28. Mila
MILA
For several days, my only “instructions” were to rest and relax. Lev stayed with me. If we weren’t in his room, we were in his house.
Only after I could prove that I wasn’t out of breath at all, near the end of the week after I had been captured at that compound, did he let me go for a “light” jog at the training facility.
“I’m not used to being idle,” I admitted to him when he questioned whether it was smart or unwise to exercise again.
I wasn’t used to being idle ever.
With the doctor’s all-clear, Lev didn’t have any room to stand on for insisting that I be bedridden or treated like an invalid. After that first day of being fully back on my feet, he seemed to relax and go easy on hawking over me and making sure that I wasn’t overexerting myself in any way.
Although I had been on something that could seem like light duty, he didn’t hide anything from me. He told me about what the two captives told them. He shared with me that the material from the drive I’d grabbed would allow more spies to track Yusef Antonov’s movements.
It felt like progress, but it was dimmed—or reduced—by how different my life was now.
Lev never had me go back to the safehouse.
Like he said, he’d had my things moved into his space. “My” clothes were placed and sorted next to his in the enormous walk-in closet. “My” shoes lay in a line near his.
And… that was it.
I didn’t have anything to really claim as my personal possessions.
All that I “owned” here were the garments he’d provided for me.
Seeing them in his personal space drove in the fact that he was my lifeline. He sheltered me, fed me, clothed me. And he didn’t hesitate to show me how to listen to his touch and kisses and let go enough to feel the bliss of an orgasm.
So when I showered after a mild workout and padded into the carpeted stretch of space in his huge walk-in closet, I had to honestly admit to myself that I enjoyed this experience.
It was such a far cry from the hardships I tolerated in poverty as a Cartel slave, passed around as some unfuckable tool.
I looked forward to being here when I could dismiss the worry that it wouldn’t last.
I embraced the bliss of comfort in his bed and with these luxuries when I wasn’t hung up on how none of it was truly mine.
I sighed, leaning against the doorframe as I studied the closet. With a towel tied snugly around my body, I roved my gaze over the only tangible things that could represent my presence here.
Of course I want to stay with him and be here at his side.
Not because I have to.
I hugged myself with one arm and pressed my free hand at the base of my neck.
But because I want to.
Every day that passed and I woke up in his arms, my determination to stay deepened. Each night that came and I could listen to him sleep next to me, I fell further into the lure of wanting to finish what we’d started.
I came here as his slave.
But now?
I wanted so badly to open my eyes and my heart to how it was different.
Thoughts about leaving him, leaving this security, seemed like foolish nonsense now. The more I accepted being here and trusting that I wasn’t only a thing to use for assignments, the more I could begin to appreciate that this was freedom.
Being in Lev’s life like this, being his, allowed me the freedom to know I was secure and safe and protected. I was valued.
That need to survive one episode of hellish misery after another didn’t feel the same anymore.
Because as I wondered if this was what it felt like to fully and truly submit to a man, I didn’t experience the flutters of nervousness that came with the urge to run or escape.
I can’t run.
Not away from Lev, the man I wanted to belong with.
Not away from the Volkovs, this family that I’d found and wanted to fit in with.
I want to run to you, Lev.
Swallowing hard as emotions clogged my throat, I dragged my toe over the soft, plush ply of the carpet beneath my feet.
I was idle.
Dawdling and stalling.
Reflecting and sinking so far into my thoughts that I almost didn’t realize that Lev had entered the room. I picked up on the vibrations of his footsteps as he came up behind me in the massive closet.
He wrapped his arms around me, tugging me to lean my back against his chest.
Looking down at his strong limbs enveloping me, I was tempted to smile at the contrast. His thicker, muscle-bound arms showed all the dark ink of his tattoos and tanned skin, so different from the pure ivory of the towel around me.
He’d rolled up the sleeves of the white shirt he wore, and somehow, that tease of revealing part of his arms made it so much sexier.
“What’s going on?” he asked, bringing his lips toward my ear.
I let out a deep breath, never shivering at the touch of his mouth on my cheek. Leaning back against him, I set my hand on his arm to hold on. “Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
I shrugged. “Nothing important.”
“Tell me, and I’ll let you know if I think it’s important.”
So bossy. But with him, it was playful, too. “I was thinking about how I’ve moved in here so suddenly.”
