by Lana Sky
The longer he observes them, the more pained his expression becomes until, finally, I feel compelled to brace my hand over his shoulder.
“Let’s give her a little bit more time, huh?”
His only sign of acknowledgment is a terse nod before he turns on his heel, retreating inside the house. I spare the trio one last glance—they’re so caught up in their game, Maxim it seems has turned the tables on his two charges, lifting them into the air one by one. Neither one seems to notice our arrival or our absence.
We retreat back to the house, and by the time Magda finally returns, courtesy of Ena, she’s a rumpled, exhausted shadow of the earlier, energetic princess. She can barely keep her eyes open during dinner, and Vadim has to carry her up to bed.
Once she’s down, I follow him into the master suite, but even as I run my hands down his back, inching toward his front, I sense he’s not fully here. Especially when I tug at the fastenings of his pants, and he doesn’t react.
“Earth to Vadim,” I murmur against the back of his neck, but I’m worried. I’d almost forgotten just how far away he can seem when his thoughts are focused inward. Like we’re miles apart, separated by infinity. “Tell me what’s wrong,” I urge him, moving my hands to cup his hips.
“Maxim,” he says coldly, but his voice lacks the vitriol I’m used to hearing where his brother is concerned. “Given how much you’ve been eavesdropping, you’re probably aware, but someone has been causing his business interests trouble in Russia. I’ll spare you the nitty details—let’s just say that everything my brother has a hand in isn’t necessarily legal, so his position is a bit more precarious than you’d think.”
“Legal,” I say, tasting the word carefully. It tastes dangerous. Like a trigger to a potential avalanche of unwelcome information—like the aspects of him that Irina alluded to. Mocked me over. “And what about you?” I ask him softly, my eyes on the line of his jaw—it tightens. “Is everything you do completely legal?”
He sighs and grasps my hands, spinning around to face me in the same motion. I wind up caught in his embrace, forced to crane my neck to meet his gaze. Gone is any ounce of a barrier—he lets me see all of him clearly. The shadows bathe his beautiful features in a mixture of darkness and light. Much like who he is at his core, I suspect. A man capable of the tenderest love imaginable…
And yet equally ruthless, shaped by the hell he grew up in. Is it fair to even expect such a creature to play by the rules of the very world that chewed him up and spit him out?
I can’t decide as his eyes scan mine, hunting for a reaction. I’m not sure what he finds. Dread? Concern? Desperation just to learn more about him?
“I would lie to you,” he tells me as his thumb ghosts my cheek in a reverent caress. “I would. If I knew that it would shape your opinion of me… I would lie merely to keep you. But in the end, it wouldn’t. Trust?” He makes the word sound more foreign to him than any other concept, flicking his tongue along his lower lip just to sample the aftermath. Lowering his mouth to my ear, his arms shift around me, crushing me against him. “That’s what you want, isn’t it? My trust. I could entrust the truth to you. But warn me now if it could change this. Us.”
I inhale sharply, startled by the raw heat in his voice. What the hell could he reveal? And would anything truly change my opinion of him? It could. That’s the scary fucking part—never mind my trust in him, do I trust my heart to have picked the right man to claim it?
It didn’t do so good of a job the last time.
“It could,” I confess, flinching as he stiffens. “But you need to trust me to handle the truth.”
“So ask me,” he commands, his voice concealing the hint of a dare. “I will tell you anything you want to know.”
I swallow hard; the gravity of the offer isn’t lost on me. Tentatively, I decide to start with the obvious, horrible suspicion tossing around my brain ever since Irina first implied it. “Do… Do you hurt people?” I don’t even know how else to phrase it. “Like how you were—”
“No!” He wrenches back from me, his expression pained. “I do not trade in people. Never.”
“Okay,” I murmur, smoothing my fingers along his jaw until he stills, his nostrils flaring at the mere suggestion. “So, what is it you do, then?”
Illegal or not, anything has to be better than human trafficking.
Right?
