she can just waltz back into our lives like nothing happened?” I shook my head, getting to my feet.
Angry, restless energy flowed through my body. Any time the subject of my so-called “mother” came up, a dark, unrelenting rage took over my mind. I hated her. I hated her with every single cell inside me. I didn’t care what excuses she had for leaving us, why she did what she did. A mother was never meant to abandon her child.
My dad and I pretty much had this exact same conversation right before he left, and from the looks of things, this was going to end the same way too.
Dad leant forward, resting his elbows on his thighs as he steepled his fingers. He waited before responding, picking his words carefully. Smart idea, considering I had a pretty bad temper when I was riled up.
“You have every right to feel the way you do. She understands what she did, and she wants to apologise. Make it up to you.”
“I don’t need her to make it up to me. I need her to fuck off. I don’t understand why you’re so quick to forgive her, after what she did.”
He looked at me, eyes filled with sadness and hurt. “I love her,” he whispered, his voice the softest I’d ever heard it before.
I instantly felt bad. It was easy for me to forget that he’d had a life before me. A life with her. The daughter of Satan.
“She doesn’t deserve your love, Dad. Not then, and certainly not now.”
He gave me a small smile. “You know as well as I do that we can’t help who we love, Tatiana, whether they deserve it or not.”
I sat on the front porch at my house, the cool Las Vegas air nipping at my skin and making me shiver.
My thoughts were chaotic, volatile. The conversation with my dad about my mother still played over and over again in my head, worsening my mood by the second. How fucking dare she? Who did she think she was? What right did she have trying to come back into our lives like she had every right to be there?
The bitch that was my mother—Svetlana Andreeva—tried contacting me a few weeks ago, which I promptly ignored. I had no desire to hear a damn word that came out of her mouth. There was nothing she could say that would make up for twenty-four years of abandonment. For twenty-four missed birthdays and twenty-four missed Christmases. For never being there for me during all the moments a mother should be. When I lost my first tooth. The first time I got my period. My first day of highschool. My graduation. To teach me about make-up, or boys. To teach me what it means to be a woman.
All of that made it impossible for me to forgive her.
When she couldn’t get in touch with me, she decided to go through my dad instead. She asked him to fly all the way to Russia, and he had no problem dancing to her tune. It irritated me how all she had to do was click her fingers and my dad would come running.
I told him not to go. That there was nothing either of them could say to me to get me to change my mind. I had no idea what she could possibly want from me, and I didn’t fucking care. She didn’t have to be six feet under to be dead to me.
The weight of my phone in my hand brought me out of my mind. I glanced at the screen for the hundredth time, staring at Nikolai’s name, a mix of emotions taking over me.
Part of me didn’t want to talk to him. Didn’t want to even go near that door, let alone open it. Then there was this other part of me. This part that was slowly getting bigger and bigger every day, that was dying to reforge that connection with him, dying to just let go of all that anger and resentment still burning within me and move on.
Out of everyone in my life—my dad, Illayana, my aunt and uncle—he was the only person I wanted to talk to. The only person I felt like would understand. The only person I wanted to confide in about what was going on.
Stop being such a little bitch. I hit CALL.
The phone barely rang once before Nikolai picked up, his voice frantic. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
My lips curled into a small smile at his reaction to me calling him. I couldn’t really blame him for it, to be honest. It was the first time since that night that I’d reached out to him.
“Nothing’s wrong. I’m fine.”
I could almost feel his eyes narrow with suspicion through the phone. Maybe my ability to guess came down to the fact that I knew him so well.
“You’re okay?”
“Yes…no, I mean,” I exhaled, shaking my head. “I don’t know.”
“Tati,” he said softly but sternly. “What’s the matter?”
This is why you called him, you idiot. Talk to him.
“My mother reached out to me a few weeks ago.”
He was quiet for a moment. “Your mother?”
“Mmhmm.”
“What did she want?”
“To see me? Talk to me? Fuck me up even more? I have no idea, really. I hung up on her the second I realised it was her, and I’ve ignored all her calls ever since.”
“How did she get your number?”
“Don’t know, don’t care. I want nothing to do with her. My dad, though,” I shook my head, still frustrated by the whole thing. “He wants to give her a chance. Do you know why he went to Russia?”
“No, but I have a feeling it has something to do with her.”
