Page 140 of Mafia King's Broken Vow

MILA

The hospital discharge papers crackle in my grip, freedom distilled into bureaucratic forms. Three days of antiseptic hell, machines screaming warnings, nurses hovering with false cheer. I’m done. But ‘home’ feels like a foreign concept now. My apartment belongs to some other woman, some other life. Before Pablo’s blade kissed my throat. Before Yakov turned human bones to powder saving me.

Before I discovered how completely this lethal man owns my soul.

“Ready?” Yakov materializes in the doorway, his large frame devouring the space. Simple clothes—jeans, dark sweater—but power radiates from him in waves. The bruises have faded to sickly yellow, but his eyes burn hotter when they lock on mine.

“Past ready,” I say, gathering the pathetic collection of belongings Katarina brought. The movement tears at healing flesh, Pablo’s parting gift screaming through my body.

He’s there before my next breath, hands steadying me with devastating gentleness. “I’ve got it,” he murmurs, taking my bag.

His fingers linger on my wrist, thumb finding my pulse with casual precision that ignites fire in my veins. Three days withouthis touch, without his weight crushing me into the mattress, and I’m already starving.

“Doctor says I need rest,” I manage, voice rough. They kept me longer than necessary—paranoid observation after Pablo’s handiwork. “No exertion.”

His mouth curves. “Define exertion.” The teasing promise in those words liquefies my bones.

The mandatory wheelchair arrives, hospital protocol for a patient leaving. I start protesting, but his hand on my shoulder cuts me short.

“Play along,” he says playfully. “Save energy for what matters.”

I sigh and sink into the chair, letting the nurse wheel me past sterile walls while Yakov prowls alongside, predator on a leash. His presence overwhelms everything—cologne mixed with something dangerous, coiled violence barely contained, eyes scanning for threats even here.

The black SUV at the curb isn’t his usual ride. Newer. Sleeker. Windows dark enough to hide bodies.

“Nikolai’s?” I ask as he lifts me into the passenger seat, hands burning through fabric.

“Mine now.” He shuts my door, circling to the driver’s side.

When he settles behind the wheel, I catch how he favors his right side—his own knife wound still knitting together. The thought of losing him sends ice through my chest.

“Cold?” He reaches for controls without waiting.

“No.” I trap his hand, weaving our fingers together. “Just grateful. Alive. With you.”

His eyes go black, familiar hunger surfacing. He draws our joined hands to his mouth, pressing kisses to my knuckles that feel more intimate than nakedness.

“Where to?” I ask as he navigates traffic. “My place?”

Something shifts, jaw hardening, mouth flattening into a harsh line. “No. Never again.”

The finality should anger me. This choice made without consultation, control seized over my existence. But after Pablo, after the lodge, after witnessing the monsters stalking Yakov’s world, I lack strength for this fight.

“Then where?”

“You’ll see.”

We drive in charged silence,his thumb burning circles on my skin that send electricity straight to my core. The city blurs past, but I’m drowning in him—the coiled tension radiating from his frame, control in every movement, the scorching glances he steals when he thinks I’m not watching.

When we hit the Upper East Side’s tree-lined perfection, I straighten. An apartment in this neighborhood costs more than I make in five years, even with Bratva blood money padding my accounts.

Yakov slides into an underground garage beneath gleaming steel and glass, nodding to security who wave us through without question. He parks near a private elevator, then stalks around to extract me from the leather seat.

“What is this?” I demand as the elevator rockets skyward, his arm branding my waist with possessive heat.

“Home,” he says, voice rough. “If you’ll have it.”

The doors part on polished hardwood and cream walls that scream money. Yakov steers me inside, his hand on my spine igniting nerve endings I’d forgotten existed.