Page 63 of Brutal Bratva’s Owned Hostage

“How can you be so certain?”

“Because I have too much waiting for me here to accept any other outcome.” He brought my hand to his lips, pressing a slow kiss against my knuckles, giving me what I just gave him. “I’ve spent my entire life treating danger as something to survive one encounter at a time. That changed the moment you became part of my life. I have a reason now to come back that goes beyond simple survival instinct. I intend to use it.”

“I believe you,” I said quietly. “I don’t know if I’ve ever actually believed a promise like that before, not fully, not without some part of me bracing for it to break. But I believe this one.”

“Good. Hold onto that, regardless of whatever news reaches you before I’m actually home to confirm it myself.”

“Don’t jinx it. That’s not comforting.”

“No,” he admitted, something wry in his voice despite the gravity of the conversation. “It probably isn’t.”

We stayed there together long after the food had gone cold and mostly untouched, neither of us particularly hungry anymore, simply holding onto the moment the way people hold onto something they suspect might be finite.

“Tell me something else,” I said eventually, needing to fill the silence with something. “Something good. Something that has nothing to do with your operation or Vale.”

He considered the request seriously.

“When this is over, properly over, I want to take you somewhere that isn’t connected to any of this. Somewhere with no history attached to my family’s name, no reason for either of us to look over our shoulder. Somewhere entirely new, that we get to build memories in together without any of this shadow following us.”

“Where?”

“Wherever you want. You mentioned wanting to travel somewhere without needing an exit strategy, back on the island. I intend to actually give you that, once Vale’s no longer an issue.”

“That sounds wonderful.”

“It will be. I intend to make certain of it.” He squeezed my hand gently. “And the dog. I haven’t forgotten about the dog.”

That startled a genuine laugh out of me, cutting through some of the heaviness that had settled over the evening. “You remembered that.”

“I remember everything you tell me, Val. Especially the parts where you finally let yourself want something small and ordinary for once, instead of talking yourself out of it.”

“I might not want the dog, I told you. But I’m going to hold you to all of it. The travel, all of it.”

“I’m counting on that.”

We sat together a while longer as the candles burned low, the city’s endless glow the only witness to everything we’d finally said plainly to each other after months of circling it through the chaos of surviving impossible things side by side. Whatever came next, whatever cost the operation against Vale ultimately extracted, I understood, sitting there with his hand wrapped securely around mine, that tonight had given both of us something worth carrying forward regardless of how the rest of this played out.

Love, spoken plainly, without crisis forcing it out of either of us. A promise, given with genuine intent rather than simple reassurance. And underneath both of those things, a quiet, steady hope that this would actually end with both of us still standing on the other side of it, finally free to build whatever life we’d started imagining together.

Eventually, we moved inside together, leaving the cold, untouched food behind on the terrace, neither of us willing to let the evening end with anything except each other.

At the doorway, Dmitri paused, glancing back once at the candles still burning low against the darkened skyline, something almost reluctant in the way he lingered there a moment longer than necessary.

“Thank you for tonight,” he said quietly. “For all of it. I don’t think I’ve ever had an evening quite like this one, not once in my entire life.”

“Neither have I, honestly.” I reached for his hand, lacing our fingers together as we stepped back inside. “I wanted us to have this, before whatever you and your brother have planned. Something entirely ours, that whatever happens next can’t take away from us.”

“It can’t,” he said, certainty settling into his voice. “Whatever the operation brings, tonight already happened. Nothing changes that.”

I held onto that thought as we made our way through the quiet penthouse, his arms coming around my shoulders.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Dmitri

The night began exactly as planned.

Each brother confirmed position within seconds of the designated hour, communication tight and encrypted, minimal enough that nothing useful would leak even if someone managed to intercept the channel. Five locations, five teams, a single coordinated moment designed to collapse Vale’s entire remaining network before he had any chance to consolidate or disperse anything.