“You need to understand something about my family…” He moves to the bed, sitting on the edge with his back to me. His shoulders are rigid, his posture taking on the tense, stone-like stiffness that’s become a hallmark of when he reflects on his past. I can’t imagine how painful this is for him to face—and the true magnitude of darkness those memories may hold. “My father belonged to a family well-known in Russia and beyond for their ruthless grip on power. The Koslovs.”
He says that name the same way he referred to Irina and her exploits while speaking to Milton. With utter disgust and loathing.
“Various branches dabble in their own aspects of crime—some so evil you couldn’t fathom them. As far as Maxim and I are concerned, our father dealt primarily in weapons. Stealing them from various military strongholds or manufacturers and then selling them to the highest bidder on the black market. Whether it be to mercenaries, or crime lords terrorizing parts of Africa, money dictates the sale rather than morality.”
“So, is that what Maxim does?” I ask, advancing toward him. “He sells weapons?”
“And more.” He inclines his head as if gauging for himself just how much more I’m willing to hear. In the end, he says, “His club? He uses it primarily as a front to swindle blackmail and favors from powerful clients or rivals. He doesn’t employ the same tactics my old master did, mind you, but the aim is the same.”
“I might have been able to guess that much eventually,” I admit, thinking of Geoff, the man I met there. He made scoring entry to the club sound comparable to winning the lottery, though he had also implied the shadowy nature of Maxim and his operations. “So what is it you do?”
“Me?” He sighs, and from this angle, I catch how his eyes flicker toward the windows, cold and distant. “I have a stranglehold on one of the premier pharmaceutical manufacturers in the world. When I took control, Eingel was little more than a blip on the map—a small, though pioneering, biotechnical firm. Now, they corner the lion’s share of the market. Insulin. Lab equipment. Research studies regarding various vaccines to illnesses, some of them newly discovered. But one drug that makes up most of our portfolio is one used by paramedics to treat heroin overdoses. It’s a fairly new delivery system, allowing it to be given with the same ease one might use to administer an epinephrine pen.”
“But?” I croak, sensing a horrible caveat looming on the horizon.
He shifts to face me, his expression open and wary. It’s his unease that makes me steel myself against the truth. His seeming resignation to the fact that whatever he’s about to reveal, I won’t accept. And yet he’s taking the risk to trust me with it, all the same.
“The drug is a form of Naloxone, engineered to be effective within seconds of administration. But I ensure its demand more than matches the supply.”
He pauses deliberately, as if forcing me to ask the magic words.
“How?”
“By taking steps to ensure the flow of heroin continues unabated,” he says. “Using my influence to ensure incoming shipments into the city aren’t entirely seized by law enforcement, for one. Supplying dealers through untraceable methods. No matter how fierce a campaign some praise-hungry politician mounts against ‘the war on drugs,’ my interests are never threatened.”
He sounds ice-cold. No bluster. No bravado. One hundred percent honest.
And I feel punched. Swaying, I grapple for the edge of the mattress and sink onto it. “We can’t mention that to my parents at Christmas dinner,” I croak. I’m surprised when I blink to find moisture building behind my eyes. Out of shock? Fear? Or perhaps just pure sadness for the fact tha
t someone as beautiful, and intelligent can never rise fully above the darkness that bore him.
“Tell me why,” I whisper before the horror can build to an unbearable level. “I want to hear you explain it to me.”
The bed shifts as he stands, his steps heavy. “Maxim was given control of our family’s assets from the time he was ten years old,” he confesses. “I was given nothing. Always, I had to fight and scrape to gain a fraction of what the chosen heir had handed to him on a silver platter. Always. You don’t understand… In our world, power is money. Money is life. If I couldn’t outwit them, garner my own resources to stay ahead, I would have drowned before I realized the water was even above my head. It is a cruel world, and cruel measures are required to survive in it. I refuse to lie down like a good dog. Never again will I be used as a toy in another’s game.”
