Page 12 of Brutal Reign (Bratva Kings #3)

CHAPTER

TEN

PAVEL

The clock glows red in the dark, alerting me it’s nearly three in the morning.

I’ve been awake for twenty minutes, listening to Hope’s steady breathing, feeling the gentle rise and fall of her chest against my arm. She’s curled into me, her hair spilling across the pillow in dark waves.

The tracker sits in a little black case beneath the bed. It’s a tiny device, no bigger than a grain of rice, designed to slip under the skin unnoticed. All I have to do is inject it while she sleeps, and the Syndicate will know her location for the rest of her life.

I should have done it already, completed the mission the moment she fell asleep, exhausted and sated. Instead, I’m lying here memorizing the way she feels beside me, the soft sounds she makes even in sleep, because this will be the last time I’ll ever be this close to her.

Hope shifts against me, and a small whimper escapes her throat. Her body tenses, fingers clutching at the sheets. Even unconscious, she can’t find peace.

“No,” she whispers, so quietly I almost miss it. “Please don’t?—“

A protective instinct surges. My arms tighten around her, one hand stroking her hair, as I whisper against her ear, “Hey. You’re safe. It’s only a dream.”

She jerks awake with a gasp, her entire body going rigid before she opens her eyes.

“Sorry,” she breathes, relaxing back into my embrace. “Did I wake you?”

“I was already up.” I brush her hair from her face. “Bad dream?”

She’s quiet for a long moment, and I can feel the tension radiating from her petite frame. “Just... things from my past. Messed-up stuff that likes to resurface in the dark of night.”

The guilt in my chest expands, and I do my best to ignore it.

“Do you have them often? The nightmares?”

“More than I’d like.” Her laugh is hollow. “Sometimes I have trouble sleeping. My brain won’t shut off, you know?”

I know exactly what that’s like, how the past burrows into your subconscious and refuses to let go.

“Can I get you something to eat? Drink?”

“No.” She turns until she’s facing me, her eyes searching my face. “Can you hold me for a while?”

The simple request nearly undoes me. The last person who asked me to comfort them was Kamilla. I failed her, and in truth, I’ve already failed Hope. But I can still give her this moment.

We lie quietly together, her fingers tracing absent patterns on my chest while I try to burn this moment into my memory.

Eventually, she breaks the silence. “What’s your life like in Sweden?”

The question catches me off guard. I should deflect, but something about the darkness makes honesty easier.

“Lonely,” I admit. “More than I usually care to think about.”

It’s true, even if the details are lies. My life in Moscow is isolated by necessity. I trust no one, depend on no one, and let no one get close enough to matter except my brothers. But here, with her warmth pressed against me, that existence feels hollow.

“You must have friends? Family?”

“Friends, yes. Of a sort.” Roman and Maxim are more like brothers, but I can’t explain that without revealing too much. “My work keeps me busy.”

“Don’t you want more than that? Someone to come home to?”

“My lifestyle doesn’t really leave room for much else. Marriage, kids, the whole domestic dream… it’s not in the cards for someone like me.”

“I think having kids would be… nice.” Her voice has a wistful note.

“I’m not father material. Some people aren’t built for that kind of responsibility.”

Images of Kamilla flash through my mind: her laughter, her complete trust in me, how utterly I failed to keep her safe.

“I don’t believe that.”

“What about you?” I ask to shift focus. “What do you want?”

“I’d love to have kids someday. If I found the right person, if my life was more stable...” She trails off, staring at the ceiling. “But that’s not exactly realistic right now. Hard to plan for a family when you can barely keep yourself afloat.”

A knot twists in my gut. She wants children and a normal life. Those are all the things I’m about to ensure she can never have.

“You deserve better,” I say and mean it more than she’ll ever know.

“Maybe. But we don’t always get what we deserve, do we?”

No. We don’t. If we did, she’d still have her father, her old life, and her sense of security. And I’d have my sister back.

Hope nestles closer, her breath warm against my throat. “I’m glad you came into the pub. That we have this one night together.”

“Me too.”

I don’t know how long we drift off for, but it’s long enough that I’m still caught in that hazy space between sleep and waking when I feel her bare ass pressing against my cock, and there’s no mistaking her intentions.

I’m instantly hard. My hand glides up to her breast, cupping and squeezing softly.

She sighs, arching her hips into me, and I answer with a low growl, nuzzling her neck.

I’m not sure she’s fully awake—I’m not sure I am either—but my body knows exactly what it wants.

When my fingers slip between her thighs, I find her wet and ready for me.

I rub slow, lazy circles over her clit. She squirms, and I line myself up, pressing the head of my cock to her entrance. With one merciless thrust, I sink into her heat, feeling her body go taut before melting around me.

She gasps, as I roll her nipple between my fingers and drive into her deeper, consumed by a need to claim her, to leave her marked. I want her to feel me with every step she takes for the next week.

Her breath grows ragged, her body tightening with every stroke. I kiss her neck and graze her skin with my teeth, sucking hard enough to leave a bruise.

It doesn’t take long before her cunt clenches around me, and she comes with a quiet shudder. I follow soon after, pleasure sweeping through me.

For a while, there’s nothing but the two of us tangled together, hearts pounding, sleep pulling us under. I press my lips to her shoulder and hold her close, committing this last stolen moment to memory.

Morning light slips through the gaps in the curtain like an intruder. Hope is tucked against my chest, her breath warm against my collarbone. She’s impossibly small, all soft curves where I’m hard angles and scar tissue.

The room carries the scent of us: skin and sweat and everything we shared in the dark. Pale light creeps across her shoulder as I watch the rise and fall of her chest. She trusts me, the kind of trust I don’t fucking deserve.

Because now it’s time to do what I said I would.

Moving slowly, I slide my hand under the bed and retrieve the black case I stashed there earlier. The syringe is pre-loaded with a polymer-coated tracker suspended in a saline solution, with enough sedative to buy me time to disappear.

I ease back the blanket and find the injection site below her shoulder blade. My thumb traces the spot where the needle should go.

I take a breath, preparing myself.

The tracker is a permanent leash. If I do this, the Syndicate will always be able to find her, always have access. I trust Maxim and Roman with my life, but doing this condemns Hope to a future where she’ll never truly be free.

Last night, she talked about wanting children someday, about building a better future. Dreams that are impossible if she can never disappear.

I stare at the ceiling, jaw clenched, careful not to move and wake her while I wrestle with indecision.

The thought of betraying my brothers eats at me. If Hope somehow becomes the threat we all fear she could, their blood will be on my hands.

But I don’t believe she has that in her. She wants peace and simplicity. An ordinary life that has nothing to do with power or violence.

She’s nearly twenty years younger than me with her whole life ahead of her. She deserves a fresh start, one without a deadly bratva hunting her.

I put the syringe back in the case, sliding it under the bed, and drink her in one final time.

Now comes the hard part: walking away and never looking back.