Page 36 of Bratva’s Vow (Bratva’s Undoing #2)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

WREN

I was running late.

Which, in my defense, was only partly my fault.

Maxim had worn me out the night before. That no sex after dinner because I was sore?

I was wrong. It might have been slow, careful, and one hell of an orgasm, but my body clearly decided it deserved at least two alarms and one very stern voice mail before even considering vertical.

Now I was brushing my teeth with one hand, trying to tug on my jeans with the other, and shouting at my phone on speaker from across the room.

My life was good. Considering.

“I’m up!” I yelled so Maxim could hear me through the phone, nearly choking on toothpaste. “I’ve been up for a while.”

“You didn’t get up when I told you to, did you?” Maxim’s voice came through, smooth and amused. Too amused for someone who’d sent me into oblivion by eating my ass before leaving for work .

He was the reason for my tardiness. He knew what I was like after sex.

“I did.” I spat into the sink and wiped my mouth on a towel.

A pause. “You’re lying, aren’t you?”

“Only a little bit.”

I rushed into the bedroom and grabbed the designer shirt off the back of the chair. Because Maxim had insisted on taking me shopping yesterday to buy me a new wardrobe for college.

“Kroshka,” he drawled in that thick Russian accent of his. My heart skipped a beat like it did sometimes when I thought about my situation. I was dating a Russian mobster who spoiled me rotten.

How was this my life?

“I’m getting dressed.” I sat on the edge of the bed and pulled on my socks. “It’s not like I’m still in bed.”

“I should’ve dragged you out myself this morning before I left.”

“You wish. You’re the reason I went back to sleep after all that tongue.” I groaned. “Maxim, you’re making me addicted to sex.”

“Addicted to only me, I hope. Don’t make me put a butt plug and cock cage on you before you leave the house.”

“Yes, to only you. You don’t have to do anything drastic.” I chuckled and reached for the navy jacket hanging from the back of the chair. “What’re you up to? Besides monitoring me.”

“Waiting for you to tell me your schedule for today. What classes do you have?”

“You already know.” I shrugged into the jacket, checking myself in the mirror. I looked… expensively casual. Like one of those rich assholes I usually avoided in high school. I didn’t not like it .

Every piece of clothing on me had a label, from the crisp white sneakers to the watch on my wrist.

I looked hot. And wealthy.

And terrified someone on campus was going to notice the change. While I hadn’t made any “off-campus” friends, during the semester, there were a few people I’d hung out with.

“I want you to still tell me. And stop fussing with your hair. You look gorgeous.”

I grew still. “Holy shit, Maxim, are you watching me? You have a camera in the bedroom?”

“What? Are you mad?”

“Oh my god.”

“It’s not so bad. When I miss you today, I can rewatch the videos of us together.”

I slapped my hands to my cheeks. “Of us fucking, you mean?”

“Yes. Something tells me I’m going to end up jerking off at least once today. I can’t get enough of you, Wren.”

I swallowed hard, my skin flushing and heat spreading down my neck. “Maxim, you have to take the camera down. It’s creepy.”

“I’ll let you watch the footage tonight first, and then you decide if you really want me to take it down.”

“There’s no reasoning with you.”

“Then stop arguing. Now tell me what classes today?” he asked.

“Commercial property valuation, then ethics in real estate—yes, that’s a real class—and finally, urban planning and zoning. Riveting stuff.”

“You don’t need class to understand all that stuff.”

“No kidding. How about I quit final year and spend the rest of the time interning for you?”

“That sounds like a good idea. I wouldn’t have to send a bodyguard with you to classes. You would get hands-on experience?—”

“Not the kind of hands-on experience needed for real estate. You want me in the office so you can bend me over your desk anytime.”

“Is that a crime? I paid you well, didn’t I?”

I choked and gasped on a fit of laughter. “I knew all that money wasn’t because I fetched your coffee. Well, newsflash, you overpaid me by at least several thousands.”

“Nope, every penny was well spent. You could have asked me for a raise, and I’d have given it to you. You flash that pretty hole at me, and you’ve got anything you want.”

My face was tomato red in the mirror. Who talked like that? He had no shame. And I liked it.

“Babe,” I said, quieter now. “Thank you. For yesterday. The laptop, the clothes, all of it. You didn’t have to.”

“You’re welcome. You deserve it.”

It was hard to feel like I did. What did I do for him but sleep with him? And he didn’t have to compensate me for that. All those orgasms were compensation enough.

“You packed the laptop?” he asked. “Don’t leave anything because you didn’t pack last night like I told you.”

