Mafia Princess by Kennedy Slope

Chapter Twenty-Three

It was a rainy, fall day, which was perfect for the sad event Dom and I were attending. It had been a week since the explosion, and the young man who I had watched die in the ER, Matte, was being laid to rest.

I squeezed Dom’s hand as the priest finished his words. They were drowned out slightly by a combination of the rain, and the man’s mother sobbing. I knew that this was a difficult time for Dom. He had barely spoken since he’d been released from the hospital. He’d been in meeting after meeting whether with his men, the police, or the insurance company. I was worried about him, but I knew that he wouldn’t appreciate my voicing that.

“We should go pay our respects,” Dom said once the priest finished and the casket was lowered down into the ground. Dom’s eyes hadn’t left the shiny, black box once, and I wondered what he was thinking. Was he worried about his own mortality? Did he feel guilty? I had no idea because he hadn’t told me.

As we turned to walk towards Matte’s mother, Marco stepped in front of us.

“Why don’t I take Sasha back home?” he suggested.

I raised a brow. “Why? Isn’t there a wake?”

Marco ignored my question, and his eyes looked immediately at Dom. They seemed to have some sort of silent conversation, which ended with Dom nodding at his brother. I hated when they had silent conversations. I also hated that Marco seemed to win over me more times than not.

“I’ll be home in a few hours,” Dom said. He pressed a small kiss to my head. We’d barely talked about our marriage, but it seemed that since I’d denounced my Petrov roots, he was more at ease around me.

“Be safe,” I said. I hated leaving him out of my sight. Normally, I would have argued, but this didn’t feel like the time or the place. So instead, I turned around and followed Marco back towards the car.

“Why don’t you want me paying my respects?” I asked Marco. My heels were sinking into the soft mud, and I wished that I had worn flats. I’d worn my best black dress and heels in an effort to impress those in attendance, which made me feel silly in hindsight.

“Do you think that Matte’s mother wants to see you considering your father likely ordered the hit that took her son's life.”

His words stung, which I believe was the point. The small truce Marco and I seemed to make was gone. Ever since I left the hospital, Marco had been making snide comments about me.

“I’m not responsible for the actions of my father,” I muttered as I slipped into the front seat of the car.

“Despite what you might think, I’m doing this to keep you and Dom safe. People are mad, and you are the only Petrov that they can get their hands on right now.”

Whatever response I had prepared in retort died in my throat.

I laid back in my seat and closed my eyes.

“Dom said you’d been having trouble sleeping,” Marco said.

My eyes flew open, and I looked over at him. “Does Dom tell you everything?” I asked, annoyed. Nikolai and I hadn't been close enough in age to share secrets. He had taken on the role of protective brother more so than confidant, and watching Marco and Dom sometimes made me jealous.

“Not everything,” Marco said. “He didn’t tell me about your marriage until the deal had already been done.”

“Is that why you hate me so much?” The words slipped out before I could stop them.

“I don’t hate you. I hate your family.”

“And you blame me for their actions.” It was a statement more than anything else. I didn’t need to guess at how Marco viewed me. He’d made it pretty clear.

“Why can’t you sleep?” he asked.

“Why does it matter?”

“Because you look like shit.”

His words would have stung, but I was too tired to care. Plus, I knew that I did look like shit. I’d spent a ton of time on my makeup this morning trying to cover the bags that were becoming a permanent display under my eyes.

“It’s natural to experience some sort of trauma after what happened,” Marco said, his voice quiet. For a moment, I wondered if he actually cared about me.

I said nothing. I looked out the window and allowed the coolness of the glass to sooth the headache that was forming in my temples. I didn’t want to talk about trauma or anything else with Marco. He’d made it clear where we stood with one another, and I was too tired to do much pretending.

Marco sighed and made a turn so quick in the car that I had to grab the handle to keep from smashing my head into the glass.

“What the hell are you doing?” I asked. I was pretty sure that Marco wasn’t going to harm me, but I could never be one-hundred percent around him. Something told me that he would harm me despite Dom if he thought that was the best course of action.

“We are going to the wake,” he said.

I sat up straighter. “What? Why? I thought you said it wasn’t best for me to show my face around there.”

“I was wrong,” Marco said.

I felt my heart racing a little faster as I considered that I was about to be thrown into the lion's den.

“I’m not sure that you were.” I couldn’t get the sound of Matte’s mother’s sobs out of my mind. My family had caused that woman a great amount of pain. I didn’t want to add to it.

Marco turned to look at me as he sped towards our destination. “If you plan to be Dom’s wife, for real, you need to be by his side.”

“But the rest of the family…”

“Will have to learn to deal with your presence. We keep hiding you away, and we are going to cause more problems than we solve.”

