Page 47 of Prey of the Bratva

“You should rest,” I said quietly.

“I will.”

She didn’t move and didn’t pull away. Another silence stretched between us, but it felt different now. Easier.

“You’re not alone,” I said.

The words came out before I could reconsider them, but they weren’t calculated or strategic. They were true. Her eyes opened slowly, and she looked up at me. Something shifted in her gaze as if something had just aligned for her.

“That sounds like a promise,” she said.

“It is.”

I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t qualify it. For me, that mattered. A lot. She studied me for a long moment, as if weighing the meaning of it, testing it the way she tested everything else.

Then she nodded once.

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

None of it was dramatic or overplayed. Something in my chest tightened at that, because I knew exactly what that meant coming from her. And I knew exactly what I was offering in return. I was offering support without interference. I knew she didn’t need saving, but she needed someone who wouldn’t stand in her way while still being there for her.

“I’m not taking this from you,” I added after a moment, my voice lower now. “This is your operation. Your war.”

“I know.”

“But you won’t fight it alone.”

Her gaze held mine.

“I don’t want to fight it alone,” she admitted.

That was the closest she would come to vulnerability, and I understood the weight of it.

“Good,” I said quietly. Because that settled it. Whatever this had started as, it wasn’t that anymore. I looked down at her again, at the way she had already begun to relax back into me, her breathing slowing once more.

Sergei Volkov.

The name echoed in the back of my mind. It was a problem and a threat. A man who believed himself untouchable. I felt something cold settle into place beneath everything else. It was not rage. Not yet. Something sharper and more deliberate.If he touched her world or came anywhere near what she was building, I would burn everything he had. Not for power or control. But for her.

And that realization was the most dangerous thing of all.

Chapter 13 - Misha

“Kliment, if someone walks in—”

“They won’t,” he replied, cutting me off mid-sentence. His lips attacked mine with an urgency that I had never experienced before, making me feel things I could have only dreamed of. Every touch, every kiss, every emotion with him was heightened in ways I had only read about. And I enjoyed all of it. Thoroughly. It had been a couple of weeks since we both had given into our desire for one another, and every waking moment had been filled with nothing but passion since.

Neither of us could help it. It almost felt as if I hadn’t known the meaning of desire before him.

“That’s a dangerous level of confidence for a man standing in a laundry closet with me,” I replied, pulling away from him as my soft chuckle echoed through the almost empty space around us.

His mouth brushed just below my ear, slow and deliberate, like he had all the time in the world despite the fact that we very much did not. The house was filled with my team and his men, and the entire housekeeping staff, and the two of us just couldn’t keep our hands off each other. It was even more difficult when I saw him in action, making plans and finalizing things with an authority only he possessed.

It only made me want him more. So much more.

“You’re the one who followed me in here,” he murmured. “You want it just as much as I do, my love.”

I let out a quiet breath that was far less steady than I intended it to be. “You were the one who looked at me like thatin the middle of a strategy meeting. How is a girl supposed to resist?”