Page 33 of Captivated By the Bratva

“The promise your father made with Lev was just that he would give him his first daughter. No other stipulations applied.”

I wasn’t done. I refused to think he could be so good, fit me so well, and be this quick to give me up. “Oh, so you’ll sleep with me but let me go?”

He pierced me with his serious stare for such a long moment that I almost caved to the pressure of his silence.

“You’re not anything special, sweetheart.”

I stepped forward and lifted my hand to slap him. He caught it, and I fumed as he smiled down at me.

“So, we had sex. It happens.”

Not for me.I hated how he cheapened and belittled what we’d shared. To him, I supposed it was nothing out of the ordinary. I was just another easy piece of ass to him. To me, it was magical. Wonderfully dark and sensual.

“You’re not damaged goods now, Nadia. He didn’t need you to be a virgin.” He tugged me closer before releasing me with a slight push. “And I don’t need you to make me fail at completing a job my brother gave me to do.”

I was nothing. Nothing to him but a convenient pussy to fuck and a woman to deliver as he checked a chore off his to-do list.

I opened my mouth to retort, but I didn’t get any words out.

A bang sounded. Glass shattered. As the window burst apart, another gunshot pierced through the morning quiet.

Maxim clenched his jaw and pulled me to the ground. He was quick—again—to keep me safe, but he wasn’t fast enough. A bullet caught him. His deep grunt of pain and annoyance worried me, and as we fell to the floor, he was delayed in taking the brunt of the drop.

I landed on my back, and a shard of glass cut right through the bandage I’d put on my skin from slamming into the brick wall in London.

Agony lanced through me from so many causes. The sting of the new cut and the reopening of whatever had already scabbed over. All the weight of Maxim’s hard body on top of mine. The hard, unforgiving surface of the floor we crashed to.

Before I could moan in pain or attempt to inhale deeply to stave off this whole-body ache, he lifted his head and covered my mouth with his hand.

He narrowed his eyes, silently telling me to be quiet. I didn’t need to hear him tell me. I got it. Voices carried from outside, and as I waited, caught in suspense, I watched him strain to listen.

“Let’s go,” he whispered as he helped me stand with him, sticking to the walls and staying away from a clear view of the windows.

We were near enough for me to see what the issue was, and it was just what I’d suspected. The local men had returned. These guys sounded just like the drugged-up trio who’d mugged me yesterday.

I didn’t know what they wanted now. Maybe they guessed we’d snuck in here. Perhaps they thought they could get more money out of us. Something. I wasn’t so afraid of them getting ahold of me, not with Maxim here.

All I knew was that we were surrounded.

We’d never get out of here alive. I counted five men outside, all armed with guns aimed at this house we’d crashed in overnight.

Sometime while I’d been recovering from Maxim’s hard loving, I’d forgotten one crucial detail.

This wasn’t my neck of the woods. It didn’t seem like his, either. We were in dangerous territory, away from the protected consumerist areas.

Maxim stood between me and windows, blocking me. With his back to me, I saw the gash on his arm where the bullet had grazed him.

He was wounded.

I was too.

It didn’t matter what job he wanted to fulfil or how eagerly I wanted to escape my fiancé. We were both well and truly fucked, cornered with nowhere to turn.

13

MAXIM

Imarked each of the locals and estimated how many more might be hiding. Five crept toward the house, asking each other if they saw movement. Two more lingered in the back, assuming they were hidden within the trees and thick brush entwined with vines.

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