Page 13 of Mafia King’s Broken Vow (New York Bratva #5)

MORE THAN THE PIECES

YAKOV

T he lock to the therapy room clicks. It’s standard procedure.

But something’s wrong.

“Extra security today?” I ask as the lead guard enters, flanked by two more bodies. Their hands hover near their sidearms, their tension humming like a low-frequency warning.

“Just orders,” he says. His eyes sweep the room like I’ve stashed a bomb under the couch cushions. “Dr. Agapova is running late. She’ll be here in fifteen.”

I nod, moving to the window.

The sky is pale and sharp this morning, the kind of cold light that doesn’t warm anything it touches. Below, three more guards circle the property in tighter loops. Their formation has changed. More eyes, fewer gaps.

It’s confirmation.

Something has shifted.

I think of Mila again. Her voice, tight with something she didn’t want to name. Her shoulders, curled in defensiveness as she tried to hide under professionalism. The car. The texts. The predator circling too close.

I tell myself it’s tactical awareness. She’s a resource. A key to survival. Valuable. Replaceable if necessary.

But that’s a lie.

When Mila enters, I’m still standing at the window, waiting for her.

“Good morning, Mr. Gagarin,” she says, her tone even. But not neutral.

I turn, and the lead guard nods at me, exiting and sealing the door shut.

She’s wearing a burgundy dress today. Not her usual armor. Her hair’s down, curling softly around her shoulders instead of pulled into that tight bun that screams don’t touch me .

My fingers itch to tangle in those curls, to mess up her composure the way she’s been messing with mine. The color makes her skin glow, makes me think of wine and heat and things I shouldn’t want from my therapist.

It looks good on her.

“Dr. Agapova,” I say smoothly. “You look well rested. I’m glad your Colombian admirer didn’t disrupt your sleep.”

She stills. Barely. But I see it.

“How did you?—”

“The guards. Your posture. You’ve checked your phone twice since walking in the door.” I move toward the chairs, circling slowly before I sit down. “You’re still off balance though. Not visibly. But I notice.”

She sits, tightly composed. “You’re observant.”

“I’m alive. It requires a certain skill set.”

She exhales softly, reaching for her notebook like it’s a shield. “Let’s shift focus. I thought we might talk about your father today. You mentioned last session that he believes in redemption. That you don’t.”

“He built his life on redemption,” I say. “Took a crumbling empire and made it gold-plated. He believes in second chances because he survived his first failure.”

“And you?”

“I believe some things are born broken. Others become broken along the way. Either way, they don’t go back to what they were.” I meet her eyes. “The trick is learning to live in fragments.”

She studies me. Not writing. Just absorbing.

“That’s a bleak philosophy.”

“It’s a true one.”

Her voice is quieter now. “Do you think you’ve lived long enough to know what’s still salvageable?”

I don’t answer that. Because I don’t know.

And because I’m afraid of what the answer might be.

There’s a flicker behind her eyes—recognition, maybe. A knowing that slips past her mask for half a second before it vanishes behind the page. She writes something down, but her thoughts are somewhere else.

“You’re distracted today,” I say, watching her too closely for her to hide it. “Still thinking about your Colombian problem?”

She raises her eyebrows. Silence.

“Did my text help?” I lean forward. “To make you feel safe?”

Color floods her cheeks. She presses her thighs together, subtle, but I catch it. “We agreed not to discuss?—”

“We’ve agreed to many things.” My gaze drops to her wrist, where I touched her days ago. “And yet…”

She blinks, sharp and fast. “This session is about you, not me.”

I smile, slow and knowing. “Is it? Or is it about what neither of us is willing to say aloud?”

Her pen stills. I see her pulse jump at her throat. Tiny tells. Tells she’s usually better at hiding.

My own pulse matches hers, hammering against my ribs. Heat pools in my groin, the same heat I’ve been fighting since she walked in wearing that dress. My skin feels too tight, every nerve ending aware of her proximity.

“What would that be?” she asks.

I stand. Movement helps. Sitting still with this much tension in the room feels like waiting for a match to drop into oil. I drift toward the window, back to the glass, watching her reflection in the pane.

“That you see me more clearly than you want to,” I say. “That beneath your professional posture, you’ve started to recognize the man beneath what everyone else calls a monster. And it scares you.”