“Well, excuse me, but when I see you taking eight inches?—”

“Wrong.”

“Well, I know it’s not less than that. Whatever it is, when you can take that comfortably up your ass and not be dazed for the rest of the day, then you can talk!

” I glanced at the sleek black case sitting on the dresser—the new MacBook he’d all but bullied me into buying.

And not the cheap one I had reached for first either.

The most expensive one they had in the store.

It took me hours to figure out how to set up the thing.

“You’re pretty feisty today, aren’t you? ”

“Because you’re far away and can’t do anything about it.”

I slipped the laptop into my bag carefully and zipped it shut.

“There’s always later. In fact, I see your class ends at three. I’ll hold off on lunch, and you drop by the office. We’ll have lunch together.”

I wasn’t sure. Since Bradley’s death, I hadn’t gone back to the office. What if things felt weird there? At least one person must have questioned what had really happened on the roof.

“Wren?”

“Yeah, sure.” I moved back to the mirror and gave myself one last check. All good. “Babe?”

“Yes?”

“What if people notice?”

He didn’t ask what I meant. He knew.

“Let them,” he said simply. “You’re mine. And I take care of what’s mine.”

Warmth spread through me, even as my stomach flipped nervously. I wasn’t used to being seen. Not like this.

“Nik will be with you.” He shifted back into protective mode. “At all times.”

“Even when I need to pee?”

“He’ll check the bathroom, then let you in.”

I groaned. “Didn’t you say Chief Stone wouldn’t bother me anymore?”

“He won’t,” Maxim said, but his voice was tight. “Still, I’ll worry less if someone’s looking after you when I can’t.”

“Or you could not worry at all.”

“Negative,” he replied smoothly. “I’ll always worry about you.”

That landed somewhere deep inside me. I pressed my lips together and let myself feel it .

“Well, if I don’t leave in the next few minutes, I will be late.”

“Eat before you go,” he said firmly.

“I will.”

“I’m serious.”

“I said I will.” I smiled again. “You know… for a Mafia boss, you’re very motherly sometimes.”

“Wren.”

“Okay, okay, I’m going. I love you.”

“Love you more. Call me after class.”

“I will.”

I hung up and took one last look at myself. I looked like someone who belonged to someone powerful.

Because I did.

And no matter how much that scared me sometimes… it felt good to be loved this way.

With my phone still warm from my call with Maxim, I trotted downstairs. The second I hit the bottom step, I paused.

I smelled food. My stomach did a happy little flip, which was weird because we didn’t cook like that around here. Maxim didn’t know his way around a stove, and I wasn’t much better. I knew how to cook the basics, and that was it.

I stepped into the kitchen and stopped dead.

Nik sat at the island, sipping coffee and eating what looked like an actual breakfast spread. Pancakes, eggs, fruit, even a carafe of fresh orange juice. And homemade too. Not the store-bought kind Maxim usually ran out to get me.

Nik nodded at me like this was all totally normal.

It wasn’t.

There was a strange woman in my kitchen. Petite, in her forties, I’d assume, with kind eyes and a calm, no-nonsense air. She moved like she belonged in the space, setting out plates and rearranging the silverware like she’d done it a thousand times.

I blinked. “Uh. What’s going on?”

Nik swallowed a bite of bacon and gestured with his fork. “Wren, this is Pilar. Pilar, this is Wren.”

She smiled warmly at me. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Holloway.”

Mr. Holloway?

“Um, call me Wren. But seriously, what’s going on?”

“She’s the housekeeper,” Nik said around another bite. “Starts today.”

I frowned. “Since when do we have a housekeeper?”

“Since today,” he repeated casually.

“I—” I looked back at Pilar, who was gently patting the folded napkins on the table like they were alive. “I don’t… we don’t need a housekeeper.”

With just Maxim and me, we managed quite fine. I did our laundry, even though he said I didn’t have to. The robot vacuum did its thing, and we had several restaurant menus in the kitchen drawer to satisfy our hunger.

Pilar turned to me with a kind smile. “Mr. Morozov doesn’t want you to worry about cooking or keeping things tidy. He said your studies should come first.”

I blinked again.

She added, “I’ll mostly be here while you’re both out or in the mornings. Just to keep the place clean, stock the fridge, handle meals. Nothing intrusive.”

“That’s… considerate,” I said slowly, trying to wrap my head around the fact that there was now a stranger in my kitchen making eggs and reorganizing our fruit bowl like this was Downton Abbey.

Nik poured himself more coffee. “You should eat. She makes a mean omelet.”