Page 42 of Mafia King's Broken Vow

“How’s your sleep?” I ask, defaulting to structure.

“Better than yours, I’d wager.” He sits with that coiled ease he always has, eyes narrowing as they settle on me. “The Colombian matter is keeping you up.”

I don’t answer. He already knows.

“Your hands are unsteady. You flinch at sounds. And,” he pauses, almost amused, “you forgot your notebook.”

My gaze drops instinctively. Empty hands. I left it in the car.

“I—” I start, but he waves it off.

“There’s no need to pretend today.”

Thunder growls beyond the windows. I feel exposed. Stripped of my tools. My distance.

“What would you like to discuss?” I ask, trying to redirect.

He leans back slightly, head tilted. Calculating.

“Tell me something true, Mila.”

The sound of my name in his mouth lingers.

“Something true?”

“Something real. Not clinical. Not rehearsed. You’ve had access to pieces of me I never intended to give. It’s your turn.”

I should redirect. Reassert the boundaries that have been slipping one inch at a time since our first session. But instead of reaching for my script, I hear myself ask, “What would you like to know?”

“Why psychotherapy? Why choose to work with people like me?” His tone is almost casual, but the weight behind it is anything but. “And don’t say academic interest. We both know it’s deeper than that.”

The question lands exactly where he aims—beneath the surface. Right in the center of the thing I don’t talk about. Not even with myself.

I consider brushing it off, changing the subject, steering us back to safer terrain. But there’s something in the way he’s watching me. Less calculated. Less armored. More…curious.

“My mother,” I say eventually, my words unspooling slowly, thick with meaning. “She was a forensic psychologist. She worked with violent offenders, believed that understanding was the first step toward healing.”

He doesn’t interrupt. Just listens.

“She thought if we could get to the root of someone’s behavior, we could change the outcome. That even people who’d done terrible things weren’t beyond reach.”

“And you followed her path,” he says. Not a question. Just observation.

“Not quite,” I murmur, my gaze drifting to the rain tracing crooked paths down the window. It’s easier to talk without looking at him. “She worked in prisons. I chose private practice. I wanted more freedom. Fewer institutional walls between me and the people I am trying to reach.”

“Which led you to me.” His mouth twitches in something close to amusement. “To Bratva contracts and Mafia therapy.”

“That wasn’t the plan,” I admit. “It started with Katarina. We were childhood friends, long before Nikolai entered the picture. I knew her family had ties to the Bratva, even as a child.”

He nods, unsurprised. “I know. I did my research. Back when you were a potential threat.”

The admission should bother me. It doesn’t. Not really.

“My mother died last year,” I add quietly. “You know that already. Cancer. It was fast. She didn’t tell anyone until it was too late. I think…I think I take on these cases because I’m stilltrying to prove her right. That understanding leads somewhere. Even with men like you.”

The words hang there, too honest, too raw.

He doesn’t pounce. Doesn’t dissect. Instead, he watches me with something dangerously close to empathy.