Page 35 of Captured By the Bratva

“Tell me where, Becca.”

I glanced at the device attached to my phone. Dmitri had done something to it, and I wondered if it disabled my location.

“Tell me where you are.”

I owed him nothing. I felt indebted to Ivan, not him. I didn’t care what Steven wanted. It had nothing to do with me. My only goal was to provide for my baby the best I could, and only my association with Ivan enabled me to feel like I was doing a decent job of it.

“Fuck off.” I crossed my arms. Damned if he thought I would ever give him a chance to screw with me or my child again. Now, more than ever before, he was dead to me, a threat, an adversary to keep far away.

“What?” He chuckled without humor, teasing me. “What is it? You think you’re falling in love with this guy now too?”

I bit my lip, tense with rage. He thought it was so hilarious, mocking how I’d thought I had a real relationship with Dom. I didn’t have “anything” with Ivan, either. I was his pawn, his hostage, but unlike Dom, I wanted a very real commitment with Ivan.

“Are you trying to protect him?” Steven taunted. “You want to be a good girl for Ivan and hope he likes you more than Dom ever did?”

I clenched my teeth together so hard that it hurt my jaw.

“Just tell me where you are!”

Emily’s cries cut through the quiet. She’d woken in the other room, and I bet she was scared, not seeing me and being in a still-unfamiliar place alone.

Margie frowned, going for her, but I held my hand up and stopped her.

“Fuck you, Steven.” I would never tire of echoing my truest, most heartfelt sentiment with him.

He growled. “I’m warning you, you stupid cunt. Do not try to cross me.”

He hung up, and I turned with Margie to hurry to Emily and comfort her.

And seek her little arms wrapped around me for a semblance of comfort I needed after hearing from the man who called himself my father.

What I wanted, though, was to see Ivan and know if he would appreciate my decision to try to help his cause.

I would do anything to escape Steven’s role in my life. Even deliver him to the Mafia men hell-bent on killing him.

13

IVAN

LeVant’s seemed calm when I arrived. Nothing stood out as a concern. No cops milled around. During the drive that I’d had to endure to get here in the heart of the city and make my way through the hallways to reach the secret location, everything had settled.

“Tell me,” I instructed the supervisor in charge tonight. Kenneth was a good man, a former soldier in the army who’d turned to the Bratva for a sense of belonging. He was the best man to keep an eye on things at one of the Bratva’s most profitable sex clubs. LeVant’s was in good hands when he was on the floor.

He shook his head, shrugging. While he stepped aside to speak with me, he maintained a close eye on the clientele and staff here. The man never relaxed or lowered his guard, and that was why I felt confident that nothing bad had happened here while I was out playing house with Becca and Emily.

“A couple of guests were drugged.” He mentioned their names, and that detail didn’t alarm me. A pair of entitled, young socialite women. They were often wasted when they came here to party and look for a good time. I wasn’t surprised.

“I was concerned with how quickly they went down.” He furrowed his brow. “The Doms in the scenes with them seemed freaked out about how rapidly they’d fallen unconscious. Seizures too. But when they removed them and took them to the hospital, they seemed to improve.”

“Did they run tox reports?”

He nodded. “I believe they are still waiting on results.”

“What were they taking here?”

“Nothing, actually. Since those incidents last year with the older folks trying out the harder lines of coke, we’ve been careful.”

I knew that. And he was correct. Drugs happened. The Valkov Bratva moved a lot of them, sometimes through clubs like this, but we were in the business to make money, not to kill anyone. We wanted customers coming back for more, not surviving to want another hit. Drugs would never disappear in this world, and if we could control some of the main transportation routes of them, we could see to them going where they should and not being abused by other organizations. We were far from saints, but moneydidmake the world go round.

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