I grip his biceps so hard my knuckles ache. His finger slides deeper. My body stretches around him. The pain is sharp but keeps me from drifting. “That’s it,” he murmurs. “You take my fingers so well.”

  He curls the finger once, and my cock jerks against my stomach. He knows exactly what he's doing. He slides the finger out, my body clenching around nothing. He coats his fingers again with lube, letting me hear it, doing it slow on purpose. “You want to feel full?” His voice drops lower. “Tell me.”

  “I want you… I want you inside me.”

  Viktor presses two fingers against me. I push back before I can stop myself. “So desperate today, aren't you? Open for me.”

  The pressure builds and then gives. My breath catches. Two fingers fill me and my whole body reacts. “Good,” he says. “Relax around me.”

  I try, but it doesn't work. My muscles flutter around him. He thrusts his fingers a little harder, working me open with short, controlled pushes. “Look at me.”

  I open my eyes. He watches every reaction I have. His fingers work inside me, slow at first, then faster when he finds the place that makes my hips jerk. “Viktor… God—don't stop⁠—”

  “I won't,” he answers. “You're almost ready.”

  He angles the next thrust. My vision blurs. My cock twitches against my stomach in sharp, helpless pulses. “You feel that? That’s where I'm going to fuck you.”

  A sound rips out of me. He pulls his fingers out slowly, watching the way my body clenches after them. He reaches for my shoulders and pushes me flat on my back. “Lift your knees. Spread them for me.”

  My legs rise without hesitation. The cold air hits me and my whole body feels open and exposed. Viktor kneels between my thighs. His cock is hard and flushed, heavy in his hand. He strokes himself once, coating his length with lube, and his breath stutters as he tries to keep control. He presses the head to my rim.

  “You ready?”

  “Yes,” I whisper. “Please.”

  He pushes in, just the tip. The stretch is blunt. The pressure is heavy. It forces me open until I can't think. He fills me until my body doesn't belong to me anymore.

  “That’s it,” he murmurs. “Open for me.”

  He slowly sinks in the rest of the way. When his pelvis meets mine, a broken sound tears out of my throat. He's inside me. All of him. And I can barely breathe. Viktor stays still at first, buried deep inside me. The stretch is overwhelming and perfect, and my body doesn't know whether to tense or melt.

  He grips my hips and pulls me onto him one more inch. “Good,” he praises. “You're holding me so tight.”

  A tremor runs through my stomach. My cock jerks against my belly, already leaking. I can't speak. I can't barely think. “Tell me if you need to stop.”

  I shake my head hard. “Don't stop. Don't—Viktor, please don't.”

  His eyes darken. He draws almost all the way out and pushes back in with slow force. The sound leaves me before I can swallow it down. He does it again, finding a rhythm that feels patient and cruel. My thighs shake. My hands search for something to hold until he takes them and pins them above my head. “Keep them there.”

  I obey without thinking. He fucks me deeper, the pressure building until it breaks across my nerves in sharp waves. My body arches up toward him every time he thrusts, chasing the relief and the heat and the next unbearable stretch. “Look at me,” he barks.

  I try. My eyes unfocus and refocus. I meet his gaze. A slow, hungry smile touches his mouth. “There you are,” he murmurs. “Such a pretty sight. Open and shaking. All for me.”

  He thrusts harder, and the angle shifts. He hits a spot inside me that makes my vision pulse white. My cock jumps against my stomach in violent twitches. “Right there… oh God… right there⁠—”

  He grips my hips and locks me in place while he drives into that exact place again and again. My voice breaks. My legs pull back farther on instinct, giving him more access, giving him everything. “That’s it,” he growls. “Take it.”

  My back lifts off the mattress. My breath stutters. My cock leaks relentless. “Viktor… I'm close… I'm—please⁠—”

  He slows for one moment. My whole body shakes at the loss. His hand locks my hip in place, holding me there. “You come when I tell you.”

  I let out a helpless sound. I don't know how to hold it. I don't know how to stop anything in my body from breaking open. “Please,” I whisper. “Please, let me⁠—”

  He leans down, mouth brushing mine, breath hot. “Ask properly,” he murmurs.

