Page 86 of Bratva Sacrifice

“I couldn’t even call you!”

“It was best for you that you could not do this,” he says. “It was best even that I could not do this.” He shoves his fingers through his hair. “Koshechka, you make me weak. You do not know how weak.” His feet slap across the floor as he crosses toward me and drops into a crouch. “I did regret that,” he admits. “It is twenty-one hour flight from Moscow, and I had to watch you grieve.”

There’s a lump in my chest that it’s difficult to breathe around. “You let me grieve,” I say, and I can feel my lips quivering around the words. It’s a denunciation, an accusation.

He makes a rough sound deep in his throat. “Fuck this,” he declares, and lunges for me. It’s instinctive to struggle, but I know better by now—his arms are like bands of iron around me. I’m not going anywhere he doesn’t allow.

Water splashes, and he sinks with me into the depths of the tub. His palm presses my head against his shoulder. “Enough, koshechka.” His voice is a deep rumble near my ear. “Enough of this.” His lips brush my forehead. “Ya tebya lyublyu. I love you. I am sorry I hurt you.”

I subside with a shuddering sob, turning my face into the salty skin of his throat. For long moments there’s just the rise and fall of his chest, the gentle slosh of the water around us. That arm I’ve missed is wrapped around me, holding me close. When my sobs fade into hiccoughs at last, he speaks again.

“Sasha,” he says. “And Shura. These are just nicknames for Aleksandr. Friends use these, and family. Shura is maybe a little more familiar. Close friends sometimes use this.” His fingertips slide along my arm. “Sashulya—this is a softer name. A woman uses this one with her lover.”

I can’t help the scathing sound that scratches at my throat. “What does the woman use when she’s angry?”

A muted laugh, lost against my temple. “Aleksandr,” he says. “You use this full name, Katya, and I will know you are angry. But if you are only annoyed, maybe you use Sashka or Sashenka. These are often used by family for children, and so the sound can be…patronizing. You see?”

I don’t; not really. I think there’s just a feeling to Russian diminutives that doesn’t translate well to English.

His voice firms. “There is no Alyosha anymore, koshechka. There can never be again. So you must not call me by this name, even by mistake.” As if to rub the command into my flesh and bones, his palm slides down my thigh.

My heart still squeezes in my chest. I’m still not okay. It doesn’t matter that he’s here with me now, holding me in his arms. I still remember the pain of his death. It’s still fresh in my mind. I can’t shake the feeling that none of this is real.

“Why did Alexei have to die?” I ask.

“For the same reason Catalina Russo had to die.”

I think he thinks he’s said more than he has. I shift uncomfortably, finding a spot where I can look up at him. “I don’t understand.”

“Of course you would not,” he huffs. “You are a soft woman, American—you think everything works the same as it does here. If you do not like your job, you only have to quit and take a new one. Koshechka, there is no quitting the bratva. It is not a career you choose, it is a life you live. There is only one way to leave it.”

In a body bag. I shudder, and his hands chafe my arms.

“I thought Anatoli killed you,” I say.

He shrugs. “He did. I asked him to do this. He will make a good pakhan.” His arm curls over my shoulders. “I did not expect the news to break so soon. I was already on the plane when this happened. But once it had, I could not control it—and neither could Anatoli. To do so would weaken his position. And a dead man cannot control what is said of him.”

“You gave up the bratva?” I find this difficult to wrap my brain around. He gave up his entire life. His reputation, his fortune, his home—his name. He gave up everything he was, everything he could have been.

For a moment I think of the relief in his voice last night when I called him Alyosha, and I realize…he couldn’t have known. He didn’t know, until then. He didn’t know if he would be enough. If I would want him. If he might have sacrificed so much of himself to come to me, only to be rejected. And he did it anyway, even with that uncertainty hanging over his head.

“What was I meant to do, koshechka, when there was something I wanted more? When I knew I could not have both?” His strong fingers cup the nape of my neck, massaging away the tension. I’ve missed this—how he always knows exactly what I need. “I tried to let you go, when I thought that was what you needed from me. But when you tried to come to Russia—” He swipes a hand over his mouth, stifling a curse. “You do not know the dangers you provoke. Perhaps I shielded you too much. I wanted only to protect you from that life—and you would have walked straight back into it. Christ, I wanted to throttle you.”

I know that’s fear talking, and for the first time I realize the lengths to which he has gone to keep me safe. To separate me so entirely from my old life was the only way to accomplish it. But I threatened his carefully-constructed fabrication and put myself at risk.

His heart beats so strongly beneath my ear. That same heartbeat I thought only hours ago that I would never hear again. “What will you do now?” I ask. Because he’s been bratva since his teens. He’s given up everything he is, everything he worked for, everything he wanted.

For me.

He hesitates a moment; his shoulders lift in a sharp shrug. “Enough talking,” he says, as if that is the end of it. He fists his hand in my hair and dips his head.

I bite his lower lip. “You’re not the boss of me,” I say as he fixes me with a glare.

“Koshechka, I should heat your ass for that.” He swipes his tongue over the injury, but his fingers loosen enough for me to push myself away from his chest, maneuver myself over his lap. He might’ve left the bratva, but it has not left him. He sits like a king, his arms stretched along the sides of the tub. His green eyes are hot on my face, studying me as if he can unravel me down to the smallest piece.

I splay one hand over his chest. “You have to talk to me,” I tell him firmly. “You don’t just—just dominate me.”

“Katya, you like it when I dominate you.” He slides his hands beneath the water, and they find my hips, tugging until I’m settled over his erection. “You feel shame over this sometimes, I think—but you should not. Everything I do to you is for your pleasure. There is no shame in that.” His fingers slide between my thighs. I’m still slick there, even in the water. “You ask me what I will do? This, koshechka. Much of this.”