I was about to remind him that just minutes ago he was one of the people who believed I needed to be hidden away. Something had changed Marco’ mind, and I wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Because at the end of the day, if I was going to be Dom’s wife, I needed to be by his side, and that was exactly where I was going.

* * *

Walking through the wake, I tried not to get offended by the looks and whispers. I wanted to find Dom. Marco had dropped me off at the wake and left me on my own.

As I walked through the wake, I kept my chin high. I was the wife of the Don, and I wasn’t going to allow myself to be cowered. I tried to channel my mother as I walked through the place looking for my husband. For all of her flaws, Katarina Petrov never allowed anyone to make her feel lesser. That was not a trait that I had inherited, unfortunately.

The house seemed endless, and I wondered what Matte’s family did for the mafia.

After what felt like an eternity, I came across a circle of men who were surrounding a crying woman. Dom was one of them. I could see through a hole in the group that Dom was providing Matte’s mother comfort.

It warmed my heart to see it. Dom had a reputation, but sometimes I wondered if that reputation was unearned in some ways. Deep down, Dom was a good man. Of that I was sure.

“I swear to you that the Petrov’s will pay,” Dom said, as he comforted Matte’s mother. His words stopped me in my tracks.

Dom stood from his seat and addressed the entire group. “I say this to all of you. The Petrov’s will pay for the blood they have spilt. They are traitorous snakes, and the only way to get rid of them is to cut off their heads.”

His words felt like a knife in my gut, and I felt sweat beading at the back of my neck.

“What about the treaty?” one of the men asked. It was the same question in my mind.

“The Petrov’s broke the treaty when they spilled Blanchi blood,” Dom spit out. The anger in his eyes reminded me of the Dom who had taken me in the back of the car that day. He’d been unrelenting and cold.

“You don’t have any evidence that the Petrov’s have broken the treaty,” I said. I spoke before I could think, and as all eyes turned towards me, I cringed inwardly. This definitely wasn’t going to win me any sort of friends in the mafia.

“You all know my wife, Sasha,” Dom said.

There was a grumble across the group, and no one looked at me.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” I said to Matte’s mother. The words sounded hollow and silly, but I didn’t know what else to say.

The woman stopped sniffling immediately and looked at me with such hatred in her eyes that I couldn’t stop the deep inhale of breath that I took.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

I opened my mouth to tell her that I was here because I was Dom’s wife, but before I could respond a young woman came forward and took the woman by the arm. “How about we get you something to eat,” she said. She looked at Dom with hesitant eyes as she led Matte’s mother, who was cursing me and the entire Petrov family, under her breath.

“I thought you were at home,” Dom said. His voice hadn’t lost the hardness that he’d used when he spoke to me, and my cheeks flushed from it. I felt like a stupid little girl who was being scolded.

But I wasn’t a stupid girl. I was Dom’s wife, and while I didn’t necessarily expect him to treat me as his equal, I did expect him to show me respect in public. “You don’t have any evidence against the Bratva,” I reminded him. I didn’t use my family name for a reason. Though the Blanchi’s thought that the Bratva and the Petrov name was interchangeable, it actually wasn’t.

Dom’s full lips flattened, and the anger in his eyes ignited. I was scared, but I wasn’t going to let my fear stop me from speaking the truth that he needed to hear.

“If you retaliate, you’ll start a war. Countless people will die-” I was cut off from finishing my sentence as Dom grabbed my arm and started leading me away from the group. His grip wasn’t tight, but he was practically dragging me across the floor he was walking so fast.

“Dom, slow down,” I muttered. Everyone was averting their eyes from us, and I knew immediately that no one in this room was going to help me.

He dragged me through the house as if it were our own before shoving me slightly into an empty room.

I stumbled catching myself on the edge of a desk. “What the hell, Dom,” I muttered, rubbing my wrist.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” he asked. He was in front of me so quickly that I barely had time to turn around to face him. I could see the stubble on his chin, and I longed to reach up and run my fingers against it. I was depraved. We hadn’t had sex in so long that his behavior couples with his closeness was turning me on.

“I was thinking that you were about to get yourself killed,” I sneered. I wasn’t going to apologize for talking common sense. We all believed that the Bratva had been behind the attempts on Dom’s life, but until it could be proven, there was nothing that could be done. And even if Dom managed to get evidence, it wasn’t that simple for me.

He placed his hands on the desk next to my hips bringing our bodies impossibly close. I could smell the sage and sandalwood of his cologne.

“Don’t play me. You are trying to protect daddy.”

“Of course I don’t want you to kill my father,” I hissed out. “Just because I’ve denounced him doesn’t mean he’s suddenly not my father any longer.” I had vowed to be honest with Dom ever since that night in the hospital.

