“I think she’s telling the truth, Viktor,” Alexandra said softly. “I… I’ve known Elena for most of my life, and I know that it was me who believed that she never could have been loyal to her father, but I really think she’s telling the truth. I’ve never seen her act like this around a man before—and I’ve seen her go home with enough of them.”
Elena opened her eyes, if only so she could look at her friend. Alexandra’s face was burdened with worry.
“Alexandra, call for help,” Viktor said. He didn’t take his gaze off Elena. “While Roman is given medical assistance, we’ll take the steps necessary to make sure our Popov agent lacks the ammunition she needs to do any more harm while we investigate her claims.”
A whoosh of air left Elena’s lungs all at once. “Thank you. Thank you, Viktor. If nothing else, please, save him. He doesn’t deserve any of this.”
“And neither do we.” Viktor’s eyes had lost their cruelty, but his voice was as hard as ever. “If you are telling the truth, and if you do survive this, there will still be consequences for your actions. You will not be treated with the grace we have previously shown you.”
“I understand.”
Elena glanced toward the door. Alexandra was hunched by Roman’s side, her phone held to her ear. She spoke quietly, but Elena was sure that she was calling the Sokolov family doctor. There was still hope. With him on call, able to respond to in-house calls within moments, perhaps Roman could be saved.
“I’ll win your trust back, if you give me the chance,” Elena murmured. She didn’t struggle, nor did she make a move to get up. If Viktor was generous enough to give her a second chance, she wouldn’t ruin it. She would be placid. “I’ll show you who I really am when the strings are cut. From here on out, I have no ulterior motives—I’m me, and my loyalty lies with Roman and the Sokolovs. I’d already decided as much until… until this morning, I was reminded of the cruelty of my father, and felt that I had no choice but to do this. But you’ve shown me more kindness than my blood family ever has. I won’t betray you again.”
“Pretty words, but will they be true?” Viktor removed his foot from her chest, but she stayed still. There were footsteps down the hall and the sound of raised voices in the distance. Help was on its way. “This is your only chance, Elena. I will not favor you again.”
One chance was all she needed. Whatever it took, she would stick by Roman.
She would put her father in the ground if she needed to. He was already dead to her, anyway. Blood or not, she’d found her real family. She would never stray again.
19
Roman
For a while, there was weightless, blissful nothing. Roman floated. The world passed around him, of that he was certain, but there were no markers of passed time, and no shapes or sensations he could cling to. For some time, he wondered if this was what death was—a vast, impersonal nothing in which he could be forever, and yet never be. He was only vaguely aware of his body—a warm, nebulous thing with blurry boarders—but it no longer bothered him. It was an afterthought rather than an immediate consideration.
Then, the dream-world came to a sudden end, and Roman opened his eyes to light.
To silence. He blinked a few times in an attempt to clear the sleep from his eyes and focus his vision. Above him was the same ceiling he was used to waking up to every day. There was a mattress beneath his back, familiar, and warm blankets over his body with the same fresh laundry smell he’d become used to. It was his bedroom in the Sokolov mansion, he realized.
He was alive.
Slowly, he turned his head to the side. The furniture in the room was the same. The sparse belongings on his dresser and the few decorative items he owned were just as they always were. His bedroom had been undisturbed. The only difference was the woman in the tiny dress standing at the window, looking out over the front lawn.
“Elena,” Roman murmured. He tried to sit up, but there was a shooting pain in his side that prevented him from doing so. He clenched his teeth and sank back down into bed. Memories of what had happened before his weightless sleep flooded back to him—the assault, the take-down, and the injury. The details were at first hazy, but slowly, the fog parted. Elena had tried to kill Viktor… and now here she was, standing in his bedroom. Had she succeeded, or had he passed through purgatory and found his way to heaven?
“Roman?” Elena turned. Her eyes were wide, but there was a gentle smile on her face. There was no fear. She came calmly to his bedside and took his hand in hers. A strange, sprawling peace spread through his chest. “Are you feeling okay?”
“About as well as a man who was stabbed in the side can be,” he said. He tried to shift his weight, but gave up when the pain returned. It wasn’t worth the effort. “What… what happened? Why are you still here? Why are we both still alive?”
“Viktor took pity on us,” Elena replied. She stroked the back of his hand with her thumb. “I asked him to save you, and he complied.”
“He wouldn’t have done that without reason. I betrayed him.”
“I showed him that I was serious when I said that I was no longer working for my father.” Elena’s thumb traced slow circles. The contact relaxed Roman from hand to shoulder, and he closed his eyes again and allowed that sensation to spread through him, as he lay listening to her speak. “I gave him the information he wanted, and he… he decided to give me a second chance. I told him the truth, and his investigations showed it. I’ve been cooperating with him since. We’re not on the best of terms, but I’m not going to die. Not for now, at least… and I think, in time, maybe he’ll come to trust me again. That’s my hope. But for now, all I want is for you to be okay. I was so worried.”
“You saved me.” Roman tried to laugh, but his injury made doing so too painful. He gave up, choking off the end of the laugh to rest his sides. “You stabbed me… but you saved me, too.”
