The Spy by Sophie Lark

34

Rafe

We take Leo, Hedeon, and Kade to the hospital in Almaty.

I have a pretty nasty puncture in my shoulder that requires a dozen stitches, and Timo needs a bullet dug out of his calf, though he doesn’t mention it until we’re at the hospital, as it wasn’t bothering him too much and he didn’t want to make a fuss about it.

The Kazakh doctors are wise enough to take my mother’s wad of bills and use the language barrier as an excuse not to ask any questions.

My mother insists that they fully examine my dad, to make sure he’s not in any worse condition than might be expected after his prolonged imprisonment.

It’s strange to see how much he’s changed. Even after he’s showered and shaved off the beard, and cut his hair above the shoulders, there’s a new hardness to his face, a leanness to his frame carving out each muscle to its most extreme shape.

He can’t take his eyes off my mother. They refuse to part from each other, even for a moment. I’ve never seen her cling to him like this, never letting go of his arm or his hand, never taking a step from his side.

I feel the same about Nix. I don’t let her out of my sight, afraid that she might be far more fragile that she looks, ready to shatter any second like hot glass under cold water.

I think she’s in shock.

She sits silent and pale, all brightness wiped from her face.

Everyone else has cleaned up and changed clothes. She still sits in the outfit she chose so hopefully for our date, her clothing filthy with dust and stained with her father’s blood.

When my parents return—my father clean-shaven and my mother wearing her favorite leather jacket and boots once more—Nix looks up at them both.

“How much money did he take from you?” she asks. “I’ll pay you back every cent.”

My father looks at her, his eyes dark as flint.

“Money can’t repay what was taken,” he says.

Nix trembles under his stare, but she holds his gaze.

“What can I offer, then?” she says.

“You can offer yourself,” my father says. “Your mind, your body, your soul, your loyalty, your life . . . to my son.”

Nix turns to look at me, and for some reason, it’s harder for her to meet my eyes. She bites her lower lip, her head bowed, hair hanging down over her face.

I cross the space between her and tilt up her chin so she has to look at me.

“I want you,” I say to her. “I want your wildness. I want your passion. I want you to love me the way you love the wind and the water and the outdoors. I want you to be untamable, except by me. I want you to be my wife.”

She takes a deep breath, holding my gaze at last.

“Yes,” she says. “I will.”

“You’ll come to America with me. We’ll rebuild everything your father tried to destroy.”

Nix’s lower lip trembles. I’m sure she’s thinking of her home outside of Kyiv, the acres of land, the sprawling compound that will sit empty, abandoned, without her or her father or any of his men.

“Will you miss Kyiv?” I ask her.

She shakes her head, slowly.

“It will always be empty, whether I return to it or not. Home is the people you love, not a building, not a place. I want to go home with you, Rafe.”

I love the sound of my name on her lips—my real name.

I grab her by the shoulders and I kiss her, the hardest I’ve ever kissed her.

She belongs to me now, fully and completely.

No lies between us.

Only the brutal truth.

Our fathers were friends, and then enemies. Now the house of Moroz is destroyed, and the Petrovs live on. Nix is one of us.

“Until Rafe buys you a better ring,” my father says.

He pulls the gold ring off the pinky of his right hand, slipping it onto the third finger of Nix’s left.

She turns her hand so the inscription catches the light:

Fides Est In Sanguinem

Loyalty In Blood

* * *

We had intendedto take Dean, Hedeon, Kade, Anna, and Leo back to Kingmakers as quickly as possible, hoping to sneak them back onto the island to avoid the uproar of leaving without permission.

Unfortunately, three of the five were in no state to travel until they’d recovered several days in the hospital.

In the meantime, my father had to travel to Moscow to clean up the disastrous mess made by Danyl Kuznetsov’s visit to St. Petersburg.

Dominik was hauled before the high table, after killing Danyl and five of his bratoks, and shooting Foma Kushnir.

Dom argued that Danyl attacked first, intending to kill Dom and his men, then frame them for murdering my father and siphoning off the earnings of his empire. Danyl was under the mistaken apprehension that my father was indeed dead. With Dom out of the way, Danyl and Foma hoped to take control of St. Petersburg, exiling my mother to our holdings in America.

It was clear that several members of the high table shared Danyl’s beliefs, because they were thoroughly shocked when my father strode into the Bolshoi Theater, very much alive and angrier than they had ever seen him.

Several tense and volatile hours followed while my father argued with the other Pakhans. They were furious that his imprisonment had been kept secret, and even angrier that Danyl had been killed. My father retorted that their treachery justified the secrecy, and that Danyl Kuznetsov got precisely what he deserved.