His voice… That isn’t Vadim talking. I imagine it’s his father, or worse—some other phantom who threatened or harmed him in the past. Even now, seemingly successful with more money than any man could ask for, he’s still running. Still fighting.
Can he ever truly be at peace?
“I can’t pretend like I agree with any of this,” I admit, my eyes welling, throat constricting. “I can’t. I can’t understand it—but I can admit that I have never been faced with what you have. You want my trust, then you have it. That doesn’t mean acceptance.”
He stops, his back to me. “So what does it mean?”
I suck in a breath at the ice in his tone. It’s not the chilling, detached way he’s spoken to me when cutting me off from Magda or accusing me of wanting to use him. This anger, I suspect, is fully focused inward, solely at the boy he used to be, desperate to outwit his brother at every turn. Craving to prove his worth in any way he could. A part of me wants to…
But in the end, I can’t blame that little boy for who he is now.
I don’t have that right.
“Should I prepare the plane to fly you to California?” he wonders. But he sounds so hollow, I doubt he’s joking. Resigned. He’s that convinced I’ll leave him merely for hearing the truth.
“I’m not running, am I?” I ask hoarsely. “I’m listening. I’m processing…” Sighing, I rise to my feet, advancing toward him on trembling limbs. “I love you.”
The space where his arm meets his shoulder is a refuge I seek out, burying my face in that hollow as my arms go around him to settle over his stomach. “That means facing the good and the bad. You’re more than the person I met in a bar on a whim. I can’t expect everything about you to be tailor-made for my life and expectations. But… Neither can you when it comes to me. So I’m asking for the same mercy. Be honest with me.”
His fingers flutter over mine, hesitant as if he’s not fully convinced I won’t pull away. “Anything.”
“What do you really expect from us? I need to know. Is it children? B-Biological children—” God, how selfish is it that this topic stings more than the reality of him supplying an entire illegal drug trade to spur the sales of his company’s assets. Damn Irina. Her smug grin is in my head, her snide accusations ever looming. I can’t escape them no matter how hard I fucking try. Walking away from a glorified drug dealer due to my own moral compass is one thing. Having him cast me aside because of the failings of my own body is another.
It’s so selfish…
But there it is.
“I want to hear it from you,” I tell him, my words muffled by the fabric of his suit jacket. “Please. Just tell me—”
“I don’t deserve one child.” His voice resonates throughout his entire body, guttural with pure conviction. “Let alone more. I’m not so arrogant as to demand more.”
He shifts, prying me from him only to spin me into the embrace of his chest. With utter gentleness, his fingers brush my chin, coaxing me into facing him. Those eyes swallow me whole, absolving my guilt, my fear.
He looks at me like someone seeing sunlight after years spent in the dark. With too much awe, he looks at me—more than any one woman could ever deserve. Ever live up to.
But he doesn’t make it feel unwarranted—and that’s the terrifying part.
“Love,” he murmurs, trailing his lips across my forehead. Then down. Over my cheek and against my mouth. “I won’t demand more from you than what you can offer. Again.”
I sway, seeking out the contours of his body for stability.
“Push me away like that again, and I’ll kill you,” I tell him seriously. “Your reputation or not.”
“My reputation…” He chuckles, and some of that persistent pain leaves his gaze. Just enough to make him seem more exhausted than calculating for once. A man so used to going to war with the world, he’s still mistrustful of peace. “But that is why Irina’s recent actions don’t make sense,” he admits, his lips contorting into a frown as the pressing reality at the forefront asserts itself again. “I never told her about Maxim. To go after him, she has an aim in mind far beyond aggravating me.”
In a funny way, it’s striking that he can only realize as much now, with a tiny fraction of his animosity toward Maxim cooled for Magda’s sake.
“Like?” I press.
His brow furrows, revealing a mere glimpse of a man ruthless enough to rebuild the world around him as he saw fit. “Like… She dug too deep into my past and decided to make a deal with the devil.”
I feel my eyebrow raising. “Don’t tell me Lucifer himself is another relative.”
