Chapter 41: Bratva Prince: Chapter 41

“Come on, let’s go.”

I spun around so quickly it made me dizzy, a shriek falling from my lips. Standing in the doorway of my room was Nikolai, arms folded across his chest and a hard look on his face.

My hand flew to my heart. “Jesus Christ, you scared the shit out of me.” I hadn’t even heard him open the door. I’d been standing near the window, gazing longingly outside, completely lost in my own thoughts when he’d suddenly appeared, as if out of thin air.

His words zinged through my brain and I frowned. “Wait, what? Go where?”

He didn’t answer. Just spun on the balls of his feet and walked away, leaving the door wide open.

I eyed it suspiciously. What was going on? And where was Aleksandr?

I hadn’t seen him since the attack yesterday. Which, if I was being honest, I kind of expected. I knew he would be busy dealing with the fallout from what happened and the fact that his father had been kidnapped.

I wasn’t sure what that meant for him. Was he now in charge? Or had they somehow managed to find their father?

I had decided to give him the night because like I said before, I knew he had a lot to deal with, but that was all I was willing to give.

I wanted answers. I wanted to know what happened. Mostly, I wanted to know if he was okay.

Dayton’s death had hit him hard. I was worried about him. Worried he was blaming himself and letting grief and guilt consume him. Worried—

“Hey!” I jumped at Nikolai’s rough voice. He was back in the doorway, staring at me like I was some sort of freaking idiot. “I said let’s go.”

“And I said, go where?” I barked back, staring him down. I wasn’t going to let him intimidate me. I didn’t know him. I didn’t trust him.

He narrowed his eyes at me and then snorted, shaking his head. “No wonder my brother likes you,” he mumbled.

I didn’t know what he meant by that, so I said nothing.

“Hurry up. I don’t have all goddamn day.” He left again, and I had a feeling that this time he wouldn’t be coming back.

I bit my lip, hesitating for all of two seconds before I hurried after him. I was a curious person by nature, so even though I didn’t trust him, I wanted to know what was going on. Especially if there was a small chance he could be taking me to Aleksandr.

I caught up to Nikolai at the top of the stairs and we walked down together. He didn’t say anything to me and I didn’t say anything to him, both of us content to walk in complete silence.

At least, I thought we were.

When we stepped off the stairs and into the foyer he held his arm out, stopping me from taking another step.

“Why didn’t you run?”

I frowned at his question.

“During the attack,” he clarified. Ah. “You had the perfect opportunity to do so. Aleksandr told me he gave you this address and told you to contact your brother, to tell him to come get you. But you didn’t. Instead you put your life in danger and fought alongside my brother. You helped us. Why?”

“Because I love him.” Duh.

After Aleksandr left me in that safe room, walking away without a second look back, a panic unlike anything I’d ever experienced exploded inside me. I knew I had to do whatever I could to help him. That I couldn’t just leave him to walk into danger alone.

I’d only just managed to stop the bedroom door from shutting when he left. I had to dive, sticking my hand in the doorway to catch it. That door locked every time it was closed. I knew if I didn’t stop it, I’d be stuck in that room with no way to help him.

Once I had placed something in the doorway to keep it open, I had quickly run back to the safe room and loaded up with as many guns and knives as I could carry.

I didn’t bother calling my brother, like Aleksandr told me too. I didn’t want to waste the time. Every second was crucial.

It had been a brutal fight getting to him. I was terrified that I wouldn’t reach him in time. That I’d find him dead on the floor, the light drained from his magnetic blue eyes. I’d fought harder than I ever had before, determined to get to him before the worst happened.

“There was no way I was going to abandon him when he needed me the most,” I finished, staring Nikolai down.

“Even though he kidnapped you?”

