Page 77 of Captured By the Bratva

Now, of all fucking times, he wanted to talk about my artwork?Now?Was he insane? He’d taken me to Europe to “sponsor” my artwork without ever seeming to realize I was a fan of the Impressionist style, not Minimalist. Or that I sculpture bare pieces without paint. Or that I was even a multimedia artist at all.

Was this a joke? A mockery? A fucking game? I felt like I was going insane after he’d so coolly told me the very last thing I’d ever expected to hear. I’d never counted on seeing him again, and certainly never like this—after he’d sent his thugs to kidnap me from a damn sex club.

“Myartwork?” I shook my head. “You don’t fucking care. You never cared. You pretended to be interested in my artwork just to keep me close and keep tabs on Steven somehow.” Chuckling, I tried to calm down.

Laughing at him wasn’t the smart reaction, though. He snapped, perhaps thinking I was making fun of him.

Standing up quickly, he shoved his chair back and thrust his arm over the table, pointing a knife at me.

“You took something of mine,” he seethed, baring his teeth. “And I want it back.”

I swallowed, sobering up with the real and present danger of a weapon that close to me. “I…” I shook my head, determined not to look scared, but mad. Not terrified, but furious and bold. “I didn’t take a damn thing from you.”

Just your child.I debated whether he knew about Emily.

“Your father took something of mine, and I want it back.”

Steven!It was always about him. If he’d used me somehow while I was with Dominic…

I clenched my teeth, breathing through my nose to try to stay level-headed. “I do not associate with Steven. I never have. And I never will.” I was sick of everyone assuming I was his accomplice just because we were related by blood.

“You stupid idiot.” He stood straighter, gesturing for his men to grab me again. “You won’t beat me. He won’t win. I want it back, and Iwillget it.”

Emily?No. He couldn’t mean her. If Dom wanted something Steven took from me, he couldn’t mean how Steven tried to get Emily taken that same night Ivan captured me.

I tried to understand. As the men pulled me off the chair, I scrambled to solve it all and figure out why Dominic expected anything fromme.

If he’s coming for Emily…

I clung to the knowledge that Ivan wouldn’t let Dominic—anyone—near my baby.

He’d keep her safe.

All I had to do was try to do the same for myself until I could run from the predicament I’d fallen into.

29

IVAN

“Get your fucking hands off me.” I shoved the cop back, searching for Becca.

She’d been right there. Next to me. Scared and nervous.

In the melee of all the club guests running, the staff workers arguing with the cops, the officers swarming and trying to arrest any Mafia person they saw—except that pair of Rossinis—it was chaos.

Even when the lights came on and the music was silenced, it was hard to follow the rushed frenzy of it all.

Once the cops noticed more of the people dropping like flies, all drugged, they shifted their focus to them and less on me. My soldiers and guards stood between me and the fuckers trying to arrest me.

They had no grounds. I didn’t have any drugs. I was no longer a supervisor of this establishment and my family no longer owned it.

“Becca!” I tried to shout for her again, spinning and enraged to find her.

“They took her,” a Bratva soldier reported, rushing in from the door leading to the exit. “They drove off.”

“Fuck!” I ran out with him, desperate to get in my car and drive.

As soon as I got in the driver’s seat, Maxim called.

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