Page 51 of Bratva Sacrifice

“What are they for, then?” I ask.

“I don’t carry shopping bags.”

A reluctant laugh slips out of my throat. “I’m going to want a lot of books, then. Since there’s two of them to carry my stuff.” And since he’s got mafia money to throw around. “Will they mind?”

“If they do, they will not be stupid enough to say.”

The bookstore is just ahead, on a corner. It’s unexpectedly packed. The stanchions and ropes set up outside suggests that some author is doing a signing inside—a popular one, if I had to guess by the sheer number of people gathered around.

Alexei’s got his phone out in his hand as we enter, tapping away. He hardly notices when I pull free of his grasp to squeeze through the tight press of bodies packed into the store. When we emerge past the crush of people, I peek over my shoulder again to find I can’t see his men.

“Where’d they go?” I ask.

“Is too crowded,” Alexei says as he tucks his phone back into his pocket. “I told them to wait. Find your books, Katya.” He doesn’t snag my belt loop again. It’s less crowded past the mass of people clustered around the entrance—which has got to be a fire hazard—but the store is still busy enough that moving single-file is the safest bet.

The store is a maze of bookshelves. I stop her and there to browse, and before I know it, I’ve accumulated a stack of books that is quickly becoming burdensome. But I’ll only have to hold them until we’re through, and then they can be someone else’s problem.

Alexei is content to let me browse at my leisure. He doesn’t try to rush me, or to judge my choices—mostly romance and true crime—or to suggest I’ve chosen enough books already. He only makes a remark once, when I select a biography of Henry VIII’s ill-fated fifth wife, Catherine Howard.

“Ah,” he says. “Your history minor.”

Of course he knows that. “You’re such a creep,” I mutter beneath my breath. “Do you know everything about my life?”

“Yes. Anatoli is thorough in his research.” He’s utterly unapologetic. “I have your transcripts. You were very good student.”

I was. I worked hard. I studied to the exclusion of all else. And I graduated near the top of my class, for a degree I might never get to use.

I take my time selecting a few more books, because I don’t know when I’ll get the chance to come back. If I’ll get the chance to come back. But there’s only so many books I can carry in my arms, so eventually I have to be done. “Will you help me carry these?” I ask as I set the last book atop the stack beside me and rise to my feet once more. “Just to the register, and then—” I trail off as I scan the aisle.

Alexei is gone. Alexei is gone?

Like he just vanished. Here one moment and gone the next, without so much as a word. I’m alone. For a moment my heart stutters in my chest. I could run. Now. I could run now. Probably Alexei’s men won’t be expecting it. And the crowd is so thick outside, I stand a decent chance of slipping by them. Or I could start screaming my head off. Tell the nearest staff member—who is shoving books onto a shelf just a few feet away from me—that I’ve been kidnapped and I need help escaping. There’s probably at least a dozen police officers somewhere in the vicinity, and even if Alexei holds some sway with specific ones, there have to be some that will help me.

I take one step away from the stack of books, and freeze.

I don’t want to run. I don’t want to scream. I know I should. I feel the rapid flutter of my pulse, hear the rush of blood in my ears. I don’t want to run. Not because Alexei would find me anyway, but because—because maybe he wouldn’t. I wouldn’t make the same mistake again. I’d lose myself in a huge city, keep my head down, work under-the-table jobs. Use a different name and avoid telling anyone about my past.

And I’d be alone. Again.

I’d be alone, when I don’t have to be. When I feel freer here with Alexei than I have been in the last several years. When I feel protected instead of smothered.

Maybe Alexei Stockholm syndromed the shit out of me. Or maybe I started falling in love all on my own with someone who treats me more like a person than a possession. Who actually cares about my feelings. Who treats me like I’m important to him.

Maybe I’m dangerously close to being happy. Maybe I could be happy, with just a few modifications. And maybe I don’t owe Alexei anything…but maybe I owe myself a chance at something real.

A few minutes later, while I’m still standing there lost in my own head, Alexei returns with two cups of coffee in hand, purchased from the in-store café. He stops a few feet away from me, cants his head curiously. “Katya?” he asks, like I owe him some sort of explanation.

Maybe he didn’t expect that I’d notice him missing because I was so engrossed in choosing books. Maybe he did expect it, but he also expected me to have taken off before he returned.

I don’t know why I didn’t. Or maybe I just don’t want to admit to it yet.

“Nothing,” I say on a hard breath. “It’s nothing.” My hand shakes a bit as I take the coffee he extends to me. It’s one of those fruity, sugary ones that he abhors and which I love. Probably his is just plain black coffee, like usual.

This time, when he wraps his arm around my waist, he doesn’t thread his fingers through my belt loop as if to anchor me to his side. It’s just an embrace, not a manacle. And then he lets me go to scoop up half of my books, and he walks ahead of me to forge a path toward the register.

I’m intensely aware as I follow along in his wake that every step is one I am choosing to make. That, at any moment, I could drop the books and run. That I could lose myself in the crowd. Instead, I put my books on the counter beside the stack Alexei carried for me, and I let him hand over a handful of hundred dollar bills to the cashier.

And then, as we exit the store and he shoves my bags into the hands of his men who have been waiting near the entrance, he grabs my hand instead of my waist. “Where next, Katya?”