Page 44 of Hostage of the Russian
“Stay,” Kostya murmured against her hair, his arms tightening around her. “Don’t go back to your room tonight.”
She should. She should maintain some distance, some boundary between them. But wrapped in his arms, feeling safer and more cherished than she ever had, she found herself nodding.
“Just tonight,” she whispered, already knowing it was a lie.
Just tonight had already become something much more dangerous. Something that felt suspiciously like the beginning of forever.
Chapter 15 - Kostya
The moonlight filtered through the heavy curtains, casting silver patterns across Azriel’s bare skin as she lay curled against Kostya’s chest. Her breathing had finally evened out, though he could feel the occasional tremor that ran through her body, aftershocks of what they’d just shared. His fingers traced lazy circles on her shoulder, marveling at how perfectly she fit against him, how right this felt despite everything that had brought them together.
“Tell me about your father,” he said quietly, his voice barely above a whisper in the darkness.
She went rigid in his arms, and he felt her try to pull away. He didn’t let her, tightening his hold just enough to keep her close without restraining her.
“Azriel.” Her name was a gentle coaxing. “What happened at the party? Why did you look at him like that?”
“Like what?” Her voice was muffled against his chest, but he heard the defensive edge creeping in.
“Like you were terrified. Like you expected him to hurt you.”
The silence stretched between them, heavy with unspoken truths. Kostya waited, his patience endless when it came to her. He’d learned that pushing Azriel only made her retreat further into herself, but given space and time, she would eventually open up to him.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said finally. “It’s in the past.”
“It matters to me.” His hand moved to stroke her hair, the silky strands slipping through his fingers. “Everything about you matters to me.”
She lifted her head then, meeting his eyes in the dim light. “Why? Because I’m your wife? Because you own me?”
The bitterness in her voice cut through him like a blade. “Because I care about you. Because seeing you afraid makes me want to burn the world down to keep you safe.”
Something flickered in her smoky gray eyes, surprise maybe, or hope. She studied his face, as if looking for deception, and found none.
“He used to hit me,” she said so quietly he almost missed it. “When I was younger. When I’d do something he didn’t like, or when he was drunk, or sometimes just because he felt like it.”
Rage, white-hot and consuming, flooded through Kostya’s veins. His jaw clenched so hard he thought his teeth might crack, and he had to force himself to keep his voice gentle when he responded.
“How often?”
“Often enough.” She laid her cheek back against his chest, probably to avoid seeing the fury in his eyes. “He’d disappear for days sometimes, leaving me alone with nothing. No food, no money, no way to contact anyone. I learned to be self-sufficient out of necessity.”
“What about your mother?”
“She died when I was eight. Cancer. After that, it was just me and him, and he made it very clear that I was a burden he didn’t want.”
Kostya’s free hand curled into a fist, his knuckles white with the effort to contain his anger. Images flashed through his mind of Danny Hartford, of all the ways he could make the man pay for what he’d done to his daughter. None of them seemed adequate.
“The last few years were better,” Azriel continued, her voice growing steadier. “He got involved with some business that kept him busy, distracted. I barely saw him anymore, which was honestly a relief. I figured out later that it was your family’s operations that were keeping him occupied.”
“So in a way, the Bratva saved you from him.”
“In a way.” She tilted her head to look at him again. “Ironic, isn’t it? The criminal organization that eventually trapped me in this marriage was also the thing that gave me enough freedom to escape and go to college.”
Kostya’s throat tightened. “Azriel, I’m so fucking sorry.”
“For what?”
“For everything. For taking you from your life, for forcing you into this marriage, for not knowing...” He cupped her face in his palm, thumb brushing over her cheekbone. “If I’d known what he was, what he’d done to you, I never would have used you to get to him.”
