Page 139 of Mafia King's Broken Vow

The admission undoes me. I know what Anastasiya meant to him, know the grief that forged his darkness. To hear him say this—to understand what I’ve become to him—it overwhelms everything.

“You found me,” I remind him, my hands sliding beneath his shirt, needing his skin, his heat, his proof of life. “You always do.”

His hands mirror mine, pushing past thin hospital cotton to trace my waist, my spine. Each touch sends lightning through my nerves, my body responding with trained hunger.

“Always,” he vows against my lips. “Distance means nothing. Time means nothing. I will tear apart the world to reach you.”

I kiss him deeper, pouring myself into this connection. His hands tighten on my waist, and I feel his hardness against my thigh—proof that his desire matches my own, even in this impossible place.

“I need you,” I whisper against his mouth.

His eyes go black. “You’re hurt,” he reminds me, voice strained with barely leashed control. “We’re in a hospital?—”

“I don’t care,” I insist, fingers threading through his hair to drag his mouth back to mine. “After what we survived, I need to feel you inside me.”

With careful but insistent movements, he guides me back onto the bed, his body covering mine with perfect, familiar weight. His hands trace every inch of exposed skin, cataloging the bandages, the bruises, the evidence of what Pablo did.

“He hurt you,” Yakov murmurs, lips tracing the edge of the bandage on my throat. “I should have killed him for touching you.”

“But you didn’t,” I remind him, arching into his touch as his hand slides higher beneath my gown. “You chose mercy. You chose to be the man I fell in love with.”

His eyes lock with mine, vulnerability and ferocity mingling in their depths. “For you,” he says simply. “Always for you.”

His fingers find me wet and ready, and I gasp at the first contact, my body already wound so tight that even this gentle exploration feels like torture. He knows exactly how to touch me, how to make me fall apart beneath his hands.

“Yakov,” I breathe, unwilling to be passive in this moment. I reach between us, finding him hard beneath his pants, stroking with deliberate intent that makes his breath hitch against my throat. “We’re alive.” I push his pants lower, desperate to feel him inside me.

He captures my mouth in a kiss that’s equal parts tenderness and possession. With careful movements mindful of our injuries, he positions himself between my thighs.

“Look at me,” he commands softly, and I obey, eyes locking with his as he pushes inside me with exquisite slowness.

Our bodies move together with a mutual desperation that nothing can soothe. I pull him closer, deeper, so tightly that it’s difficult to differentiate where he ends and I begin. He draws my lower lip into his mouth, sucking hard, leaving no doubt that I belong to him, that nothing can tear us apart, that no matter what comes next, he won’t abandon me.

His pace quickens, each stroke sending him deeper into that untouchable place within me. But it’s not enough. I cling to him, urging him to move faster, harder, unable to sate this wild need.

“Please,” I gasp, knowing I’m close, knowing I can’t reach the edge without him there with me.

“Mine,” he whispers against my lips, the word both possession and surrender. “My Mila.”

“Yours,” I echo. “Only yours.”

That’s what does it. The final claim shatters me, and I fall over the precipice with a helpless cry, dimly aware of his harsh growl and fingers biting into my hips. For a single frozen moment, we are suspended, connected by something more binding than pleasure, more transforming than any oath we’ve ever taken.

And when it’s over, and the aftermath washes over us in slow, pulsing waves, I know with certainty that I made the right choice. No matter what the future holds, no matter what monsters remain for us to fight, nothing will ever change that.

For endless seconds, we remain connected, his forehead pressed against mine, our breathing slowly returning to normal.

“I love you,” I whisper into the sacred space between us.

The vulnerability in his eyes would bring me to my knees if I were standing. “I’ve never deserved you,” he says, voice rough with emotion. “Never will. But I swear on everything I am, I will spend every day trying to be worthy of what you see in me.”

As we lie together in this hospital bed, bodies entwined, heartbeats syncing, I understand something fundamental about love—real love, the kind that survives crucibles like what we’ve endured. It’s not about deserving. It’s about choosing, every day, to see the best in each other, even when darkness threatens to consume us both.

And I know, with bone-deep certainty, that I will choose Yakov Gagarin every day for the rest of my life.

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SAFE HAVEN