Page 66 of Stolen By the Bratva

I narrowed my eyes. “What do you mean?”

“I worried that maybe since you struggled to trust me and know that I stand by you, your men would fail to follow orders to keep me safe as well.”

I shook my head. “They heed my orders. You are my wife.” I kissed her harder. “My queen. And they will protect you when I can’t.”

“I’m sorry.” She lowered her gaze but didn’t stay cowardly for long. She tipped her chin up and faced me again. “I’m sorry they were killed. I ran out and saw the man dead at the door, and I ran because I didn’t know where I would be safe. In here, on the streets, anywhere.”

And I’ll never leave you without a means of reaching me ever again. This was all new to me. I’d had lovers before, but not a partner, an equal, a wife. I had to consider not only my own safety and survival, but that she’d rely on it too.

“Those cops found me, and it clicked. Those codes in those emails, in those copies that Maxim handed you, they made sense. That day that you and Nik came to the office asking about a Doc, I realized that the Valkovs were included on that shipment correspondence. But I didn’t know what anything meant, what would happen. But that cop?—”

I grabbed her hand and kissed her fingertips. “I know. The Doc. Stephen Murphy. It’s an old, coded nickname that I should have realized sooner.”

“He’s setting up the bratva,” she exclaimed, licking her lips and eager to share all she had learned. “You need to know that he’s planning to help somehow. Or something. I don’t know, but he’s dirty, and my father is working with him!”

I stared into her expressive blue eyes, so open and eager to persuade me to believe her. It wouldn’t take much. She spoke of things I had already figured out, and with the fact that she was spilling it all so freely with the intention of helping me and looking out for me and my bratva, I knew she was my woman in every way I needed her to be. Not only my wife, but also my support to lead and take care of the bratva, of the Family.

It was this freely given admission that made me realize once and for all that she was in this with me. She was all in.

“I’ll never be a pawn for any man ever again, Alek, but I swear on my life, I will be an agent in seeing to your success, to our future.”

I clutched her close and kissed her hard, reveling in every sweep of her tongue alongside mine and each breathy moan of need she uttered as she warmed under my touch.

“I trust you, Mila.”

I wanted to, and I knew without a doubt that she would never let me regret it.

28

MILA

He held me close, flush against his slippery, warm body. The contact of his hard strength heated me all the way to the marrow of my bones, and I wanted to snuggle up even closer and never let go.

Alek was more than just a spouse. We’d arranged our marriage for the purpose of securing a better future. We were born from rivals, trained to view the other as an enemy above all else. Forging a union between us was the unlikeliest solution to this war we were thrust into, a scrimmage between our bratva leaders, but in it, we’d found so much more.

He was my rock, my anchor.

He was the one who’d save me, protect me, and now, trust me.

I couldn’t hold a grudge against him for how long it had taken him to get to this point.

In another world, I should’ve been quick to demand that he trust me the moment I killed for him. Under any other circumstances, I should have insisted that he declare his trust and loyalty to me—or realize mine for him—the moment I stopped Andrey from shooting him dead.

Alek and I didn’t have an ideal beginning. We hadn’t started a “normal” relationship by any stretch of the imagination.

We’d met with our guards up, stuck in our positions to view the other as nothing but the opposition.

And in these torrid days of sex, danger, and lies, we’d come together to be stronger and wiser.

“And I love you, Alek,” I said solemnly, staring straight into his eyes so he could not only hear but also see the depth of the emotions I could no longer hide from him.

He growled, narrowing his eyes with a smoldering gaze as he lowered his face to mine. His lips crashed against mine, and I replied reverently, eager and desperate to show him. I wanted to prove it with my lips under his, yielding to his demand for more ardor in return. I wanted to demonstrate it with my fingers threaded through his wet hair, gripping for purchase as I worried I’d drown in lust.

He tore back, breaking the kiss with a heaving, hard inhale. “Say it again.

“I love you.”

His growl was louder, filthier, like my words were his undoing. Admitting that I wanted him with all my heart was all it took to unleash the beast.

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