“Yep.” I got to my feet, walking the length of the front porch and back. “She called him and said she needed to see him. But she didn’t have a passport, so what did he do? He hopped on the first flight he could get and went to her. Despite everything she’s done, he’s still willing to forgive her. I’m not entirely sure what she really wanted from him, from us. Maybe she thought she’d have better luck getting him to convince me to talk to her if she could give him the crocodile tears in person. Maybe she just wanted to fuck with him. See if she still had him on the hook. I don’t know, and I don’t fucking care.”
He chuckled softly and it made me shiver. That deep, rumbly sound always excited me. It made my heart race.
“Right. It sounds like you don’t care.”
“I don’t,” I snapped, still pacing up and down.
He chuckled again, and I wanted to smile at him and strangle him at the same time. “You want to know how I know you care, Tati? Because you babble when something matters to you. Your voice pitches higher and your words come out in a rush, like you’re trying to get the lies out as quickly as you can, so that maybe even you will believe them.”
My mouth dropped open in outrage. “I do not do that.”
“Yes, you do, love.”
Butterflies bloomed in my stomach. I should tell him off for calling me that. I should tell him pet names like that weren’t appropriate for the barely platonic relationship we now had. But the truth of the matter was, I didn’t want him to stop. I fucking liked it.
The last time we’d spoken, I told him I wanted space from him. That I didn’t want to see him or talk to him. At that moment, I meant it. I meant every word. I truly believed I wouldn’t be able to move on unless I distanced myself from him. Until I tried to forget him and the pain that came every time I saw him.
But how was I supposed to forget about him, to move on, when he still made my heart race like a jackhammer every time I so much as thought about him? Every time I heard his voice?
“You don’t know me nearly as well as you think you do, Nicky.”
“I know you better than anyone else in the world,” he fired back instantly, ignoring my attempt to get a rise out of him and shift the conversation. I called him Nicky to piss him off, to distract him whenever I was feeling vulnerable. He wasn’t falling for it this time, though. “I know you hate the colour orange because you think it washes you out. I know you prefer Dean over Sam Winchester. That you can’t stand the smell of cinnamon but love cinnamon donuts, that Twinkies are your favourite sweets, and I know that you’ve been pacing up and down your front porch since the moment we got on the phone.”
I came to an abrupt halt, frowning suspiciously. “How do you know I’ve been pacing?”
“Like I said, I know you.”
Uh-huh, right.
I glanced up at the security camera hanging up high on the outside of my house. “You’re watching me, aren’t you?”
He hesitated briefly before answering. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to see for myself that you were okay.”
Shaking my head, I raised my hand into the air, extending my middle finger and smiling wide.
I wasn’t overly surprised he’d hacked into our security system. He’d done shit like that before; using cameras and shit to track where I was going, who I was seeing, what I was doing. At first, I was outraged. I felt like it was a huge invasion of my privacy. But now? I was honestly so used to it, it didn’t even bother me anymore. It just rolled right off my shoulders. Nothing Nikolai did really surprised me anymore.
“Oh, Tati,” he breathed, a hint of excitement in his voice. “Have you forgotten already what happened the last time you did that to me?”
I sucked in a breath, the memory of that day smacking me in the face so hard that I felt lightheaded.
“Anybody ever told you you look exactly like Blake Lively, only hotter?”
I rolled my eyes. The Cosa Nostra man I was walking beside—Giovanni? No, Matteo? No. Ah, fuck. Whatever his name was didn’t matter—was laying it on so thick, there was no way anything was going to happen between us.
When I’d first seen him, clapping and cheering as we all screamed “surprise” for Arturo at his surprise thirtieth birthday party, I’d entertained the idea of hooking up with him.
He was my type to a tee: big, tall, a little gloomy. He reminded me of Nikolai. I think that was what I was attracted to, if I was being honest with myself.
We chatted a little bit, flirting with each other, and when he asked if I wanted to go somewhere for a little “privacy”, I was keen—emphasis on the was. When I was alone with him, I realised it wasn’t what I wanted. That I was using him to fill a void for someone else.
I hadn’t been physical with anyone else since Nikolai. Every time I’d tried, I couldn’t go through with it. I felt like I was being unfaithful, which was stupid. We weren’t together. Hadn’t been for a long time.
Enzo (again, not sure on the name) reached for my hand, intertwining our fingers as he brought us to a stop around the side of the house. The contact felt…wrong.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he whispered, stepping closer. He pulled me towards him, bringing our bodies within inches of each other.
“I’ve been wondering if your lips feel as soft as they look.” He lowered his head, his mouth inching closer and closer to mine.
I placed my hands on his chest, pushing back. “Wait—”
“Tatiana!” A deep voice cut through the air, a voice I’d recognise anywhere.
