Claimed By the BRATVA Heir (The Bratva Crown Trilogy #2)

Sadie

It's times like these when I wonder what is wrong with me.

I got away from a relationship I hadn't even realized was abusive until I laid it all out for my boss. It was Dr. Mehta who helped me understand how bad things had become with Jason and got me out.

Now Jason is in my new apartment, looking around with snide derision at how I live, his lip curled in cruel satisfaction.

My hands grip the counter behind me. I take a breath and force myself to let go, to at least appear calm. I fold my arms across my chest instead, because the tank top is thin and I didn't put a bra on, and I don't want him looking at me. I don't want him to see a single part of me.

"How did you find me?" My voice comes out steadier than I feel. A small mercy I cling to, and it lets my confidence grow a fraction.

"You used our credit card at a gas station." He looks bored.

Anger flares in my chest, though I'm not sure if I'm angry at him or at myself for being so stupid.

"That card was in my name."

"It was in both our names, babe." He smiles the smile. The one that used to work on me. "Anyway. That got me the state. The rest was easier. You'd be surprised what people will tell you if you look like you're worried about your missing girlfriend."

Missing girlfriend. The words land somewhere in the pit of my stomach and sit there, oily and thick enough to make me want to vomit.

He walks the length of the apartment, craning his neck to see into the bathroom.

He's doing it on purpose, putting his back to me, showing me he isn't afraid of me.

He picks up my book from the bed, looks at the cover, drops it back down on the blankets.

My bookmark slides out and lands on the floor.

"You got a beer?" he asks, turning back to face me.

"No." I bite the word out, still trying to figure out the best way to handle this.

"Water, then."

"Jason, I think you should leave."

He turns around. His jaw is set. I know that look. I have watched that face across a kitchen table for four years and I know exactly how long I have before it turns into something else.

"Water, Sadie."

I go to the cupboard and pull down the one mug I brought with me, hating that he'll have his hands on it. His mouth. I fill it from the faucet anyway and slide it across the counter, feeling better that we now have the bulk of the small kitchen island between us.

A thought, clear as a bell, materializes in my mind.

I could throw the mug at his head and run.

Then it's gone, because I can't run fourteen blocks in a tank top and underwear at this time of night in April.

I don't have my shoes on, and I don't have my phone, and he is still between me and the door.

He picks up the mug and drinks the whole thing in one go, then sits on the edge of my bed like he owns it. The mattress dips under his weight and my stomach does something cold.

"So." He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. "Who was the guy?"

Nick will come back.

The thought arrives before I can stop it, full-formed and useless.

He won't. He left over an hour ago for something urgent with his father, and he probably isn't coming back tonight.

Then the next thought hits me. Even if I could get to my phone, I never got Nick's number.

My phone has the clinic's number in it in case I need to ring off sick. That's it.

"A friend."

"A friend." He nods slowly. "Leaving your apartment at ten at night."

I don't dignify that with an answer. My life is none of Jason's business. Not anymore.

"Huh." He rubs his jaw. "You don't have friends, Sadie. You had my friends."

Something rises in my chest that isn't fear. It's older than fear. It's the thing that got me out of Millbrook, and I push it back down because I need it later, not now.

"It's irrelevant, Jason. I broke up with you. Now I can make friends with whoever I want."

That flicker in his eyes is back. Barely there and then gone, but something primal in me catches it, because the hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention.

"Who was he?" Jason's tone has changed. He's becoming angry.

This is the moment where I need to decide how to play this.

Do I stand my ground? Do I try to run while he's sitting on my bed?

The distance is too much. Rounding the small island will give him all the time he needs to get up and close any distance I gain.

"His name is Nick."

"Nick."

"I helped him in a car wreck a couple of weeks ago. He was a patient at the clinic. We had dinner tonight as a thank you." I shrug, trying to make myself seem unbothered, like it's an everyday occurrence. "That's it."

