Page 127 of Mafia King's Broken Vow

His knuckles whiten on the steering wheel. “I don’t expect you to understand the complexities of my position.”

“Don’t you dare patronize me,” I snap, anger flaring hot beneath my breastbone. “I understand perfectly. I just thought you wanted more than returning to the life that nearly destroyed you.”

“What I want doesn’t matter if I can’t protect it. This is necessary.”

“Necessary for what?” I demand. “Your revenge? Your pride? Your need to control everything and everyone around you?”

His jaw tightens visibly. “My protection of what matters.”

“And what matters to you, Yakov?” I press, leaning closer. “Really matters, beyond strategy and survival and power games?”

He takes a curve too fast, the car hugging the road with dangerous accuracy. “You know the answer to that.”

“Do I?” My voice wavers slightly, betraying the emotion I’m fighting to contain. “Because from where I’m sitting, it looks like you’re choosing to go back to exactly what you were before we met.”

The words hang between us, razor-sharp. For several moments, there’s only the sound of tires on asphalt and our too-quick breaths filling the space.

“You think I’m regressing to the killer I was,” he says finally, his voice dangerously soft. “That I’ve learned nothing.”

“I think you’re making a choice,” I counter, “and I’m terrified you’ll disappear back into that world and never come back to me.”

The silence stretches between us. He pulls over suddenly, gravel spraying as we stop on the shoulder. When he turns to face me, his gaze burns with intensity that steals my breath.

“Do you want to know why?” He unbuckles his seatbelt, leaning closer. “Why I’m willing to put myself back under their control when every instinct I have rejects it?”

The heat of his body reaches me across the console, magnetic and familiar. Even angry, even arguing, the connection between us remains undeniable.

“Tell me,” I whisper.

He cups my face, fingers threading into my hair with possessive gentleness that makes my pulse race. “Because it’s the only way to keep you safe. To ensure that what happened with Pablo never happens again. I want to build a future where you don’t have to look over your shoulder. I want to send a message to everyone who even thinks about using you as leverage against me.”

My breath catches at the raw honesty in his voice. “Yakov?—”

“I need enough power to protect what matters, Mila,” he continues, his thumb tracing my lower lip in a way that makes heat pool low in my belly despite our argument. “And what matters is you. Us. The future I never thought I’d want until you came along.”

The confession steals whatever fight remains in me. I lean into his touch, eyes closing briefly as his forehead comes to rest against mine.

“I don’t want to lose you to that world,” I admit, voicing my deepest fear. “Though I didn’t grow up in it myself, I was a part of it in my own way, and I’ve seen what it does to people, Yakov. How it twists and changes them until they can’t find their way back.”

“Look at me,” he commands softly.

I open my eyes to find his gaze steady on mine, closer than before. The fight drains out of me at his words.

“I found my way back from darker places than this,” he says. “Because of you. Because you saw the man when everyone else saw only the executioner.”

His lips brush mine, a ghost of a kiss that still makes me tremble. “Trust me to remember who I am with you. To remember what matters when the lines blur.”

The kiss deepens as his mouth claims mine. I answer right away, tangle my fingers in his hair, and draw him closer to the console. This need in me that ignites whenever he touches me keeps getting stronger, more powerful, and demanding.

His hand slides beneath my sundress, fingers tracing a path up my thigh that leaves goosebumps in their wake. I gasp against his mouth as he reaches the edge of my underwear, teasing.

“I need you to believe in me,” he murmurs against my throat, teeth grazing the sensitive skin there. “To believe in us enough to let me do what’s necessary.”

“I do,” I whisper as his fingers slip beneath the fabric, finding me ready for him. “It’s them I don’t trust.”

His touch grows bolder, circling the bundle of nerves that makes my hips buck involuntarily.

“Just remember what happens when I touch you. When you come apart in my hands. The truth that exists between us when everything else falls away.”