I glanced over Eduardo’s shoulder, my eyes widening.
Oh, shit.
Nikolai charged towards us like a man on a mission, his hands squeezed into fists, muscles bulging. His jaw was clenched, a dark, primal anger radiating from him. I’d seen that look on his face before, right before he strangled someone to death for slapping my ass.
“Who’s that?” What’s-His-Face asked, frowning at the big, hulking man stomping our way, his body still dangerously close to mine.
I stepped away from him, my back hitting the brick wall behind me. “I’d run if I were you.”
He scoffed, looking offended. “Run? From him?” He hiked his thumb over his shoulder. “I’m not scared of some two-bit thug whose arms are bigger than his brains—”
Nikolai grabbed a fistful of Elias’ hair and smashed his face into the wall. The idiot I warned to run cried out in pain, the crack of his nose breaking echoing in the air.
I sighed as he crumbled to the ground, blood trailing down the wall. “I told you to run,” I said, staring down at him crying on the grass.
“Don’t fucking talk to him,” Nikolai growled, picking him up by the back of his shirt. He pulled out a knife and held it to his throat.
“Nikolai, don’t. You’ll just—”
He plunged the knife up Emilio’s chin, killing him without a moment’s hesitation.
“—cause problems,” I huffed out, shaking my head.
He’d just killed a Cosa Nostra soldier in the house of the guy’s Don. Things were already tense between them and us. This would just cause more problems when people found out.
“Goddamn it, Nicky. You need to get that jealous temper of yours under control.”
Nikolai picked up Emiliano’s lifeless body and threw him to the side like he was a piece of trash. Then he was right up against me, his body flush with mine.
I gasped at the feel of him, my mind going blank. He stared down at me, positively brimming with rage.
“Did he kiss those lips?” Nikolai whispered darkly, gripping my chin.
My heart slammed in my chest, my body on fire. It had been nearly two years since he touched me like this, and it felt just as amazing as it did the very first time.
“Answer me, love.” He leant closer, his voice skating over my skin. “Did you let him kiss you?”
“No,” I swallowed. I was incapable of resisting him when he was this close, when I could feel his body pressed against mine. When I could breathe in the intoxicating scent of his cologne, mixed with his alluring natural scent. It made it so easy to forget all the bad shit that’s happened between us.
Nikolai’s mesmerising blue eyes trailed over my bare arms. “But you let him touch you, didn’t you?”
I rolled my eyes. “You seem to be forgetting one very important piece of information here, Nicky. It’s none of your business if he touched me, if he kissed me. I can do whatever I want. Fuck whoever I want. So, why don’t you take this right here”—I held up my middle finger—“and go fuck yourself?” I asked, smiling sweetly.
His gaze flicked to my hand and back to my face quickly. He moved with a deadly calm, wrapping his fingers around mine. The skin-to-skin contact was electrifying.
“Wha-what are you doing?” I shuddered as he slowly brought my hand down my body and between my legs. The way his hand was wrapped around mine prevented me from lowering my middle finger.
“You think I’m just going to accept that bratty attitude of yours, Tatiana?” he rumbled, his other hand brushing the inside of my thigh.
Anticipation zinged up my spine. My eyes darted around our surroundings, the music and laughter from the party floating in the air. We were completely out in the open. Anyone could come walking around the side of the house and catch us.
“You’re going to stand here and fuck yourself with that finger you so rudely aimed my way,” he said huskily, staring deeply into my eyes.
I swear to God, I had to bite my lip to stop from whimpering. I couldn’t even put into words how good it felt having him so close, what his touch did to me.
“Nikolai,” I glanced from side to side, breathing heavily. “Someone could see.”
He chuckled darkly. “But you like that, don’t you, love? You like knowing we could be caught at any moment.” He hooked his fingers around my underwear and pulled them to the side, freeing my pussy. “The idea of someone stumbling onto us, seeing you at my mercy. It turns you on, doesn’t it?”
I didn’t bother answering because he knew I liked it. I did not by any means want to actually be caught. But the idea of it?
Yeah, it was thrilling as hell.
He brushed my own finger over my clit, making me gasp.
“Tell me what you feel,” he breathed against the side of my neck. “Are you wet for me, my Tati?”
There was no fucking way I could hold in the whimper that time. I had over six-and-a-half feet of pure muscle pressing me into the wall, whispering filthy things in my ear.
I was goddamn helpless, and he knew it.
“Yes,” I panted, swivelling my hips slightly, trying to increase the pressure. It might have been my own finger that was giving me pleasure, but Nikolai was the one controlling it. Deciding where it was going, whether it was a light or a hard touch.