It was lucky that Bodashka Kushnir had not been killed, or his father Foma. The fact that they were still alive, and captive at the monastery, was a useful bargaining chip.

In the end it was decided that my family would pay a settlement to the Kuznetsovs, that the Kushnirs would take over Danyl’s old territory in Moscow, and Dominik would retain St. Petersburg.

“In fact,” my father tells Dominik, once we’re all back at the hospital in Almaty, “I think it’s time you considered it your own. You’ve been Pakhan in all but name for a long time.”

Dominik frowns, the scar on his right cheek crinkling where it runs past his eye.

“I don’t care about a title, brother. The monastery will always be your home.”

My father shakes his head. “It belongs to you, Dom. St. Petersburg belongs to you. I raised my children in America. I made that their home.”

He turns to face Dean Yenin, who’s sitting next to Leo’s bed, a book open on his lap, trying not to listen in though of course he can understand everything being said in Russian.

“You owed two years to Danyl Kuznetsov?” my father asks.

“I did,” Dean says.

“I’ve agreed to pay a stipend to Danyl’s widow to compensate for the loss of her husband. Your service transfers to me,” my father explains.

Dean nods slowly.

“You helped my son to find me,” my father says. “I consider your service completed in full. If you want to join us in Oregon, we’d be glad to have you. But you’re free to choose.”

A look of stunned relief spreads across Dean’s face. I know those two years weighed heavily on his shoulders—especially once he fell in love with Cat. He wanted to be free to start his life with her, and he hated the anvil around his neck, impossible to shake off.

“Thank you,” Dean says. “I’m honored by your offer. I’ll consider it carefully.”

My father nods, then turns to Hedeon.

“I offer the same to you, if you want it—a place with the Petrovs. My son has told me that you may not wish to inherit from the Grays.”

Hedeon gives a rough shake of his head. “I don’t want anything from them,” he says.

“I apologize if our arrangement with Luther Hugo caused you pain,” my father says. “If you still want to know Evalina Markov, I could facilitate that meeting . . .”

“No,” Hedeon says. “No, thank you.”

I can’t tell if he’s trying to protect Evalina from the backlash that might ensue, or if his confrontation with Luther Hugo was so deeply disappointing that he no longer wants to meet his mother.

Hedeon and Leo are both cleaned up, bandaged, and recovering, but while Leo has regained all his usual boisterousness, Hedeon is as withdrawn as I’ve ever seen him. He barely joins in the cheerful conversation that bounces from bed to bed in this wing of the hospital that we’ve completely taken over.

I corner him when the nurses bring everyone dinner.

“Are you going back to Kingmakers?” I ask him.

He shrugs, picking at his food. “I suppose.”

“Hugo will only let you all back on campus if he thinks his secret is safe.”

Hedeon makes an irritated sound. “I don’t want anyone to know he’s my father any more than he does.” Then he stops, registering what I said. “Aren’t you going back?”

I shake my head. “Only to drop you all off. Then I’m going home with my parents and Nix. You could come with us.”

Hedeon considers. I can guess what’s really pulling him back in the direction of the school—and it sure as hell isn’t Hugo.

He asks me, “Do you feel happy now that you got what you wanted?”

I look at my parents who are eating and talking with Freya and Dom, my father’s arm around my mother’s waist.

“I’m at peace because we have my father back,” I say. “But I’m happy because of her.”

Hedeon follows my gaze away from my parents towards Nix, who’s crowded on the empty bed next to Leo’s with Anna and Sabrina on either side of her, smiling faintly for the first time in several days.

Hedeon’s eyes linger on Anna’s face. I’m sure he’s thinking of features very like hers, only a little different in color . . .

“I’m going back to Kingmakers,” he says. “Might as well finish. Only a few months left.”

“I think that’s the right choice,” I say, trying not to smile.

* * *

Once everyone is done eating,I ask Nix, “Do you want to come for a walk with me?”.

“Yes,” she says. “Only it looks freezing out there . . .”

“It is,” I assure her. “But I got you this.”

I hand her the coat I bought in the Zeliony Bazaar that morning. It’s a deep rust color, covered in black and cream embroidery, with soft strips of sable around the hem, cuffs, and hood.

When Nix pulls up the hood, covering her brilliant hair, she could almost be Kazakh herself. She has the narrow eyes and high cheekbones you often see in Eastern Europeans, especially those with Mongolian or Tartar ancestry.

“You look beautiful,” I tell her. “Like a fox.”

That’s what my father always calls my mother—moya malen’kaya lisa. My little fox.

The gold family ring glints on Nix’s finger. It gives me a possessive rush, reminding me that she belongs to me now. I want to get her another ring, a necklace, earrings, bracelets . . . I want her draped in golden chains, naked otherwise, tied up on my bed . . .

