Chapter Six

Celia

Nine months ago

The world around me shatters into a million pieces. Everything in me hurts. I press my lips closed in a bid to contain the scream I want to let loose. I hold my mother close as sobs rack her body. Taking the thick wad of paper from the doctor, I mouth “thank you.” He nods before leaving us alone in the examination room.

I focus on taking deep breaths. Working to control my own tears, I squeeze my eyes closed. Searching for something, anything like my therapist guided me through to center my thoughts. My place of calm where everything outside faded away. Where I breathed deep to the bottom of my lungs. There was only one place where that happened. When I was in Milos Levin’s arms. I had no idea it was even possible. Swore it was the last place on earth until the night I found out how wrong I was. I go there as I fight not to lose it for my mother.

Which has to be the only reason I give in and call him as easily as I do when Carlo refuses to give me his credit card. He says he’ll take care of it when he gets the bills.

I argue that they want payment up front for several of the appointments. Without insurance she was being sent to low-cost medical care that didn’t have appointments for months, wasting time she didn’t have. His response that I’m being dramatic is a smack in the face. I’m not, she’s at stage three breast cancer for fuck’s sake, it’s spread to her lungs and lymph nodes.

Hanging up on Carlo, I fight back tears. I won’t cry. I will do whatever it takes for my mother. His number is in my phone, only called once in all these years. He had come exactly as he promised the last time I called. Like some kind of avenging angel, he swooped in and saved me. And he didn’t ask for a thing. So what if the reason he had to save me was found dead in the local river a week later, clearly tortured before being killed? I never regretted calling him.

I take a deep breath and press the button. Only two rings sound before he answers.

“Celia? Are you all right?” The clear concern gets me more than everything has so far.

The tears flow fast, I’m a mess and I’m not sure I make any sense. He is calm, there is no instruction to stop crying or even breathe deep, he simply tells me he is here, everything will be all right. Only how can it be? Less than twenty minutes after he answers there’s a knock at the door. In a haze I open it, he’s there. I don’t hesitate to throw myself in his arms.

He catches me close. As he was on the phone, he’s gentle, no urging me to calm down. He simply holds me as I cry. Once I’m cried out, he pulls out his pocket square and cleans me up.

“Your mother is strong. She will be all right. I will handle the cost of her care. My mother went through something like this a few years ago. I will call her doctor and have her care transferred there. Everything will be all right, kotyonok. I will not allow your mother to die.”

The way he said it, so sure—as if no one was allowed to do anything unless he approved it first—I almost laughed. Laying my head on his chest, I believed him. My mother will be fine because Milos Levin commanded it.

And over the next few months Milos was proven correct. His only request was I not let my mother know who was behind everything. I agreed, sure Carlo would flip if he knew. In the end, Milos paid for everything through a charitable foundation created by his mother after her breast cancer fight—something she went through only five years previously.

Milos was at every radiation treatment with me while I waited in the hallway. He called me every night. Talking to him was heaven and hell, he simply listened to all my fears and encouraged me to be positive. As badly as I wanted him to, he never spoke of himself, not what he was doing or where he was. Only once did he allow it to get personal…he never let it happen again.

It’s the day of the last appointment. Just as Milos said, my mother was fine. Weeks of radiation, chemotherapy, a mastectomy, and finally it might be all over. Carlo finally came through, but only for the mastectomy and reconstruction that happened at the same time. Ever the man, it was all to make sure my mom remained the woman he wanted her to be

I’m pacing my room, on edge as we wait for the phone call. “This is bullshit. Carlo has only been there for her for one surgery, no chemo, no radiation, and now he wants to be and we have to stay home. I swear I can’t fucking believe her sometimes.”

Carina sighs. “It’s sucks but it’s what Mommy wants. Deep breath, Celia. This is all going to be good.”

I nod. “You’re right. It has to be. I don’t think I can take even another week of this. I never want to see the inside of a hospital ever again.”

Her eyes drop. I knew she felt bad she never came to the hospital. She’s hated hospitals ever since her accident and several-week stay as a little kid. Once having a panic attack at the mere thought of going. Every time I went with Mommy, Carina felt awful she couldn’t be there too. “I’m sorry—”

I’m firm. “For the last time, don’t apologize. It’s all over now anyway. I believe that.”

She gives in. “You’re going to have enough time to get back to school for the spring semester. And with how far ahead you’ve been you’ll still be on track to graduate on time. I’m so proud of you.”

