Page 24 of Deadly Knight (The Bratva’s Elite #2)

I hate this more than anything.

This feels different than usual. I tell myself it’s because Katya is in danger from my father, so granting her the freedom she desires is the hardest promise to keep at the moment.

But I’m not sure if it’s that at all.

Katya and the guy reach her apartment building. My building, technically, because he certainly didn’t buy buildings all to keep her safe, which suggests I’m the better man for her.

Fuck, get a grip. I rub my palms across my face and stay across the street to wait for her to go inside.

They linger by the door for longer than I’d like, and with a growing agitation to remove this fucker for good, I lift the hood over my head and start across the street, walking for the bus stop a few feet from where they’re standing.

My face remains tipped down while I do the one thing I haven’t in a long time: get close to her. It’s too risky normally.

The path I’ve taken will have me walking by them, which puts me close enough to overhear his goodbye.

“…that was fun. I’ll see you at work on Monday.”

Not if I kidnap her. The intrusive thought sounds better and better each passing second. Anything to keep her away from him.

While passing them, I’m struck with every desire, every fibre of my being to steal her right there.

Every one of my senses are aware of how close I am to her.

My steps slow, trying to linger as long as possible without giving them cause to worry about the creep hanging close.

A breeze blows her scent my way, and my fucking god, I almost give it all up right there.

At the bus stop, I lean against the metal pole, rooting for my phone so I can feign being a person who’s waiting for the bus.

Katya slips his sweater off, and I’m caught between wanting to go over there and force it back on, just to hide her from his roving gaze, and wanting to burn the fucking thing and ensure nothing of his ever touches her again.

She’s smiling at him like— no, don’t say it. Don’t think it. Just…don’t.

She’s looking at him in a way that guts me. There. They’re the simplest, most basic words I can put to her expression and the way it makes me feel worse than being stabbed or shot.

“Keep it,” I hear him say.

“That’s silly,” she argues, thrusting it at him again. “It’s chilly, and you need to get home.”

Yes, take it before I shove it over your head and kick you in front of a bus.

Thankfully, he takes it and slips his arms through again. His touch lingers too long for my liking, and my hand tingles with the urge to reach for my gun.

Get. A. Fucking. Grip.

“Thanks,” he replies.

This guy is a pridurok .

She waves goodbye before heading inside. I keep my face angled down, but my eyes track her inside. He waits until the door shuts before retracing the path they took to get here.

I follow.

Every man Katya shows an interest in, I have looked into. For her safety, of course, exactly as she’s requested of me. She wants safety, and if not with me, she’ll damn well get it.

Knowing he works in the same place as Katya will make learning who he is entirely too easy for Lev. There are only a handful of male staff working there, so it’s a matter of searching through the list for the one I don’t recall from my last check of the centre’s staffing.

For now, I want to see where he lives. The place a person chooses to make home tells a lot about them.

He walks a few blocks before turning the corner and taking another direction. I track the length of time it takes from her place to his, the fact she might be walking it one day slowly peeling away my soul until I’m hit with another wave of murderous fantasies.

He stops in front of a fairly modern apartment complex. The brick is bright and unstained with age, and the many lights currently on are bright. Nothing run-down, so at least he spends his money wisely.

I wait until he enters before crossing the street to observe the building, scanning for which window gets newly lit up. He could very well live on the opposite side, but I wait to see if that’s the case.

On the floor third from the top, right in the centre, a light turns on and a figure moves through the space, shedding his sweater before jerking the curtains shut and blocking my view.

Next: a name.

I’ve been inside Katya’s apartment before, but only while she’s at work, never willing to risk being inside while she’s home.

It was a few weeks after she moved in and I bought the place when I first dropped in, unable to help myself. I longed to see how she decorated and organized the space; how her personality emerged without her parents’ influence.

It was quaint. Cozy. Mismatched furniture, a puzzle partially finished on the living room table, bed unmade. Small touches of her spread throughout, to the posters she had on her walls and the spilled coffee on the counter from her urgency to leave that morning.

Is it strange to say I fell in love with an apartment?

I did. Imagining her there made me smile. Her cooking in the small kitchen, lounging on the couch while rewatching all her favourite shows that originally aired when we were together, and curling up in bed, cozy, safe, and comfortable.

Her citrus scent was imprinted on every inch of the space. I wanted to roll around in it like a dog, to leave with her on my skin. Instead, I limited myself to the occasional touch of an item.

Since then, I visit every once in a while, thanks to the master key ownership of the building has given me.

The more I do it, the more I grow addicted to being there.

Taking the apartment beneath hers means limiting my stop-ins in case other residents spot me and grow suspicious.

If she ever found me inside, there’s no explanation I could give to make it right in her eyes.

After returning from my trip to see where the asshole lives, her lights are off, suggesting she’s in bed.

I wait a bit longer to ensure she’s asleep before riding the elevator to her floor.