As we step out onto the street, Nix takes a deep breath of the frigid air, her face relaxing, her exhale streaming out of her lungs in silvery plumes.

“I don’t like hospitals,” she says.

“Neither do I. Even when we’ve taken over the whole wing.”

“When do we leave?” she asks me.

“I think tomorrow.”

She sighs, creating another frosty cloud that swirls around her face.

“How are you doing?” I ask her.

“I don’t know,” she says. “Maybe a little better.”

Nix and I have been going for walks every day for hours at a time. We have to, because I have so much to tell her. We have to re-do every conversation we ever had, when she asked me about my childhood and family and my life before Kingmakers. I’m giving her all my answers again, fully and truthfully this time.

Nix is getting to know me at the same time as I’m finally understanding myself.

I always wondered if I had it in me to live up to my parents.

I wondered if I could be a man like my father.

When the moment came, when I faced Marko Moroz on my own, I knew exactly what to do.

Because I am like my father. I always was.

Just like my father, all I needed to become the man I wanted to be . . . is the right woman.

I would do anything for Nix.

I CAN do anything for her.

I’m invincible when I’m with her.

I take her hand, our fingers entwining, the gold band nestling between my third and fourth finger.

“Do you want to walk?” I ask her. “Or would you rather skate?”

Nix smiles fully for the first time this week. “Let’s skate,” she says.

I take her to the Medeu rink, perched high in the mountains outside Almaty. The endless expanse of smooth, gleaming ice has just been resurfaced, with barely a skate mark across. The air is so thin that I feel slightly giddy, especially with the loud Russian pop music echoing off the fir trees.

Nix laces her skates, eager to be on the ice.

I take her hand and we push off, gliding over the mirror-like surface, swift as birds.

It’s almost illegal to not know how to skate in Russia.

My father used to flood the grounds behind the monastery. Adrik, Kade, Freya and I could skate almost as soon as we could walk. We played hockey with Timo and Zima.

I tell Nix all this. It feels euphoric speaking to her like this, without having to twist or deform a single detail.

“I played hockey too,” she grins back at me. “My fa—”

She stops, her mouth open before she closes it quickly.

“It’s okay,” I say. “You can talk about him.”

Nix is silent for a moment.

I don’t want to ask her this, but I have to:

“Do you resent what I did?”

I killed her father right in front of her. He was trying to hurt her, but still . . . I can only imagine what she must be feeling.

Her eyes are as wet and gleaming as the ice. She fights to hold back the tears, to keep control of herself.

“I don’t resent you,” she says. “I feel . . . I feel like I started to lose my father the day I stepped foot on that ship. I lost the part of him that never existed in the first place. But still . . . even then, once I started to realize . . .”

Her cheeks are burning red and her shoulders heave as she tries to hold back the hurt that can’t be contained.

“Even after . . . I never would have believed that he’d . . .”

I stop skating grabbing her and pulling her against my chest so she can sob without embarrassment, her face hidden from view.

For the first time she cries not for her father, but for what he tried to do to her. For how he turned on her when he believed she had betrayed him.

I let her exhaust herself against my chest, while I rub slow circles on her back with the palm of my hand.

When she looks up at me, her face tear-streaked and swollen, she says, “Everything I believed about him was only a fantasy. Even this great love he had for my mother . . . I can’t help but think that if she was still alive, if she saw all the things he’s done, she would have hated him. And if she didn’t agree with him, if she didn’t do exactly what he wanted, he would have hated her, too. She’s only perfect in his memory because she didn’t live long enough to disappoint him. His idea of love is so fucking narcissistic . . .”

I swallow hard.

“I’m sorry I ever lied to you, Nix. I promise you, I’ll never do it again, not for any reason. I’ll tell you the brutal truth, as long as we live.”

“I know you will,” Nix says. “You never wanted to lie, it’s not your nature.” She laughs, softly. “To be honest, you’re not even very good at it. There were a hundred things I would have noticed if I wasn’t so infatuated with you.”

I laugh along with her, remembering how miserably I failed at not falling in love with her.

Nix and I start to skate again, the cold air drying the tears on her face, brightening her eyes once more until they glint like green glass.

Nix grabs both my wrists and we spin around the axis point of our linked hands. The dark green fir trees and the ice-blue mountains whirl around us like a carousel.

When we leave the rink at last, we don’t return to the hospital. Instead, I take a room at the Excelsior. We’re ripping off our clothes before the door even shuts behind us. Her lips are cold and her mouth is warm as I kiss her. Her freezing hands touch the burning flesh of my chest and stomach.

I take her hands and hold them to my mouth. I breathe into her cupped palms. Then I take her cold fingers into my mouth and I lick and suck them warm.

