Page 17 of Betrayal and Vows (Bratva Vows #2)

Lena

I walk up to the old chapel glancing over my shoulder for the hundredth time.

It’s one of the original structures on the property. I think I heard someone say it was two-hundred years old.

It looks like it.

It’s the kind of place where ghosts feel comfortable lingering.

And the perfect place for a clandestine meeting.

It feels like years rather than weeks since I’ve slipped my guards and snuck out.

And even though I know it’s dangerous, it makes me feel alive.

My tennis shoes sink into the damp earth.

I’m avoiding the trails. I have no idea where the cameras are, but I’m hoping if I stay in the dark and off the usual paths, I’ll go undetected.

I pull open the heavy door just wide enough for me to slip through.

I turn on my phone flashlight and shine it around.

And then I see him.

The air leaves my lungs in the best way.

He’s standing at the altar like he belongs there.

Not like a saint. Saints die too easily.

He’s my fucking avenging angel.

He turns when he hears me. I don’t know if I’m imagining it, but for a second, the expression on his face is raw.

Grief and relief in equal measure.

I close the distance slowly, my footsteps quiet on the old stone. I move toward him and feel my body tingling.

Just being near him awakens my soul. The last few hours have been brutal.

But I know this has to be the last time. My heart will never beat the same again, but this is necessary.

“Three days.”

The words fall out of my mouth as I walk straight into his arms.

“I know, baby,” he murmurs against my hair. “I know.

“He’s…” I can’t say the words. I can’t say that he’s going to kill Anton.

But I have to warn him.

“He’s going to kill you,” I blurt out. “After the wedding. He’s going to kill you.”

His hand cups the back of my head and he presses a kiss to my forehead. “I know.”

“You have to leave, Anton. Leave. Right now. Go.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

“You have to go,” I beg.

“I’m not leaving you. You are mine, Lena Rostova. When I leave, you leave.”

I swallow the lump in my throat and fight for the courage to make him go.

“He’ll kill you. Me. My family.”

His hands drop and he looks devastated.

“If I don’t survive this, know that you were the only real thing in my life.”

I’ve imagined him saying I love you. I never imagined this. Never imagined how final the truth can sound. I can feel the goodbye. All day it’s been a long goodbye.

I will not let him die for me.

I can’t.

I swallow the lump forming in my throat and answer with my own truth. “If I have to marry him… know that my heart dies with you.”

He exhales, like I just stabbed him. “No. I will not let you marry him. I will save you, my solnyshko. There is no daylight without you. I will not live in this world without you. Do you hear me?”

“Anton—”

He grabs me, his mouth covering mine in a bruising kiss.

His kiss tastes like desperation and promises he can't keep. I kiss him back with everything I have left, pouring my soul into this moment because it might be all we get.

"Not here," he whispers against my lips, glancing around the chapel. "Not on cold stone."

He takes my hand and leads me to a small room behind the altar. There's an old wooden bench, worn smooth by centuries of use. Moonlight streams through a stained-glass window. He looks soft. And beautiful. The hard edges gone as he looks at me.

Anton shrugs out of his jacket and spreads it across the bench. When he looks at me again, his eyes are soft in a way I've never seen. Vulnerable. Like he's letting me see all the way to his soul.

"Come here, solnyshko ."

I go to him. This time when he touches me, it's different. His hands shake as he traces my face. He showers my face with butterfly kisses.

"You're so beautiful," he breathes. "So fucking beautiful it hurts to look at you."

I reach for the hem of his shirt, my fingers trembling. "I need to feel you. All of you."

He reaches behind him and pulls the shirt up and over his head, discarding it on the stone floor. I press my palms to his chest, feeling the steady rhythm of his heart beneath my hands. The scars that tell the story of his survival.

"I love these," I whisper, tracing each mark. "They brought you to me."

His breath catches. "Lena..."

I silence him with a kiss, soft and slow. We undress each other like we have all the time in the world, when we both know we have none at all.

Someone could come in at any second. We are risking everything. But if I’m killed while naked in his arms, I’ll die a happy woman.

It honestly sounds like a good way to go.

When he lays me down on his jacket, he hovers over me for a long moment. Just looking. Just breathing.

"I want to remember you exactly like this," he says. "Perfect. Mine."

"I am yours," I whisper. "Always. No matter what happens. You own my heart and soul."

“Yes, I do.”

He kisses me. His tongue plunging deep and claiming every inch of my mouth. And then he pulls away and trails kisses along my jaw, down my throat, pausing to worship the hollow at the base of my neck where my pulse beats wild and desperate.

"So sweet," he murmurs against my skin. "My perfect girl."

Every kiss feels like a brand, marking me as his in ways that go deeper than flesh. I know, even if I’m forced to marry Mikhail and he takes my body, he’ll never have me.

I will always belong to Anton. No other man will give me pleasure. That’s Anton’s gift alone. And my gift to him. I will only ever moan his name and want his lips on my skin.

He takes his time moving down my body, his lips and tongue mapping every inch. His teeth graze over my erect nipples. The action draws soft gasps from my lips that echo in the sacred space around us.

I don’t know if it’s sacrilegious to make love in a chapel, but it feels right. It’s our own commitment ceremony.

"Anton," I breathe, my fingers threading through his dark hair.

