Page 40 of Axel (Belles & Bratva Beasts #2)
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
RUBY
“Where are we going?”
We’re speeding down a dark road in a remote area up the coast from the city. Axel holds my hand over the console. His clutch is warm and protective, but he’s making me nervous.
Do I trust him? Yes.
Do I know something’s wrong? As sure as I have jet lag, there is.
“My hideout,” he answers, turning down another road the state should’ve named “Creepy As Fuck Lane.”
“Your hideout? Why?” I peer into the inky night. The headlights of this vintage Land Rover barely pierce the darkness. “And our kittens! And Sparky!” I whip his way. “Where are they?”
The first smile since I’ve arrived plays with his lips. “They’re waiting for you there.”
When Axel met me in baggage claim, his kiss was overwhelming. It was as if he didn’t believe I was real, or he didn’t want me to be. He kissed me like he wanted to whisk me away into a fairytale, not rush me into the airport parking lot with his head on a swivel while he pushed the luggage cart .
I’m happy to see him. I’m surprised by how much I missed him. How he felt like home when he wrapped his arms around me. It’s been three weeks since we were together.
But he seems… Hurried? Harrowed? Haunted? I’ve never seen him like this.
“I won’t play twenty questions with you,” I sigh, “because when we get to your hideout , I know you’ll give me answers.”
He nods, looking relieved that I’ve turned a new leaf.
I mean, four weeks of nightly video chats and daily purple flowers, punctuated by the hottest night of sex in my life, followed by porn-worthy phone sex, and super cute kittens crawling over my jacked and tatted man would make any woman holster her pistol.
For now.
When he parks, I stare up at Axel’s hideout, its floodlights revealing it’s a secluded waterfront cottage on stilts, nestled under sprawling, wide oaks dripping with Spanish moss. Though it’s past midnight, I can smell the wide river, marshland, and pluff mud nearby.
Inside, it’s a casual, coastal vibe. Axel locks the door behind him, apologizing for the “rustic accommodations,” while they look five-star to me.
Taking my hand, we leave my luggage by the door before he leads me down a short hallway. Grabbing the door knob, he turns to give me another kiss, his lips brushing over mine. “Welcome home, Wildfire. We missed you.”
When he opens the door to what appears to be his bedroom, a clowder of golden kittens wobbles our way.
“Oh my god, they’re so cute!” I plop down on the plank floor and let them surround me.
“They just started walking.” He sits beside me. “And now the cute little shits have started sleeping in my shoes.”
“Yowl!” Sparky prances my way, and I scoop her up .
“Hey, Mama! Good job.” She looks healthy, and the kittens are adorable. But Axel? He looks troubled, gazing at us with happy eyes under a heavy brow.
“Okay,” I ease, petting one kitten after another. “Tell me what’s wrong and I promise I won’t run or slam doors or spit in your coffee or?—”
“You spit in my coffee?”
“Uh…” I bat my lashes. “No?”
“Fuck,” he fights a chuckle, cupping my cheek, “I’ve missed you.”
With a hot kiss, that threatens to turn into our first fuck of a dozen in a day, I’m sure with how we’ve missed each other, I sigh over our lips, “Tell me, first.”
Pressing his forehead to mine, he drops a bomb.
“My father has found us.”
Blink.
Breathe.
Think.
Don’t throw up.
“What… How… When… Oh my god, Axel.”
“I don’t know,” he answers. “I don’t know who knows, who betrayed us, or how he did it, but I know what he’ll do. He’ll go after my mom, then he’ll go after you.”
“Me? Because I’ll be your next queen?”
“Ruby,” he shakes his head, “I want to be smart and have your brother-in-law hide you in some luxury resort far away from me, for the rest of your life.” He nuzzles his forehead to mine. “And I want to be a selfish, smug, dickhead who’s in love with you and never lets you go again.”
Heart thumping, I sigh, “I vote for option two.”
He half laughs, half growls, “You don’t know what you’re agreeing to.”
“The world’s biggest asshole. Got it. If he catches me, he’ll torture me in unimaginable ways until he has you on your knees, agreeing to be the next Russian Pac-Man.”
“Pakhan.” He finally laughs. “It’s Pakhan . It means crime boss, or gang leader, or?—”
“Cunty stubborn brat. It means that’s what your father will suffer every day if he kidnaps me.”
“Wildfire, be serious.”
“I am serious. You’re a lucky man. You happened to hook up with a woman who’s already suffered a terrifying abuser. I’m immune.”
“You get seizures when you deal with men like him.”
“No.” Playfully, I flick his nose ring. “You’ve been giving me daily doses of dickhead so I’ve grown a high level of tolerance. Besides…” I match his softening gaze. “You’ve chased me this far, so don’t give up now.”
“For the first time in my life, I don’t know what to do.” He caresses my hair. “I’ve never been in love like this.”
