Page 152 of The Bratva King

Her hand rests on my thigh.

“My father called it weakness. He had particular ways of trying to correct it.” I don’t elaborate, and she doesn’t ask me to. “He assumed I couldn’t be his biological son. I think he hated me. The more I tried to fit what he expected of me, the more I failed.”

She squeezes my leg.

“My mother understood that it wasn’t weakness. She knew how to reach me when nothing else worked. I don’t know how she knew, but she did.” Pressure builds behind my ribs. “She was killed when I was eighteen.”

Gabby exhales slowly.

I rub my thumb and finger together. “The one person who understood me was gone. And I didn’t know how to be in the world without that.” She slowly rubs my thigh. “I’ve been trying to figure it out ever since.”

She’s quiet for a long moment. Then she lifts my hand and kisses my knuckles.

“My entire childhood, I believed my father when he said I was broken. I hated myself. I hated that I couldn’t just be like Sergei or charming like Maksim.”

She squeezes my hand. It grounds me, keeps me from spiraling into my memories.

“You are not broken, Nikolai.”

I stare at her. I feel… an ache. My throat burns, but the warmth spreading through my chest feels good.

“You make me feel right.”

She cups my jaw and turns my face toward hers. “You are right. Do you hear me? I don’t know what happens tomorrow or next week, but you are perfectly you. You don’t need to be anyone else.”

I close my eyes and let the words settle. No one has ever told me I was perfect. I’ve never wanted to be perfect. I just wanted to be enough.

She kisses me as she shifts onto my lap and straddles me. Her mouth traces my jaw, then moves lower.

“I love you,” she whispers against my neck. “I love you just as you are.”

I stand with her wrapped around me. I turn and lower her onto the bed, stretching out over her, and bracing my weight on my elbows.

“I don’t know how to love,” I tell her.

“You do. You know exactly how to love me. You love me in a way I’ve never been loved before.”

I slowly undress her, taking my time with every inch of her. My tongue slides down her neck and over her breasts.

She chose to come home.

She’s choosing to let me protect her. Trusting me to keep her and Luke safe.

37

Gabby

I slip into the bathroom with the burner phone after Nik goes downstairs.

“You went back,” he says.

“I did.”

I hear the fear in the silence.

“Gabby.”

“It’s okay.”