He looks up at me, those piercing blue eyes holding mine captive. "Let me worship you, solnyshko . Let me show you how much you mean to me."

His mouth continues its downward journey, pressing reverent kisses to my ribs, my stomach, the sensitive skin of my hip bones. By the time he settles between my thighs, I'm trembling with need.

"You're everything," he whispers against my inner thigh. "My salvation."

When his mouth finally finds me, I arch off the bench with a cry that I have to muffle with my own hand. He's thorough and devoted, using his lips and tongue to drive me higher and higher until I'm sobbing his name into the moonlit chapel.

He doesn't stop until I'm shaking apart completely, my body singing with pleasure so intense it feels like a religious experience. Which seems fitting, given our surroundings.

When I finally come back to myself, he's kissing his way back up my body, his eyes dark with desire and something deeper. Something that looks like love, even if we haven't said the words.

I don’t need him to say the words. I feel like the word love is inadequate. What I feel for him is so much more. He consumes me. He owns me. I am his.

"Beautiful," he breathes against my lips. "So fucking beautiful when you let go for me."

I pull him down for a kiss, tasting myself on his lips, not caring about anything except this moment, this man, this feeling of being completely and utterly his.

He enters me slowly, so slowly, like he's afraid I might break. Or disappear. His forehead pressed to mine, our breath mingling in the space between us.

"I love you," he says.

The words crack something open inside my chest. A sob escapes me as he buries himself deep inside me. We’re forever bonded.

"I love you, Lena. I should have said it before."

Tears spill down my cheeks. "I love you, too. So much it feels like dying."

We move together unhurried despite the danger surrounding us. This isn't the desperate passion of before. This is worship. This is goodbye disguised as hello. This is two souls recognizing they were made for each other in a world determined to keep them apart.

He kisses away my tears as we climb higher together. When I fall apart beneath him, it's with his name on my lips and his love filling all the broken places inside me. He follows me over the edge with a broken sound that might be my undoing.

I wrap my arms around him and hold him so tightly I know I’m cutting off his air.

I can’t let go. The weight of his body threatens to suffocate me. And yet, I still can’t let go.

We lie there in the quiet chapel, our bodies covered with a sheen of perspiration. Our hearts beating against one another. I’m certain mine matches his rhythm.

Eventually, he pulls away. He reaches for his jeans. I watch as he fishes around in his pocket. He holds out a small gold ring. “It was my mother’s. The only thing I have left of her.”

I stare at it, heart thudding against my ribs. I sit up and fumble with the bracelet on my wrist. I take it off and then remove the cross. It’s one of several charms. I place it in his palm.

“My grandmother gave me the bracelet,” I whisper.

We trade. His mother’s ring for my grandmother’s cross.

“If we survive?—”

“We’ll return them,” I finish. “But if we don’t…”

“At least we’ll have pieces of each other,” he says.

I nod. My eyes sting but I won’t cry. Not here. Not when we just stitched ourselves together for the last time.

We get dressed slowly, like undoing the moment too fast will make it vanish. I want to drag out every second of this final goodbye. My heart can’t handle this.

I truly believe I might just die of a broken heart.

Anton’s phone buzzes.

He frowns, pulls it out, checks the screen and then looks confused.

“What?” I ask.

The pictures. I forgot to tell him.

No. That’s not true. I didn’t tell him because I knew he would panic.

I suddenly feel like I’ve been lying.

“My mom got pictures of us!”

He looks at me. “What?”

“Earlier. Pictures. Someone sent her pictures of us. Sex.”

“Fuck,” he groans.

Then he looks down at his phone, swipes the screen and then shows it to me.

The color drains from my face.

“And now this one,” he says.

He pulls the phone back and flashes another picture. I can tell it’s a new thread.

I frown and take the phone and zoom up. It’s two young women, arms around each other, grinning in the kind of way only real friends can.

“That’s my mom,” I say, pointing at the woman with the golden hair and familiar smile. “That’s Elena.”

I can see realization dawn. “The other one… that’s my mom.”

My mouth drops open.

Our mothers. Together. Laughing.

We look at each other.

There’s a message attached to the image.

“The truth isn’t lost; it’s just waiting.”

“Who sent that?” I ask.

He shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“Our mothers knew each other?” I ask.

He looks at me with suspicion.

"What does it mean?" I whisper.

Anton shakes his head. "I don't know. But whoever sent this knows more about us than we know about ourselves."

A chill runs down my spine. "Do you think they were friends? Before everything happened to you?"

"Maybe. Or maybe..." He trails off, his eyes distant. "Maybe there's more to the story than either of us knows."

If our mothers knew each other, if there was some connection between our families before Vadim destroyed Anton's life, then what we feel for each other might not be a coincidence at all.

"Anton, what if?—"

"Lena." His voice cuts through my spiraling thoughts. "You need to get back. Now."

I blink at him. "But this changes everything. If our mothers?—"

"It changes nothing about right now." He's already pulling on his shirt. "You've been gone too long. Someone will notice."

My heart sinks as I watch him transform back into the controlled bodyguard I first met.

I have no idea what happens now.

Is he angry with me? Does he think I hid something from him?

I can’t feel what he’s thinking.

He’s completely shut down.

Did I lose him?