“How does my pussy feel, hmm?” he purred, pushing my finger through my folds. He stopped at my entrance, not letting me go any further. “I haven’t touched her in so long,” he practically whined. “I miss her.” He bit down on my neck and I groaned. “Does she miss me?”
“Let me stick my finger in and I’ll tell you.”
He leant back slightly, smirking down at me. There was a sinful look in his eyes, one that made my pulse fucking skyrocket.
He pushed my hand forward and my finger slipped right in, a moan falling from my lips. He pressed deeper and deeper, unwrapping his hand from mine as he went until my middle finger was knuckle-deep in my pussy. His grip moved to my palm, tight and restricting, not allowing me an inch to play with. I could still move my finger back and forth, but it wasn’t enough to get me to come.
And Nikolai knew it.
He knew I needed more, and I knew I wouldn’t get it until I gave him the answer he was looking for.
Stubborn, big-headed—
“Your pussy misses you,” I whispered.
He gave me a feral smile, one of pure, male satisfaction. He began moving my hand, manipulating it in a way that had my back arching from the pleasure. I moaned his name.
Nikolai watched me with hooded eyes, his arm disappearing under my sundress, along with mine.
“More, Nikolai, more,” I begged, completely lost in the moment, rolling my hips.
“Do you want my fingers, love? You need me to help?”
“Yes. Yes.”
He lowered his head, running his tongue over my bottom lip. “You know what I want to hear.”
I whimpered, my legs shaking. It had been so long since I’d come by someone else’s hand, so long since someone other than myself had given me pleasure. After what happened between us, I’d told myself time and time again that I’d never fall under his spell again. That we were done. Ancient history.
“I belong to you.”
Dark possessiveness shone in his eyes. His grip on my hand loosened, but when I tried to pull my finger from my pussy, he stopped me. I was about to yell at him, the word ‘asshole’ literally on the tip of my tongue. It vanished the moment I felt his finger slip inside me, right next to my own. We both groaned. Nikolai moved closer, his cock digging into my hip. It made the whole thing even hotter. Feeling how hard he was, knowing it was all because of me, was fucking exhilarating. Even after all those years.
“You’re so wet, baby. God, I’ve missed this. I missed your greedy pussy sucking me in.” He kept his touch light but firm. Exactly the way I liked it. Excitement burned in my veins. I moaned as the pressure between my legs built higher and higher, my orgasm approaching fast.
“I love that fucking sound,” Nikolai grunted, increasing the pace. “You better hurry, love. I think I hear someone coming. Unless, you want them to see you come all over my fingers? Is that what you want? Hmm?” He slipped another finger inside me and I cried out, gripping his shoulder and holding onto him as I bared down.
“Fuck, Nikolai,” I panted heavily, grinding against our hands.
I was going to come. It was right there. I could feel it inching closer and closer. The combination of his words, his scent, his touch, the prospect of someone catching us…it was all too much.
Fuck. Fuck.
Nikolai slammed his lips to mine to smother my cry as white-hot, blistering pleasure exploded inside me, spreading through me like a rushing wave. The feel and taste of his tongue in my mouth heightened everything. He kissed me sensually, slow and deep as he pumped our fingers in and out a few more times before pulling them out completely.
My head fell forward, resting against his chest as I tried to catch my breath. God, Nikolai gave the best orgasms. Without a shadow of a doubt. It was partly his skills, but a lot of it was just him. The way he knew me better than anyone. He knew exactly what I liked.
Taking a small step back, Nikolai brought our hands up between us, our fingers glistening from my orgasm. Hunger burned in his eyes. He stared at my wetness like a man starved, desperate to taste. His eyes locked onto mine, the intensity in his gaze hot enough to sear me as he slowly sucked our fingers into his mouth. My breath hitched.
He groaned, long and low, his eyes rolling into the back of his head.
“Oh, fuckkkk,” he dragged out, hollowing his cheeks and sucking harder and harder, like he was trying to get every drop of me. There was something so fucking hot about a man who loved how you tasted. Who couldn’t get enough of it. Who—
“I’m telling you, man, getting a finger in your ass actually feels pretty good.”
I stiffened when Lukyan rounded the corner, one of Illayana’s guards, Christian or Luca (I could never tell which one was which) at his side.
They stopped dead in their tracks when they saw us; me pressed up against the wall, Nikolai with both of our fingers in his mouth.
Lukyan just smirked. “Are we interrupting?”