“So you’d rather he get another shot at me?”

I reached out and took Dom by the face. I don’t know what possessed me to do that, but I wanted him to understand what I was about to tell him. I knew that he still didn’t trust me no matter how much I wanted him to, but I couldn’t force it.

“Aren’t you tired of the bloodshed?” I asked.

Dom was breathing heavily, and I couldn’t stop myself from licking my lips as I looked at his dark eyes and felt his powerful arms so close to me.

“Fuck,” Dom muttered. It was the only warning I had before he reached out, tangled his hands in my hair, and pulled me forward. Our lips crashed together violently. Teeth, tongues, and lips fought for dominance, and I could feel myself getting wet.

It didn’t take much these days.

The difference was that I wasn’t about to let Dom spin me up just to pull away. Reaching down, I pulled at his belt, trying to get it off as quickly as possible.

Dom wretched his lips away from mine, and I whined at the loss of contact.

“Don’t stop,” I breathed out.

His arms wrapped themselves around my waist and he hoisted me up onto the top of the desk. My legs immediately parted to accommodate him. I was too full of desire to think about anything other than getting the dull ache inside of me satiated.

Dom reached in between my thighs, and I moaned loudly as his fingers grazed me through my panties. “Wet for me already?” he asked, his voice dark and deep.

I nodded and reached out to suck the lobe of his ear into my mouth. I’d discovered that he liked when I nibbled on his neck during sex.

“This isn’t going to be gentle,” he warned me as he reached down and ripped my panties to shreds.

I was panting and dripping at this point, and the ache inside of me was the only thing I could think of.

“Fuck me,” I ordered, pulling his belt from his pants and reaching down to pull his dick out of his pants.

If Dom was surprised by my words he said nothing. He lifted my skirt and lined himself up against me.

“Tell me if I hurt you,” he ordered.

It was the last thing he said before he thrust inside of me.

I screamed at the intrusion. There was a mixture of pleasure and pain as Dom thrust himself inside of my body. He didn’t wait for me to adjust before he started railing me against the desk.

“Yes, yes, yes,” I screamed over and over again as I lost myself in the pleasure. Sex between us had always been intense, but I’d never allowed myself to really give into it like I was now.

“You’re mine,” Dom grunted. I looked into his eyes, which hadn’t left mine. “And you’ll fucking listen to me when I tell you to.” He punctured his words with thrusts of his hips, and in that moment, I would have promised to do anything for him as long as he made me cum.

“Don’t stop,” I begged, digging my nails into his shoulders.

Dom lifted me higher, and the new angle allowed him to hit a spot that made me see stars. I forgot about the fact that we were at a wake, or that he had threatened to kill my father. Dom and his cock were the only thing that mattered.

“Come for me,” he ordered.

I sobbed. My orgasm was so close, but I couldn’t quite catch hold of it. “I can’t,” I sobbed.

Dom smirked slightly, and before I knew what was happening, I felt one of his fingers slide inside of my ass.

I yelped at the sensation, but my body was so pliable, it accepted his digit. “Whaa-”

“Your ass is the next part of you I’m going to own,” Dom said. He sawed his singers back and forth inside of my hole, and I immediately exploded.

Dom wretched the most intense orgasm out of me that he had so far, and for a moment I thought I was going to die from the pleasure of it all.

Dom roared, and I felt him shoot his seed deep inside of me.

I slumped as he thrust his soft limb inside of me a few times, pushing his load deeper inside of me. It was an oddly pleasant experience, and I felt my body slump against him as my pleasure softened to a dull zing.

Normally, after we fucked, Dom pulled away from me to clean himself up, but today, as he pulled out, he pressed a small kiss to my head. I clung to him, too bone tired to do much more.

“I’m going to kill your father,” he said.

The words were like a bucket of ice water being thrown on me, and I pulled away so quickly that I was sure I would have whiplash.

Dom looked resigned as he tucked himself back into his pants.

“Dom…”

He shook his head at me. The hardness was back on his face as he pulled my dress down over my thighs.

I slapped his hands away. I didn’t want him touching me. “Fuck you,” I told him. “Fuck you, and fuck all of this.”

I hoped down from the desk, not caring that his sperm was sliding down my thighs. This hadn’t been the first time Dom had fucked and humiliated me. The difference was that this time I’d begged for it.

“Sasha,” Dom reached out, but I shook my head.

I took a deep breath determined not to allow Dom to see how his words affected me.

“You knew when you chose me that this was a possibility,” he said.

“I never thought that you would force this kind of choice on me.”

There was a little bit of sadness in Dom’s eyes when he looked at me. “You already made your choice,” he reminded me. “Now, you have to live with it.”