I laughed halfheartedly. “Oh, we’re way past that now. Yeah, in the beginning I was pretty ticked off. He’d kidnapped me and killed my men. Who wouldn’t be angry about that? But my men had kidnapped your sister first. Which, by the way is something I never would have allowed if I wasn’t chained up in Nero’s bed. Everything that happened after that was fair and justified in my opinion, and I’m not looking to retaliate. In fact, in your position, I probably would have done the same thing.”

He studied me closely, trying to figure out if he could believe any word that was coming out of my mouth. “Aleksandr’s not marrying Anya Tarasov. Lukyan will be.” He walked across the foyer and out the front door without looking back.

I had the distinct urge to shove a finger in my ear and clean it out to make sure I’d heard him correctly.

“Hey! Wait!” I jogged after him, running out the door and down the porch steps. “What do you mean he’s not getting married? Did something happen? Where is he? I want to see him.”

Nikolai didn’t answer me. He marched towards the yellow cab parked in the driveway and opened the passenger side door. He pulled out a wad of $100 bills, handing it to the driver. “Take her wherever she wants to go.” And then he was gone, walking back into the house.

Confusion wracked me. I stared at his retreating back, my mouth dropping open. What the fuck was going on right now? He was letting me go? Aleksandr was letting me go? I was positive he had to know about this, because I don’t think anything happened in this house without his approval.

My gaze swivelled back to the open car door, to the driver looking at me with patient eyes, waiting for me to get inside. I’d been demanding for days for Aleksandr to let me go and here it was, the opportunity to finally leave right at my fingertips.

So why was I hesitating? Why wasn’t I jumping at the chance to finally go home?

That was a stupid question. I knew why. I didn’t want to leave. And if he wasn’t going to go through with this arranged marriage, why should I?

I wasn’t sure how long I stood there for, just staring at the inside of the cab as I tried to sort through the chaotic thoughts going through my head. The sound of someone walking up the gravel driveway snapped me out of my daze. I looked up, a thunderstorm of anger rolling through me.

What. The. Fuck.

Long legs in a short, skin-tight dress. High, hooker heels. Thick, dark flowing hair. Mila strutted towards me with that air of superiority surrounding her, nose up in the air and an evil, vindictive smile on her lips. “I told you he’d get bored with you,” she said smugly as she walked past me and up the stairs. The two guards standing at the door opened it for her, allowing her entry.

Dark jealousy exploded inside of me and my feet moved, following after her.

Oh, hell fucking no.

I turned away from the window when Nik opened the passenger side door, holding it open for Drea. I didn’t want to watch her leave, didn’t want to watch her get in that cab and never come back.

I had been standing in my office on the second floor, peering out the window like some creeper, anxiously waiting for her to appear. Desperate for one final glimpse of her before she left.

God, I missed her already. How was that possible? It had been only one night and I missed her so much it hurt. I missed her laugh. I missed her smile. I missed the way her nose would scrunch up when something she didn’t like happened on whatever ridiculous television show she was watching.

I knew I should have been the one to do it, to put her in the car and say goodbye, but I had to be honest with myself. I’d barely been able to stop from marching down there and bringing her back. From throwing her over my shoulder like the first time we’d met and dragging her back to my room, where she belonged.

There was no way I could handle watching her go when I was barely in control of myself.

It was the reason why I sent Nik instead of me.

I had it all planned out. I’d let her go. Give her space and time to think. And if she didn’t come back on her own, I’d drag her back.

Knock. Knock.

I exhaled heavily, moving to stand behind my desk. A range of emotions hit me all at once.

Anger. Frustration. Excitement.

“Come,” I called out, cracking my neck.

The door opened, and Mila walked in. The sultry look she threw my way told me she thought she was here for a good reason, a fun time.

How wrong she was.

“Alek,” she breathed, biting her lip. She went to close the door.

“Leave it open.”

She frowned, and then shrugged her shoulders, stepping further into the room. Her gaze wandered around idly, taking everything in. “This is nice.”

I could tell she didn’t mean it, that she was just saying it because she thought it was what I wanted to hear.

“I didn’t know you had an office.”