  “I want to come. Please, Viktor, let me come.”

  He bites gently at my bottom lip. “Good boy.”

  Then he fucks me hard. My nails dig into the sheets. My thighs tremble. My cock slaps against my stomach with every thrust. The pressure builds too fast to hold. It climbs and climbs until I can't breathe. “Come,” he orders.

  It hits me so fast I cry out. My cock erupts against my stomach in thick pulses. My body arches off the mattress and shakes through every wave. I can't think. I can't speak. I can only feel him inside me, filling me, pushing me through each harsh surge. He groans deep in his chest when he feels me clamp around him. “Jonah… fuck⁠—”

  His rhythm breaks. His hand tightens on my hip. He thrusts once, twice, a third time with a shudder that rips through him. Then he spills inside me. His cock pulses deep inside me in slow waves that make my spine tremble all over again. I grip his back and drag him down onto me, desperate to feel all of his weight.

  We stay in a tangled, shaking mess. Then he pulls out slowly, careful with the sensitivity, and lies beside me. His hand finds my chest. My leg hooks over his hip without thinking. For a long moment nothing moves. No one speaks. The only sound is our breathing and the soft hiss of snow against the window. We stay like this for a long time. Long enough to drink the lukewarm coffee and watch more snow fall.

  Then a knock lands against the door.

  “Mr. Morozov.” The voice carries through the wood. “Dr. Petrov requests you.”

  Viktor sits up. Whatever softness lingered in him drains out, replaced by something calculating. “Not now.”

  “Coming in.”

  The door opens. Five men in black step inside. “We weren't sure if you were awake,” one of them says. Judging by the way his eyes widen, he hoped Viktor wasn't. Then one of the guards lifts his gun and points right at me.

  Viktor moves instantly, planting himself in front of me. His body blocks mine completely. “Touch him, and you die.”

  “Easy.” Sokolov walks in. “This doesn't have to get messy. Or maybe just a little.” He chuckles, then gestures to his guards. They surround Viktor with drawn guns. “Now, come with me, prince.”

  My chest caves in. My eyes sting. I can't breathe. Just as I thought there might be some happy ending to this, they need to come in and do this. I don't realize I'm crying until my vision blurs. “Please,” I choke. “Don't hurt him.”

  Viktor turns his head just enough for me to see his eyes. Something in them breaks. “Jonah. Look at me.”

  I try. I can't stop shaking.

  “Stay here. Don't move.”

  They grab him. I sob when they do. I don't care how it sounds. “No…Viktor⁠—”

  He lets them take him. As they pull him toward the door, he looks back once. “I'll be back soon.”

  Then the door slams. A lock turns. And I collapse where I am, breath breaking apart in my chest. I look at the space where Viktor was standing and try to remember how I functioned before he was here. I am covered in his scent. I am marked by his weight. He has made me part of him, and I don't know how to survive the silence.

  As I sit there watching the snow, the silence that follows isn't quiet. It's violent.

  CHAPTER

  ELEVEN

  JONAH

  I don't know what to do with myself. They took him. I don't know what they're going to do to him. I don't even know why I care so much.

  Pressing a palm to my throat, I force a breath in, then another. If I don't, I'm going to lose it. My body keeps reacting like the threat is still in the room, even though nothing is moving. Even though I'm alone. This silence has its own kind of violence.

  I pace around, then stop, because there's nowhere to go. Nothing to grab onto. Only a few nights ago, I stood in the doorway of my old life, staring at the man who taught me fear. The man who called himself Dad but hasn't come back to help me. Now I'm here instead. In a house that isn't mine. Surrounded by money and power and men with guns. Kept in a golden prison with a mafia heir who's dangerous enough to terrify everyone else, and gentle enough with me that it hurts to think about.

  Outside the window, snow keeps falling. It presses against the glass in waves, burying the road, the trees, the stone wall at the edge of the property. If Viktor had walked out of here and kept going, the storm would've erased every trace of him within an hour.

