Page 16 of Betrayal and Vows (Bratva Vows #2)

Anton

I move through the grounds with Dmitri, my eyes scanning every shadow, every corner where a threat might hide.

The familiar weight of my gun sits heavy against my ribs.

My knife is strapped to my ankle and there’s another gun in a holster strapped to my upper thigh.

Everything feels different now. More dangerous.

For some reason, he and I have been put on perimeter watch. I don’t question why, but I’m suspicious.

I don’t like being away from Lena. I don’t know what is going on but it can’t be good.

"You told her." Dmitri keeps his voice down. It's not a question.

I don't answer immediately. My gaze sweeps the tree line, checking sight lines, escape routes. Old habits.

"Anton." He grabs my arm, forcing me to stop. "Tell me you didn't."

I meet his eyes. "She knows."

" Blyad ."

He runs a hand through his hair, pacing. "You've lost your fucking mind."

"Maybe."

"Maybe?" His voice rises, then drops to a harsh whisper. "You just signed both your death warrants. You know that, right?"

I resume walking, checking the perimeter cameras. Two are angled wrong. Deliberate or careless? In this business, there's no difference.

"I can't leave her."

"You have to. Pack tonight. Disappear. I'll cover for you as long as I can."

"No."

He stops dead. "What do you mean, no?"

I turn to face him.

My oldest friend.

The only person who's known the truth for thirty years.

Dmitri has been there since the beginning of Anton. He saw me as the broken little boy. He heard me cry myself to sleep at night those first couple of years.

Guilt by association is a real thing. I’m putting him in danger.

But I can’t stop the way I feel.

"I mean she's mine,” I say.

"She's Mikhail Orlov's."

I feel my jaw clench; my hands curl into fists. "She's mine," I repeat.

Dmitri stares at me like I've grown a second head. "This isn't some woman you picked up in a bar. This is Vadim Orlov's future daughter-in-law. You're playing with forces that will erase you from existence."

"Let them try. They failed once."

"Fuck me." He laughs, but there's no humor in it. "You're actually going to die for her."

I don't hesitate. "Yes."

The word hangs between us.

Dmitri studies my face, doing his best to read me. Looking for cracks in my resolve, some sign that sanity might return. He won't find it.

"She's just a woman, Anton."

"No." I check my watch. Almost five. Almost time to collect her for dinner. "She's my woman."

"Your woman is going to get you killed."

"Then I die."

He grabs my shoulders, shaking me. "Listen to yourself. You sound insane."

Maybe I am. But I've lived thirty years as a ghost, and two weeks as a man. I know which I choose.

"I won't abandon her to them."

"Them?" His eyes narrow. "You mean your family?"

"They're not my family." The words come out like shards of glass.

"And now you're handing them the perfect excuse to finish the job."

“I’m getting her away from here.”

His brows shoot up.

“Excuse me?”

“I’m leaving. I’m taking Lena and leaving Moscow.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

We start walking again. “They’ll find you. They will always find you.”

“They didn’t find me thirty years ago,” I remind him.

“You were a child. Easy to hide. Your only crime back then was living. If you take Mikhail’s bride, they will never stop searching. There’s nowhere to hide.”

“I’ll leave Russia.”

“And go where, Anton?”

"Anywhere." I adjust the strap of my shoulder holster. "America. Canada. Somewhere they can't reach."

"You're dreaming." Dmitri's voice is flat. "The Orlovs have connections everywhere. You think Vadim doesn't have people in New York? Los Angeles? You think the Bratva stops at Russian borders?"

I know he's right, but it doesn't change anything. "Then we'll disappear completely. New identities. I've done it before."

"You were five years old and presumed dead. This is different."

I check my watch again and head back toward the front door.

Even though I can’t touch her or even really look at her, I need to be near her.

I need to breathe in her essence.

We reach the main entrance and head for the stairs. I spot two of Mikhail’s guards in the hall that leads to Lena’s room.

Something's wrong. Everything about this feels wrong.

I can’t explain how I know, but I feel her distress.

I reach Lena's door and hear voices inside. I pause and listen. It sounds like Lena is crying.

And then I hear a man’s voice.

Mikhail.

My hand moves instinctively to my gun. Every muscle in my body coils tight, ready to spring.

I knock once and wait.

The door opens, and I quickly take in the scene.

Elena and Lena are standing next to each other.

