Page 43 of Deadly Knight (The Bratva’s Elite #2)

When I wake the morning after visiting the brothels, I’m certain I’ve lost it, because I’m in the bed and Dimitri’s scent is stronger than it was the day before. Silly, really, considering it’s his room, so it’s easy to explain away, even if I’m also aware the scent has been fading since he left.

But the fact I fell asleep on the floor and woke in the bed? There’s no explaining that one.

When checking with Vanessa if he stopped by, she claims he didn’t and she hasn’t heard from him in days. I’m getting the sense it’s a lie.

Another week passes, and I’m all but crawling the walls at this point.

It’s been almost two weeks since being taken from Toronto.

That’s way too long to be away from my clients, especially when the absence was unexpected and unplanned, which means I’ve put nothing in place for the kids who rely on me.

Who the hell knows what my boss thinks of my absence?

If Dimitri believes getting me fired will somehow turn this in his favour, he’s very wrong.

On exactly the two-week mark, I slip into my makeshift camping area on his floor and let sleep take me away from the frustration and irritation that I’m not home.

For the first time since arriving in Russia, sleep isn’t an easy one. A nightmare slips into the most vulnerable parts of my brain.

“Let’s play, boys.”

The man’s hand moves between my legs, and my eyes slam shut. Don’t feel, don’t feel, don’t feel. What a stupid thought.

Dimitri watches from the chair he’s tied to, his screams and pleas drowning everything else out. He looks like an animal. Murderous, destructive. He’s ready to exterminate these men—for me. To save me from the pain.

One man. Two. Three. And then the fourth.

All while the guy I love is forced to watch me be violated over and over, unable to save me. While he talks to me, my mind slips away. Reality is so much harder to cling to.

I love him.

Something warm touches my face, yanking me— saving me —from the nightmare, and I shoot up in bed with a scream in my throat, the horrors in my head, and the panic sending me into an attack. My nails jab my arm, my mind trying to recall the words that’ll ground me.

Safe. Not real. Safe. Not real.

The nails in my arm—real.

The touch on my face—real.

The hands on my thigh—not real. Not anymore.

As soon as my nails pierce skin, the ultimate reminder of where I’m not, a heavy grip latches around both wrists and I’m pulled into a chest, a rumbling noise filling the room. He releases me to stroke over my injuries, the raised skin that was seconds from bleeding again.

Once I stop fighting, he holds me in a way I haven’t been in a long time. In his arms, everything else ceases to matter, even the fact I shouldn’t be encouraging him.

“Dimitri?” My voice feels shaky, leftover from the memories involving a time when my screams were not imaginary.

“I have you, moya dusha . Go back to sleep.”

I almost obey him and pass back out, but pure determination and weeks of frustration compiled with him dropping back into my life has me demanding, “Let me return to Toronto.” Albeit with zero conviction, so the pointed demand is diminished.

He rubs a hand down my back. “Sleep first.”

Dimitri’s age-old knowledge about me brings his hand up to my head, where he massages my scalp in a way that never fails to drag me beneath the surface of consciousness. I fall asleep on the man who once held my heart, my soul…my everything.

It’s my best sleep in ten years.

The next time I wake, I’m faced with Dimitri’s bloodshot eyes. Purple blots beneath his eyes, and his hair’s messy like he’s run his hand through it a few times. Streaks of red stain his face, and while I can guess where they’re from, I’m not sure I want to.

“Did you sleep?”

“No. I didn’t want to miss a moment of this.”

Oh. Although the ghosts of my past are begging me not to, I pull myself free. We’re on the bed, not the floor; guess he carried me here when helping me through the nightmare.

He doesn’t let me get far before he’s hauling me back to his chest, his own noise of desire louder than my frustrated one.

“Did you do what you needed to?”

“I wouldn’t be back if I didn’t.”

“I’m safe now?”

He hesitates when replying, his agreement more of a hum. “Mhm.”

“Thank you.” So he has no reason to keep me here, which means staying firm in my decision and saying what I must. “You have to let me go, Dimitri.” Not only to Toronto, but in this bed as well.

Sleep, when I was unaware, is one thing, but awake, conscious?

My confused brain can only handle so much, and if I have any hope of rebuilding my safety walls, we must remain distanced from one another.

“Never.”

“Ten years ago, I asked you to leave me alone, and you didn’t.”

“You’ve been running from the horrors of that night and lumped me into it.”

