Page 33 of Deadly Knight (The Bratva’s Elite #2)

Once, after discussing positive memories of Dimitri, Ava asked me if I believe in the concept of soulmates.

“I once did,” I told her.

She asked what changed my mind.

“I’m still surviving. If soulmates were real, I gave mine up and shouldn’t be alive.”

Now, I take it back, because when waking up on that plane and seeing him across from me, my heart beat for the first time in a decade. Masked beneath fear, apprehension, shock, and anger, but it had. Soulmates are real, and mine re-discovered hers.

In that instant, everything fell into place…and everything fell apart at the same time.

My wall nearly crumbled. Somehow, it remained upright. I’d love to know how, but I can’t be certain I’ll have the same luck or ability next time. It trembled, though, the threat of what could so easily happen. A mere breath, a word, a look is all it’ll take to crush ten years of construction.

He never even gave me answers. Simply stared at me in that way of his, letting me put it all together. Labelling what I know deep down means acknowledging it when this isn’t right. This isn’t what I need. What we need.

The sight of him brings everything good and bad back, everything unhealthy, everything I’ve been fighting. And unfortunately, the evil in our past overshadows the joy I once felt.

Soulmates or not, it doesn’t mean I have to want mine. That we’re good for one another.

Consciousness rises amidst the darkness, and with a low groan, I shift, my body getting feeling back.

Last time, I woke up on a chilly couch, but whatever’s beneath me is soft and feels so damn good.

A scent encompasses me, wrapping me in safety.

A scent my insides know all too well, even if they refuse to label.

I don’t open my eyes, not allowing reality to return quite yet. Instead, the feeling of pure bliss and pending doom keeps me soothed.

That tingling I’ve felt one too many times caresses my face, and it’s with a snap of my mind, it all makes sense. It was never in my head. Never anxiety.

It’s been him. Always him. He never left me alone to heal.

So have I even been healing, having his influence around the entire time, and something within me was obviously aware?

“Katya, you’re awake. Open your eyes.”

I can’t, because it means facing you. I can’t face him.

Can’t face what it’ll mean. Ten years of laying the building blocks of my foundation to being able to build upon what they did and make me a new person who’s able to come out the other side, and I already know all that work will be demolished with a mere glance from him.

I wasn’t prepared for this outcome. Did I ever believe I’d be in front of him again?

Perhaps. A bit. Sometimes when in denial.

But only on my terms, when I felt I accomplished what I set out to do all those years ago.

When I felt well enough that there wouldn’t be a need for walls and barriers to protect my heart and sanity.

When we were both different people who could be in the same room again without dying.

“Moya dusha.” My soul.

Fuck, that hurts. That’s not what I am anymore, though.

Unwillingly, I open my eyes, unable to hide from the future any longer. The sooner I face him, the sooner this ends and he leaves me alone, and the excruciating process of rebuilding will begin.

Dimitri’s face is the only thing I see. Shielded by dim lights, my heart reacts. For the first time in a decade, I see him; the one whom I’ve only ever dreamed about, forced to mentally age the memory of the guy I knew into the man he’s become.

Now, I don’t have to imagine. The same eyes devour me with a relief I don’t understand.

His face is harder, aged with a decade of being a Bratva soldier.

His hair is shorter, swept back in a way like he’s run his fingers through it one too many times.

Days’ old hair grows on his chin, adding to the black marks of exhaustion beneath his eyes.

Some-fucking-how, the wall remains erect.

Trembles, but stays standing. If only I understood why and what it means.

Either way, he can’t see how close I am to giving in to old desires, because I’m no more prepared now than ten years ago, and if that means shutting down and hiding my true feelings, then so be it.

“Katya,” he breathes, my name sounding like a prayer on his lips but nothing less than a sin.

Safe. Not real.

But no… That isn’t right. My usual mantra doesn’t work in this instance, because he is very much real at the moment. My safety is a question left unanswered.

Safe? Real.

When he shifts closer, his arms holding himself above me, I catch the intricate design in the ceiling. A ceiling belonging to a house—a mansion—that’s as ancient as time itself, that I’d only been allowed in a handful of times when he deemed it safe enough.

No.

All at once everything falls away, my location being the only thing that matters. Where I’m not . That Dimitri blew into my life without permission and threatened my barriers. He has no right to undo a decade’s worth of work.