That’s because I never used it. Never had the need. But with Father gone, I needed somewhere to work, and it didn’t feel right using his. I had put it back exactly the way it was before the attack, and planned to leave it undisturbed until he came home.

When I still hadn’t engaged her in conversation, she began to fidget uncomfortably.

Good. I wanted her to be uncomfortable.

She reached for the zipper that ran down the front of her dress, probably hoping to use sex as some sort of distraction tactic, but I held a hand up, stopping her.

“That’s not what you’re here for, Mila.”

Her unease grew tenfold. She knew that if I didn’t call her here for sex, it meant something bad. I’d told her enough times I wasn’t interested in anything other than sex from her.

“Did you really think you’d get away with it?” I asked, my voice dropping low.

She swallowed, visibly nervous. “Get away with what?”

I wasn’t in the mood to play games. I was tired, still in pain from the stab wound in my fucking shoulder, and pissed off I wasn’t balls deep in the woman I loved right now.

Whoa, loved?

I thought about it for a moment and then internally shrugged. Sounded about right.

I turned the laptop on my desk to face her and pushed play. When her eyes darted down to the screen, her face dropped.

The surveillance footage from the night of the attack played out over the laptop. It showed Mila entering the guardhouse at the front gate and giving a plate of cupcakes to the two soldiers on duty. Not even thirty seconds later, they both vomited up blood and fell to a heap on the floor.

Mila then ran to the controls and opened the gate, allowing four blue vans to drive onto the property—the vans that held the MC army Dominik had sent to take us out.

When Nik had first shown me, I’d been stunned into silence. Out of all the possible scenarios I’d envisioned, Mila being the one to betray us hadn’t once entered my mind. I had watched it over and over again to make sure I was seeing what I was actually seeing. She had been the one to let them in.

Mila slammed the lid of the laptop down, her unease shifting to anger. “What did you expect?” she hissed, her face turning red. “You think you can just throw me aside and start fucking that Spanish suka with zero consequences? That I was just going to sit by and let that happen? I was meant to be Queen, Alek. Me! Not her. I’m the one that deserves it. I loved you! I would have made a great wife! But you never gave me the chance to be anything more than a—what did you call it? ‘A warm body for you to stick your cock into’.”

Amusement shot through me and I couldn’t hold back my laugh even if I tried. Mila was so shocked she took a step back, her eyes bugging out of her head. She’d never heard me laugh before.

“That’s because there’s no substance to you, Mila. There never has been. I had no interest in getting to know you because there’s nothing about you worth knowing.”

Her face grew another shade of red in embarrassment.

“What I want to know is, what was your plan exactly? Did you think helping my uncle overthrow us would get you the position you’re so desperate for? That attention you crave so much?”

“I do not crave attention.”

In the background I could hear what sounded like loud, angry footsteps. Someone was stomping around the house, doors being opened and slammed shut.

“You’re a power hungry whore. All of you crave attention.”

Her hands curled into fists at her side. “I don’t have to stand here and listen to this.” She turned to leave, but my next words stopped her in her tracks.

“I don’t know why you showed up here in the first place. We didn’t think you’d be that stupid. You betrayed us and yet you still came running when I called. Why?”

She spun. “Because I thought—” her mouth clamped shut.

“Thought what? That I was finally going to choose you? Did you think we wouldn’t find out what you did? That we didn’t have security cameras in the guardhouse?”

She averted her eyes.

“Oh, you didn’t,” I chuckled softly. “You see Mila, that’s where you went wrong. Thinking you were smart enough to pull something like this off.”

“I did pull it off!” she yelled, stomping back to the desk. “I killed those guards and let those men in. If they’d done their fucking job, I would be Queen!”

“Is that what Dominik promised you if you helped him?”

“I went to him! I offered to help him and he agreed to marry me when he became Pakhan.”

“And when that plan failed, you thought you’d still try your luck with me?” I shook my head. “It’s unfathomable to me how someone could be that fucking stupid.”