"He was in your apartment, Sadie." He's testing me. I know he is. But how can he know what Nick and I did in here?

"He walked me home."

Jason stands up off the bed and my body tenses without my permission. He sees it and spreads his hands in the gesture he uses to tell me I'm overreacting, the hey, hey, it's me gesture, and my stomach turns over.

"Relax," he says. "I'm just catching up with my girlfriend."

"I'm not your girlfriend." I realize I don't care how tonight plays out. I can't do this anymore. Let him belittle me. Let him beat me. But I will not lie to myself any longer.

He tilts his head. The room is very small.

It's always been small, but now it's smaller, and I'm thinking, clinically, about the geometry of it.

The door is four steps in front of him. The fire escape window is six steps behind me, and it sticks.

I haven't even opened it fully once since I moved in.

What the hell were you doing, Sadie?

The thought is about Nick. It knocks me sideways and I almost laugh at the timing.

Two hours ago, I was underneath a man whose business is in the grayer areas of society, who has people, who told me plainly he's a monster.

And I let him into my home. I let him into my body.

I let him leave a mark on my collarbone that I can feel right now, and I thought, stupidly, that I'd made a choice that was my own.

I shake it off. It doesn't matter right now. What matters is the man in front of me.

"What do you want, Jason?" It's a stupid question, but I just want to get this over with and get him out of my apartment.

"I want to know why you left without saying goodbye." He says it like he's genuinely hurt. Like my actions were ridiculous and cruel.

"You know why." Incredulity laces my words, because he can't think I'm so stupid that I didn't notice what he was doing to my insulin.

"I don't, actually. I came home from work and you were gone. Your side of the closet, cleaned out. The insulin was gone from the fridge. I thought something had happened to you."

The insulin was gone from the fridge.

My hands want to shake. I press my palms flat against my thighs and breathe through the rage trying to bubble to the surface.

"I think you should leave," I say.

"Sadie."

"I mean it. I think you should leave and we can talk tomorrow somewhere public. A coffee shop. I'll meet you."

"You'll meet me." He laughs. "Sure you will. Like you met me tonight."

"I didn't know you were coming tonight." My voice breaks, and I shut my mouth before my own body can betray my anxiety any further.

"Right. Because you don't answer your phone." His finger jabs out, accusing, pointing at me like I'm irresponsible and petty.

"I blocked your number." I yell it before I can even weigh the words, and immediately regret it.

His face does the thing. The small tightening around the eyes, the jaw working once, and then he smooths it over because he wants something and he knows he can't get it if he loses control yet.

He sits back down on my bed.

"I'm tired," he says. "I've been living out of my car for three days. I'm gonna crash here tonight. We'll talk in the morning."

"No. You can't stay here." Not here, I think. Not the place that was supposed to be my safe landing after four years of him.

"Sadie." That warning tone again. The one you would use on a child who is pushing their luck and misbehaving.

"Jason, no. You're not staying here."

"Where am I supposed to go?" He doesn't soften the anger now. Lets it sit in the way he stares at me. Challenging. Daring me to fight him on this.

And for some reason, I do.

"A motel. Your car. Home. I don't care."

"You don't care." He nods, slow. "That's nice. That's a real nice thing to say to someone who drove all this way because he was worried about you."

I look at him, sitting on my bed in his brown jacket with my mother's blanket folded on the pillow behind him, and I think, with a clarity that feels almost like peace, I don't know you.

I don't know the man I lived with for four years.

I look at him and I don't see anything I recognize, and more than that, I don't understand what I ever saw.

Not the first night he bought me a drink at the bar on Fourth Street.

Not any of the Christmases or birthdays we shared.

I look at him and I see a man who messed with my insulin pen, put it back in the fridge, and whistled as he walked out of the kitchen.

A mechanic from Millbrook in a brown jacket I paid for.

That's all he is.

And I let him carve four years out of me.

"You're not staying here."

"Try and stop me, babe." He says it casually. Light. Like it's a joke.

And something in me flips.