Chapter 23

RAFAIL

Popov doesn’t fuck around.

Each safe house feels like a fortress, this place with low, arched ceilings with impenetrable walls of reinforced concrete and steel. The walls are lined with soundproof panels, and the rooms are surprisingly well furnished. The more I look at it, I realize… this isn’t just a hideout but a cage. A cage we could be trapped in for a lot longer than we’re prepared for.

Jesus, I hope we’re not here long-term.

The rooms are windowless but brightly lit, furnished with beds nestled in steel frames and a series of locks on the door.

“Oh, there is a window,” Zoya says excitedly when Rodion shakes his head with a snort.

“That’s one of those panels that looks like a window, but it’s only digital.”

Her face falls, and she stifles a sigh.

“It doesn’t matter,” Semyon says, ever pragmatic. “We’re safe.”

There’s a common area where all the rooms converge, and surveillance cameras are mounted on one wall. It’s furnished with upholstered chairs with a large network of plugs and outlets. Though this place is designed primarily for safety, there’s an undercurrent of luxury. I poke around a bit more. Leave it to Popov to have a well-stocked liquor cabinet, high-quality beds and bedding, and a wall of luxurious soaps and amenities in the bathroom. There’s even a tiny but functional workout room with a weight bench and a cable system.

I check in to prepare to lock everyone down. Matvei and Gleb are in the largest room with Grandfather. Eduard and Irma in another. My sisters share a room, my brothers share another, and Anissa and I share the main room.

She hasn’t spoken to me since we exited the car. I know she wants answers, but what she doesn’t know is how dangerous it is for me to give them to her.

I need more information before I risk… fucking everything.

How could she be Polina Romanova? I saw the pictures of Anissa. I read her file. She saw me and fled when I went to chase her, obviously guilty. It makes no sense to me that the woman who fled our vows isn’t the woman who I—fuck it all to hell. The woman I’ve fallen in love with.

She has to be Polina. She has memories that don’t resonate with her identity as Anissa . She can’t possibly remember having brothers, as Anissa had none.

And if she is Polina… the worst part of all is that I have no claim on her and never did. And doing what I’ve done… kidnapping her, taking her as mine, fucking her, will bring down the wrath of the entire family of Romanovs.

If the fucking cartel doesn’t get here first.

I need answers.

“Rafail?”

“What?” I turn to her, barely paying attention, as my phone is buzzing with messages from Popov, and I don’t want to miss anything important.

“Put your phone down, please.” There’s steel in her voice, and her hands are anchored on her hips. I frown at her.

“I know, I know,” she says with a shake of her head. “You’re not used to being told what to do.”

I quirk a brow at her. Now? She chooses now to challenge my authority? With my family in the same vicinity?

“Don’t test me, Anissa.”

“Stop calling me that,” she whispers. “You know as well as I do that isn’t my name.”

I turn away from her so she doesn’t see the fury in my gaze. It isn’t directed at her. It isn’t her fault we’re in this situation. I grit my teeth.

I turn to face her again. “We don’t know what the hell is going on.”

She shakes her head. “Oh, no, we won’t play that game either.”

I shut the door behind me with a bang as a call comes into my phone from Popov. “I have to take this.”

She brushes past me to get to the door, but I grab her arm before she escapes. “You stay right here until I?—”

“Or what?” she snaps, spinning around to glare at me, defiance blazing in her eyes. “You’ll tie me up then demand answers for things and refuse to give any yourself? You think you can keep me chained up and make me bend to your will?”

I take her by both arms and barely avoid giving her the teeth-rattling shaking I want to. I fucking hate this situation. If she tries to fucking leave, the last thread of humanity I’m holding onto will fucking snap.

“Yes,” I growl. “Go ahead. I dare you to defy me now.” I shake my head.

With a sharp cry, she swings her hand back and slaps me across the face. The second her palm connects with my cheek, my vision blurs with rage. Fury surges through my veins, begging to be unleashed, but I can’t hurt her. I fucking won’t. It would be so easy, so damn easy, to hurt her.

My chest heaves with pent-up frustration as we glare at each other. I pace back and forth, needing the anger to leech out of me before I do something I regret. I’m not new to this. I don’t give in to my anger. Instead, I clamp it down like I’ve learned to. Years of raising these damn hellions have given me plenty of experience.

I pull her into my arms, my grip firm and unyielding, wrapping around her like iron. “Don’t you ever fucking raise your hand to me again.” My voice is thick with anger.

“Let me go ,” she hisses, pushing against my arms, but she might as well try to move a mountain. It brings me no small amount of pleasure to keep her restrained as I put my mouth to her ear. “ No. ”

I feel her shiver against me as my words hang in the air between us.

Every struggle, every push, only stokes the need growing in me.

My anger morphs into something darker. Dangerous. Primal. My dick throbs against her, my hand itches to spank her ass and tame the fire in her wild, defiant eyes.