Behind Mila, I saw Drea walk up the stairs through the open door, her chest heaving and eyes darting around frantically.

I frowned. What was she still doing here? I thought she’d left.

Her head swung our way and her gaze locked on Mila. Fury overcame her and she marched towards us with single-minded focus, each step full of determination. Her brows were lowered in an angry frown and her jaw clenched so hard I was afraid she’d shatter her teeth.

Mila was in front of me saying something else, something I hadn’t heard because I stopped listening. All of my attention was on Drea as she pushed my office door open wider and went right up to Mila. She grabbed a fistful of Mila’s hair from behind and slammed her face into my desk.

Mila screamed, her arms flailing. Drea didn’t stop. She slammed Mila’s head down over and over again, her face completely consumed with rage.

I arched an eyebrow in amusement, watching her with a pleasant mixture of surprise and eagerness.

Blood splattered over the desk. Something cracked. Possibly Mila’s nose. I wasn’t sure.

Slam!

Slam!

Slam!

Drea released her grip and Mila crumbled to the floor with a pain-filled groan.

But Drea wasn’t done. Not by a long shot. She began kicking her, stomping on her with the heel of her foot while she swore at her in Spanish.

“Puta estúpida,” You stupid bitch

Kick.

“Te voy a matar,” I’ll fucking kill you.

Stomp.

“Zorra sucia y podrida,” Dirty, rotten whore.

Drea grabbed the antique letter opener on the desk and stabbed Mila in the chest, twisting it slowly before yanking it out and stabbing her again. She then straightened, blowing out a breath as she pushed a strand of hair out of her face. Her eyes cut to me, the anger increasing all over again, her lips curling up into a snarl.

“You couldn’t even wait for me to leave before you called in your whore, huh?”

I frowned. “I didn’t call her here for that.”

“No?” Drea jumped up on my desk, staring down at me. It was the first time she’d ever been in the position to do so, and I didn’t particularly mind it. She was looking at me with that angry glare I loved so much.

“No. I brought her here to kill her. She’s the one that opened the gates yesterday. The one that made sure the alarm wasn’t raised when the raid started.”

Her eyes narrowed, like she was trying to figure out whether to believe me or not. She must have decided she did because she let the subject drop. She placed a foot in the centre of my chest and pushed, forcing me down into my seat.

My brows shot up in surprise, but I didn’t fight her.

“You sent your brother to let me go.” She said it with an accusatory glint in her eyes, her voice taking on a threatening tone.

“I did. Because if I did it myself, I wouldn’t have let you get in the car.”

“Really? Why’s that?”

“You know why.”

“Tell me anyway.”

I ran my eyes over every detail of her face. Those soft, feminine features. Beautiful caramel skin. Mesmerising amber eyes. That warm, fuzzy feeling I always got when I thought about her bloomed in my chest, coated in a thick, dark possessiveness that almost choked me. “Because I love you.”

Her breath hitched.

“I love you so much it hurts. It physically hurts to be without you, to not see you. To not speak to you. To think of you gone. You’ve managed to burn yourself into my mind, my soul. Branded yourself in my heart. So, now you own it.”

Drea smiled, but it was still steeped in anger. “Good. Because I love you too.” Relief filled me at her declaration. “But that doesn’t change that I’m pissed at you.”

I arched an eyebrow. “For what?”

“For thinking you can just send me away without even bothering to say goodbye.”

I was about to say that it wouldn’t have been goodbye. That I would have tracked her down and brought her back if she didn’t come back on her own, but the words died in my throat when she snapped the button of her jeans open and pulled them down, kicking them away.

My heart pounded in my chest, my mouth going dry. She was so goddamn beautiful. I ran my eyes over her curvy hips, those strong, tattooed legs, staring at her in worship. I wanted to lick every inch of her, to trace all those tattoos with my tongue.

