Page 10 of Mafia King’s Broken Vow (New York Bratva #5)

OBSERVED BEHAVIOR

MILA

T he message still sits on my phone like a smudge I can’t wipe clean.

Unknown: Beautiful dreams, Dr. Agapova. Thank you for your time today.

I study the message again. The timing—sent at 11:47 p.m., just before midnight.

Yakov’s sessions end at noon; this came nearly twelve hours later.

And the tone… Yakov calls me Mila when he wants to unsettle me, Doctor when he’s making a point.

He’s never called me Dr. Agapova in a moment of intimacy.

But Pablo had. Lifting my hand to his lips. “Until next time, Dr. Agapova.”

My stomach turns. It’s him.

Pablo Montoya. A patient. A man who should never have access to my personal number. And yet, here we are.

I stare at the text, thumb hovering over the screen, debating whether to delete it or preserve it. Evidence or overreaction? The line between the two has started to blur.

I cross to the window and part the curtain just enough to peer out. The street is quiet. Empty. Almost. A dark sedan idles across from my building, headlights dim. As I watch, they flash once—deliberate, like punctuation—then the car eases into motion and disappears around the corner.

My pulse hammers against my throat. My hands are slick with sweat as I let the curtain fall back. I wipe them on my slacks, but the tremor remains, a fine vibration I can’t control.

This isn’t just a breach of boundaries.

It’s a message.

I’ve worked with cartel sons and Bratva lieutenants. Sat across from men who’ve killed with their bare hands. I’ve held my ground against trauma and rage and despair so deep it barely resembled human emotion anymore.

So why does this— he —shake me?

Because Pablo isn’t unstable. He’s composed. Polished. Calculated.

And that makes him dangerous.

But it isn’t just Pablo. It’s the aftermath of my last session with Yakov.

The echo of his voice, the way he leaned in like he could see through me.

My jaw tingles where his fingers traced my skin.

Even now, hours later, I can feel the ghost of his touch.

My body remembers what my mind is trying to forget—how I leaned into him, how I let him see me drowning, how badly I wanted him to pull me under. That one word: vulnerability.

I let him see something.

That was the mistake.

And tomorrow…God, tomorrow I have to face him again. Eleven o’clock. The thought makes my stomach flip in a way that has nothing to do with fear.

I head to the kitchen, checking the door lock on the way.

Locked. Of course it is. I check it again anyway, tugging the handle twice before continuing.

My fingers fumble with the kettle, nearly dropping it.

Water sloshes over the edge as I fill it.

The familiar hum of the heating element is usually grounding. Tonight, it doesn’t reach far enough.

In the window’s reflection, I catch a glimpse of myself.

I look…thinned out. Pale. Like a version of myself drained through filters I didn’t agree to. Hair pulled back, eyes hollow from nights spent reading files and replaying conversations. The same posture I’ve seen in my most frayed patients.

You study broken men to feel powerful. Or maybe just to forget the broken parts of yourself.

I whisper Yakov’s words aloud before I can stop them.

The kettle clicks off. I pour water over chamomile and watch it steep, pale gold swirling into heat.

He wasn’t wrong. That’s what makes it unbearable. He didn’t just find the fracture line. He pressed it, gently and precisely, like a man who knows exactly how to cause pain without leaving a bruise.

I carry the tea to the living room, Yakov’s file already open on the coffee table.

His face stares up at me—still, controlled, that impossible cool carved into every angle. A face that haunts me. Those hands that touched me with such careful control. The mouth that said my name like a caress and a threat. Eyes that missed nothing.

Tomorrow those eyes will be on me again. Dissecting. Knowing. The photo can’t capture the way he looks at me, like I’m a puzzle he’s one move away from solving. Like he already knows the answer and is just waiting for me to catch up.

My thighs clench involuntarily. Eleven o’clock tomorrow. Less than twelve hours.

I trace his features with my finger before catching myself. This is exactly what I can’t do. Can’t want. Can’t feel.