“I didn’t mean to.” Elena’s cheeks turned pink, and she dropped her chin. “I didn’t know who it was who’d tackled me, and I freaked out. I was really strung out. My father’s enforcer stopped by and threatened me… and, well… I didn’t make the best choices. I panicked. I’m sorry for that. I understand if you can’t forgive me, but… but I want you to know that, despite what I did, despite whether you’ll forgive me, I love you. And I’m sorry for what I did—so sorry, Roman. Now that the truth is out in the open, and now that I’ve proven where my loyalties lie, I know it will never happen again.”
Roman considered her words, and knew in his heart that they were true. There was no way that Elena would be here in his room if Viktor thought she was lying.
Elena dropped his hand. She sank one knee into the mattress, then climbed up over him and carefully settled on his lap. Her weight was near negligible—she supported it on her thighs. His injury didn’t flare up, and he found himself able to tolerate the change in position.
“I… I’m sorry for what I’ve done, Roman.” Elena traced her fingers along his shoulder, and he let out a slow, pleased sigh. “I want to make it up to you. I was so worried that you wouldn’t pull through. Viktor’s doctor did the best he could, but there was still fear that you wouldn’t make it. You lost a lot of blood, and there was internal damage…”
Roman blinked. Her touch was distracting him from the severity of what had happened, but there were still questions that had to be asked. “How long was I out?”
“A few days,” she admitted. “The doctor kept you drugged to make sure that you rested. He tapered you off today, and he said that you’d be waking up at some time today, but… there was no clear timeline as to when that would be. I decided I’d wait here for you to come to.”
He smiled. Slowly, careful not to aggravate his injury, he lifted his hand and ran his fingertips down her arm. She leaned forward carefully and kissed him gently, then tried to pull back, but Roman didn’t want her to leave. He lifted his hand and wove his fingers through her hair, keeping her close. He renewed the kiss, and she hummed against his
lips in pleasure.
It didn’t matter that he’d been hurt. It didn’t matter what she had or hadn’t done. The past was the past, and his heart had spoken as true as Viktor’s judgment had. Heart pounding, he deepened the kiss. He knew that he was in no physical state to make love to her, but he craved her touch—the thrill of being alive was too great to resist, and he wanted to revel in it as best he could.
But Elena didn’t need to be guided. She pulled away only slightly from Roman’s lips and looked him in the eyes, her gaze docile. One knee at a time, she lifted herself from the bed and his body, guiding the covers down until she was seated on his lap. Roman was naked, but it wasn’t until she sat that he realized there was nothing beneath her skirt. The warm embrace of her skin caressed his shaft, and Roman held back a moan.
“Elena,” he murmured, in total awe of what was happening, but also apprehensive of what he knew would come to pass. He wanted her, but he was too weak to sit up, let alone treat her as she deserved to be treated. “I can’t…”
“You don’t have to,” she whispered. With calculated movements, she rubbed herself along his shaft. He sucked in a breath and closed his eyes, his heart skipping a beat. Even though his body was injured, it wanted her, and it hardened for her without issue. She was already wet for him—he felt it, and it made him want to plunge into her and make her his, just as she’d been before.
Elena lifted up just a little, and when she came down again, she was angled just right, so that he slipped inside of her. The sudden warmth of her body flooded him, and the moan that he’d been trying to hold back before finally escaped his lips. Elena replied in kind, and the sound of her pleasure drove him to want more… only, he couldn’t engage. Whatever happened next was up to her, and he let her take control, if only for a little while.
He let it all go, and he was glad that he did.
With a gentle swing of her hips, Elena teased him. She kept herself tight for him, squeezing every now and then to increase his pleasure. It seemed like every thrust of her hips and ripple of her walls was designed for his pleasure, not hers, and in his state, all Roman could do was accept it.
She was devoting herself to him not only through the words she said, but by the way she acted, as well. He recalled the spoiled, snobby, brattish girl he’d met on the flight back to Boston and couldn’t believe how far she’d come.
Or how far they’d come together.
“This is all about you,” Elena whispered. Her voice hitched with pleasure as she sank down onto him, ever careful of his wound, then rose up again and let him feel her all over again. Roman moaned anew, and he lifted his arms to support her by the hips. “All of this is for you. I love you, Roman. I hope you know it.”
“And I love you.” Roman had never believed it possible, but here he was, in love with her deeply enough that he would give his own life to keep her safe, even had she been the enemy. Had he been told several months ago that he would do something so foolish, he would have laughed. Now he couldn’t imagine another way. Elena was the one for him. “I love you so goddamn much.”
There was a change in the way she moved—a subtle shift that increased the intensity of her movements, but that didn’t disturb his body. A bolt of pleasure shot down the length of Roman’s cock and came to nest in his balls, and he knew that there was no way he could hold back from coming.
“I’m not going to last much longer,” he warned her. “You need to pull back before that happens. We’re not…”
Elena’s eyes darkened with lust. She rocked forward, and he almost lost it right then. “I don’t care. I want you to.”
