Page 81 of Captivated By the Bratva

Dim illumination flickered in the room, showing me Maxim’s brother.

“Oh, my God.”

He was a broken, suffering man. Blood pooled around him. Cuts littered his skin. His arm seemed bent at a weird angle, and I refused to gag at the amputated digits missing from his hands.

“How…” I swallowed hard. “How are you alive?”

“Good question,” he shot back dryly.

“Can you move?” I crouched closer, forcing myself not to look at the most gruesome evidence of his injuries.

He lifted his hand to show that he was zip-tied to a ring in the wall.

I showed him the hammer. “Watch out.”

“Who the hell are you, really?” he asked as I lowered his arm.

After I positioned his hand low to the floor, I aimed at the longer length of cord on the metal ring. One hard strike of the hammer down severed the binding. I grinned at him. “Nadia Petrov.”

He narrowed his eyes, or at least he did with the one that wasn’t swollen shut and very bloody. “Petrov?”

“It’s a long story.”

He frowned at me. “Wait a minute. Aren’t you supposed to be that old fucker’s wife? Lev’s?”

The only person I wanted to marry was Maxim. And I was confident I would. One day. Well after this whole mess was over with. He and I couldn’t go through so many hardships and suffer so many obstacles to not be together in the end.

I shook my head. “Over my dead body would I marry him.”

He grunted. “Don’t joke. Not like that. People die here, girl.”

“I’m not agirl. I’m a woman who’s going to help get you out of here.”

“How the fuck are you going to do that?” He slid his leg over, showing where his foot dangled at a funny angle.

“Oh.” I grimaced. “Whoa.”

“Don’t count on me walking outta here.” He looked me up and down. “And I doubt you’ll be able to carry me.”

I nodded and assessed him. “Then I’ll drag you.”

He shook his head and exhaled long and hard. “Fuck it, Nadia. Just go. They’ll kill me sooner or later. I’ve lost a lot of blood.”

I winced as I looked over his arm. “And probably infected too.”

He nodded with resignation in his one eye that was open.

“Go. Run back to my brother.”

I shook my head. “No. I’m not leaving without you.”

“You’re insane.”

I was starting to feel like I was, but I refused to consider leaving him here. All that time Maxim had been on his “first” job that Alek gave him, he was chasing me down around the world—only to abort the plans of delivering me to Lev.

Here I was, though,stillhiding from the old man and determined to avoid him, but I wasn’t going to abandon Dmitri. I didn’t know him. I wasn’t sure he’d live with these injuries. Yet, nothing would change my mind.

“We’re getting out of this together.” Because I owed Maxim. He was so eager to wrap up this business with Lev so he could find his brother, and I’d done it for him.

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