What did he see when he looked at me?

A therapist to outmaneuver? A weakness to exploit?

Or worse—someone who might understand him?

My phone buzzes again.

Unknown: Sweet dreams, beautiful Mila. Until tomorrow.

The cup slips from my trembling fingers, hot tea splashing across the table.

“Shit.” I grab a towel, but my hands won’t stop shaking. My chest feels too tight, like someone’s sitting on it. I force myself to breathe—in through the nose, out through the mouth—but it comes in short, sharp gasps.

This time, the message hits different.

Not just creepy. Threatening.

I don’t respond. I won’t. But I make a mental note; first thing tomorrow, the number changes. And I’ll put in a call to someone in Nikolai’s circle. Someone who can find out exactly who Pablo Montoya is beneath the designer suits and charming smiles.

Because he’s not just a patient.

And therapy isn’t what he came for.

Where Pablo’s interest feels invasive, possessive— predatory —Yakov’s is what I really want. Calculated. Curious. Dangerous, yes. But not in the same way.

Yakov is a challenge.

Pablo is a threat.

I should refer them both out. Wash my hands of the ethical tangle entirely.

But Yakov’s not a name I can erase from a file and walk away from. The Bratva wouldn’t allow it. And Pablo…Pablo is no longer just a patient.

I laugh once, dry and hollow.

Ethics and the Bratva. A contradiction in terms.

Somewhere, my professors would be spinning in their graves, and the ones still living would be composing furious journal articles.

And yet, here I sit. Chamomile cooling in my hand. Surveillance photo on my lap. Two men on my mind.

One inside the cage.

The other at my door.

I set the tea aside and reach for my journal. The one with the stiff leather cover and sharp-lined pages, where every entry is an attempt at order. I flip to a blank spread and begin with Pablo.

It’s easier that way.

Clinical facts, bullet points, the shape of something I can control.

I document his charm, his boundary testing, the way his eyes search for something he has no right to see.

The text messages. The surveillance car.

The implications beneath his words. And the violation that comes with him knowing things he shouldn’t.

This isn’t therapy.

It’s reconnaissance.

I finish the entry and turn to a new page, pausing at the top. Yakov.

My pen hovers.

What do I write about a man who deconstructs me in real time? Who sees the space between my armor and steps into it like it’s his own?

I force myself to focus on the clinical: his resistance tactics, the intentional silences, the verbal bait he offers to test my reactions. The way he frames truth as manipulation and vulnerability as strategy. I note his triggers—Anastasiya, Damien, the Bratva betrayal. I list them like symptoms.

But I don’t write about the moment he leaned in, eyes dark and unflinching, and asked if I feared being seen.

I don’t write about the shiver that skittered down my spine, not from fear, but recognition. I don’t write about how I’ve replayed that moment a dozen times. How I’ve imagined what would have happened if I hadn’t pulled back.

Tomorrow’s session plan: keep maximum distance. No personal revelations. Redirect any attempts at?—

My pen stalls. At what? Intimacy? Connection?

At touching me again?

My skin heats at the memory. Will he try? Of course he will. The question is whether I’ll be strong enough to stop him. Whether I’ll want to.

I close the journal and stand too quickly. Black spots dance at the edges of my vision.

Front door. I cross to it, turn the deadbolt. Already locked. Turn it open. Lock it again. Check the chain. Unlatch it. Re-latch it.

The window next. Are the curtains fully closed? I tug at the edges, making sure no gap remains. No space for eyes. Move to the next window. Then the next. My breathing echoes too loud in the quiet apartment.

Kitchen door to the fire escape. Locked. I rattle it to be sure. Then check the wooden rod I’ve wedged in the track. Back to the front door. Still locked. Of course it is. I just checked it.

When did I become this person? This rabbit checking all the holes in her warren?

All rituals of safety, but none of them settle the unease curling through me.

Tomorrow, I’ll fix this.