Now he kissed me, a lingering press of his lips on my cheek as he snuggled me closer in his embrace. “I should’ve brought you here from the beginning.”
“The first day I came here, you said I was filthy,” I reminded him.
“You were.” He slipped his hand under the towel, caressing his hand over my stomach. “With all that dirt and sweat from the desert.” He kissed under my ear, sending a bolt of lust straight to my core. “And I wanted to strip and clean you.”
I smirked as he tugged at the edge of the towel, teasing about the concept of stripping me now. At least he couldn’t say I was dirty now, just out of the shower.
“Being here made me think about how I got here,” I admitted. “How I’d come from no one and nowhere but I somehow want to think I belong here.”
“You do.”
“You say that about all the people who work for you?” I joked.
“I do,” he answered honestly. “Every member of the Bratva is family.”
He urged me to back up with him in the closet, leading me to backpedal within his embrace until he reached the large armchair. As he sat, he folded me onto his lap so I was seated sideways, my legs draped over his.
“But not every member of the Bratva is supposed to stay as family.” His tone turned somber as he leaned back in the chair and stroked my thigh.
“You mean traitors who’ve turned against the family?” I asked.
He nodded. “Like my father.”
What?
I furrowed my brow, surprised at that. His father? I assumed his parents were dead since they were never around. “You father?” I shook my head, feeling stupid. “I never really knew much about the history of the Volkov line.”
He scoffed. “It’s not a pretty history. The man who was supposed to be my father planted a bomb to kill my uncle. He succeeded in killing my grandparents. With my grandfather as the Pakhan at the time, he tried to overthrow the throne and have it for himself.”
“But he didn’t?” I guessed, hating how troubled he looked to talk about this. “Because your uncle lived?”
He nodded. “Yes. Leadership is passed from father to son—to the eldest son. Gregori was Uncle Dmitri’s younger brother.”
“Wait. Gregori? As in—”
“As in the fucker who started this network and is trying to attack us.”
I blinked, my eyes wide open now. “Whoa,” I whispered.
“He’s not my father,” he vowed darkly. “And as soon as we find him, he will be dead. For real, this time.”
I listened to how Gregori had been presumed dead for so long.
All while he talked, he stroked his hand over my thighs, like he needed to feel me as he purged this dark history.
I didn’t interrupt him as he unveiled it all—how instrumental Elena had been to discover the money trails and then how Carina showed that the Cartels were being used against the Bratva’s trade interests.
“I wish he were dead,” he summed up with a low mutter.
“He will be,” I said, confident that no one could escape the wrath of the Volkovs. “Then we’ll both have dead fathers.”
He glanced up at me, his gaze serious and sober. “Your father was killed.”
It should have sounded like a question, but he was assuming it.
I nodded. “My parents sold me to the Cartel for whatever price they could. All to get a quick fix.” I swallowed hard, hating that this could still define me as a reject.
“I couldn’t understand how they could get rid of me like that, but they’d never cared.
I was a burden, an obstacle to their lives as addicts. ”
He let out a deep breath and shook his head.
“I found them dead when I was sent out on a smuggling run near Dallas. I found them both dead with some other addicts under a bridge near where the handoff was. That was when I realized I was alone. Truly alone. I never allowed myself to think that they’d come looking for me.
I never wanted to get my hopes up high that they’d regret selling their daughter as a slave all so they could get a hit.
I couldn’t do that to myself when I already knew they’d never cared. ”
He gripped my thigh, his expression turning more twisted with anger and sorrow.
For me.
On my behalf.
I wasn’t opening up for the hell of it.
I wasn’t trying to gain his sympathy or be dramatic.
But as I realized how freeing it felt to unload this story, to relinquish the power of my words by talking to him about this, I knew that I was pulling him out of his own dark past. And if I could keep him in the present and lure him out of his personal hell of misery, then I would feel like I’d done something right today.
“I knew they didn’t care about me. No one did. And for so long, I tried to believe that once I ran away and could be free, I would never have to look at anyone and wish for acceptance from them. That when I could be free for the first time, it would be on my own terms, no one else’s.”
I swallowed hard as he cupped my face and stared at me, letting me see the flames of desire in his eyes. “But…” I licked my lips. “But I’ve started to believe that you mean it.”
He searched my face, curling his fingers into my hair. “That I mean what?” It left him as a needy growl.
“That you might mean it when you say that you care… Even though you bought me just the same as anyone else ever has.”