I reach down and touch between her thighs, over her underwear. She’s wet all the way through her panties. I slide my fingers back and forth in the cleft of her pussy lips, feeling how slippery the material has become. Then I push my hand down the front of her panties and feel that velvet skin, slick with wetness. She has the most perfect natural lubrication, like warm baby oil. I drench my fingers in it, then slide them inside her, making her moan, making her knees buckle beneath her.

I take my cock out of my pants and I put it down the front of her underwear, rubbing it between her pussy lips, sliding it back and forth against her clit. She’s so wet and warm that it feels like I’m already inside her. She rocks her hips, sliding her pussy back and forth against my cock, the elastic underwear holding it pressed tight against her.

I want her aching for me, I want her dying to have this cock inside her.

When my cock is covered in her wetness, I order, “Get down on your knees and suck me clean.”

Nix drops to her knees, her mouth as swollen and sensitive from kissing as her pussy lips. She opens her mouth, allowing the head of my cock inside. I cup the back of her head in my palm and I push my cock deeper, feeling her tongue slide beneath the head and down the shaft.

“See how good you taste,” I growl.

I fuck her mouth, gently at first, then a little harder. My lubricated cock slides all the way to the back of her throat. My balls are already heavy and tight with the built-up load of several days.

I withdraw from her mouth, pulling her to her feet. I kiss her deeply, tasting her pussy on her lips.

I want more.

I push her down on the bed, diving between her thighs. I tear her underwear off her, baring her shell-pink pussy lips beneath the tuft of rose-gold hair.

I could eat that pussy for hours. Her scent is sweet and earthy, like fallen leaves. Her texture is warm, melting honey. I lick up and down her slit, I gently suck on the nub of her clit, I push my fingers in and out of her. I reach up and caress her breasts, massaging and tugging on her nipples until she’s flushed pink all across her chest, down her belly, and up her thighs.

The inside of her pussy is swollen so tight I can hardly get a finger inside. Her clit is aching. She’s right on the edge, dying to tip over.

I look down at her face, supporting my weight on my arms, my heavy cock laying across her hip from her thigh up to her bellybutton.

“You want me inside you?” I ask.

“I need you inside me,” she gasps.

“Beg me for it.”

“Please Rafe, fuck me, I’m dying for you . . .” she moans.

My name is such a thrill on her lips. I can’t get enough of it.

“Say my name again.”

“Rafe!” she cries. “I need you Rafe!”

I plunge my cock inside of her, one hard thrust all the way in.

She screams out, her nails digging into my back.

I bite the side of her neck in return, my cock sliding in and out of that perfect warm pussy grip, her strong thighs squeezing my hips.

She’s already starting to cum, she can’t hold it back even for a minute.

Her pussy twitches around my cock, she spreads her thighs wider, begging me to fuck her harder and deeper.

My cock hits that place all the way inside her, that back wall that would be painful if she wasn’t intensely aroused, every millimeter of her pussy swollen and spongy and exquisitely sensitive.

“Harder,” she begs me, “Fuck me harder, Rafe.”

I’m slamming the whole bed against the wall, the headboard thundering against the plaster as I fuck her with all my strength.

She’s screaming out, louder than I’ve ever heard.

She needs this relief, and so do I.

I’ve never fucked her as Rafe. I’ve never fucked her without guilt.

This is my fiancée. Her body is mine—not just tonight, but forever. I can take her as many times as I want, in every possible position.

As soon as she’s done cumming, I flip her over and take her from behind. Then I fuck her up against the window, her breasts pressed against the cold glass, her hands splayed like starfish on either side of her.

My balls are boiling, my cock raging hard.

I’ve never felt so unleashed. I’m finally exactly where I want to be, doing exactly what I want to do.

We knock over the lamp, the bulb smashing as it hits the floor.

I don’t give a flying fuck. I’ll destroy this entire room. I’ll burn this fucking hotel to the ground. What I won’t do is stop, not for a single second.

I pull her down on my lap on the spindly desk chair, its wooden legs groaning beneath our combined weight. I bounce her up and down on my cock, her tits bouncing in my face. I lick the sweat off her breasts. I take her nipple into my mouth and I suck hard, feeling her pussy clamp around my cock as she starts to cum again.

“I’m going to fuck you like this every day of our lives. Inside. Outside. Everywhere we go . . .”

“You promise?” she gasps.

“Only if you cum for me. Cum all over that cock . . .”

“Aghhhh!” she screams, her head thrown back.

I explode into her, my balls contracting, spurt after spurt of cum pumping up inside of her.

“You’re mine,” I growl. “All mine.”

She falls against my chest, her arms around my neck.

I hold her tight against me, my cock still inside of her, with no intention of ever letting go.

* * *