“My grandfather,” he says, without missing a beat. The scary part? He doesn’t sound like he’s joking. “Anatoli Koslov. A bastard cruel enough to sow an empire of thieving, scheming degenerates. Maxim defied him. I’d thought he’d slunk off to Moscow by now.”
“You think Irina…made a deal with him somehow?”
“No,” he says quickly, but he frowns, raking a hand through his hair. “Unless… Fuck!” He turns, pacing with renewed focus. “How the fuck didn’t I see it before? Why would a woman like Irina have a child? My child. I can tell you she never expressed a maternal interest before. But to the Koslovs? A child is a commodity,” he says darkly, his hands curling into fists. “One easily bought and sold. My past? I still have yet to tell you the full extent.”
He inhales raggedly, his body swaying, his eyes unfocused.
“I’m here,” I say, bracing my hand against his chest. “I’m here.”
“My mother sold me to my father. To the Koslovs,” he says. “And when I failed to challenge Maxim, I was given to our uncle, Sevastyn. His realm was far different than trading in guns,” he admits, his voice rasping. “Through him… I was sold to The Collector.”
“Oh my god…” It’s too horrifying to fathom. I refuse to, pressing my face against his chest, sensing his heart pound frantically underneath.
“Maxim has not always played by our grandfather’s rules,” he adds. “Securing an heir should have been his primary focus the moment he came of age—but he hasn’t. Deliberately, I suspect, though the bastard would never admit as much to me. As far as Anatoli is concerned, having a child of Koslov blood—no matter their origins—would be a preferable backup. Even the child of a worthless bastard long since sold.”
My heart breaks for him. As cold as he sounds, and as ruthless as he can be, admitting as much guts him. I know it does.
“You think that’s why Irina had Magda? To sell her to your family?”
“If she is prominent in the trade, then she knew Sevastyn,” he grates, his expression horrified. “No one could enter that realm without kissing that bastard’s ring. But if that was her aim, to curry favor with a child, they would have no interest in a girl.”
And, in a cruel twist of fate, once Magda became diagnosed with diabetes, Irina had no interest in her either.
“But why keep her?” I ask, more to myself than him. “If the Koslovs didn’t want her, and obviously her bond to her wasn’t that strong considering she abandoned her, why keep her at all for the first five years of her life?”
Som
ething in Vadim’s expression shifts. He’s having one of his many revelations, but this one is different. It crushes him. “Money,” he rasps. “Money she could extort via blackmail.”
“From you?”
He shakes his head. “Of the man whose research may have led to her creation being possible in the first place. Irina somehow stole the remnants of our employer’s sick experiments—but those experiments were only possible due to Hiram Gorgoshev and his expertise.”
And once selling Magda to the Koslovs was no longer an option, Irina decided to use her as a cash cow instead, extorting money from Hiram to keep her child’s origins secret. My heart throbs for her, Magda. I can’t imagine anyone ever treating their own child so callously.
But at least in her case, she wound up in the arms of someone who will go to the ends of the earth to protect her.
“I know what the bitch wants,” Vadim growls. “Why she’s chosen now to come back. Sevastyn’s dead. Without him, I’m sure her sick fucking realm is in shambles. She wants to ally with the Koslovs to ensure her revenue isn’t affected.”
And she’ll use her own daughter as a bargaining chip to do so. It’s such a sad, selfish motive, but something warns me that it’s only a fraction of what may be really driving Irina. I can’t ignore how she looked when speaking about him. That possessiveness.
And pain at the thought of being forgotten by him.
“What are you going to do?” I ask, running my fingers over the planes of his chest.
He catches my wrist, his expression softening as he forces his attention outward.
“Irina would only feel bold enough to go after Maxim if she assumed I wouldn’t put the pieces together in time.”
“I guess your relationship must not be a secret then.”
“But if I go to him directly… If we combine our resources…” He frowns, not liking the idea even as the words leave his mouth. “He’d never agree to it.”