Page 65 of Stolen By the Bratva

Dmitri drove us home, still without a word, and I carried Mila up to our apartment. A quick glance showed me that the cleaners had done their jobs with excellence. Nothing looked out of place, and not a speck of blood remained in the halls or the apartment. Sometimes, waterproof backing and liners for carpet was all the world needed to be restored to normal with speed.

I lowered her to her feet in the bathroom. As she sensed me getting ready to release her, she curled her fingers tighter in my shirt, not wanting to let me go.

“Where… How…” She swallowed, wincing at the motion. “What happened to the… men?”

“They’ve been disposed of.”

She blinked, nodding as I began to strip her clothes from her trembling, icy-to-touch body.

“Geoff broke in.” She swallowed again, staring at me with such a vacant look that I doubted she was focusing on me at all but looking through me. That blank void she wore suggested she was reliving the horrors she’d survived without my help, and I would never forgive myself for her suffering without me there to save her.

“He…” She shook harder as I turned the shower on. “He broke in and tried to rape me. He said even though I was damaged goods, he still wanted to have me. All my life, he’s tried to rape me, to take what wasn’t his. He was obsessed, and I refused to live in fear of him for another moment.”

She spoke faster, gaining confidence or anger as she rambled, unaware that I was stripping her to warm her in the shower.

“He wanted the papers that Maxim gave you at the wedding. I’d forgotten about them. I was so stunned that I’d killed someone. That I’d killed your cousin. An heir. I was so stuck in the shock that I didn’t realize at first that your brother had copies of emails from Kastava sources. My father used to request that I transfer them. In the office, I was supposed to forward all those coded things and pass them along to different addresses.” She licked her lips, nodding as she rambled, almost with a panicked rush.

“He ordered me to report to him after I married Andrey,” she rushed to add as I guided her backward into the shower.

Her skin bore the marks of a struggle, but she wasn’t wounded too badly despite her scuffles with Geoff, then Lev and the cops. She winced at the first hit of hot water on her flesh, but I knew it had to be the shock of heat on her chilled skin. Her smooth flesh would return to normal. I wasn’t worried about hypothermia, but rather, shock.

I held her hands, ensuring she didn’t trip in the trancelike fugue she moved with as she stepped under the water, still facing me through the open door.

“He wanted me to still answer to him,” she added, gazing at me with such open sincerity that I knew she needed me calm.

I nodded, letting her know I listened as I removed my wet clothes.

“He said I was to serve him and never hesitate to answer to him, but I didn’t. I wouldn’t. He wants me dead, and I never want to return to him.”

I entered the shower, joining her under the pelting water. She clung to me, wrapping her arms around me and tucking her face to my chest as her emotions got to her once more.

Holding her tightly, I tried to warm her up and calm her from this frantic spill of her fears and worries.

“Geoff wanted me to give him papers so they would have intel about that big shipment, but I didn’t know where they were. Even if I did, I wouldn’t have ever helped him, Alek. I am your wife, your partner, and I will choose you.”

I cupped her face and tipped it up to kiss her lips. Desire warred with my need to comfort her, but I didn’t plunder her mouth and demand a taste. I kept it simple, bushing my lips over hers with as much tender gentleness as I could manage as I held her tightly.

“I understand.” And I did. I understood that now. Mila wouldn’t betray me. Not like my uncle had, not like any enemy might want to.

“I was so scared, so worried when Geoff entered. Not only because he wanted to rape me, but because I thought you would assume I’d called him here, that I asked him to find me. And Lev. I didn’t know he was nearby, potentially waiting to bring me to my father.”

“I saw it on the video,” I said calmly, stroking her long, brown locks back from her face as she blinked up at me.

“You did?”

I shook my head. I personally hadn’t watched the footage yet. My men had reported it all back to me. I wasn’t sure whether I could stomach watching the live-action evidence of when my wife was almost captured, raped, and taken from me. We’d only just found each other. We’d only just married and made our commitment to a future together, and it was far too soon to imagine losing her.

A lifetime with her wouldn’t be enough.

I wanted forever.

“They told me.”

“He came in and shot a guard,” she added, furrowing her brows. Her words left her lips slower now, calmer, as though the rambling rush had soothed her enough to think and take her time speaking.

“Not just one. Three. Geoff killed my men all the way to get to you.”

“So they would have protected me?”

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