I swallow the sweet lump he just put in my throat. “And I’ve never been in love like this either. So…” my lips twist, fighting back tears, “don’t make me leave you because I won’t.”
“If I made you leave,” he searches my gaze, “you’d only run back, wouldn’t you?”
“I’m sorry. Is that a question?” My tone softens, tender like my heart, asking, “Would you ever leave me?”
Warmly, he answers with no ice in his eyes. It’s as if I’m the only one who melts him like this. “Ruby, I wouldn’t know how to leave you. Not ever.”
He does it again, seeking more than my lips with his kiss. It’s our lives, hearts, and breath melding with our mouths together.
Kittens mewl, crawling over us. I want Axel and this life together, more than anything, so I grab a soft breath and say, “ So, we have a choice: live afraid or live fighting back. Wanna guess what I’ll do?”
“I’m sorry.” He smirks. “Is that a question?”
“Exactly. We fight and we stay together. So what’s next?”
“We initiate Vale tomorrow night. Then we’ll raid a compound. Then Alena’s wedding is the following weekend. Then?—”
“Oh, so normal ex-Bratva stuff.”
“You could say that.” He lets a kitten climb his shirt, not flinching at its tiny claws. “But this isn’t normal. I can’t believe it if one of my brothers has betrayed us.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, it’s a man who’s found us. He’s my half-brother.
My father’s son with another woman. Grant caught him climbing over the courtyard wall to Delta’s a few weeks ago.
Like he was about to ambush us, and we’ve been holding him captive, trying to get intel from him and he didn’t say a fucking word until yesterday. Until I was there and he said my name.”
“Aleksi Kholodov?”
“Don’t, baby.” He squeezes my hand. “Don’t put that cursed name in your pretty mouth. That’s not who I am. Axel King, your king, that’s who I am.”
I nod, agreeing. It felt wrong anyway. Like I was conjuring a deadly curse just saying it.
“So what does this guy want?” Two of our kittens nestle into my lap, cuddling together, their furry cuteness an odd contrast to our lethal situation.
“I don’t know. Apparently, my mom has been interrogating him and?—”
“Your mom knew he’s your half-brother and didn’t tell you?”
“Yeah.” Axel aims his sharpening glare at the night outside. “He looks like me. Like Loch, too. We favor our father, and that sadistic man made sure my mother would never forget his face, so yeah … I guess she knew.”
“Well,” I try to soothe him, “I don’t know your mom yet. Not really. But she doesn’t strike as a woman who would betray her sons. She strikes me as an Apache helicopter parent. Like she’d wipe out a village for you. So I’m sure there’s an explanation.”
He fights a grin. “You’re right, and really fucking beautiful for defending my mom. I tried calling her about it this morning, but she texted back, saying she has it under control, and we’d talk about it later. But something’s going on and I can’t tell anyone else.”
“Why not?”
He gets that same heavy look, fury tumbling with betrayal in his eyes. “Ruby, you’re the only one I can trust until I find out which brother sold us out. You’re right. My mother is innocent, and we’ll fight back, but we have to be smart.”
“But your brothers would never do that. I don’t know them all, but I know that.”
“How else did this man find us?”
I shrug. “A coinkydink?”
He fights another grin. “It’s a coincidence that out of one hundred and ninety-three countries, he picked the U.S. and its seventy-first largest city to crawl over the brick wall of the one discreet sex shop where we meet?”
“Okay, Carolina Law, you can spout all the facts you want, but don’t underestimate the power of a good vibrator.”
I understand Axel’s stressed to a deadly degree, so I at least need to make him smile.
It works. Then, he gets that hungry look in his eyes, aiming his lips for mine. “And don’t underestimate how I’m about to fuck you for hours.”
“Hold that thought.” I smush my fingertip to his lips. “ This feels like the perfect time to tell you I’m running an errand tomorrow.”
His pressed lips fume, “You just got home.”
I drop my hand. “It’ll only be for an hour or so.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“You’ll ruin the surprise.”
“We won’t survive surprises, Wildfire. We have to plan everything.”
“Okay,” I sigh. “Somewhere between my lonely life before I knew you and my happy life of loving you, a wanted ex-Bratva PacMan, I need to be able to do things on my own sometimes.”
He shakes his head. “Not without me or another king with you. At all times.”
“Hang on. Dare I suggest that you think like your father? I will surely be a target if spotted with any of his sons. But shopping with my sisters, he won’t know me.”
He sucks his teeth.
“Good point, right?”
“Where are you going?”
“It’s a surprise.”
“What did I just tell you about surprises?”
“It was a lecture; I wasn’t listening.”
He lowers his brow. “ Where. Are you going?”
“You can track my phone.”
“I already do. From now on, we have to anticipate him, not react to him.”