I scramble, feet digging into the blanket as my back hits the headboard, as far away from him as possible. Distance will help my shattered heart be able to restart its healing process. The dress from my date slides up my thighs, but neither he nor I pay it any attention.

“Where am I?” Even though I already know the answer, I need him to say it.

“My bedroom.”

“In Moscow.” My eyes dart to the side, where I remember large windows being, but they’re draped with heavy, black curtains, cutting off the outdoors and an idea of the time.

“Da.”

Moscow is where it all began. Where I ran from. Where I shouldn’t be any longer. Where all the memories reside.

I slide to the edge of the bed, managing to climb around him even though he stands, placing himself between myself and the bed, rendering the entire attempt useless.

“Take me home,” I demand without looking at him, pulling over my emotional barrier—highlighting my rage over anything else and using it as a defence.

“That would defeat the purpose of flying you all the way here, wouldn’t it?

” His arms cross over his chest, a bodyguard in his own way—an unwanted one at that.

The sight of his arms, his wrist, reveals what I hoped was my mind playing tricks on the plane.

The green ribbon he once wrapped around my wrist is on his, a cuff linking him to the past and proving once more he didn’t do what I asked him to.

He didn’t mend himself, not if he’s physically wearing our history.

“Why am I here?” Tearing my gaze away from the thin satin, I, too, fold my arms, shielding myself, realizing I no longer know who this man is.

Who he’s become in the past decade, who he’s changed into, how he’ll react.

Facts that terrify me, and it’s my defensive mechanisms that have me stating, “You kidnapped me.”

“I saved you.”

“I never asked to be saved!” Heat floats to my cheeks as true anger builds, pushing away any gratitude. Because I am grateful. Despite the shock, I’m angry because this shouldn’t be happening. I should be in Toronto, at work, and probably in session.

Oh, shit, work. My clients. Their traumas help mine, and right now, I need it more than anything else.

“Too fucking bad,” he replies, his tone deep and dark, a threat in its own way. “You think you ever need to ask me to save your life? You should know me better than that.”

Ever. There’s a lot of history within that word.

“I don’t need your protection.” Though, without his help last night—was it last night?—who knows what would have happened in Ivan’s custody. Which only introduces more questions, ones unanswered from the plane.

“Yes,” he bites, “you do. Because to protect you is to protect my own heart, and I’m not quite ready for that to stop beating yet.”

His words knock my next ones out of me, mind whirling over the meaning behind his statement.

His chest rises and falls with paced breaths before he glances at the door, his tongue skirting the inside of his mouth. In a gentler tone, he murmurs, “You must be thirsty. I’ll get you something.”

He turns away, but I move too, placing myself in front of him, though the likelihood of having any chance at stopping him is nearly laughable.

It’s now I realize how big Dimitri’s gotten.

He’s always been large, a result from training, but he’s been putting it all to use.

He’s not the guy from my memories, but a man.

A dangerous one, staring at me with an empty soul and an emptier gaze.

“I’m not thirsty. I want to talk.”

His head ticks to the side. “Ask what you need to. I have shit to do.”

A huff of laughter escapes, because he honestly expected to drop me here and leave to do whatever it is he has to, and I’d be okay with it?

“Why did you have to protect me? Why, after all these years, did your papa come after me? Why, when he called you, were you close enough to rescue me within the hour? Last I checked, Russia is a twenty-hour trip from Toronto. And no staring this time. I want answers. Verbal ones.”

“Didn’t figure it out on the plane?”

Say it. This time, I’m the one doing the staring.

He shrugs. “It’s better you don’t ask about things you don’t want to know.” Then he continues past me, like that answered anything.

“Do not avoid me, Dimitri Volkov. Do not walk away from me. I have a right to know why, after a fucking decade you showed up in my life. What gave you the right to threaten everything I’ve been working towards?”

“Katya, stop.” Exhaustion dulls his tone, but I don’t care how tired he is. I’m tired of the lies, because that’s all he’s been doing since the day I broke up with him. Lying about letting the past remain in the past.

“Dimitri, tell me .”

Whatever control he was clinging to breaks in that second with a sound that echoes through the otherwise silent room.

Crack.