Page 91 of The Bratva's Captive

We arrived shortly, and the second car with two of my men parked further back in the small lot. They would stay as plainclothesmen on the clock to protect us. The driver and the soldier who’d come along in the front seat exited the car before they opened the doors for me and Sloane.

She got out, and I rounded the car to hold her hand again, but as I did that, my phone rang.

It was Saul, and I knew better than to not answer. This soon after a break-in at the house, I had to be reachable at all times. We needed every piece of information we could find about what had happened, so I had to take it.

“Hold on.” I held my finger up to Sloane and stepped away toward the end of the car, pacing as I answered. The men stayed closer to me but didn’t leave her. “Yes?”

“Hey, Brother. I just wanted to check in and tell you that the crew we sent out to check the surveillance cameras from around the block found nothing conclusive?—”

Sloane’s scream cut through the air, and I whipped around to find her cowering from a man who’d been walking through the parking lot. She hunched down against my car, her eyes narrowed in fear and anger as the man tried to reach for her.

“No. Brent, stop.” She swatted at the man’s hands. Even though the other guard was at her side and protecting her, he was outnumbered with this fucker having his buddy try to grab her too.

“Stop!” she shouted again as I hung up and ran for her.

“You need to come back, goddammit. I don’t know where the fuck you’ve been hiding,” the man who had to be Brent said, “but you have to come back to the club. You owe us too much to just disappear like that.”

I shoved him back, charging into him. Red tinted my vision at the mere idea of another man putting his hands on her. As he slammed back into the next car, grunting and sliding down in pain from my hit, I lost the proximity to Sloane to fully block her. Another one of Brent’s friends tried to snatch Sloane from where she cowered. She tucked back, trying to stay small and not be touched, but we were surrounded.

Footsteps pounded on the pavement as my men came near, but before I could reach for my gun, busy punching these fuckers who’d swarmed too close, too suddenly, she doubled down to the pavement.

“Don’t!” She took a kick to her leg as she crouched low. Again and again as I fought back the men, she tried to block anyone from hitting her.

I spun out and knocked out the asshole who’d made contact with her on her shin.

“Don’t hurt my baby!” she cried out, making herself curl into a ball as she protected her stomach. “Stop!”

Baby?

That word rang through my mind as the Ivanov soldiers from the other car reached us. We were still outnumbered with Brent’s handful of friends, but my men were more skilled to kick ass with vengeance.

Baby?

Did she say what I thought she said?

Catching my breath, I dropped back toward her after kicking one of the men to the ground. She remained tucked in a ball, her shoulders hunched as she avoided the conflict.

“Take them,” I ordered the men. I didn’t know who they were, what they wanted, or where they’d come from, but they could answer all those questions in the dungeon. For the audacity of touching Sloane at all, they would pay with their fucking lives.

“Sloane.” I stepped back toward her, trying to make sense of what I thought I’d heard her say.

Baby?

My mind wasn’t working fast enough. I was too tired. Too stressed. Too stretched thin that I was hearing and imaginingthings. Because there was no way Sloane could be acting like this. She would’ve told me if she was fucking pregnant.

Right?

Adrenaline rushed through me all over again as I tried to think of how she could be telling these assholes not to hurt her baby.

“Sloane.” I repeated her name again, focusing solely on her as she trembled in a ball on the pavement. She wouldn’t look up at me yet, and that distance, that lack of eye contact, unnerved me.

It was as if she’d realized too late what she’d let slip.

Ever so slowly, as my men wrangled the men toward the other SUV in the background, she lifted her face toward me. The nervousness that shone in her vulnerable, worried eyes told me enough.

“What did you say?” I asked, trying and failing to keep that cold demand out of my tone.

She stood carefully, leaning against the car for support. I didn’t miss how she wouldn’t reach out to me or try to get close. There was no indication that she wanted to touch me, let alone hold my hand.

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