Page 27 of The Enemy of My Enemy: Pt. 2

“You can’t...Viktor, it’s only been a few weeks,” I argued, trying to undo his craziness.

“And I’ve been in love with you every day of those few weeks,” he replied smoothly.“Now, I don’t expect you to say it back, and I’m also very aware that you may never say those words to me.Nonetheless, that doesn’t change how I feel about you, Aurora.”

Now, it wasn’t that I didn’t feel something for Viktor, because it was obvious that I did.I wouldn’t be in his bed if I didn’t.I wouldn’t have chosen to believe him if my feelings for him hadn’t played a huge part in all of this.So, it’d be ridiculous to brush off his declaration or to deny what I felt for him.Nevertheless, I wasn’t about to say those three words if I wasn’t absolutely certain of just how deeply I felt for Viktor.I also didn’t want to say them when the stakes were this high.

Still, I couldn’t let this moment go by without an acknowledgement of just how important this was.A Bratva Sovietnik was on his knees before me, and I could admit that the responsibility of that felt a bit overwhelming.So, I decided to give him something more significant than my love as a sign of mutual understanding, trust even.

“I need you to get off your knees, Viktor,” I told him.“I need you to sit on the bed, and I need for us to never mention what just happened here.”

“Why?”he asked, though he did finally stand to sit on the bed next to me.

“Because no one needs to know that you’ve fallen in love with your wife,” I answered.“No one needs to know that I hold that kind of power over you.”

“Fair enough,” he replied, though I could tell that he wasn’t happy about it.

“There’s...well, I have something that I need to tell you,” I said, my heart beating rapidly in my chest, the vulnerability hitting me hard.

“If you tell me that there’s another man in your life, I’m warning you now, I’ll kill him,” he said seriously, and it struck me odd as how he seemed to be willing to forgive my infidelity.

“It’s actually worse,” I said, making his eyes narrow, and if he only knew.

Chapter 13

Viktor~

Contrary to what my wife thought, there’d be nothing worse than her being with another man.Not only would it rob me of the intimacy of being the only one to have ever slid inside her, but I refused to let another man be her hero.It was bad enough that I had to compete against her brothers and father for that title, so I’d be damned if another man became an option for her.

“So, what is it?”I asked, still dreading whatever this could be.

“Have you ever heard of Astaroth?”she asked quietly, her dark gaze regarding me carefully.

My head jerked back a bit, Astaroth being the last thing that I had expected her to mention.Now, you couldn’t live the life that we did and not have heard of the elusive ghost that killed without conscience.Of course, with no evidence that the man existed, a lot of people had reduced his reputation to being a boogeyman that the Marchettis had concocted for clout, but now that Aurora was bringing him up, I wasn’t so sure.

“Of course,” I answered.“Almost everyone in this life has heard of him.”

Looking me straight in the eyes, Aurora said, “Astaroth isn’t a he.”