I collapse onto my desk chair. “You might not be so proud of me when I tell you I’m not going on to the veterinarian program after all. Last year I changed my mind. I decided to go for a business degree instead. What would really make me happy and fulfilled is running a cat rescue. So when I graduate it’s what I’m going to work toward—in addition to working at the clinic again.” I tense as I wait for her response.

Blinking wide a few times. “Wait, you made the decision last year and are just now telling me? What happened?”

“I kept getting freaked out. My stomach would do that twisting tension thing. Started happening in the fall of my second year but I was afraid to admit it. I thought ‘oh, this will pass.’ It didn’t, it got stronger spring semester. Weirdly, the stronger a student I became the more I figured out I didn’t want to do it. Like how the hell was I looking forward to my business classes over my vet classes? Business was supposed to be the minor. The thing to help me be a stronger vet clinic owner, not where I could breathe.” It’s a relief to admit.

Studying me, she nods. “I always did wonder if you were really good for cutting open animals, even if it was to make them better. It wasn’t something I thought you could bring yourself to do. And shut up. I’m still so proud of you. You have dyslexia and your grades are way better than mine. And I don’t have half the classes you do.”

“You’re sweet, but all I can think is Carlo was right. It was a waste of money and time. The scholarship people were amazing in a way that made no sense when it came to flushing it all down the toilet. At this rate I’m never going to be able to move out of here. How can I actually support myself creating a not-for-profit? I’ll be working at the vet clinic until I’m too old to be on my feet all day,” I share my fear.

Tilting her head, Carina smiles. “If anything it will make you an even worse prospect for a mob wife. You’re twenty-three and Carlo hasn’t said a word about marriage since you went into school. You might just escape.”

I sigh. “God, I hope so. You too. Good job on the playing mute thing and way too much eyeliner and going to events in cosplay. Carlo would have to force you on a capo for someone to take you.”

She throws her head back and runs her fingers through her hair with a smug smile on her face. “Thank you. I do my best. I swear the men are so fucking stupid. Some of them think it’s because I don’t have a tongue or something, that Carlo cut it off. Half the time I’m sitting there wanting to scream how fucking stupid can they be?”

“I know, you’re usually digging your nails into my hand.” I laugh. “It’s even funnier how they get freaked out when we hold hands.”

Giggling, she buries her face into my pillow. “Men are stupid. Like painfully stupid.”

As I turn the phone around in my hands, I think of Milos. “Not all men. There are a few that aren’t. Unfortunately, they aren’t the ones who want women like us.”

“Milos?” She makes kissing noises.

“Shut up.” I throw a pen at her.

“You’ve been seeing him since you’ve been home while Mommy is sick.” It’s not a question.

Blushing, I shrug. She tried to get the story out of me after that night she walked in on us having dinner. But when it became clear I would never see or speak to him again, she let it go. “That will all be over soon. Especially if Mommy is better.”

Her green eyes go wide. “Why?”

“Because…” I sigh. “What does he want with someone like me? He’s been so sweet and supportive but I’m sure he’s also ready to be done with me. Men like him don’t…”

“Hey, obviously he does. Men like him also don’t waste time. If he didn’t want to be there for you he wouldn’t be.” Carina is up, hugging me.

I shake my head. “He’s being nice is all.” I’m sure of it. All he did was listen on the phone. He came to sit with me for the radiation since my mother was in another room while it happened, only for him to disappear before she was done. “I’m sure he’ll be relieved Mommy is fine so he won’t have to put up with me anymore.”

Carina sighs. “I don’t think so. Don’t make any hasty decisions.”

My phone rings. “It’s Mommy,” I tell her as I answer. I put it on speaker.

“Girls, it’s gone. A checkup in three months then another for every three months until we get to a year, and then we’re done.”

Tears of relief start pouring. I hug Carina so tight we both squeak from pain.

“Okay, I’m going home with your daddy. I’ll be home in a few days.” Then she hangs up.

For almost twenty minutes we both cry tears of relief. Finally we’re dry-eyed. An alarm goes off on Carina’s phone. “Fuck, I have to get to class. Are you good?”

Carina is doing a business degree at the University of Illinois in Chicago. Because Carlo laughed at her the same way he did to me when she asked if he would give her the money from our grandmother for school, she’s paying for it. She can only afford three classes a semester. For years Carina has been designing stickers and laptop skins. She actually makes really good money.