A new phone. A new number. A security review, private and separate from Bratva channels. Pablo Montoya will be cut off—professionally, ethically, completely. And Nikolai will be informed. If there’s even a whisper of Colombian cartel involvement, he’ll know what to do.

As for Yakov…

I press a hand to my sternum, right where the flutter hits when I think of his voice saying my name, of how closely he watches me.

With Yakov, I rebuild the walls.

No more openings. No more proximity. No more staring down danger like it’s something I can solve.

I curl up on the sofa, unable to face the bedroom. There’s too much space in there. Too much quiet. My mind spins with worst-case scenarios, veering from Pablo’s car outside my building to Yakov pacing in his mansion, planning his next psychological move.

I wonder if he’s as restless as I am. If he’s dissecting my reactions the way I do his. If he’s pacing his cage, body taut with the same need that has me pressing my thighs together. If he’s hard thinking about me the way I’m wet thinking about him.

The thought should horrify me. Instead, it sends heat pooling low in my belly.

Tomorrow. The word pulses through me like a heartbeat. I’ll walk into that room. He’ll be waiting, probably by the window, backlit like some dark angel. He’ll turn slowly, eyes finding mine, and say my name in that voice that undoes me.

Mila.

Just thinking it makes me unravel.

Loneliness presses into the cracks.

It’s been there since my mother died. Since I traded grief for long hours, late sessions, and silence. I buried it under career advancement and purpose. But Yakov’s words dug it up like it was never really gone.

You study broken men to forget the broken parts of yourself.

The truth of it tastes bitter.

Sleep tugs at me despite the ache in my chest. Despite the fact that I don’t feel safe, not truly. The chamomile drags me under anyway, soft and slow and unwelcome. My last thought before slipping into dreams is of Yakov. Not the monster. Not the patient.

The man.

Waiting.

Watching.

And somewhere in the back of my mind, a voice I haven’t heard in months whispers, “Sometimes the ones who seem beyond saving are the ones most worth the risk.”

I wake to sunlight streaming through the curtains. My body is stiff. My neck aches. Three missed calls blink across my screen—unknown numbers. And a fourth message waits.

Unknown: Missing our session today? I was so looking forward to seeing you.

No name. No signature. No doubt.

Pablo.

He knows my schedule.

A fresh wave of cold moves through me. I stand fast, ignoring the twist in my stomach, and head to the kitchen. Coffee. Armor. Action.

I pour the water, grind the beans, and make the call.

Nikolai picks up on the second ring. “Mila.”

His voice is calm. Bratva calm. Formal and precise.

“We need to talk,” I say. “Now. It’s about a patient. And a possible Colombian connection I didn’t see coming.”

A pause.

“I’ll be there in twenty.”

I hang up and go to the shower, already cataloging what I can disclose and what I’ll need to withhold. Ethics still matter. But so does survival.

One thing is certain: Pablo Montoya is no longer my patient.

And Yakov…

My pulse quickens. Today. Today, I see him. The shower suddenly seems too hot, or maybe that’s just my skin, flushed with anticipation I refuse to name. I have three hours to rebuild my defenses. Three hours to remember I’m his therapist, not his?—

Not his what?

I turn the water to cold, gasping at the shock. But even icy water can’t wash away the heat that coils low in my belly when I think about walking into that room. About what he might do. What he might say.

What I might let him do.

The thought of him sparks anticipation in my chest. Dread. Interest. It’s not clinical. It’s not clean.

But it is mine to manage.

And today, I reclaim control.

Today, I stop being the woman who let her armor crack beneath a predator’s gaze.

Today, I remember who I am.

Dr. Mila Agapova.

In three hours, I’ll be in that room with him. And despite everything—Pablo’s threats, my compromised ethics, the danger Yakov represents—my treacherous heart beats faster at the thought.

But I do not bend.

Even if my body remembers the shape of his hands. Even if I dreamed of drowning in him instead of hospital rooms. Even if I’m lying to myself with every word.