Page 40 of Fate and Family

This time he hits the spot, and I’m able to release some tension on my clit. My breathing becomes frantic again and I know I don’t have too much longer.

“I lost everything. My friends, my job.” I release the weight I’ve been holding back and add, “My country.” I put both of my hands on his cheeks and continue to ride his cock. “You’re all I have too.”

The pressure builds again and I don’t know how much more I can take. The stress and wear is still building in Dimitri too as our movements become more unfocused. He kisses me deeply as he grabs both my ass cheeks and forces me to grind on his cock.

“Come with me,” he says before kissing me.

I nod and quicken my pace. I don’t know if he means to run away with him or to come on his cock, but either way my answer is “yes.”

With my last reserve of energy, I grind my clit onto his pelvic bone and he continues to move me. I cry out as the pressure builds and releases. I’m shivering and shaking, which launches him to do the same thing. We’ve come together, and fulfilled and exhausted, crash on the sheets.

He pants beside me for several minutes before discarding the condom. We lay in bed—my head on his chest, his arm draped around my waist—every need met, basking in the afterglow. Twelve months of tension and lies released.

“You know I was never going to kill you, right?” He kisses the top of my head.

I huff. “Yeah, I wasn’t too concerned about that. Honestly, I’m shocked you lasted as long as you did as a hardened criminal.”

He squeezes my waist. “Well, I needed to look cool in front of my bartender.” He lifts me and rolls me onto his stomach, creating a Katya blanket. “I don’t think I would’ve made it this far without you.”

“I’m sure as shit you wouldn’t have made it out of St. Petersburg without me.” Careful not to touch his shoulder, I rest my head on his chest. “What do you want to do now?”

“For the immediate future or with my life?”

“Both.”

“For right now, I want to lay in this bed with you and watch cute animal videos.”

“You’ve got the heart of a serial killer.” I laugh.

“Once we meet up with Uri, we’ll see what happens.” He’s quiet for a minute. “Maybe I will stay in Europe, or maybe I’ll go to America.”

“You know, I live in America,” I casually drop.

“What?! No way,” he says sarcastically. Hmm, maybe he really is funny. But he adds with a tentative curiosity, “What’s it like?”

“The food is cheaper, there are more people, and the weather’s better. Honestly, I don’t know why you live in Russia to begin with.”

His chest rumbles with laughter.

“Well, if I’d left, I wouldn’t be in this bed with you. It’s like fate.”

“Or luck. A lot of luck.”

For the moment, we lay unmoving, tangled together, letting the peace and promises we made to ourselves be fulfilled before the next dose of chaos begins.

Chapter

Nineteen

Dimitri

Food. We need food. I cannot survive over three hundred nights of fantasies fueled on porridge alone.

She’s scrolling through her burner phone, looking for more cute animal videos, when I roll out of bed to get dressed. I drop my bag, and a heavy thump catches my attention. That’s weird. I start to dig through the random assortment of shit, grimacing a bit when my fingers brush my suit, stiff from the blood. My brother’s cellphone sinks to the bottom of my bag and keeps slipping through my fingers until I get a grip on it.

His life was on this phone. I’m holding the last remaining physical remnant of my family. I type in his code, and my heart drops. Notifications from the security system at the forest safe house fill the screen. Ian and Nadia. The panic room was activated.

I frantically scroll back through the notifications:

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