  I shouldn't think about him, but my body doesn't seem to know that. It's like it learned his shape and didn't get the message that he's gone. I can't believe he didn't kill them all.

  I cross to the window and then back to the bed. A book lies on the nightstand. The title is printed in Cyrillic. I recognize a few letters, not enough to read. Inside, the pages are dense with columns, numbers, notes crowded into the margins. I set it down carefully, realizing how little I actually know about Viktor Morozov. Not where he grew up. Not how he learned to become what he is. Not what his life looked like before he walked into mine and bent everything out of shape. Would Viktor have looked at me if we'd passed each other on the street? Of course not. He lives in a world I never touched. I'm only here because I was in the wrong place, with the wrong man, at the wrong time.

  Time drags. I keep asking myself what they're doing to him. I don't know what could be worse than being killed, but I start to understand that his uncle has enough cruelty to invent something. By the time the sun sets, Viktor still isn't back.

  My thoughts circle the same place. I see the way his body fought the drug. I see the way his eyes burned even as his knees gave out. I see the way Petrov watched all of it without blinking. Petrov. The one Viktor trusted. The one his family trusted.

  “Viktor,” I whisper to the empty room. Nothing answers.

  I'm in bed by the time footsteps finally move in the corridor. My throat locks. The lock turns from the outside. The handle moves. The door opens. Then, finally, the doorway fills with him.

  I'm out of bed and moving toward him before my head remembers to stop. His hair is damp at the temples, like he's been burning through adrenaline. His gaze doesn't quite focus on me at first. His arms hang loose at his sides. His shoulders are drawing in. He looks broken. Brutalized. I've seen that look many times in the ER. Seeing it on him hits harder, because he's never looked breakable to me before.

  His eyes lift to mine. Focus snaps back in.

  “Viktor. Are you alright?”

  “Yeah.” He shuts the door behind him. “Were you waiting up for me?”

  Reaching to the back of his waistband, he pulls out a knife. My breath catches.

  “Guess they didn't want to keep it,” he says mildly.

  “What’s that?”

  “My knife.” His mouth tilts. “It was my father's before it was mine. I lost it after the shooting.” He turns it once in his grip.

  “How did you get it back?”

  “A guard gave it to me. She waited until Sergei's men weren't watching. Put it in my palm and walked away.”

  “Do you know her?”

  “No.”

  “Then why give it back?”

  He looks at the blade. Something dangerous flickers in his eyes. “Loyalty. Someone in this house is on my side. Or because these motherfuckers want to see what I'll do with it. If that’s the case, I'll make sure my uncle regrets the reminder.”

  His thumb slides once along the flat of the steel. I don't know which scares me more. That they gave it back, or how naturally it fits his grip. Viktor crosses to the far wall, to the strip of wood framing the space beside the window. He steps back and throws. The knife hits and stays, buried to the hilt. My stomach drops. Is that a warning? Or proof that whatever they did to him didn't work?

  He walks over, pulls it free, and tucks it back into his waistband. “Whoever’s playing with me should get ready to lose.” He takes one step toward me.

  Up close, I see the fine tremors in his muscles. There's a faint sheen at his hairline. I touch his shirt. The fabric is damp with old sweat. His body stiffens all at once. He stays close, but everything in him locks down.

  “What did they do to you?”

  “Not enough,” he grunts, but his jaw jumps. He looks past me to the far wall, then away from that too. “Not nearly enough. I'm going to take a shower. Wash their dirt away.”

  He turns and stalks toward the bathroom. When I follow him inside, he's already pulling off his clothes. Our eyes meet in the mirror. I think about asking if he needs help, but I don't. He's a predator, tossed back in his prison, and right now he's holding himself together.

  I've been tossed in a prison. Am I angry? I should be. Dad wrecked my life with one call. Tonight I should be in a hospital, working, not locked in a mansion with Viktor Morozov.

  The light in here is harsher than the bedroom. I watch as his naked skin shifts. He grips the sink and bows his head. His shoulders bunch so tight they look carved. The muscles in his forearms stand out as he leans on his own weight.

