Page 31 of Innocent Bratva Virgin

Chapter 13 - Emory

I sat up, clinging to the covers as the roar of breaking glass cut through my apartment. My front door, an interior door in a complex, didn't have glass, and the swell of dread hit harder as I realized that meant that whoever had broken in had used the fire escape to do so.

Scrambling for my phone in the dark, I just got my hands on it when another set of hands stole it away. I jumped, turning around to see Vlad kneeling in the bed next to me. I’d forgotten he was here as I’d been fast asleep only moments before, and I relaxed only slightly as he took the cell away.

“What are you doing?” I whispered. “We need to call the cops.”

He shook his head, putting a finger to his lips yet again. I was having quite a few mixed feelings about how often Vlad was silencing me. Glaring, I threw my hand toward the door and clutched the sheet to my chest.

“There are people in my apartment. We need to call the police.”

My voice was still a whisper, but it held all the bite of my frustration. Vlad didn’t reply, of course, just standing up from the bed naked as the day was long. He rushed toward the bedroom door, cracking it open silently, and I had to sit there and watch, the fantastic view of his ass only a slight consolation.

He peered through the opening for a few seconds, then hurried back to the bed and grabbed his pants. He slipped on the scrubs he’d stolen, and I flinched for him as my attention landed on his hip. What the fuck did he think he was going to do injured?

“Vlad, I—”

But he turned toward me and silenced me with a kiss. The tingling in my belly was admittedly distracting, which had to be what Vlad wanted. As he pulled back, he held out a finger, signaling for “one moment,” and then he took off out of the room deadly quiet.

“What the fuck?!” I shouted in a whisper.

Vlad had just left me here, and I had no idea what the hell was going on. In any case, I knew I couldn’t stay naked, so I hopped out of bed and got myself over to the closet as quietly as I could. My clothes from before were a no-go, so I blindly searched in the dark for a pair of leggings and a top.

Pulling on a tight pair of leggings, I padded around the waistband to try and figure out which ones they were. The little zipper at the small of my back told me they were the ones I wore running most of the time, the folded pants usually always on the top in my dresser.

I still needed a shirt, so I opted for the rack of hanging clothes, groping for the black one I had with a built-in bra. It, too, was at the front of the options since I’d just put the thing away yesterday, and I shoved it down over my head.

Underwear had been left behind in the rush to get dressed, but I managed to grab a pair of ankle socks and slip on my sneakers that I’d tossed in the back of the closet.

Thud!

The noise was too loud to be good, and I sprinted out of the closet and straight for my bedroom door. I peeked through the crack, looking both ways even though to my right was just the end of the hall that led to the bathroom.

It looked clear, so I slipped out into the hallway, keeping my back pressed against the wall. I moved down the corridor achingly slow, taking it inch by inch with my eyes wide in the dark. The commotion was coming from my living room, and just as I reached the end of the hall, a body went soaring across the space, landing against the wall just past me.

I jumped, clamping my hands over my mouth to keep myself from screaming. When I could trust myself to breathe quietly, I hurried over to the unconscious person, making sure it wasn’t Vlad.

It wasn’t. Whoever the man was, he was shorter than Vlad and wore a black ski mask pulled down over his face. All his clothes were black as well, and I could see the glint of a knife that had clattered to the floor next to his hand. Kicking it away, I was quick to get back to my spot of relative safety.

“Vlad, what the hell? Where are you?”

Looking toward my living room, I saw three figures tangling with each other. They were silhouetted in the striped yellow light of the streetlamps glowing through my blinds. Vlad was going toe-to-toe with two large opponents, and watching him dodge and throw back the attacks made my stomach drop clean through the earth.

Seeing people fight in a movie was one thing, and I’d never been particularly good with the blood, even knowing it was fake. This was so much rougher and not the seamless chain of movements I’d imagined.

Vlad punched one attacker in the jaw, and his head jacked back as he dropped to one knee. Then he faced the other man, and they both jerked toward each other, neither of them making a connection. It was so brutal and…slow.

I was frozen in the hall as Vlad tangled with them, which was strangely over nearly as quickly as it started. There wasn’t some drawn-out action sequence, just a few well-placed hits that sent both his opponents unconscious.

The thuds and smacks abruptly stopped, and my apartment was silent again. But fuck that. What the hell were we doing?

“What’s going on?!” I shouted weakly, and Vlad’s eyes shot up to meet mine.

He hurried over to me, holding out his hand again in that damn signal to keep my voice down.

“I swear to God, if you tell me to be quiet again, I’m going to scream. You need to talk to me.” Vlad furrowed his brow, glaring. “Ugh! You know what I mean. What’s happening, Vlad?”

He sighed, getting me to go back down the hall to my bedroom. Once inside, Vlad guided me to the closet and pointed at the clothes. I could guess what he wanted me to do, but I didn’t hop into action. I watched him retrieve my phone from where he’d tossed it on the bed, waiting for him to type up a response to my questions.

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