“The Bratva?—”

“Owns my loyalty but isn’t the same organization that existed back then. Vanessa told me about the trip you two took the other week, so don’t you dare lie to me and say you don’t believe it.” His eyes flash in the morning light with something dangerous, a dare for me to do exactly that.

Instead, I ignore the dare to instead try to pull away, put it’s like trying to break from a steel trap. A trap that abruptly rolls, tucking me beneath him. Knees encompass my hips, his arms on either side of my head.

I don’t know how to breathe. Don’t know if I want to breathe.

This is a dream and a nightmare all wrapped into one.

Being beneath a guy… I haven’t been able to since that night.

Any sex I somehow managed to have was done with me on top, but Dimitri is like coming home.

My body reminds me of how to trust—but only him .

He props his elbows beside me, which lowers his body, his nose brushing mine and his lips a fraction away, reminding me of two weeks ago when he kissed me.

Tricked me into being locked in his bathroom.

The kiss might have awoken a part of me I long let die, but it can’t resolve everything else.

Especially not the fact I continue to not be in control of my life and years of work got wrecked within a single night.

Of me not being any better than I was a decade ago, for him or for myself.

Before he gets nearer, I jerk my head to the side, my breaths stalling before tears threaten to reveal my emotions. “Dimitri…I can’t. Nothing’s changed.”

“My father will never bother you again,” he states firmly, grasping my chin and forcing me to look at him. “It’s over. He’s why you ran, and you don’t need to anymore.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” I whisper around a throat filled with emotion.

“He’s not entirely why I ran. I left to heal .

And so you could as well. I’ve been better, but I’m not whole yet.

” Will I ever be? “When we were together, we were practically kids who had no idea what real life is like, but now reality’s a splash of cold, hard facts.

You have your role, and I have mine. I made a life in Toronto, Dimitri.

Friends. A home. Nightmares occasionally plague me, telling me I’m not ready.

Pretty sure I’ll never be.” Putting aside I don’t believe he’s better either, but knowing any mention of his mental health will be met with frustrating denial, so I remain silent on all things us and only focus on myself.

“I can’t do this to myself…can’t stay here.

For the same reason I told you on my front step all those years ago, I need to get away. ”

His jaw clicks, his eyes turning to ash, and he lifts slightly off me, allowing me to breathe a bit easier. “Twenty-four hours. That’s all I’m asking for.”

“A day won’t change my mind.”

“Maybe not, but I need these hours, Katya. You need these hours.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Do you trust me?”

Trust him? Could I? Should I?

A part of me has always trusted him. Has always known he’s the safest soul on this entire planet for me. Trusting him means opening myself up to all the things he’ll want to know and the things I’m hiding from us both.

“I don’t know.”

He winces. “I’m asking you to, then. For a day.”

A day in exchange for freedom. What’s so bad about a few hours after the past two weeks? “Then you’ll take me home?”

His hesitation tells me everything—he’ll fight me from here to the airport. “Then we’ll talk.”

“Fine. But only twenty-four hours, and they start this second.”

“I’ll agree to that, if you agree to one more thing. From now until the end of the twenty-four hours, I want the absolute truth from you. No matter how hard it gets, do not lie.”

To be asked this likely means there will be a time I want to. But I find myself once again agreeing to his request, his smile gentle with gratitude and his eyes flickering with a new emotion. That’s when I realize what position we’re still in.

“C-can you get off me?”

His eyes widen a fraction and he obeys immediately, scrambling to his feet.

He went from looking at me like I was lunch to looking at me like I’m a stranger.

His palm rubs over his face twice, his tone gruff when he utters, “I’ll be in the hall.

Meet me there. Please. Shower, dress, do whatever you need to.

” He’s gone before my brain processes what he’s said.

Once the door shuts, I slide from the bed, trying not to look at it or think about the fact he held me last night.

Or that it was my best sleep in a long time.

Heart and body, they knew something I won’t admit to myself, even when my mind says to avoid, push away, and return to the life I’ve created for myself.

Soon. Twenty-four hours. Then I can move on and rebuild what was broken. Most notably: myself.

I head for Dimitri’s bathroom to shower and dress in one of Vanessa’s outfits she’s so nicely let me borrow, considering the way in which I was brought here left me no time to prepare and pack a bag.

When finished, Dimitri is exactly where he said he’d be, seated on the floor across the hall. He gets to his feet, his eyes drinking me in in that possessive way of his that makes me want to both bolt and stay stationary.

“What?”

“Nothin’.” He turns for the stairs. “Let’s go. I have something to show you.”