Her problem is she spends it almost as soon as she gets it. I talked to her for years about reinvesting into her business and even saving, considering there were times she was broke until she got paid out from the stores she ran online and couldn’t complete orders.

It's a little embarrassing my little sister and I were at the same point in school because I was held back a year due to my dyslexia. Carina has always been sweet about never letting me feel bad about it, or letting any of her friends say anything either.

I nod. “Go on, go. I have something I need to do anyway.”

“What?” she asks as she wipes her eyes.

“Just going to let Milos know and thank him.” I shrug.

“Don’t. Don’t do whatever you are going to do. Give it a minute,” she pleads.

“It’s not a big deal,” I assure her.

Her sigh is heavy. “It is. And are you really going to not admit you’re cutting him off before he does to keep from being hurt?”

“I’m not admitting anything. Go to school,” I order her.

“You’re going to regret this.” She sighs as she leaves my room.

Deep down I wonder if she’s right, so much so I sit frozen for more than an hour after she leaves. Eventually I steel myself and do what needs to be done.

I figured his restaurant is likely where he is at three in the afternoon on a Wednesday.

I’m standing stiffly in the nicest sweater dress I have, a long-sleeve, deep-v neckline in a deep teal. The dress comes down to just below my knees. I pair it with knee-high boots in a dark brown without a heel.

Since it’s early in the day I thought I wouldn’t be bothering him. I guess I’m wrong because he isn’t here. After almost five minutes, I give up and begin backing out of the restaurant.

A woman stops me. “Please wait. Peter is coming for you. Milos wants to see you. Sit, I bring you tea.”

Embarrassed, I try to ignore the way workers in the restaurant eye me from all angles. Finally, Peter arrives and I follow him out to a waiting black SUV.

I’m surprised we’re going deeper into the city, then into the parking garage for the John Hancock building. Disappointment hits me sharply as I remember him talking about the apartments his brothers brought their women to rather than bringing them home. He never said he had one—I should have known. Of course he had one.

I follow Peter into the elevator. It stops on the seventy-eighth floor. I’m hesitant to follow him out. Holy crap, there are only six doors on the floor. That means the apartment will be huge.

A knock on the door is answered by Milos. For the first time he isn’t his usual immaculate self. The black hair, usually slicked back just right, is tousled. His usual thin beard is overgrown by several days. He also looks as if he had just woken up. He’s still in black on black though, a button-down black shirt and black pants.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bother you. I’ll leave—” I begin.

Milos shakes his head, opening the door wider. “Come in, Celia. Whether you meant to or not makes no difference, the result is the same.”

The words sting—I am bothering him. I hate the way he calls me Celia. In all these months he hasn’t called me by my name once—it was always “kitten” in Russian. I follow him deeper into the apartment. It’s decorated with dark wood, elegant rugs, the walls are dark red and hunter green. It’s pretty but feels dark. Is that a real Turner on one wall and a Sargent portrait? It’s eerie how much the woman in the portrait looks like she could be me, although she’s far more elegant and thinner. I realize Milos is staring at me and drop my eyes from the portrait.

“Sit.” He nods to the long leather couch. “Drink?” he asks as he goes to the corner where an array of liquors are in crystal decanters.

I shake my head. “No thank you.”

My eyes are drawn to the new tattoos over the back of his hands. They weren’t there three years ago. He told me his tattoos were hidden to help him appear the bland, boring businessman rather than the Bratva he is. I can’t help wondering what was important enough for him to change his mind. They are both words in Russian Cyrillic, but so stylized I don’t recognize what they say even after four years of college Russian. I asked him about them once while we were waiting for my mother to complete her radiation treatement—he brushed the question off and I didn’t dare ask again.

He pours a clear liquor into a glass and throws it back. “Why are you here, Celia?”

Swallowing down the fear, I keep my eyes on my hands in my lap. “I wanted to tell you that my mother got the results back today. She’s cancer free. Thank you, for everything. She wouldn’t be alive without you.”

The silence stretches. I give in and lift my eyes to find him staring out over Lake Michigan. “Milos?”

“Is that all?” He doesn’t turn.

The words are filled with something I don’t understand. They throb, filling the room until I feel like I’m choking on them. “I won’t bother you anymore,” I whisper. So low a part of me hopes he won’t hear them.

