Page 81 of The Cold Bratva King and His Forced Curvy Bride

“Antonio was a warning,” he says, his voice flat.

“A warning for what?”

“For me. For you.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Protect what’s mine.”

He leans down, his face inches from mine. I can feel the heat radiating from his body, the clean scent of his skin.

“You’re mine, Freya,” he whispers, his voice a raw, possessive growl. “Do you understand?”

I just nod, my breath catching in my throat.

“Say it,” he commands.

“I’m yours,” I whisper.

The words are a surrender. A capitulation. They’re the truest thing I’ve ever said.

Chapter Twenty-Two - Nikita

The warehouse air smells of gun oil, sweat, and stale coffee. It’s a scent that usually settles me, the olfactory equivalent of a loaded gun—dangerous, reliable, and necessary. Today, it just irritates my sinuses.

“Again.”

I stand on the mezzanine overlooking the main floor, my arms crossed over my chest. Below me, twelve of my best men move through a hostage extraction drill.

They’re sloppy. Their lines of fire are crossing, their communication is fragmented, and their situational awareness is practically nonexistent.

“Antonov,” I bark, my voice echoing off the corrugated metal ceiling. “You’re dead. You checked your corner, then you looked at your target, then you looked back at the corner. Pick a lane and stay in it.”

Antonov, a bruiser of a man who usually handles debt collection, lowers his weapon, looking chagrined.

“Sorry, Boss.”

“Don’t apologize to me. Apologize to the team you just got killed because you were too busy checking your own reflection in the glass.”

I pace the length of the catwalk, my boots ringing on the steel grating.

“Lorenzo isn’t going to give you a second chance to admire your form,” I continue, my tone sharp. “He doesn’t care about your ego. He cares about results. He cares about fear. If you give him an opening, he’ll shove a grenade down it.”

I glance at the door to the small, glass-walled office that overlooks the floor. Freya is in there. She insisted on coming, claiming she needs to oversee the logistics for a charity auction the Bratva is ostensibly fronting. I know better. She’s watching. She’s learning.

She’s a shadow in the corner of my eye, a constant variable in my calculations.

“Reset,” I order. “Now.”

The men scramble to their starting positions. I watch them with a critical eye, but my mind drifts to the bigger board. The Colombos. The hit on Pavel. The man watching the building.

We’re tightening the noose. I have eyes on Lorenzo’s supply routes, ears in his accountant’s office, and a tap on his personal line. He’s a snake, slippery and adaptable. He struck at the gallery, probing for a weakness. He found Freya.

That can’t happen again.

“Too wide,” I call out as the breach team stacks up. “Tighten the stack. If you stand that far apart, a single gunman can pick you off one by one. You become targets, not a force.”

I move to the railing, gripping the cold metal. I can feel Freya’s gaze on me from the office. She’s watching me work, watching me command. I wonder what she sees. Does she see a monster? A killer? Or does she see the man trying to hold back the tide?