She’s the third door on my right and I slip the key inside the lock, cracking it open slowly while listening for signs of her being awake.

It might be idiocy driving me to this, or perhaps jealousy, but after everything I witnessed tonight—every ounce of pain she wrought from my bones—I need to see her.

Her sweet scent lingers in the air, and I follow it through her apartment and down the short hallway that connects to her bedroom. Her door is parted a few inches, so after a brief check she’s asleep, I enter.

Katya’s passed out on her stomach, her head in the mound of pillows. I’d worry about suffocation if I wasn’t familiar with her preferred sleeping position. Simply one of many things I love about her.

I tread slowly, eyes adjusting to the darkness while carefully stepping around clothes strewn on the floor until reaching her bedside, coming within touching distance twice in the same night.

I should leave. Instead, I lower to my knees.

For every reason I long to and every reason I should go away, I remain.

My hand stretches towards her cheek, hesitating for a mere second before touching heaven once more.

A sigh works through my body, the sensation of being home for the first time in a decade.

It takes biting the inside of my cheek before my sound of pleasure slips out.

The ribbon around my wrist hangs, brushing her chin as though greeting its owner, the girl whom it shouldn’t have ever been separated from.

If she were to open her eyes right now, she’d spot me. She’d realize I’m not keeping my promises, and would beg me to leave. Perhaps would even phone the cops. At this point, I’d hand her my gun and have her shoot me, to end my life, before she can hate me.

I couldn’t possibly handle her hate. For her to look at me with the ghostly fears of that fateful night ten years ago.

Her skin is so fucking soft. Like death itself, I imagine, if death were to come by her hand. I’d willingly kill myself, if only to feel this again and again.

“Fuck, I miss you, Katya.” The words escape my mouth, imprinting on her bedroom walls where she’ll forever have them repeated back while being unable to hear them.

I pinch strands of silk between my fingers, losing myself in the memories of her in my bed, hair strewn on my pillow. For days following her stay, I’d find her strands in my bed.

She sighs in her sleep, making the same noises she did the last time I held her, when her head rested on my heart and she could feel the very part of me she’d always get to claim as hers.

Years and years of memories rush in at once.

Seeing her outside the school my first day.

Watching her in the hallways.

Meeting her at the party.

Every second with her during our relationship.

The abuse and horror she survived.

Camping out in the hospital until her parents demanded I leave.

Checking on her day after day, hour after hour.

Standing on her front step and having my heart ripped out.

Witnessing her leave Moscow and move here.

Stalking her during school, and every year after.

Unable to let go the way she has.

It all hits, along with the realization this is what I’ve been truly missing. Stalking her hasn’t been enough, when now, my soul feels cured . Patched up in ways I never could have imagined.

Stalking her has to be enough. I have to pretend it is, for her own well-being. To ensure that, once Papa is gone, no one else from my life gets to her. Katya’s life must continue within the sunlight and avoid the shadows my world drags her into.

Once Papa’s dead, my list is complete. The paper in my pocket that’s been folded and re-folded countless times over the years, it’s miraculous the paper remains intact—though barely. The folds are so worn, the list is beginning to tear apart.

Five names of men who hurt her.

Four names of men no longer inhabiting the planet.

Artur Blok. Danil Andronikov. Georgiy Yolkiv. Maxim Klimtsov.

Artur—Tortured. Hands cut off. Dick removed. Decapitated.

Danil—Tortured. Hands cut off. Dick removed. Burned alive.

Georgiy—Tortured. Hands cut off. Dick removed. Stabbed repeatedly.

Maxim—Tortured. Hands cut off. Dick removed. Hung.

All gone, all pled for mercy but were shown none, like they hadn’t shown us—her—mercy when they had her tied to the bed and raped her. They ignored my pleas and laughed while Katya was forced to take the sickest parts of them.

So I showed them the sickest parts of me without mercy or regret.

There’s only my father left.

“I’ll keep you safe, moya dusha . I’ll die trying before I let harm come to you again.”

She moves in her sleep, moaning lightly. Her head turns to the other side, and I remove my hand. My feet shift, to either bolt or flatten myself to the floor.

Her moan turns into a groan. Her hand fists the pillow. She twitches, restless, before crying out, “No! Stop. Leave us alone! We won’t tell. Just bring us back to the party. Please. ”

Jesus fuck. How have I never known? Never realized all these years later she’s having nightmares from that night? Has her damn therapist been doing nothing to help?

I want to touch her, to hold her, to ease her. If only to quell the rage in my veins.

She mumbles something I’m pretty sure isn’t English or Russian before rolling over and giving me her back. Her arms tuck beneath her head, her cry shifting into a sleepy sigh.

I stand, knowing damn well I need to get the fuck out of here, but I’m stopped by a single word. With it, every part of me comes to a halt.

“Dimitri.”