Page 63 of The Bratva's Captive

“Why the fuck are you touching her?” he growled, stalking toward us.

Ronny backed away, holding both hands up and trembling. “I’m sorry, sir.”

“He’s just bleeding,” I reasoned coolly as I tried to cover the gash on Ronny’s hand held midair. Blood dripped to the counter, splattering as the drops smacked down.

“Don’t touch him,” Maxim ordered me.

Well, fuck.

I furrowed my brow, realizing he wasn’t joking.

It looked like he wanted more blood on his hands, all because I’d tried to help this poor wounded cook, an innocent act of first aid.

“You belong to me,” he snarled before he reached out to yank me away from the sink.

26

MAXIM

What the fuck?

I couldn’t take my eyes off Sloane’s hands. She had them on the cook’s, and that was all that I had to witness to drop into an instant, red-hot rage.

Rage was all I’d experienced tonight. When Nik and I headed to a warehouse to check on concerns of spies getting close, we’d ended up in a bloodbath. Some Cartel dumbasses opened fire on us and it was a tense exchange. Nik had taken a shot to the arm, just a grazing, but anytime my brothers were wounded, it pushed me into a more convoluted and volatile state of wanting to destroy everyone in my path.

We’d all fought hard. And all the Ivanov men with us had shot back to keep the Cartel members away from our prime drug distribution site. It had left me with a residual ember of anger, though, and seeing Sloane so close to one of the cooks reignited the heat of my darkness, sparking fresh fury to consume me.

“You belong tome,” I reminded her again, as if she’d forgotten. I didn’t know how she could’ve lost sight of that crucial detail. Mycock had been inside her daily. Her pussy ached and was bruised from the force of my thrusts. I’d marked her, with my cock, my fingers, and my mouth. Hidden under her clothes was the proof of the fierce intimacy that I expected her to handle from me.

“Maxim, you’re overreacting.”

Gritting my teeth so hard that the enamel had to be pulverized by now, I closed the distance between us to pull her away.

“I’m sorry,” the young cook said as he backed up from Sloane again. His hand was bleeding. A piece of glass was jammed in his palm with red drops leaking to the counter.

That didn’t matter. Nothing about him touching her—or her touching him—would be okay.

What pissed me off the most was that she’d try this tactic with me. Trying to tell me what I was thinking or feeling. Attempting to let me know how I should be taking this.

“Don’t fucking gaslight me.” I grabbed her forearm and wrenched her back, too full of jealousy to slow down this fast track into dark, sinister rage.

“I’m not gaslighting you!” She let more of her sass and slang-like tone cut into her words. Talking more like she was from the hood, she doused her reply with too much attitude.

“And don’t fucking talk back to me,” I growled, reaching again for her since she’d tugged her arm away. This time, I wasn’t letting go for a second

“I’m not!” she snapped.

The cook backed up more, almost as if he were more afraid that someone was daring to defy me. If this were anyone else,I would’ve punched them already, but Sloane gripped me with that stubborn glare of hers.

“I’m not gaslighting you. Youareoverreacting. What the hell is so wrong about my trying to help him?”

I tugged her further from the cook, too delirious with jealousy to listen to her or rationalize what she was saying.

“Get over here,” I ordered her, intent on dragging her upstairs.

“No. I’m not some thing to pull around.”

She wasn’t. She was so much more than a thing, no matter how hard I tried to compartmentalize her as a dismissible mistress. Sloane was getting to me, and I hated that my instant reaction of jealousy like this was proving that point even more. If she didn’t matter to me, if she were really just a mistress I’d breed, then I wouldn’t be so invested to get this mad that another man had touched her, or that she’d touched someone else.

---