Page 14 of Bratva Daddy
The way he said 'belong' sent electricity down my spine that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with the heat in those storm-gray eyes. This wasn't just about money or revenge. There was something else in the way he looked at me, something hungry and possessive that made my knees weak even as my mind screamed danger.
"Go to hell," I managed, trying to jerk my face away from his grip.
“Already been. Didn’t much care for it.” He didn't let go. If anything, his hold firmed, keeping me exactly where he wanted me. "Such spirit," he murmured, and now I was sure he was amused. "We're going to have so much fun breaking you in, little girl."
Little girl. The words should have been insulting—I was twenty-three, a college graduate, a woman who'd just raised almost two hundred thousand dollars for charity. But the way he said it, in that dark velvet voice with those gray eyes burning into mine, made something low in my stomach clench with heat I didn't want to acknowledge.
"I'm not a little girl," I said, but my voice came out whispered, weak.
"No?" His thumb found my lower lip, traced it with deliberate slowness. "Then why are you trembling?"
Because you're terrifying, I wanted to say. Because you're probably going to kill me. Because my father betrayed the wrong people and now I'm going to pay for it.
I couldn’t say a word.
His smile this time was real, sharp as winter, dangerous as black ice. "Don’t worry. I have decided. You're going to be my guest until your father remembers his obligations. How comfortable that stay is depends entirely on you."
Guest. What a polite word for prisoner. What a civilized way to describe whatever was about to happen to me in the hands of the Volkov bratva.
"And if I refuse to be your guest?" I asked, though we both knew it wasn't really a question.
He leaned closer, close enough that his breath ghosted across my ear. "Then I'll teach you why refusing me is a mistake you'll only make once."
To my horror, my traitorous body responded with heat that pooled low in my belly, with awareness of his strength, his control, his absolute certainty that I'd end up exactly where he wanted me.
"Mikhail," he said, not looking away from my face. "Bring the car around. You will take her to the safe house. Then, a few hours later, to the penthouse."
"Yes, Pakhan."
"Now, we can do this gracefully," Alexei said, his hand sliding from my face to wrap around my upper arm. "You'll walk to the car, sit quietly, and accept your new situation. Or we can do it the other way, and you'll wake up in your new accommodations with a headache and no memory of the journey."
"Those are my only options?"
"Absolutely." He pulled me against his side, his arm sliding around my waist in what would look like affection to anyone passing by. Just a couple walking to their car after a night out. Nothing suspicious about the missing shoe or the torn shawl or the way his grip was firm enough to leave bruises.
"Whatever you think I'm worth to my father, he won't pay," I said one last time, desperate to make him understand.
"Your worth to him doesn't interest me," Alexei interrupted, and something in his tone made me shiver. "What interests me is what you're worth to me."
The black Mercedes waited at the curb, engine purring, Mikhail holding the back door open like a chauffeur instead of a kidnapper. Alexei's hand on my lower back pushed me forward, inevitable as gravity.
I had one last moment to look at Fifth Avenue—at the city I'd walked through feeling free just minutes ago. Then Alexei's hand pressed harder, and I folded into the backseat of the car that would take me away from everything I'd ever known.
Chapter 4
Alexei
Rainstreakedthefloor-to-ceilingwindows of my penthouse, turning Manhattan into an impressionist painting of blurred lights and shadowed towers. I stood with my back to the private elevator, vodka warming my throat, watching the city distort through the water running down the glass. Twenty stories below, people scurried through the October storm like ants fleeing a flood. Up here, insulated by steel and bulletproof glass, I waited for my prize to arrive.
My prize. The words tasted wrong even in my thoughts. Clara Albright wasn't a prize—she was leverage, a message written in her father's weakness, a debt collection with interest compounding by the hour.
The vodka burned away the lie before it could settle. I'd spent three hours preparing the spare bedroom on this floor, my private sanctuary that even my brothers rarely entered. The industrial space with its exposed brick and steel beams now held a bed dressed in Egyptian cotton sheets, a fully stockedensuite bathroom with French toiletries, and a closet filled with designer clothes in size four. Every piece selected with her in mind—conservative enough to make her comfortable, expensive enough to remind her she was owned.
I'd told myself the preparation was strategic. A comfortable prisoner was a cooperative prisoner. A cooperative prisoner was useful leverage. But my hand had lingered on a black cocktail dress, imagining how the silk would cling to her curves, how the neckline would frame her throat. I'd ordered it added to the collection before I could stop myself.
After the pickup, the boys had taken her briefly to a safehouse for check in. She’d been examined for bugs, registered onto our systems, the full works. They were due here any moment.
The phone vibrated against the window where I'd set it. Mikhail's text: "Five minutes out. She fought the whole way."
