Page 62 of Bratva Knight

Nikolai stopped mid-sentence, his eyes on me. “Tati,” he whispered worryingly. He quickly pulled into the underground parking lot and turned off the engine, jumping out of the car. He rushed to my side, flinging the door wide open and grasping my face, forcing me to look at him.

"Vse v poryadke, lyubov' moya. YA zdes'. YA prav zdes.“ It’s okay, my love. I’m here. I’m right here.

He didn’t need me to tell him what was wrong. Why I was crying. He justknew. Like he always did.

The tears increased, blurring my vision to the point that I couldn’t even see. I would have given anything to hear him say those words back then. To have him holding me how he is right now, lending me his strength. Helping me through the pain. Supporting me. That’s all I ever wanted.

The agony of not only losing Nikolas, but being abandoned by the one person who was meant to always be there for me, cut me just as badly as it had back then. My pain twisted into anger. It was a much simpler emotion to deal with, so I embraced it. Welcomed it.

“Don’t.” Smacking his hands away, I unbuckled my seat belt and got out, making sure to grab my bag before slamming the door shut.

“Are you okay—”

“I said don’t, Nikolai. Just go away. I don’t want you here.” I went to walk away but he gripped my arm, stopping me.

“I don’t care if you don’t want me here. You can hit me, scream at me, push me away, but I’m not goinganywhere. You hear me, Tatiana? No matter what you say or what you do. I’m. Not. Going. Anywhere.”

We stared at each other, our heavy breathing completely in sync. He looked at me with complete and utter seriousness, eyes burning with determination, with the will to get me to see the truth in his words.

“I’m going to prove to you that you can trust me with your heart, Tati. I won’t let you down again.”

I wasn’t sure what to say back. The anger had dissipated, leaving only the pain behind. I didn’t want to deal with it, so I just walked away. He let me go but kept pace with me, staying right by my side as we rode the elevator up to the seventh floor and entered the apartment. What I saw when I stepped into my bedroom shocked me, making me freeze in the doorway.

“What…what is this?” Boxes and boxes and boxes were piled up on my bed. So many, I couldn’t even count them all. The words “Christian Louboutin” were scrawled across the outside of them. They were shoes.

“I wasn’t sure what colour you wanted,” Nikolai said softly, standing so close behind me, I could feel his breath fan out over the back of my neck.

My eyes ran over all of the boxes. “So you, what, got all of them?” I asked in disbelief.

“Yes.”

“Nikolai.” I looked over my shoulder. “These are five thousand dollar shoes. Each.”

“So?”

“I—” Words escaped me. He’d actually gone into a store and bought all of these? The image alone was unfathomable. Nikolai…shopping? The fact that he would do that when I know how much he hated shopping meant even more to me. He put himself completely out of his comfort zone…purely for me.

I knew the smartest thing to do was to probably not accept them, make him take them back. Butfuck that.They were mine now.

“You didn’t have to do this.”

“Did it make you happy?” he whispered softly.

“Yes.”

“Then yes, I did.”

The overwhelming desire to kiss him gripped me hard. Sometimes he could be so fucking sweet. And most of the time, it was completely unintentional. He didn’t do those things, setting out to be sweet. He just did them because, to him, it was a natural thing to do. In saying that, though, he was extremely selective about who he showed that side of himself to. I’d never seen him do something like this for anyone else.

Anyone.

And fuck, if that didn’t make me feel special as all hell.

“Thank you for this. I really don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything. I’d do anything for you.”

My heart lightened, a tiny bit of my soul healing at his words and what they meant.

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