Page 45 of Captured By the Bratva

Checking in with Yusef and the others yielded nothing promising. Then a meeting with my brothers, where we discussed this call that Becca recorded, took several hours of my day.

“She really must not give a shit what happens to him, then,” Alek mused once we’d talked about the call at the mansion.

Just like I had last night, I felt on edge about being in the city and away from Becca. This distance gnawed at me. It wasn’t helping. It wasn’t making me give up on wanting her. It only goaded me to miss her harder.

How the hell did she get under my skin so fast, so deep?

“She says there is no lost love,” I told them.

“I can see that.” Nik nodded, peering at me. “But is she finding it withyou?”

I knew they’d make a big deal out of Murphy taunting Becca in that call.

“He was just trying to get a rise out of her,” I argued, shaking my head.

“So, nothing’s… happening?” Dmitri asked with a knowing smirk.

I glowered at him.

“Wait.Ivan?” Maxim snorted. “He’s next to get a woman?”

“No.” I sat up straighter, hating this teasing. “I’m not. She’s a hostage. Not my woman.”

“You seem possessive,” Dmitri added.

“That’s just the kind of person Ivan is,” Alek said, almost flippantly, as though he wanted to move past all this awkward talk.

“And it doesn’t fucking matter anyway.” I rubbed my face, aggravated. “I do want to put more men on Dominic Rossini. He’s signed his death warrant for raping her.”

Maxim laughed once. “Sure, you don’t haveanyfeelings for your ‘hostage’ now.”

“Shut the fuck up,” I warned our youngest brother.

“But first, Murphy,” Alek reminded.

He wouldn’t care if I wanted to seek revenge with Dom for raping Becca. It was one more enemy we wouldn’t have to deal with.

“First, Murphy,” I agreed.

“No luck on tracing it,” Dmitri said. “But I’m going to have someone install a program to record her calls. It’s… uh, nice that she wanted to go that extra step and record it. I modified her phone to track it, but since it’s an older model, it’s not as easy to record calls.”

“She wants to help us,” I said, confident that I wasn’t lying about it. Becca hadn’t given any impression that she cared aboutMurphy, and after the man admitted to setting Emily up to be taken, I doubted she’d ever care about her father again.

Instead of going back to the house, I sought another distraction. Seeing Becca with Emily was too much of a temptation to resist. Being at the vacation villa made it too easy for me to approach her, and after last night, I had no clue how I would do that.

Sticking to my responsibilities as a Valkov brother, I headed to another club. LeVant’s would be fine. Kenneth was supervising there, but that didn’t necessarily mean all the sex clubs could run smoothly without my efforts.

As I walked into another club, letting the darkness of the place calm me, the familiar sounds and smells welcoming me into the familiar atmosphere of sex and thrills, I hoped that being here could help me shake off some of this funkiness, to let go of some steam.

No other woman tempted me. I found nothing alluring here, but I wasn’t trying. My main role was to keep an eye on things, and as I tried my damnedest not to obsess and think about Becca, I strained to focus here.

None of my brothers wanted the responsibilities of these clubs, and it wasn’t a fickle task. I’d employed competent staff to run things, but someone had to be in charge, and that was me.

Before I made a complete circuit and checked everything in the club, I spotted a familiar face.

We were just talking about her.My conversation with Kenneth at LeVant’s seemed like days ago, but it was only last night that he’d mentioned Veronica. I hadn’t forgotten how he’d warned me that she was on the lookout for me at LeVant’s.

And here she was in the flesh—mostly bare flesh with only a thong on. Her dyed black hair was thinning but intricately braided, all the better to be pulled on, she’d insisted in the past.

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