She was still standing on my desk, glaring down at me like she wanted to punish me. She hooked her fingers into her underwear and tugged them down. My cock throbbed in my pants as she lowered herself to sit on the edge of the desk, spreading her legs wide, her feet resting on the arms of my chair.

Fire burned in my veins. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. That pretty pink pussy, glistening wet. Her little pierced clit, just begging to be sucked into my mouth. I had a front row seat to the best goddamn show on Earth.

God, I needed her, and I needed her now.

“You’re going to make it up to me,” she breathed, leaning forward and wrapping a hand around my tie. She tugged me towards her and I went willingly, completely enraptured by her. I’d do whatever the fuck she wanted. “You’re going to lick my pussy until I come all over your face. And then you’re going to do it again, and again.”

“Is this supposed to be a punishment?” I rumbled, running my tongue up the inside of her thigh. “Because I have to be honest with you malyshka, it sounds more like a fucking dream.”

Drea chuckled, her hand squeezing my tie as she pulled me closer and closer to where I was dying to be. “Oh, but it is a punishment baby. Because afterwards there’ll be no fucking. I’m gonna make you walk around with my taste on your tongue all day, your cock so hard it hurts, and you’ll be given no relief. Not until I’ve decided you’ve earned my forgiveness.” She gave one sharp tug on my tie, and I was there, my mouth latching onto her clit.

I groaned in both pleasure and pain. I was painfully hard already, and she was going to keep me like this all day? Evil little vixen.

Her mouth-watering taste flooded my mouth and I drank it all in, my tongue moving in slow, languid circles over her pussy. A shudder ran through her and she breathed out a sigh of pleasure, her head tipping back.

My hands gripped the back of her thighs, and I pushed her legs back, opening her up even more as I devoured her. Licking. Sucking. Nibbling. Fuck, I loved the feel of her on my tongue. The way her clit pulsed inside my mouth, the slickness between her folds. Everything about her turned me on. It made me so fucking hard I just wanted to pound into that tight, little pussy until my come was dripping out of her.

I flattened my tongue and ran it from her ass to her clit in one, long stroke.

Drea cried out in pleasure, so I did it again and again, groaning when her pussy got even wetter, moisture coating my lips. She really fucking liked that.

She panted, her hips gyrating, moving in fast, wide circles. “Dios, you’re gonna make me come already. You and that fucking tongue,” she groaned, her chest heaving.

I kept the same rhythm, moving my tongue up and down, up and down. Drea grabbed a fistful of my hair and held my face right against her clit, grinding against me. I curled my fingers around her hips and held her tight, urging her on. Helping her to move faster. Harder.

“Fuck Aleksandr, yes. Yes, baby.”

I’d always hated when women called me ‘baby’. It was an endearment I shut down instantly. But when it came from Drea, falling from her lips coated in that alluring Spanish accent she had, it didn’t bother me in the slightest. She could call me whatever she wanted, and I would still fall to my knees at her feet in worship.

I sealed my lips around her and moaned low in my throat, the vibrations causing her undoing. Drea came hard, her body shaking as she screamed out my name. Her grip on my hair turned painful, but it just made me harder, pleasure zinging down my spine. I felt like I could come just from the taste of her, from the way she rolled her hips. The sexy, little sounds she made as her clit pulsed on my tongue.

Drea let me go and slumped back, panting breathlessly. She propped herself up on her elbows and smirked, eyes flicking down to her pussy and back up. “Again.”

I dipped two fingers inside her, scooping up some of that delicious wetness literally pouring out of her and brought it to my lips, sucking them clean. I wanted so desperately to stick my cock inside that tight, little hole and lose myself in her. Fuck her until I’d drained every ounce of come from inside my body. But I could tell from the look on her face that wasn’t going to happen any time soon.

So I went right back to it, latching my tongue onto her pussy again.

This was both the best and the worst goddamn punishment of my life. But fuck, I enjoyed the hell out of it, because there was nothing better than making Drea come over and over again. And it was even better that I got to taste it all.