Both white as death.

And Mikhail is standing there with that fucking smile on his face.

I hated that fucking look.

I can’t wait for the moment I will knock it off his face.

Permanently.

Lena had tears dried on her cheeks. Fresh dried tears. She had wiped her face before we returned to the estate.

Her expression was sheer terror. She looked like she was already grieving her own life.

Or mine.

I couldn’t ask. Not in front of him.

Mikhail left without saying a word.

Elena walked away.

I didn’t miss the look of sadness in her eyes.

Lena refused to meet my eyes.

Something happened, and I will find out.

“I need ten minutes,” Lena says.

She shuts the door in my face.

My inner animal wants to rage. I want to kick the door open and demand she talk to me.

But I can’t.

I’m just her guard.

Now, Lena sits across the room like something carved from ice. Her spine doesn’t bend, her expression doesn’t falter, but I know the truth behind that painted mask. I feel it.

She’s trying not to cry.

The dress Mikhail picked for her is the color of blood roses and tight enough to choke. It’s designed to humiliate.

Is that what I walked in on earlier?

I don’t think so. Lena knows she’s beautiful. Yes, the dress is fucked, but that wouldn’t leave her looking so utterly destroyed.

There’s something else.

My eyes rake over the dress that exposes her body. My body. The fabric clings to every curve, cut so low her breasts threaten to spill free with each breath.

The dress is technically long, straight to her ankles.

But the slits up both sides all the way to her hip bone make it dangerous. There’s a flimsy gold chain that keeps the sides closed but it’s clear she’s not wearing panties.

It's a whore's dress.

He wants everyone at this table to see her as his property, his toy to dress and undress as he pleases.

My jaw ticks. The urge to put a bullet between his eyes burns through my veins like acid.

But I stand in the corner, silent. Watching. The perfect bodyguard who sees nothing, hears nothing, feels nothing.

Except I feel everything. Every humiliation he heaps on her lands on me like a physical blow.

"You look beautiful tonight, moya dorogaya ," Mikhail purrs.

My darling .

The fuck if she’s his anything.

No real man would ever allow his woman to be paraded half-naked.

He gloats.

I burn.

I watch Lena. She’s not here with us. Her body is. Her voice, when she speaks, sounds like Lena.

But her soul has retreated somewhere deep. I can’t feel her.

Her soul is mine, and it’s gone black.

It’s buried under whatever Mikhail did.

The silence of it is killing me.

Dmitri casually kicks my foot.

I don’t look at him.

“Stop,” he hisses.

“Fuck you.”

“You are going to get us both killed.”

“Then get the fuck away from me.”

“You’re looking at him like you’re calculating just how deep you’ll need to plunge your knife to hit his heart.”

Dmitri isn’t wrong.

And I know I have to be smarter.

I cannot give him a reason to remove me from Lena’s detail.

Mikhail lifts his glass and taps his fork against the expensive crystal. The room quiets. Not that there were many people talking. It’s a small dinner. The Rostovas and a few of the people closest to Vadim.

“I have an announcement,” Mikhail says.

An overwhelming feeling of dread washes over me.

I feel Dmitri stiffen beside me.

I have a feeling I’m about to find out what has Lena so distraught.

Mikhail looks at me. It’s a brief look, but it’s full of gloating.

“There’s been a change of plans.”

Elena sits a little straighter.

Does she know what’s coming?

“We marry in three days, not a week. The priest is already arranged. I saw no reason to wait. Lena, printsessa , you’re ready—aren’t you?”

I hear her fork clatter against the find China plate. See her blink once, slow and hard. Her hand curls around her glass to hide the tremble.

“Yes,” she lies.

A muscle in my jaw snaps.

The oxygen is ripped from my lungs. I meet her eyes across the table and feel everything . The scream she can’t let out. The plea she’s not allowed to voice. The goodbye. One second, one look, a thousand unsaid things.

She doesn’t flinch. But I feel her break.

Her soul is shattering and the vibrations tear through my body. Swirling darkness blinds me. And then it goes red.

My muscles coil and a flush of red-hot heat slices through me.

Dmitri quietly clears his throat.

His shoulder nudges mine. Not hard, just enough to ground me.

Dinner becomes an endurance test. I watch Mikhail carve his meat while discussing flowers and catering like he's planning a fucking business meeting instead of destroying my woman.

