Page 117 of Kadra: The Unfeeling

Kissing her lips once, I pull back and whisper. “That was life, baby. You are life.” She is. She’s mine. Not giving her a chance to respond, I gently lifted her and hugged her close to my body before taking her lips in mine and kissing the hell out of her.

I get it now.

Why Lucifer fell from grace. If the stories are true and he fell for a woman I now understand why. Hell, I’ve known for a while now.

The woman in my arms would make even God fall from grace.

* * *

Kadra

Hours later, as Vitali sleeps beside me, the sheet low on his waist, a hand around my body as I lay my head on his chest, I wonder how life can change in the blink of an eye. One day you could be having the worst day, feeling like the world is crumbling all around you, and the next day the sun comes out and it doesn’t seem so lonely and dark. One day a soul like Vitali comes into your life and makes it all better.

The moonlight coming from the slit of the curtains lights up his skin making him look even more mythical to me. My fingers trace his tattoos, the veins down his arms, and his calloused fingers.

He stirs, head easing to the side, tired gray eyes peeling open.

I stared at him for a few seconds. “Do your hands hurt too?” I whisper because the life in his eyes seems to shine more every day.

He blinks slowly.

“My hands?” he murmurs, lifting a single brow. “No, baby. Not anymore.”

Not anymore…

I interlaced our fingers, neither of us wearing our gloves and nothing had ever felt this right. Not even when our bodies joined a few hours ago when he successfully erased every trace of my ugly past with his kisses, hands, and body. He took my body and brought it back to life.

“What happened to you?” I whisper.

His eyes turn dark as if he’s going back to a place that hurts him.

“You don’t have to tell me if it’s—” He interrupts me by bringing our joined hands to his lips and kissing my fingers so tenderly, that my heart leaps. “It’s not a pretty story…”

“Give me all your ugly, Vitali. Everything. I’ll take it all.” I’ll gladly take it all if it means you don’t have to carry it in your heart… I want to tell him but I don’t. Instead, I hold onto him tighter, not wanting to ever let him go.

He takes a long pause before he speaks. “Papa was a very powerful man back in Russia but he was betrayed by his men and we had to flee with nothing to our name. We came to the States with nothing and it fucked Vissarion Solonik’s head to the point he did whatever it took to succeed in this country, even sacrificing his sons.”

A sinking feeling in my gut tells me I won’t like what comes out of his mouth next.

“Before our family conquered New York, we lived in the streets.” I knew this. The Solonik’s came from nothing and conquered everything. That is one of the reasons the three families on my city hated the Russians. They felt like they took something from us. To greedy men like my father, the Russians represented a threat. One he couldn’t control so he deemed the enemies instead of allies. Gabriele was as stupid as he was cruel.

Vitali continues. “One day, while Papa and Vladimir were running drugs trying to get us more connections, I came across a man who liked young boys a little too much and was willing to pay to get his twisted desires met. I’ve seen the fucker before and he always gave me bad vibes. He roamed the streets but he wasn’t homeless or a druggie like the kind of people that surrounded us back then. He was looking for his next victim and one day he found me. He had a liking for my youngest brother but I wouldn’t allow it.” He takes a deep breath as if it pains him, crushing my heart. “He never went that far, Papa didn’t allow it,” He laughs bitterly, matching the anger I feel. I imagine a young Vitali looking just like my Azariel, going through such a horrible and traumatic event and my heart breaks. I imagine Azariel as well and the urge to burn the world down for them is too much to bear. “He liked to exert his power over me by forcing me to take his cum in my hands because he couldn’t fuck me.” He laughs while I shudder at the emptiness in his voice. “Fucked up, isn’t it? My own father handed me over to a fucking predator.” Vitali raises his hands which are covered in ink up to his face and looks at them with so much anger in them.

I try to cool the rage inside and I push away the need to destroy anything that’s ever hurt him. I vow that from now on, no one will ever hurt him, and if they try I’ll make sure they regret ever hurting him. Even if I had to do it from my grave, I’ll find a way.

Now my heart feels heavy.

Taking both his hands in mine, I bring them to my lips and kiss every inch of the skin there. How far we’ve come. We no longer hide our scars. “You survived…”

He meets my gaze for a brief second before he returns his eyes to our hands. He pulls my hands closer to his face and stares at them for a long moment. He’s seeing the tiny scars hidden by tiny tattoos I got when I couldn’t bear to look at my hands any longer. “And so did you, love.” He pulls me closer and gives me a slow kiss.

I finally understand the term match made in hell because we were made by our circumstances and our pain. We also are too alike. I sometimes feel like we’re the same person.

A tiny smile breaks free. We did. We survived life and found each other in all that darkness that once threatened to consume us.

I let the man next to me consume me instead.

As we both lay here in silence, a thought crosses my mind. One that’s been with me since the day I met my Russian all those years ago. “Do you believe in past lives?” I release his hands and skate my hand up his chest, tracing the dragon tattoo. I never thought tattoos looked great on men at least not the amount Vitali has but he changed my mind. He not only looks like a work of art with them but they also tell a story. His. The dragon is my favorite one. He couldn’t have known what the beast meant to me. “I mean… Do you think after we die we get another chance at life? A chance to do it right? Or meet someone again?” I slide a leg over him, straddling his torso while kissing along his neck.

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