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Ilya, my brother’s personal Bratva bodyguard, moves closer in anticipation of what is about to unfold. I watch it play out in front of me like a silent film. My brother lays claim to the woman he loves. Then he turns to Leif, his new brother-in-law, and they face off. Erika moves between them. Foreseeing what’s going to happen next, I move across the street as fast as I can. Gray wanted me to protect Erika, and that’s what I will do. I can’t let her get hurt. I can’t let her baby get hurt either by these two oafs.
I burst through the door, not caring if it breaks or not. After quickly assessing the situation, I work out the best scenario to protect Erika and her unborn baby. My focus is completely on her. My eyes drift to her barely blossoming abdomen, and suddenly my mind shifts. I slip back to a time I hate. A moment when I wasn’t strong enough to save myself. I’m right back there in that alley with the rotting food and rats. Rain pelts down onto my body. I’m outnumbered. They circle me, and I attack as best as I can.
I blink and react to the present situation. I don’t even have to think. It’s all muscle memory, which is good because I’m more trained now than I was back then. I thought I was undefeatable before. Now I know I can be beaten, and I won’t let that happen again. I spin into the mix of bodies, avoiding Gray and surprising Leif. I throw out my arm and hook Leif’s. I pin him to the floor with my body on top of his. I have his arm twisted up and around, and my free hand is fisted at his throat, ready to crush his windpipe.
I don’t see Leif. The man that has been with me for months. He’s taught me to feel again. I don’t hear the voices yelling at me to stop. I’m back in that fucking alley again. I only focus on the pain. The memories flooding my mind. The smell overwhelms me, making me want to gag. My vision is blurred with pain and hate.
“Ley, come back,” Gray snaps.
Hearing my nickname breaks through the fog. I shake my head and realize what I’m doing. The men who attacked me knew me by a different name. I was a different person back then. I was only a machine built and trained by the military and my unit. That machine was destroyed in that alley by the contractors I had been loaned out to. By the man I had given my body to. He tried to have me raped by his men. Men who I worked with. I thought they had my back and I theirs. But it was on a mission with them after I thought Roger and I were a couple that I found out what kind of man he really was. What I saw him and his men do to that family still haunts me to this day. But in that alley, they destroyed me. The killed Angeline, and Ridley came to life with vengeance in her heart.
I jump up and move away from Leif. I try not to bow my head, but I can’t stop the motion. It’s then I hear the shuffling of feet and people around me. My brother can’t know about this side of me, so I raise my chin defiantly. In this moment I applaud my babushka for teaching me how a Bratva printsessa should act. That I bow to no man and I’m as strong as the men in my family.
“I’m sorry, but I was stopping you from hurting your sister further. Or attacking my brother.” I point between Leif and Gray.
“He’s your brother?” both Leif and Jas, who is working at the counter, say at the same time. I nod.
I know Jas because of Ryan. He’s her husband. He’s also the reason I moved here. He’s my best friend, but she doesn’t know me personally. It’s been that way since the beginning. There are others who know he and I are close, but they don’t know me because I make him keep it that way. He hired me last year to protect her. He’s the one who got me interested in BDSM. No, we’ve never scened together. That would be weird. I honestly look at him as another brother to me. I’m pretty sure he thinks of me as an annoying sister too.
I turn to look at Leif. He only knows me as Ley, the broken woman from our sessions. He doesn’t know who I really am. I take him in, in his casual clothes and real world for him too. His hair is longer on top and hangs over his forehead. Normally, he has it gelled back when we session. The sides are trimmed close to his head. The dark color is a deep brown, almost black in this light. In his private room, it always looks black. He has a dark scruff of beard he keeps neatly trimmed. Part of me wants to feel that scruff against my body, but the other part wants to shrink back and hide so he can’t see the monster I just became. My focus shifts to his eyes. I always get lost in their deep chocolate depths. They calm me. I lock my body tight to stop myself from going to him. I can’t show weakness. I’m a warrior. I see the questions in his stare as his pierced dark brow rises. Just for him to see, I slowly drop my eyes. He’s the only man I’ve ever shown submission to. The only man I’ve wanted to give my submission to.
But never again. I can’t be with him now after he knows who I really am and what kind of monster I can become with little regard or thought.
“Yes,” I say softly and raise my eyes again. It’s not that I lied to him, because I didn’t. I made him sign a nondisclosure agreement on top of our other contract. That second contract states I won’t share any parts of my personal or business life with him. He was meant for one thing and one thing only.
To whip me. To make me forget who I am for a short time.
“I wouldn’t hurt my sister,” Leif says in a deep voice. It’s not the voice I normally hear him use, but it’s just as commanding and brooks no argument.
“You pushed her.” I defend my actions, but I know I lost it. I need to get away from them all before the panic really sets in. “If she falls just right, she could lose the baby. I didn’t want that to happen.”
Another memory floods my mind, and I’m almost taken back to that day. A day that changed my mission in life. I remember watching the young woman falling, the blood rushing from her body as she lost the life she was carrying. The men laughed at her and raped her as she bled out. I tried to stop them, but they held me down. They even ended up handcuffing me to a chair. Roger’s cold eyes stared at me as he called me a disgrace to the colors I wore because I wouldn’t hurt someone weaker than me. Because I wouldn’t use my military training to kill innocent people having dinner. I shake myself free of the thoughts and try to lighten the mood.
“Now, are you calm, or do I need to take you down again?” I smirk at Leif. That beautiful dark eyebrow lifts again as he takes me in. I’ve never joked with him in our previous interactions, but it feels so right.
“That was good. You should train my sister.” Leif nods as he looks me up and down. He starts to reach for me but catches himself. I watch as he folds his arms over his chest to keep him from doing it. It’s in that moment I realize he and I could have had more, but now we’ll never know. Not only did I disrespect our relationship by assaulting him, but I also don’t ever want to explain to him why I lost it. No one can hear what I went through. It’s bad enough that she witnessed it from her hiding spot.
“Why?” I wave my hand toward the door, indicating that Erika not only has my brother for protection but Ilya too. Pointing out Ilya spurs a brief conversation between the newlyweds, which then refocuses Leif’s attention on Gray.
“I don’t want you with my sister,” Leif says.
I’m about to step back into the mix when Erika addresses her brother. She soothes his ruffled feathers and promises to call him tomorrow. Leif moves closer and kisses his sister on her forehead.
“I’ll be here if you need me.” He steps back.
After Jas offers to close up the parlor with Leif, Erika grabs her things and we head out. My phone buzzes when I step outside onto the sidewalk. I retrieve it from my pocket and open the text.
F
I’m coming home this weekend. I miss you.
Me
Everything okay?
F
I just want to come home.
