Page 29 of Bratva's Vow
I leaned against Maxim in the back seat, letting the steady thud of his heart calm me down.
“You’re safe,” he whispered over and over again as if consoling himself, sometimes lapsing into Russian. Just hearing his voice was all the reassurance I needed, even if I didn’t understand.
Whoever the hell that driver was, I hoped they had their license revoked for a long time.
CHAPTER EIGHT
MAXIM
The water scalded my shoulders, steam curling around my face and fogging up the glass walls of the shower. I braced my palms against the tiled wall, eyes shut, letting the pounding stream drum against the back of my neck like it could wash away the thoughts stuck on a loop in my skull.
Three days.
Three fucking days since the crash.
Since I almost lost him.
We’d tracked the car. Found it in a junkyard. Burned out, stripped clean. The license plate led us nowhere. It belonged to a man who’d been dead for six months. Dead men didn’t drive cars.
I slammed my fist against the tile, water splashing up from the impact.
No lead on the chief. No names. No faces. Just ghosts and red tape and too many goddamn possibilities.
And through it all, Wren was still planning to return towork like nothing had happened. Still talking about how he didn’t want to be “cooped up” or “hovered over,” like he’d nearly not come home to me. But I had to choose my words carefully since he’d accused me of treating him like a child.
Fuck, loving someone is hard.
I wanted to forbid him from setting foot outside. Wanted to drag him back into bed and keep him there until every threat was buried six feet under. But I couldn’t.
Because if I told him the truth—really told him—he could walk away. If he walked away from me, I’d have no way to protect him at all.
I tilted my face into the stream, letting the heat burn away the edge of the panic curling low in my gut.
A knock sounded on the door.
“You decent?” Wren asked.
I grunted.
The door creaked open, and a second later, he poked his head in, grinning. He was clueless to my turmoil. His curls were damp from his shower, and he was wearing a soft, thin tank top that showed off his tight little nipples and a pair of shorts that clung to his thighs like sin.
He looked edible. And the best part, he was fucking oblivious half the time how sexy he was.
He stepped inside fully, tablet in hand, and plopped down on the closed lid of the toilet like it was the most natural thing in the world. “Okay, don’t hate me.” He tapped at the screen. “But I have some questions about your birthday.”
I didn’t need to look at him to know he was biting his lip.
I let out a quiet laugh, turning slightly so the spray hit my back. “Can this wait? I’m taking a shower.”
“It absolutely can’t. Every time I ask you, you change the subject or lock yourself in your office. This way you can’t leave, and I get to ogle you shamelessly.”
“Slut. Don’t make me drag you in here with me and show you what I do to boys like you.”
“Boys like me?” he screeched. “There’d better be only one boy like me, Maxim Morozov!”
I laughed. He had the power to make me so furious and then to change my mood just like that.
“There could only ever be one you, kroshka.” I swiped the water from my eyes. He was beaming with happiness.
