Page 84 of Captured By the Bratva

As soon as Murphy pointed his gun at his daughter, at the woman I loved, I lifted my firearm and shot once.

Becca gasped, clutching me and burying her face against my chest.

Murphy slumped back to the ground, lifeless and finally dead.

No longer a problem.

I’d done what I originally promised my brothers that I would do.

Take out this asshole.

Murphy was dead. So was Dom. My hit list was getting damned short, but as I hugged Becca and rubbed her back, I caught Alek smiling at us together.

If there were ever a time to scratch off the names of my enemies and lessen my workload in terms of keeping the Bratva safe, it was now.

Because I intended to give this woman and our future my all.

“Is it over?” Becca asked, timid and nervous as she fisted the front of my shirt and hid from looking at the dead men.

I nodded, turning her and tipping her chin up. “They’re done.” I lowered my lips to hers, demanding and gruff in needing her sweet taste. She hesitated at first, perhaps so stunned by what just happened. Within a moment, though, she replied in kind, pushing up to me and kissing me back hungrily.

Her heart raced with mine.

Her soft curves molded and fit against me.

And I opened my mouth wider, insisting on a deeper kiss to match the intensity of relief that I could feel now.

But you and I are just starting.

32

BECCA

As I walked through the vacation villa the day after Dom and Murphy tried to end each other over the long-term plan I’d overheard them dissolving so long ago, I realized how much of that night ended up being a blur.

I supposed it was my mind’s way of protecting me, shading all the details into a hazy recollection so I wouldn’t dwell in the trauma of all that passed.

I wasn’t in denial. Dom was dead. So was Murphy. And I didn’t mourn either of them. Not one bit.

Everything in the present seemed so surreal, though, and I wondered when I would feel confident in what to do next.

Ivan had told me that he wanted me in his life, but now that it seemed like the rest of my life was actually going to start, he was making himself scarce again. I got it. I knew he was busy with his brothers, tending to the aftermath of all that violence. Mafia men, as I’d come to learn, were busy individuals.

Yet, I felt lost.

I was no longer here as a hostage. Steven was dead and would never need to be baited or lured to come out of hiding again.

I was free of his influence.

I was no longer a guest here, either. Since Ivan and I admitted the depth of our feelings for each other, after he asked me to move into his room with him, I felt like a girlfriend. A mistress? Something with intimacy but not so casual that we were roommates.

It would be far easier to understand what I was supposed to do now if he were around to speak with me, so it was with a mixture of giddiness and anxiety when I heard him come in through the front door.

“Hello?”

The guards were no longer as present. Margie, too, had left to help Mila and Amy at the mansion in the city.

Yet, here I was. Unlabeled, lost, and a lot in love.

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