Page 29 of Blood, Bones, and the Bratva Bogeyman

She’s too close.

“I’m coming with you,” I say, grabbing his arm.

“No.”

One word. Final and absolute.

I pause and blink. “Excuse me?”

“You heard correctly. I said no.”

“Don’t start that caveman shit—”

“I said no,” he repeats without remorse.

Anger flickers up my throat like a flame. “You don’t get to decide that.”

“I do when it comes to this,” he says, his voice cutting like a knife.

It’s sharp, low, and deadly calm, which should have warned me of the landmine I was walking in.

“I’m not some porcelain doll, Konstantin. You don’t get to tuck me away every time things get dangerous.”

“You think this is about fragility?” he asks, his eyes locked on mine.

“Isn’t it?” I challenge.

“No,” he growls, eyes flashing. “It’s about me not trusting what we’re walking into. It’s not that I don’t think you’re capable. It’s that I won’t put you in that kind of danger. Not when I can stop it. Giselda’s not just poking the beast anymore. She’s testing our response. She wants us to get messy, reactive. And by now, surely, she knows you matter to me. I don’t trust her with that knowledge.”

“You think locking me in a tower while you go storm the gates is going to make this better?” My voice sharpens. “She betrayed me, Kon. She used me. She was my friend, my sister, and she destroyed that. That makes this my fight too.”

“And it still doesn’t fucking matter,” he snaps. “Because if something happens to you, I lose more than just the woman I’m bonded to. I lose the only person who’s ever made me feel something real.”

I freeze, his words landing like a sucker punch to my chest. And that stops me more than the argument does.

He exhales roughly, dragging a hand through his hair. His voice drops lower, rough around the edges. “You want me to belogical about this? I can’t. I won’t. I’m barely holding it together, knowing she could hurt you at any moment. If I take you out there and anything happens—”

He cuts himself off.

And that silence hurts.

The bond pulses between us, thick with everything he can’t say out loud. His fear. His rage. His desperation to protect what’s his.

I swallow. “So, you’re going to shut me out.”

“No,” he says, softer now. “I’m going to keep you safe. There’s a difference.”

I hate it. I hate that I understand. And I hate how much I want to argue against it. But I see it—the way his shoulders are wound so tight they might snap. The look in his eyes says that if he doesn’t go now, he won’t be able to breathe knowing she’s still a threat against me.

The part of me that wants revenge on the person who betrayed me is still no match for the part of me that knows what it’s like to lose someone.

“I don’t like this,” I whisper.

“You’re not supposed to.”

Closing my eyes for a second, I exhale deeply and then nod once, clipped and reluctant.

“You better come back.”