Page 49 of Kept By the Bratva
“He’s furious,” Alek added. “We’re getting reports from spies. He’skilling anyone who talks against him. He’s killed several within the Cartel.”
“Any sign of him near here?” I asked. This mansion wasn’t only our shared home but also a fortress and our headquarters.
“No,” Ivan said firmly. “Security has been increased, too. No sightings of him here.”
I wanted to breathe easier about that. He wouldn’t reach Amy.
“And I doubt he’s going to take news of your counter-offer well,” Alek added. “He’s insane, and there’s no negotiating with the insane.”
“I know.” Hell, I felt insane too, crazed with this need to protect her despite the lack of love she’d felt for me.
“I don’t understand how this all started, though,” Alek said as he came to stand in front of me, stretching. “Why Amy Simmons, orphaned twenty-two-year-old veterinary technician from Brooklyn, would be in the middle of all of this. I get it. They chose her at random, like the rest of the women we stole out of there. But how did you get so involved, Nik?”
Dmitri cleared his throat. “You didn’t blink. You saw her and took her away from the others.”
“I only relocated her to one of my apartments for that night.” I sighed, remembering how urgently we’d fucked there, equally ravenous for the comfort of sex and reconnecting like that.
“Why did you select her?” Alek pressed.
“Because she’s the one I want.” I groaned at having to lay it out like this, to all of them at once. But I couldn’t keep it in anymore. “I want her. I have wanted her ever since I first saw her.”
“At the warehouse?” Dmitri asked.
I shook my head. “I met her over a month ago. Just a quick fuck, aone-night stand. Back when I was spying down at the Colver dock after the big sting went down.”
Alek nodded. “That long ago?”
“Yeah. I went to a bar. We saw each other. And that was it.”
Ivan grunted a rough laugh. “And that was it? You’re talking like some chick, love-at-first-sight bullshit.”
I shook my head. Not on her part. “She doesn’t love me. It was just sex. The best I’d ever had. I gave her a fake name that night, assuming like her that it would be a random fling. I didn’t plan to see her again, but I couldn’t get her out of my fucking mind. All that time after that night, I missed her and thought about her. I stalked her, but she’d moved. It was like she’d vanished until I saw her at Harrow’s.”
Alek’s brows shot up. “Shewas the woman you saw?”
I nodded, hating the flicker of guilt. “I was distracted. I saw her and chased her down to the alley. Once I saw Steven Murphy with another cop, I figured something might be going down at the club. By the time I ran back, they’d opened fire.”
“Damn, man.” Dmitri shook his head.
“Well, you’ve got her now,” Maxim said, almost optimistically.
“No, I don’t. I told myself to not even try to go after her when I stalked her and looked for her. She doesn’t belong with me or in this life. She’s an innocent, too sweet and good. I wanted her without having any right to deserve her.” I stood, stretching to ease the tightness of my injuries healing. “And now that she’s here anyway, she doesn’t fucking want me.”
“How so?” Alek asked. “She wouldn’t step away from you last night.”
“She sees me as a criminal, nothing more. As the bad guy. The enemy.” It killed me that she couldn’t see who I really was beneath my job and duty, around my actions for my family.
“You havegotto tell her.”
We all turned to watch Mila enter the room, shaking her head. Her scolding expression was focused on me, and I didn’t have to wonder how long she’d been close enough to overhear. She was my sister now, so I couldn’t begrudge her for learning the secret that I'd just shared with my brothers.
“You have got to tell Amy how you feel,” she implored, coming up to Alek and setting her hand on his shoulder. “Love isn’t likely in our world, but when it does happen against all odds, you can’t squander it away or waste a second of it.”
“It’s not that simple, Mila.” I sighed and ran my hand through my hair.
I left my room to escape the aggravating taunt of wanting Amy and knowing she was within reach. Her antagonism toward being with me kept heroutof reach. I’d never force her to reciprocate these deep feelings and sense of need.
Now, though, my frustration scaled higher. I was unsure what to do or where to go. I couldn’t avoid her forever. While I wanted to have faith in Mila’s suggestion, I doubted that any conversation with Amy would go over well when she was so stuck on wanting to escape me and my life here.