Silent Heart (The Vlasov Bratva #5)

Chapter 37 – Harley

T he bar compressed and the door swung open. A tremor ran through my body, but I was already stepping into the gloom. The only light came from a window set high in the wall. There were honest-to-goodness metal bars laced across it. Thick shadows draped over the form standing impossibly still in the middle of the room.

I sensed movement behind me. The reaction of the beast in front of me was quick and decisive. He launched forward.

“No! Kole, it’s me,” I breathed, stepping into him.

“Harley,” Dimitri warned.

“Get back and shut the door,” I bit out, pawing the air behind me. “You’re only upsetting him!”

“Go get the tranquilizer,” Dimitri growled as the door swung shut.

I would kill them if they came back in here and disturbed us. Right now, the only thing that mattered was me and the man in front of me. I’d forgotten how the intensity of his focus felt when it was directed at me. Granted, I preferred when he wasn’t having an episode brought about by exhaustion, but his keen gaze still felt wonderfully familiar.

Letting go of the last straws of reservation, I closed the distance. “I’ve missed you, big guy.” And then my arms wrapped around his waist. The scent of his clean, woodsy soap tickled my nose and made the corners of my eyes prick.

Kolya just stood there, not reacting to me, except that his body relaxed. With each minute that passed, tension oozed from his muscles. His breathing grew more even, each breath deeper than the last, and I swore I could hear his pulse steady.

The press of the bar on the door popped through the calm.

Kolya spun me around, putting himself between me and the exit.

“Will you two stop it!” I hissed. “I had him under control. Now look what you did!”

Kolya was crouched, ready to spring forward.

I fisted my hands at my side, ready to scream at the two men.

“Are you sure—”

“Yes, Luka, I’m sure! Now shut the fucking door and let us alone.”

“But—”

I didn’t want to alarm Kolya any more than he already was, but I couldn’t keep back the exasperated groan that passed through my teeth.

“You can get my cell number from Cami, and I’ll text you updates every hour,” I capitulated, because I had to give them something.

Relief filled Luka’s voice. “Oh, we already have your number, but that’s a great idea!”

Are you freaking kidding me right now?!

When we had a handle on the situation, I was going to demand how they had that bit of personal information. Of course, if they were capable of switching rooms with their college student cousin without the university batting an eye or the current occupants raising a fuss, then this was probably nothing.

Russian royalty, my ass. No, this family had darker, far more terrible secrets.

But none of that mattered right now.

Because the door finally was closing.

I looked behind me, down the length of the hall. Another room was at the far end.

“Hey, what’s back there?” I asked, gently placing my hand on Kolya’s shoulder. He stiffened at the touch but didn’t pull away. “Can you show me, big guy?”

Just because he wouldn’t answer didn’t mean I would treat him like he couldn’t understand. Maintaining physical contact, I took a careful step backward.

Kolya mimicked.

“That’s it, one step at a time.” I smiled through the terrible feelings running through my mind. How had things gotten this bad? At the lake house, Kolya ran about, but was never caged. This was his own family! And they were terrified of him.

No wonder he didn’t want me around when he had episodes.

I let out a silent sigh.

At the end of the hall was a small room with nothing but a mattress. Through another door was a stainless-steel toilet, bolted to the wall like something from a prison movie.

“Oh, Kolya,” I moaned, because it was simply tragic.

The beast stood silently beside me, watching me as it took it all in.

“Alright, here’s what we’re going to do.” I pushed aside the inner agony at seeing how he was penned up and took charge of the situation. “I’m turning on a rom-com on my phone. Once I check in with your brother, I’ll probably fall back to sleep because it’s the middle of the night, and I’ve been up early cramming assignments for school.”

As I spoke, I proceeded to fold myself onto the mattress. While it was clean, it wasn’t very comfortable. I patted the spot right next to me.

“School is going great by the way,” I said brightly. “I’m going to be a veterinarian in a few years like I always dreamed.”

Kolya sank onto the mattress, movements stiff and robotic.

I continued to ramble as I pulled up a cute movie about a local girl who kept running away from her wedding, and Richard Greer was the handsome reporter come to write about her.

Once Kolya finally lay beside me and the movie played in the background, I rolled into his side. “I know you won’t remember what I say in the morning.”

His chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm.

“I fucking missed you,” I whispered. “You leaving was one of the worst things that’s ever happened to me.”

Up and down went the chest. In and out came the breaths.

“We were a fling, a summer romance, but what I felt—what I feel is a lot more powerful than I expected, and I can’t shake it off , Kolya .” I pressed my cheek on his rib.

Thump-thump, thump-thump. His heart beat steadily.

“You’re going to be mad I’m here in the morning. If you wanted us to be together, you would have found a way. But you ran. It’s pretty clear where you stand on this.” I had to stop talking. The feelings I so carefully hid threatened to escape through the fist size crack in my chest.

The silence stretched until my phone buzzed with an incoming message. I rolled over, answered, and then shut off the movie.

Here in the dark, I could pretend. And it felt so damn nice, like coming home.