  “Viktor—”

  “Don’t.” He steps into the shower.

  Water runs over his shoulders and down his back, tracing muscle and tension. It catches in his hair. Dark strands plaster to his neck as he dips his chin to his chest, letting it hit him full-on. His palms come up to the wall, fingers spread, elbows locked. The bear tattoo on his chest darkens under the spray, shifting with each controlled breath. He looks exposed like this.

  I watch the water run over him, trying to read what it left behind. I don't want to interfere. I don't want to save him. I just want to stay close enough that whatever he's carrying doesn't vanish behind closed doors again. The truth lands without warning. I wasn't worried out of obligation. Somewhere in the quiet, he stopped being a man I was assigned to and became someone I couldn't stop tracking in my head.

  On impulse, I kick my shoes off and step in behind him. The water is hot enough to sting. I slide my fingers over his shoulders. His skin jumps under my touch.

  “Jonah,” he warns.

  “I just want to wash you. Please.”

  Steam blurs the room, and water pounds against the tile.

  “Tell me something, krasavchik. Why are you still here?”

  “What do you mean? They've locked me up with you.”

  “That’s not what I meant, and you know it.” His gaze pins mine. “You should be afraid. So why aren't you?”

  I swallow. Fear has been my baseline for as long as I can remember. Fear of loving a father who made it clear I was disposable. Fear of staying close to a man with enough power to erase me if he chose to.

  “I—I don't know.”

  His fingers catch my chin and tip it up, forcing me to face him. “Liar.”

  “Sometimes lying is safer than feeling the truth.” The words leave my mouth before I can stop them.

  “Here.” He presses the shower gel into my palm. “You wanted to wash me.”

  I hesitate. It feels like crossing a line. But I've crossed so many since the night I was dragged into this house that I've lost count. I don't know where the edges are anymore. I slide my slick palms over his shoulders. The scent of roses fills the bathroom.

  When my hands cross a bruise, his breath jerks. I don't hear it over the water, but I feel his chest press into my palms. My hands keep moving, and he stays right where he is.

  “What happened?” I ask, sliding the gel over his chest.

  His hand snaps up around my wrist, hard enough to jolt my pulse. “You don't want to know.” He turns me and pins my back to the cool, wet tile. His forearm locks across my chest, a bar of muscle holding me in place. He leans in, his breath hot against my ear. “Not if you ever want to leave this house with a clean conscience.”

  “I'm not scared of you,” I say, even as my voice shakes.

  “Yes, you are.” Steam fills the space, blurring the edges of the room. Viktor doesn't look at me. He looks past me. “And you should be. In this world, mercy is just a word for people who don't know they've already lost.”

  My hand curls at my side. “That isn't how it's supposed to work.”

  That gets his attention. One corner of his mouth twitches in a cruel smirk. “But it does.” Then his hand closes around my throat and pins me to the tile. “That's why a sweet boy like you needs to be careful.”

  He presses in, closing my airways. I can't breathe. But my body yearns for it, locking and leaning at the same time. It's like I've crossed a line I can't uncross.

  “You like a bit of pain, don't you?”

  I don't answer. I don't have to. He turns his back to me and lets me wash him there, before he turns back to face me. He watches me with that tight, held focus.

  “You like it when I control your body.”

  I shake my head, but feel embarrassment heat my face.

  Hooking two fingers under my chin, he forces our eyes to meet. “I want to control your body. Your every single breath. Don't ask me why. I just do.”

  Taking the washing gel from my trembling hand, he squirts some onto his palm and tosses the bottle away. He starts washing me with firm strokes that make my body both lock up and relax. This is all so confusing. We stay like this for a moment. Until my thoughts become too loud.

  “Talk to me,” I ask him. “Tell me what happened when they took you.”

  “Later.”

  The word is soft, but it shuts me out. I know I shouldn't push. Still, I can't leave him standing here with all of it locked inside him. I draw a breath. As if he hears it, his eyes flick back to mine.