Of course he did, heat hits me where his eyes trace over me. “So what, now that you have no use for me you’re done with me?”

Shock brings my eyes up. “No. It was never like that. I’m sorry I’ve been bothering you. After everything you’ve done, I felt I owed you a thank you in person.”

He goes still as a statue, yellow flares so hot his gaze burns where it touches me. “Owed me?” The words are soft. An eyebrow goes up. “You feel you owe me? How does that work exactly? How can you pay me back? What do I get in exchange for saving your mother’s life? For sitting with you during her treatments, holding you while you cried, calling you every night and hearing you cry yet unable to hold you, to soothe you the way you wanted me to…hmm?”

His hands are in his pockets, studying me as he leans against the window with Lake Michigan and clouds behind him. Those yellow eyes leave me so hot I tug my dress away without thought. His eyes flick to my breasts as they move with my deep breath. The air shimmers between us and finally I understand what it is, sexual tension.

Now I get what he wants from me. Whatever I think I owe him is nothing compared to what Milos wants. My stomach is twisting, my hands sweating but not in fear—in anticipation, in desire. Nodding, I stand. “Of course, I’m sorry. I—”

Milos shakes his head, his lips twisting bitterly. “Go home, Celia.” I’m dismissed. He walks past me back down the hallway. I follow. Fear that this is over—all of it over sends me after him No, I can do this. I want to do this.

His room is so dark I barely see him lying on the bed. “Leave, Celia. You come near me and I am not responsible for what I do.”

I don’t hesitate to step into the room. Words won’t come, I have none. Instead, I begin unbuttoning the dress. When it opens, I cringe, thankful for the dark. Yet somehow Milos sees me as he groans and rolls to sit up at the edge of his bed. Both hands come out and grasp the edge of each side of the dress, and he uses them to draw me to him.

Those large hands grasp me low on my thighs. There is that stinging electric surge that always jolts through me at his touch. Sliding his hands up, he leaves licks of fire everywhere they touch. I’m trembling at what his hands on me make me want, need. His hands stop around my waist, pulling me to him. My hands go into his hair, exhilaration filling me at the freedom to at last touch him.

He sighs. “God, the scent of you so wet, so needy is every fucking thing.”

The words, along with the way he runs his cheek over the soft flesh of my stomach, fills me with shame.

Milos tightens his grip, then suddenly I’m on my back with him over me. I can’t see a thing—it is only his hand I feel cupping my cheek. “Celia?”

Even though I think it’s a question he doesn’t give me time to answer, as his lips swipe against mine. The movement is slight, barely a whisper, so why does it feel like my lips are burning? Why do they draw my lips apart in a gasp at the shock of them against mine? As if my lips opening is an invitation, his are back and his tongue sweeping deep inside.

His kiss is nothing like what I expect. Far from demanding and savage, it’s gentle, almost tender as his velvet tongue discovers every inch, taking me deeper and deeper into desperate longing for more. The taste of him mint and alcohol floods into my bloodstream, the coolness of mint yet the burn of alcohol—intoxicating even as it invigorates my senses, making me desperate for more.

I’m lost in his kiss so totally I don’t even miss the air my lungs are greedy for. My need for him is more important. I don’t know where he begins and I end. And yet I crave more. I want to crawl into his skin and get lost in him. When his mouth leaves mine, pressing kisses along my throat, I ache from the loss even as air comes rushing back into thirsty lungs.

Low, throaty words of Russian wash over my skin in the wake of his kiss. I can’t catch them all…kraslvaya, nuzhhno. I can hardly believe he’s calling me beautiful, telling me he needs me.

I’m wearing one of the sets of bra and panties he bought me what feels like forever ago, but have lasted as beautifully now as they did when he bought them three years ago.

With a flicker of movement I barely feel the catch of my pink sheer mesh and silk bra open. All I know is his mouth is there—capturing a painfully tight nipple and sucking deep. A rush of liquid heat dampens my panties until I’m squirming in embarrassment. Milos reads me like a book, his large hand is there, a finger tracing and finding how wet I am for him.

My head goes back in agony when he tugs my panties to the side and a thick finger slides up my weeping slit. I watch as he brings it up to his mouth. All at once I hate the shadows hiding him from me. The low moan of satisfaction rumbles through him. It’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life.

