Page 27 of Captured By the Bratva

I nodded, not taking the bag while using a handkerchief to wipe the blood from my hands. “What’s that?”

“The woman was preparing to bring the baby with her to turn in an assignment due for a class. She had a bag of diapers and baby stuff prepared.”

Probably thinking she’d need to stick with Emily all night.

“We have a crew cleaning up the break-in at the apartment building. Someone is altering the security footage as well.”

“Good.” I took the bag, sighing as I looked back at Emily. This was how things went down. We came, we saw, and we conquered. As a family, we worked together to deal with whatever shit came at us. I had complete faith in my men, in these soldiers who’d erase evidence of Becca and Emily being missing.

Now, I had to bring Emily to my hostage. There was no question in my mind to unite the mother and daughter. Keeping them separate served no purpose. Becca was a hostage to lure Murphy out, but she didn’t need to suffer any undue stress of missing Emily and worrying about her.

On the drive back to my building, I peeked again and again at Emily sleeping in the backseat. This need to see her and check on her felt weird, but I couldn’t stop.

Becca’s pleas for me to make sure her baby was safe kept replaying in my mind, and I looked forward to being able to deliver on that request. I led a violent life, but I wasn’t so cruel as to hurt an innocent baby. My wrath and anger were best suited for adults, for the men and women who threatened my family.

Calming down from the rush of torturing and killing that man, I considered too many questions that I couldn’t answer. Intrigue filled me, and I tried to filter through all the new things to figure out.

How the hell is an innocent infant mixed up in the middle of all this?

Is she? Maybe she isn’t.

It could all be a decoy.

Murphy could be trying to use her as a decoy. A diversion.

To what? Get Becca away from me so I couldn’t get to him?He had to be aware of how I was hunting him down now, if I hadn’t made it clear enough. Murphy was a long-standing enemy of the Valkov Bratva, but the men I supervised had let word slip that I was after him now.

What could I be missing?One more look back at Emily filled me with more confusion. This baby was a surprise, but I didn’t want to linger in wondering how and if she mattered in this vendetta against Murphy. Of if she played a part in whatever Murphy was trying to do with the Rossinis.

After I parked and carried Emily up to Becca in my penthouse, I couldn’t shake this paranoia that I was being watched. Not in this building, but in the city. Trying to hide Becca and Emily here seemed like a challenge, and I wished I could have more distance from any potential danger here.

Someone trying to reach Emily was a conflict I didn’t want to worry about. Keeping the mother and daughter together would make it harder for anyone to sneak in and interfere. Distancing them from this epicenter of the city would be a smart move to keep things in my control, further from any Rossini or Murphy himself. While I intended to keep Becca as a hostage to lure Murphy out of hiding, I didn’t plan to have him approach mehere, at home or wherever Becca was. I’d arrange for a neutral meeting point, somewhere else for him to speak with me for his killing blow.

My building was guarded. This was a safe location. No one was getting in or out without my knowing about it. But it no longer seemed like enough.

Keeping Becca as a hostage was critical. But seeing to her security seemed like a more important responsibility that I didn’t want to mess up. She had to be safe and secluded not only to lure Murphy out, but also because I needed to know she was all right.

“Ivan?” Her quiet greeting came as soon as I set foot in the penthouse.

Walking toward me, she watched as I turned and revealed the baby carrier. She had to have been waiting and watching the door all this time because as she ran toward me, crying tears of relief at seeing Emily, she looked one step away from collapsing from exhaustion.

Too bad. Now wasn’t the time to relax or rest.

“Get ready. We’re leaving.”

She hurried to unbuckle Emily, glancing up at me.

“I don’t trust staying here or being in the city,” I explained. I didn’t answer to her. I didn’t need to tell her a damn thing, but I wanted to soothe her. I wanted to erase that etched-in expression of tension.

Seeing her in the throes of passion and pleasure would have been nice too, but I caught myself from thinking about fucking her again.

I wondered if I’d erred to do so in the first place. Because it was becoming too easy to see her as my woman, not my hostage.

10

BECCA

“Leaving?”

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