Page 84 of Captivated By Him

Jakub turns his frown on me. “Let’s go. You need to get back in bed.”

“Being in bed isn’t good—”

“We’ll discuss you being good later, right now you need rest,” he says, purposely misunderstanding me. “Did you take a driver or a cab?” he asks as we step into the elevator together.

“A driver. One of your guys from downstairs. He looked a little scared, so you might want to forgive him quick, so he doesn’t piss himself when he sees you.”

He cradles me against his chest as the elevator slips down to the lobby.

“Forgive him? I’m going to give him a fucking bonus for getting you here to me.” He kisses me again, harsh and demanding. “I hope you heal fast.”

“Me too,” I say.

He raises his brow. “You may change your mind when you remember all the things you said to me, and then there was the running away… you have quite the punishment coming your way.”

The elevator doors open, and he helps me step out.

“I’ll take whatever you dish out,” I promise him.

And he laughs.

Chapter 26

Jakub

“We have to be careful about this.” Dominik stalks behind his desk. “We don’t want an all-out war.”

“They took my wife and our father, and you want to tread lightly?” I demand.

“Dominik’s right.” Joseph, who sits beside me, places a shaky hand on my arm. He’s still not fully healed from his ordeal. Crutches weren’t an option for his broken leg, so he’s wheelchair bound for the time being. But it’s the oxygen tube tucked into his nostrils that worries me the most.

Worries all of us.

“We have to give them a chance,” Dominik insists, pressing his fist into his desk and leaning over. He has his head of the family expression on; he’s not acting as my big brother right now. “Christian assures me he had no idea Piotr was acting against us. He’s as infuriated with his cousin as we are. The fact Piotr is hiding gives me confidence Christian is telling the truth.”

“Those two have fought since they were boys. Having to split the family as they did was a bad idea.” Joseph continues with the excuses for not hunting down every last Kaczmarek and dealing a fatal blow to their organization.

Killing Henry didn’t satisfy my hunger for retribution. It went too quickly. Seeing him make his way from the fire, seeing his gun in his hand while I was holding my wife bleeding and coughing herself unconscious—I didn’t have time to enjoy it when he fell dead to the ground. But Piotr—I’ll take my time with him.

If we ever find him. After making the call to Dominik about Henry’s actions, he fell off the face of the earth.

“So, we do nothing?” How can we do nothing after their attack? “We’ll be seen as weak! Do you want other families to think they can do this to us? Try to move into our territory, hurt our families and there’s no retribution?”

Joseph squeezes my arm and takes a deep breath.

The only good thing to have come out of this entire debacle is my father was forced in front of a doctor. After they sorted out his broken leg, they did tests to check for smoke inhalation damage. It’s then they found the cause for all his coughing and shortness of breath recently. He’ll be using oxygen for a long time. Being a smoker for three decades before he finally quit five years ago damaged his lungs. Thankfully they didn’t find a tumor, but COPD is bad enough.

With his new diagnosis, he’s giving more control over to Dominik.

“There will be retaliation, Jakub,” he assures me with a wobbly smile. “There will be.”

“When? I want to be involved. They hurtmywife!”

Dominik shares a look with my father.

“Dominik. Leave us a minute.” Joseph waves my older brother from his own office. “Go see if Kasia has my sandwich ready.”

After he was discharged from the hospital, Kasia refused to let him go home by himself. He’ll be staying here at Dominik’s for a while.

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