“You like this, don’t you?” I whisper in her ear, my voice low and dangerous.

Her breath catches, but she doesn’t answer at first. Her lack of protest is all the confirmation I need. I press her harder against me, grinding against her ass as I lower my hand and squeeze it roughly. She barely stifles a moan.

I have to take the call from Popov. I have to make sure everyone here’s safe and on the same page. I have to—I have to fuck my wife into submission and make her remember who she belongs to before everything goes to hell.

“Tell me the truth,” I whisper as my hand roams down the length of her hot, sultry body, sliding under her clothes, desperately seeking her warm, pliant skin. Her body arches into mine, tension snapping between us like live wires. When she gasps, I spin her to me and cup her face roughly in my palm.

“I hate you,” she whispers, but the shimmer in her eyes and waver in her voice betray her.

“You little liar. You hate me?” My fingers delve between her thighs. I chuckle low and dark when I easily glide through her slick folds. “You hate me, do you? Prove it. ”

She whimpers even as she glares at me, her eyes dancing with challenge but riddled with need and hunger. Her lips part, her breathing heavy as she grabs the back of my head and yanks my mouth to hers. I plunder her mouth, claiming her with my tongue as her nails scrape my back. This is no surrender but a fucking dare.

I crush my mouth to hers, tasting her fear, her need, the desire she wishes she could hate. A flare of shock hits my chest when she bites back without warning. My hand trails down to her ass. I grab her leg, wrap it around me, and spank her ass hard.

She moans into my mouth, and I swallow every ounce of her need, her anger, her desire and frustration. My tongue licks hers. My teeth graze her lips and tug them into my mouth. My cock aches to fill her.

She’s a challenge and a dream, and I need to own every inch of her. I fucking will. I don’t care who she is, where she came from, what her name is, or what her history is. This woman is mine. Mine. I’ll scream it from the rooftops and brand it on her body. I’ll annihilate her enemies and erase all memories of her past until all she cares about is us.

She. Is. Mine.

And whatever or whoever wants to stop us will rue the fucking day they tried to pull us apart.

Fuck the cartel.

Fuck the Romanovs.

Fuck history and alliances and enemies and war.

Fuck it all to hell.

“You belong to me,” I growl against her skin, my mouth tracing the line of her neck to her collarbone. I lift my palm and brand her ass again with another searing slap. “ Mine .”

I rake my fingers through her hair and yank her head back. Her mouth parts, red and puffy, her eyes on fire with that passion and heat that makes me half-mad for her. “Do you understand me?”

Every part of her is a challenge I’m more than ready to meet. I tear off her clothes, my movements rough, unrestrained. We have no fucking time, and I won’t wait another second. She’s under me, her tattered clothing around us, as I unzip my pants and yank my cock out.

When she reaches for me, guiding me to her core, it’s all the permission I need. She wants this, wants us, every bit as much as I do.

“You say I’m yours?” she whispers, her fingers digging into my back. “Fucking prove it.” Her challenge echoes mine.

Her hands find my cock. Our fingers brush. I line myself up against the wet heat of her pussy, and plunge into her.

Her head falls back with a whimper, and her eyes flutter close. This is no lazy lovemaking on an early morning, tangled in sheets, with sweet words and caresses. This is no curious exploration, getting to know each other and wondering how to make sense of it all. No. This is nothing but pure, unadulterated claiming, fucking, as I surge into her and own the walls of her pussy.

I build a fast, heated rhythm as her legs wrap around mine, and her hands scramble for purchase around my neck.

“Tell me you belong to me,” I order, lifting my hips so I can surge in her again and again until she’s breathless and half-drunk on the first spasm of pleasure I can feel echoed in my own body. “Tell me, or I’ll pull out right now and leave you tied to the bed.” I kiss her damp cheek. Is she crying? “You know what that’s like, don’t you?”

“I’m yours, Rafail,” she whispers. Blinking, another tear rolls down her cheek. “Yours.” She shakes her head as if she hates admitting the truth. “And you’re mine.”

I roar in release as her head falls back. We rock each other’s bodies—hers, naked and submissive beneath me. I’m still fully clothed and barely reining in the need to fuck her until it hurts. My hot cum spurts into her, the walls of her pussy tight around me. I ride my release with hers as if grasping for the last thread that can hold us together so we don’t fall apart.

I want to hold her close, whisper in her ear that she’s everything, that I’ll love her until my last breath. But I can’t, not yet, not until I have answers. I’ll protect her, even if I can’t give her the words she needs.

So, I go back to what I know.

I pull out of her and hastily wipe her clean with her shredded clothes. Bend my head to hers and hold her gaze with mine.

“Stay right fucking there until I take this call. We are not done yet.”

I stab at my phone and return the missed call from Popov.