My hands clench behind my back. I don’t trust myself not to reach for the gun at my side.

Lena sits frozen, her fork hovering over untouched food.

She hasn't taken a single bite. Her breathing is too shallow, too controlled. She's holding herself together by sheer force of will. I'm the only one who sees the cracks spreading.

“Three days doesn't give us much time for the dress alterations," Elena says carefully.

"The dress is perfect as is," Mikhail waves dismissively. "Lena will make it work. Won't you, Lena?”

I hear the threat in that question telling me that little meeting in her room was as bad as I suspect.

Lena's spine goes impossibly straighter. "Of course."

Her voice is steady, but I catch the microscopic tremor at the end. She's dying inside and performing for an audience that couldn't care less about her pain.

Vadim leans back in his chair, studying his son with approval. "Eager. I like that. Shows strength."

Shows cruelty, I think. But I remain statue-still in my corner.

"The honeymoon will be brief," Mikhail continues.

I don’t hear any of the bullshit words throughout the rest of dinner.

After their drinks, I walk Lena to her room without a word. I leave her and head outside.

My chest is so tight I’m certain I will find an elephant sitting on it if I look.

I throw open the door and head for the garden.

I drag in deep breaths. Buzzing in my ears and a pit of acid in my belly makes it difficult to breathe.

I’m not surprised to hear Dmitri.

“Anton,” he says. “Get your shit together.”

“I am.”

He lights a cigarette, leans back against the stone wall, and blows out a breath.

He holds out the pack. I jerk a cigarette out of the pack and snatch my lighter from my pocket.

I light up, inhale deeply and let the nicotine flow through my body.

Unfortunately, it’s not having the calming effect it normally would.

“I am taking her.” I leave zero room for argument.

He looks at me like I’m already dead.

“Three days, Anton.”

“I know. I have to get out of here.”

He blows out another curl of smoke. “Okay.”

He says okay but we both know what I’m saying is impossible.

That doesn’t mean I’m not going to try.

My phone buzzes once.

Then again.

Then a third time in rapid succession.

Worried it might be Lena; I pull it from my pocket.

I glance at the screen and see it’s from an unknown number.

I quickly open the stream of messages.

My blood turns to ice.

“ Blyad .” The word is released on a heavy breath.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Photos.

My phone continues to vibrate in my hand as more pictures come through.

Dozens of them.

Lena in the garden, sunlight in her hair.

Me behind her, fingers on her bare shoulder.

Her riding me at her childhood home.

Me, kneeling at her feet like I was born to worship her.

Moments no one should’ve seen.

Moments that belonged to us.

And at the bottom of the thread there’s a single message.

“She’s beautiful when she comes, isn’t she?”

I freeze.

The breath leaves me like I’ve been shot. I have to press my hand to my chest to make sure I haven’t.

Dmitri steps closer, sees the screen, and groans. “Fuck.”

I nod. “That’s putting it mildly.”

“How long have they been watching you?”

“I don’t know. Since I arrived.”

“They know,” he says.

“The club.”

We thought we had gotten away with fucking in the bathroom.

It had been foolish. We were careless. I was careless.

“Anton, they’re not just watching. They let you think you were safe. That’s worse.”

I know.

Of course I know.

Whoever sent these didn’t want to expose us. Not yet. They want control.

They want leverage. And if they’ve been watching long enough to capture all those moments, they know how deep this goes.

They know I’d die for her.

Dmitri lowers his voice. “We need to get out of the country.”

“I’m not leaving without her.”

“You can’t save her if you’re dead.”

“I’m not leaving.”

“You’re going to die for a woman?”

He asks it like he just can’t believe it’s real.

I meet his eyes with zero doubt in my mind.

“She’s not a woman. She’s the woman.”

He sighs again. This one older. Tired. Like he’s aged twenty years since we walked into this estate.

“She left you a message,” he says finally. “Told me to pass it along.”

My pulse kicks. “When?”

“Before dinner. Said she couldn’t talk to you. Too risky.”

“And you’re telling me now ?”

“I was trying to protect you,” he snaps. “Make sure we had a plan first. But if you want to throw your balls at fate and run into the fire, be my guest.”

I’m already moving.

“Where is she?”

“The chapel.”

Of course.

Of course, it’s the chapel.

I don’t run, not exactly.

But I walk like I might kill anything in my path.