Silence stretches, not heavy—sharp. Like the space between an inhale and a scream.

She shifts in her seat.

“Is that what you think I see?” Her voice has dropped a note. Lower. Quieter. “A monster?”

“It’s what they all see,” I murmur. “It’s what they’re supposed to see.”

“And what am I supposed to see, Yakov?”

My name in her mouth. It hits hard. My cock hardens at the sound. I turn. She’s standing now, closer than I realized. The air between us feels charged, waiting for someone to breathe too loud and break the moment.

Sweat pricks along my spine despite the room’s coolness. The ache of wanting her is becoming a physical pain.

“Whatever serves my purpose,” I say. Truth, plain and unpolished.

“And what is your purpose with me?” Her voice isn’t clinical. Not entirely. There’s something threaded through it—curiosity, caution, maybe something warmer.

The question lands. I should lie. I’ve done it before. But she’s looking at me like she already knows the answer and just wants to hear me say it out loud.

“I don’t know anymore,” I admit.

She smiles, just a little. “I’ve complicated things?”

“You have,” I say, stepping into the truth now. “Every time you listen like you actually care. Every time you give me something back. Every time you look at me and see me —not the animal the rest of the world created.”

She takes a step forward, subtle, but the scent of her hits me—vanilla and amber, expensive and understated. Like her.

“And how am I looking at you now?” she asks, almost too soft to catch.

I study her, every detail, every shift of breath, every inch of restraint she’s gripping like a lifeline.

“Like you’re scared of what you feel,” I say. “And not scared enough.”

Her lips part. I watch her tongue dart out to wet them—nervous habit or invitation, I don’t care which. My hands clench to keep from reaching for her.

“Maybe I should be more scared,” she whispers.

“Maybe.” I step closer, close enough to feel her breath on my skin. “Or maybe you should stop pretending you don’t want this as much as I do.”

Her pupils blow wide. I can see her pulse hammering at the base of her throat. One move—one touch—and we’d both be lost.

My hands shake with the effort of not reaching for her. The space between us feels like miles and millimeters at once. I can see her nipples peaked beneath the burgundy silk, know she’s as turned on as I am, and it’s killing me that I can’t—won’t—shouldn’t touch.

“We should sit,” she manages, but neither of us moves.

“Should we?” My voice is gravel.

She exhales, quiet but audible. And in that breath, everything sharpens. The room, the distance between us, the line we’re toeing. I think, just for a breath, she might cross it. Might come closer.

But she doesn’t.

She steps back.

Puts the mask back on with more elegance than most people put on coats.

“I think we should discuss your nephew,” she says. Her voice is steady again, but her hands are too still.

I let the subject pivot, grateful and resentful at the same time.

“Damien’s better off without me in his life,” I say, moving back to my chair. “Whatever I was to Ana, I’ll never be that for him. Igor…he’s not who I thought he was. He’s a better father than I ever expected.”

She sits too, the distance reinstated like a ceasefire line.

“That’s…a shift. Last time we discussed Igor, your view was less generous.”

I shrug. “Perspectives change. Even mine.”

“What caused it?”

“Seeing Damien smile. Watching him safe. Knowing that someone is doing what I swore I would. That matters more than my vendetta.”

She notes it down this time. No hesitation. No shaking hand.

“That sounds a lot like growth, Yakov.”

“Or strategy,” I say, offering her a crooked half smile. “You’re the one who said I adapt.”

She sees through the deflection, and I know it.

“Tell me about the visit with him,” she says, tone soft.

The memory is fresh. Not one I need to dig for.

Damien sitting at the table across from me, unpacking the marble chess set like it was something sacred.

The careful placement of each piece. The quiet confidence in his movements.

The way he sat there—composed, methodical—like he already knew how to command a room.

He reminded me of Ana so sharply I had to look away more than once.

“We played chess,” I say. “He set up the board without needing instruction. Took his time. Didn’t speak unless he had something worth saying.”

“You were impressed,” Mila says.

“I was…unprepared,” I admit. “For how much of her I saw in him.”

“Her mind?” she asks.

“Her mind. Her quiet. Her precision. He sees the game, not just the pieces. And he smiles the way she used to when she was about to win.”

Mila doesn’t write. She just listens.

“I watched him move a pawn like it mattered more than the outcome. