I’M ON MY KNEES praying and asking God for His guidance when I feel a presence next to me. I look over and see that Konstantin is standing beside me. When we arrived at the church, he informed me that he wouldn’t be coming inside, and yet, here he is.
“Time to leave, little one,” he murmurs as he wraps his hand gently around my bicep and tugs me up.
I go quietly with him, wondering but not questioning why I have to leave. I’m sure Timofei found out I was here and is requiring me to go back to his plain, obvious crash pad, apartment. We both dip our fingers in the holy water as we leave and make the sign of the cross. Only when we’re outside does Konstantin speak.
“I called him about something else and he wasn’t very happy to find out you’d left the apartment,” he murmurs as we walk toward the car. “I shouldn’t have brought you here.”
“Thank you for brining me. I feel better,” I shrug. I slip past him into the passenger seat of the car as he holds the door open for me.
Konstantin slides into the Driver’s seat a few moments later and takes off toward my new home. We both stay silent, and I find the closer we get to the apartment building, the more foreboding the feeling surrounding me. I hate it in there. The only thing that makes it tolerable is the beach view. Everything else, including the void décor, makes me feel almost depressed.
When we’ve arrived back to the building, I cringe and open the door myself, not waiting for Konstantin. He joins my side in a flash, and we go back into the complex. We ride the elevator in silence to our floor.
“You can’t leave again. Are you hungry? Can I get you some takeout?” he asks, sounding far kinder than he has to be toward me.
“No, thank you. It’s been a long day. I think I’ll just got to bed,” I say with a weak smile. I don’t wait for him to say anything else, choosing to walk toward the bedroom instead.
Closing the door, I strip out of my dress and throw it on top of my suitcase as I go in search of something to wear to bed. I don’t have anything that Brenna packed me to sleep in that isn’t sexy. I don’t feel sexy, and I’m in here alone with a man who isn’t my husband in the next room. I have no desire for sexy negligées.
Turning away from my bag, I go in search of a t-shirt of Timofei’s. I find a stack of white cotton shirts in his closet and grab the top one. I take off my bra and slip the shirt on over my head, wearing only the shirt and my panties as I make my way toward the bed.
Once I pull back the sheets, I slip inside and lie my head down on the pillow. It’s soft and the covers wrap around me in warmth, giving me a false sense of security. I’m quickly lulled to sleep.
“No, daddy I don’t want to go,” I whine.
At ten years old, I shouldn’t be whining anymore. It’s something my father taught me when I was six. He backhanded me for whining about not getting a dessert one night. I never did it again, not until this moment.
I don’t want to go to Aidan’s house. His wife is so mean, and she’s always calling me a little bratty bitch when Aidan leaves me alone with her.
Last time I had to spend the weekend with them, she made me clean all day long, even though they have a maid. Then she laughed at me and called me Cinderella.
I watch as his eyes darken. I hold my breath. I know the look on his face. I’ve seen it a million times, just never directed at me. “On your knees, Devyn,” he instructs, his voice deep and dark.
Lowering my eyes, I drop to my knees. I hold my breath. I’ve seen my siblings get punished before, but I’ve never had more than a slap across the face. I hear my father’s belt whiz out of his belt loops and watch as his feet pass by me. I can feel him behind me and then he speaks again.
“Lift up your dress, Devyn,” he demands. I do as he asks and lift up my dress over my thighs and hips, gathering the light pink fabric in my hands. “Panties down.”
I push my white cotton panties down my legs until they rest at my knees on the floor. I feel it before I hear it. The belt lands against my skin with a hard slap. I cry out but it happens again, and then I lose count as he hits me in quick succession, until I’m completely numb to the leather as it touches my skin.
My body jerks with a start as the memories of one of my father’s lessons fades away. I feel something heavy on my waist and then lips touch the side of my neck as my eyes flutter open. I roll over to see Timofei’s face in the moonlight. My lips press together as I realize it’s dark. Not dusk, but dark-dark outside.
“What time is it?”
“After two,” he murmurs.
He’s been drinking, and by the smell, a smell I am far too used to from my childhood, it was whiskey he was drinking. I want to push him away and go into another room, the bathroom, anywhere. But I also know that when a man has been drinking, you don’t attempt to do anything—a lesson my father taught me and taught me well.
“You going to ask me where I’ve been?” he asks as his hand slides up the outside of my leg and tugs my panties down, or tries to. I lift my hips and allow him to pull them down before I widen for him. Timofei’s hips fit between my thighs, and I can feel his naked, hard length pressed against my center.
“No,” I whisper looking into his eyes. He doesn’t move a muscle, watching me, waiting for something—so I continue. “It isn’t my place to ask you where you’ve been,” I murmur.
“What is your place, Devyn?” he asks, his voice sharp.
My eyes search his face, and I wonder why he’s being almost mean to me. I lift my legs and hitch them around his hips as I tighten them and move his body closer to mine. His cock presses against my center. It’s hard and warm against me.
“Right here, Fei. Under you, accepting you inside of me—wherever you wish for me to be, that’s where my place is.” The lie slips easily from my lips, and I wonder if he believes me or not.
His lips lower to mine. He quickly fills my mouth with his tongue and my center with his cock. I pull my head back and let out a cry of pain at the sudden intrusion. Timofei slides up to his knees, his eyes still on mine, except now they’re narrowed and almost angry looking.
Timofei doesn’t say anything else. His hands wrap around my waist and he fucks me. It’s hard and relentless, like the first time out on the balcony in Paris. It hurts, and he shifts his gaze from my face to our connection, his head tipped down and focused on his dick slamming inside of me over and over again.
“Timofei,” I snap when the pain becomes too much. His head comes up, and he looks at me as he stops, seated deep inside of my body. “That hurts,” I whisper.
“You’re my fuck doll, right? Why should I give a fuck if it hurts?”
My eyes immediately fill with tears, and I tell myself he’s just drunk, that he wouldn’t say something like that to me if he weren’t. Men say things they don’t mean when they’re drunk; they do things they don’t mean.
He doesn’t say anything else. He slips one of his hands from my waist to between us and presses his thumb against my clit. He continues to slam his hips against me. With the added pressure against my clit, I moan as my body climbs higher toward my release, my belly clenching with each thrust.
Timofei throws back his head as he starts to thrust faster, and I let out a gasp as my pussy clenches around him. Then I quickly tumble over the edge as I cry out with my release. “Fuck,” he groans before he stills.
I feel his length twitch inside of me as he follows right behind me. Lowering his head, his dick still filling me, he whispers in my ear. “If all you want to be is my fuck doll, that’s easy, devochka. In fact, they’re a dime a dozen.”
I don’t get a chance to respond as he slips from me and stumbles out of bed to the bathroom. I’m so confused by his anger, wondering how I earned it and how to take it away. Timofei’s anger makes me feel sick to my stomach. He gets almost vindictive when he’s upset, saying and doing mean things that cut me to the quick. He’s only been my husband for a little over a week, and this is a trait that I know I already hate about him.
Staying in my exact same position in the bed, minus closing my legs, I wait for him to finish in the bathroom. When the door opens, I watch him as he stumbles back over to the bed, completely naked. He flops down on his back and lets out a heavy sigh.
“Why do you want me to argue with you? Did you want me to get angry about you being gone? About you being drunk? Is that what you want? You want to fight with me? Why?” I ask peppering him with questions as I turn to my side, tucking my hands between my cheek and the pillow.
“Do you think I want a perfect robot wife? Is this what your asshole of a father told you?” he barks.
I let out a sigh and roll onto my back, thankful for still having his cotton shirt on. “My father had very specific rules for my sister and I to follow. I learned from Brenna’s mistakes, and my brothers’, but mostly Brenna’s. Women are to be seen and not heard. As a Mob woman, a daughter, a future wife, it is not within my power to ever question a man. That was beat into both Brenna and me more than once. So if you don’t want a robot wife, then you have the wrong woman, Timofei. I am a product of my environment, and my father made sure I was going to be the perfect Mob wife.”
He wraps his hand around my waist and tugs me closer to his warm body, until I’m practically beneath him. He cups my cheek as his eyes roam over my face. They’re bloodshot from booze, but it’s as though he’s seeing clearly. I hold my breath until he speaks.
“I don’t want you leaving this apartment until I give my permission. Konstantin will be your guard when I’m not here. If he is unable, I will assign another man to you,” he murmurs. I do nothing but nod in confusion. “You cannot be a weak woman, Devyn. The only way you will survive in this life is if you’re strong.”
“So you think I’m weak because I didn’t ask you where you were? Because I told you that my place was at your side? You’re a contradiction, and you’re fucking with my head,” I snap.
His eyes widen and then a slow smile appears on his lips. “That’s what I want, devochka, that fire I know you have. I need you to not be a fucking robot. I need you to be human, yeah?” he murmurs as his hand brushes my hair back, tucking it behind my ear.
“Fei?” I whisper.
“Went to talk business with your father tonight. Your sister was there, and I got a glimpse at the future, a future I didn’t fucking like too much. I don’t want a fuck doll for a wife, Devvy,” he murmurs, his dark blue eyes focused on mine.
“It’s been a week, Timofei. I don’t really know what you want,” I state. He nods.
Letting out a breath, he inhales again before he speaks. “I’m under extreme pressure the next few days. I need to know you’re safe, which is why I want you to stay here with protection. Your sister is robotically creepy as fuck, Devyn. It scared me. I don’t want that with you. I like what we have for the most part, but I want you to be free to be yourself. If that means you have an objection to something, tell me. If I get pissed and don’t like what you have to say, you’ll know; but I’d rather get pissed off than have no feelings at all.”
I cup his cheeks in my hands and push him so that he’s on his back as I straddle his hips. “I’m not Brenna, and you are not her asshole husband. He hits her if she doesn’t act the way he wants her to. You have to talk to me, though, Fei. I cannot read your mind to learn what you expect from me. Every time I feel like we take a step forward, we’re dragged two steps backward. I’ll be what you need me to be, but I cannot change overnight.”
His hands slide up my thighs, then my sides, until he’s cupping my breasts beneath my shirt. I arch closer as his thumbs drag over my hard nipples. “I’m no better. I hurt you, again. I don’t know what I want, Devvy. You’re so much more mature than I am, and you’re ten years younger than me,” he murmurs as he pinches my nipples and tugs gently.
“Timofei, you have to be patient with us,” I whimper. I lift my hips and feel him press his hard cock against my center. I slowly slide down his length, taking all of him inside of me.
“Every day I feel like I’m being suffocated and that my chances of keeping you are less and less,” he rasps. I open my mouth to ask him what he means, but he thrusts up from the bed, and nothing but a moan escapes.
All thoughts are forgotten, as is conversation, as I roughly ride my husband. My shirt is thrown to the floor, and his fingers pinch, tug, and play with my breasts the entire time. It all feels amazing, and there’s nothing else I can think about but enjoying the way he makes me feel.
My Fei.
My husband.
My lover.
I watch as Devyn sleeps beside me. Fucking her twice has worn her small body out, and I can’t stop my lips from twitching as I remember just how well she fucked me the second time. Going to talk to her father, hearing his terms on my request for help, and then seeing her sister and meeting her brothers—it almost sent me over the fucking edge.
I run my fingertips gently down her spine and then back up before pressing my eyes closed tightly. Patrick Fucking O’Neil, the Mick piece of shit.
Leaning down, I press my lips to her shoulder before I amble out of bed, completely naked. I don’t bother searching for something to wear, grabbing just my phone off of the floor as I quietly pad out of the bedroom.
“You’re calling me this early because?” Yakov rumbles into the phone.
“I have a problem,” I admit as I make my way toward the windows in the living room.
“Pasha?”
“Nyet, Patrick O’Neil,” I admit as I chew my bottom lip. Yakov doesn’t say anything, waiting for me to continue. “He’s fucking me over. My father’s been telling him that I’ve been abusing Devyn. I asked him for help with our plan in a couple days, and the only way I get it is if I allow him to amend my contract with Devyn.”
Yakov hums and I continue. “If she’s not pregnant in three months, she goes back to him. Three months, Yakov,” I hiss.
“You better put in overtime then,” he chuckles.
I let out a breath. “Christ, Yakov. If it doesn’t happen, she’ll be taken from me.”
“And you don’t want that?” he asks, sounding a little more alert.
“She’s my wife,” I state as I run my hand through my hair. “She’s mine.”
“What would you be willing to do to keep her, Timofei?” he asks. I stare at the dark ocean. The sun is beginning to rise, so I can see a shadow from the low waves that come and go every few breaths I take. “Timofei?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “I’ve only known her a week, Yakov.”
“Then I can’t help you there. If she meant something to you, if you would do whatever it took to keep her, then I would back you without hesitation,” he explains.
“But…”
“I’m not into the habit of protecting and saving women under contract, Timofei. The terms were agreed and signed on.”
“Fuck,” I hiss. “I don’t know how I feel about her yet, it’s too soon,” I state.
Yakov hums before he answers. “Get her pregnant, that way you have as long as you want to figure out if you love her or not,” he murmurs before he ends the call.
Fuck.
“Three months?” a small voice calls out from behind me.
I turn around to see Devyn standing in just my shirt. Her black hair a wild mess, looking sexier than ever, but she looks really fucking pale.
“I needed his help. We renegotiated.”
“You’ll hand me back to him so easily?” she asks. Her face morphs into what looks like physical pain, and it makes my heart constrict.
“It’s business, devochka, it has nothing to do with us. If you’re pregnant, then it’s a non-issue,” I inform her. The pain in her eyes, the obvious hurt, it doesn’t dissipate at all.
“You wonder why I act like a robot? Why my only ambition in life is to please you? You really act like you want all of me when I clearly will never have all of you. I am a pawn, nothing but a piece to be moved when it’s convenient. Please, do not try to lull me into a false security, a false life anymore, Timofei. I’m nothing but your fuck doll, and you’ve made it absolutely clear that that is all I am to you,” she announces, her voice soft, low, and eerily calm.
“Devvy,” I call out as I take a step toward her. She steps back and holds out her hand.
“Please don’t. No more Devvy, no more devochka, and no more baby. All those sweet endearments do is give me a false sense of hope. So please, Timofei, no more. I’m Devyn and you’re Timofei. We’re business associates who have sex; and if a baby is produced, we’ll revisit our relationship if you wish for that. But if it isn’t, then I’ll be someone else’s to use until I’m pawned off on another, like the whore I apparently am.”
She turns from me and I watch her go. I don’t run after her, although I feel like I should. My heart is pounding inside of my chest, and my breathing is rapid. Fucking shit. What the fuck have I done?