Page 22 of Bribed & Bred By the BRATVA
“There is very little danger,” I say, steady. “We are not at the bottom fighting for scraps. We are at the top of the food chain. If someone lunges with a knife, it’s because they’ve already lost.”
She shakes her head, pressing harder on the cloth against my side. “You make it sound so simple.”
“It is simple. I decide who breathes. I decide who doesn’t. That’s power. And power means safety. For me. For you. For Mateo.”
Her throat works. She leans closer, her hair brushing my arm. “But what if—”
“There is no what if,” I cut in, rougher than I mean to. I soften it by brushing her hair back, letting my hand linger against her cheek. “Do you think I would let anything happen that would take me from you? From the life I’ve just begun to build?”
Her breath shudders out, and she shakes her head slowly. “No.”
“Good.” I press a kiss to her forehead, then another lower, to her mouth. She yields instantly, lips trembling under mine, and I taste the salt of her worry.
When I pull back, I murmur, “I want you to get used to this. Blood on my hands. Cuts on my skin. They mean nothing. What matters is that I come home. Always. To you.”
Her hand cups my jaw, thumb grazing the cut. “And you’ll always come back?”
“Yes.” The promise is easy, because it’s true. “Always.”
Her shoulders slump, tension draining out of her.
“Hold this,” she says, placing my bruised and bloodied hand over the cloth on my side. She returns minutes later with the first aid box from beneath the sink in the bathroom.
She gently places sticky strips over the cut, holding my skin together before placing a bigger bandage over it. Then she cleans my knuckles, alternately kissing and blowing on them before dabbing on ointment and massaging it gently over the grazes.
When she is finished, she curls against me, small but fierce, and I hold her there, my bruised hand stroking down her spine.
For the first time in years, I feel something like peace, not because the violence stopped, but because I came back to her, and she’s here, seeing me, caring for me.
It’s dangerous, how much I already need it. How much I already need her.
Isabella
His knuckles are raw. Split open, red against pale skin. A graze runs across his cheekbone, and there’s a slice over his ribs that is the kind of wound that would be nothing to him but looks terrifying to me.
I should recoil. I should be afraid of the proof of what he does when he leaves this house. Instead, all I feel is the frantic beat of relief. He came back. He said he would, and he did.
My hands tremble as I press the cloth against his side, then his hand. Crimson seeps through white, blooming like a warning. He sits still beneath my touch, too calm, as though violence is nothing to him. Maybe it isn’t. Maybe it never has been. He was born to a world where knives flash and fists fall, and he still stands. He returns.
“I hate seeing you like this,” I whisper, my voice shaking.
“I told you. It’s nothing.” His tone is flat, certain, as if the matter is already settled. “Superficial. I don’t lose, Isabella.”
His certainty cuts deeper than the knife ever could. It wraps around me like a chain, and like safety. Both at once. I don’t know how to breathe around it.
When I finish with his hands, my own shake so badly I can barely hold the cloth. Relief crashes through me, dizzying, heavy, too much to contain. And with it, something else rises. Something hotter. Wilder. Harder to name.
I set the cloth aside, and before I can stop myself, the words fall from my lips. “Claim me.”
He freezes. His head lifts, sharp, eyes darkening like storm clouds. His voice is rough, dangerous. “Say it again.”
My throat works, but I find the strength. Louder this time. “Claim me.”
The sound that tears from his chest is almost a growl. He doesn’t hesitate. One moment I’m sitting on the couch, the next I’m in his arms, the world tilting as he lifts me, setting me on the cool tiled floor. His mouth is on mine, hard and bruising, and I open to him helplessly, giving back everything I have.
“You ask to be claimed,” he snarls against my lips, “then I’ll show you what it means.”
His hands rip at my clothes, tearing fabric until I’m bare in the glow of the lamp. My cheeks burn, my body flushes hot, but I don’t cover myself. Not when his eyes devour me like this.