Roman couldn’t hold back. Invited to come inside of her, his body already stretched to incredible lengths as it healed, he let go. Orgasm tore through him and tightened every one of his muscles for a moment of pain and pleasure before everything went slack, and relief took over. Atop him, he felt Elena tighten. She sucked in a tiny, greedy breath, then pulled away and laid at his side on the bed.
“Did you come?” he asked, unsure what had happened. She’d been so quiet, and he’d done so little.
“I came.” She pressed a kiss to his neck. Her breathing was heavier than it had been before, and he got the impression she was being truthful. After what had happened in Viktor’s room, he figured that lying would no longer be an issue. “God, did I come. Not every end is fireworks. Some of the best ones are slow burns, and they sizzle. You drive me there, chaufferone… and you know what?”
Roman grinned. He couldn’t help it—the love brimming behind his collarbone expanded and rose until it stretched his lips. “What?’
“I don’t think this is a ride I’m ever going to want to get off of.” She snuggled up to his side and released a contented sigh. “I’m afraid you’re stuck with me now. You took on this job thinking you’d only have to watch me for a while… and now you’ve got to watch me for a hell of a lot longer than that.”
“There are worse jobs,” Roman said, his smile never ending. “There are far, far worse jobs. In fact, if I had to do it for the rest of my life, I don’t think I’d mind.”
“Mmm, I’ll hold you to that, you know.” She laughed, then nestled against him. “As long as you continue to hold yourself against me. Often. Like, probably every night until the end of time… as long as I haven’t stabbed you lately.”
Roman choked back a laugh that irritated the hell out of his injury. It was worth it. What he’d found with Elena wasn’t just the start of something new—it was the start of something permanent. He’d found in her a new way to live, and through that, a new way to love. And no matter the pain he suffered, and no matter the obstacles along the way, he’d never let her go again.
Not for his career. Not for Viktor. Not even for death itself.
Elena was his, and she would be forever more. He’d make sure of it.
Epilogue
Elena
Roman took step after careful step, supporting Elena’s mother, Raisa, toward the front door of the Sokolov mansion. Elena stood nearby, holding the door open for them both. Tears brimmed in her eyes as her mother turned her head in Roman’s direction and smiled. There was life in her eyes again, and although nothing could reverse all the damage done to her, she was improving with each and every day.
And today, Viktor was moving her permanently into the Sokolov mansion, where she would be given her own private nurse and assured the best medical attention anyone could afford. Elena had redeemed herself over the past few months, cooperating in every way she could in order to track her father down. So far, they hadn’t been successful, but each step brought them a little closer, and she knew it wouldn’t be long now. He couldn’t hide forever, and for now, she and her mother were safe here, together. One of these days, she would flush her father out and let him know what she thought of his horrendous treatment of the ones he was supposed to love the most.
Roman winked at her as he passed, guiding her mother into the house. Elena’s heart skipped a beat, and she winked back. She was about to follow him in and take up position on her mother’s free side when someone burst through the doors in a hurry, almost crashing directly into Elena.
“H-Hey!” Elena uttered. The person continued to speed away, heading for one of the cars parked along the drop-off point in front of the house. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? That’s so rude!”
“I don’t have time,” the individual snarled back. It wasn’t until Elena heard his voice that she clued into who the figure was—Kostya, Viktor’s younger brother.
“Um?” Elena followed him forward, not wanting to give up on him just yet. “Kostya? I’m serious. That was really rude of you. What’s going on?”
He didn’t reply.
“Hey!” Elena raised her voice. “Answer me, dickwad! What’s got your panties in such a bunch?”
Kostya stopped at one of the parked cars. He looked back at her, narrowed his eyes in total hatred, and then yanked open the door and sank into the seat. Before she could ge
t another word in, he slammed the door shut.
“Rude!” Elena grumbled. She crossed her arms and watched the car speed off. “What the hell is his deal, anyway?”
“His deal is that he doesn’t know beauty when he sees it,” Roman said, startling her. “Don’t let him ruin today for you. Your mother is sitting inside. She needed a break before making the last leg of the journey to her new room. Would you like to accompany us there?”
Back in the present moment, in happiness, Elena smiled at him. As her heart rate slowed back to normal, she leaned against his side and took his hand in hers. “I’d love that.”
“Then let’s go.” Roman squeezed her hand and guided her back into the Sokolov mansion. Thoughts of Kostya exited Elena’s mind. There were other, better things to worry about.
Her life as a Popov was over, but her life as a Sokolov had just begun… and with Roman here by her side, what a life it was already shaping up to be.
End of Falling for the Mob Soldier
Blurb
Kostya “Mad Dog” Sokolov has earned his reputation as a ruthless enforcer for the Russian mob. Cold, menacing, and driven, he has long ago dismissed any softness that might have been inside of him. And since his father was murdered, he’s wanted only one thing: revenge on the man who did it. The best way for Kostya to flush out his prey—Anatoly Popov—is to follow Popov’s daughter, Maya. What Kostya doesn’t count on is getting knocked out and forgetting why he’s in London or how he ended up in the flat of a beautiful woman. But once he remembers his mission, he realizes the only thing standing in his way is a pretty girl with a too-big heart. A pretty girl who’s the daughter of the man he’s vowed to kill.
The Sokolov Brothers: The Complete Series Page 21