“Sweet as honey, more addictive than any drug,” he whispers. The big finger is there again, this time he swipes his wet finger over a hard nipple before tasting it with his velvet tongue. Cruel, his teeth nip the painfully sensitive skin. Yet as the sensation squeezes a yelp from my tight throat, it also sends another wave of wet heat to my panties.

Moving too fast for me to take in, he’s there between my legs, his big hands wrapping around my thighs, holding me open for him. He said he didn’t do this to women, I remember as shock rolls through me.

His wicked tongue is swiping up my slit over and over, driving me crazy from not sinking into me the way I need him to. My hands go into his hair, so thick and soft as silk, only for him to move off me when I do.

“Milos?” I moan. Worried I was like the other women who weren’t allowed to touch him, despite him going down on me when he told me he never did this with them.

“Be a good girl, Celia. No touching. You touch me and I don’t last five seconds before I want to come all over you.” The words are guttural, his accent as strong as ever, twisting the words and me into something erotic and addictive.

I want that. I want to push him past his control, to make him explode all over me, coating me with the essence of him…but not yet. I need him to finish what he started.

I give up his hair, desperate to please him. My hands dig into the comforter beneath me, needing something to cling to in order to keep from slipping off the world into nothingness. Finally he lowers his head again and I sob in relief as his tongue thrusts inside me. Deeper and deeper he fucks me with his tongue. I’m lost on the edge of the world. I feel it, so close, but I can’t see it. I can’t see anything except the sparks behind my eyelids as his tongue drives all thought from my mind, all I’m left with is feeling.

His tongue swipes over my clit and sends a shot of fire up my spine. Around and around his velvet tongue circles that tight bundle of nerves and no, no I need more give me more please, please. Milos isn’t listening, all his focus is on lapping at my clit soft, then strong, then a whisper of feeling until I’m hoarse, begging for what only he can give me.

Two fingers slide into me, oh god they are thick, yet I remember Milos is far thicker. At first I welcome them, but the deeper they go the more it hurts. He turns his wrist, and finds a spot that sends my back bowing off the bed.

With a rough growl that vibrates through my entire body, he suckles deep on my clit and pushes me over the edge of the world. Down, down, down I fall until I break the surface, plunging deep into an ocean of pleasure my lungs are so full no air can get in. I can’t breathe oh god I can’t breathe. His hand is around my throat, yanking me out from under the waves.

I surface to his mouth on mine, breathing into me, becoming my air, my everything. Suddenly his mouth is gone, he’s gone. I’m instantly cold.

He’s off the bed. The lamp on the bedside table clicks on. The light is low but gives off enough glow I can see him, even if most of him is still in shadow.

“I need to see you,” he says in Russian, but I finally understand him. “I need to see all of your luscious, beautiful body when you scream for me.” I don’t understand the next words—is he saying dream, or something else? It doesn’t matter because he’s opening the drawer on the bedside table, pulling out a long sleeve of condoms.

All of it hits me now. This is where he brings his women, the women he keeps in one corner of his life as he needs them, then are discarded as easily as the used condoms. I’m one of those women now.

“No.” I sob in shame. Grateful for the dark.

Milos goes still, he doesn’t move an inch. “You come to me. You offer yourself to me. I tell you to leave. I walk away from you. But no, you keep coming. I warn you if you come closer I will not be responsible. You undress, and now you whisper no as if I forced you. As if I am some sort of rapist who will not stop.”

Every word is a lash against my tender skin. Hearing him say it out loud, especially when it isn’t that I don’t want him, it’s that I’m ashamed he knows how much I want him. But Milos leaves me with nothing.

He walks away from me toward an open door I see is a bathroom. “Run, little girl, and don’t ever come back.” The words aren’t a warning, they’re a command.

For a painful heartbeat I consider staying, begging forgiveness, pleading for understanding, yet I don’t dare when anger is rolling from Milos in waves so hot they burn me. Instead I flee as if I were being chased.

I make it down to the ground floor, still shaking. It doesn’t help when I find Peter waiting for me.

“I am to see you home.” The words are hard, an accusation.

I don’t dare argue with him. In a haze, I follow him out of the elevator to where the SUV he drove me here in is waiting.

The drive home takes forever. All I can think is Milos meant it, I felt it. He never wanted me to come back. With every mile I traveled away from him, I regretted the day exactly as Carina warned me I would.

That night and for the next few nights, I cried myself to sleep for what I could have had and let go. It didn’t matter it would have probably only been one time—one night. I should have taken it, the next day be damned.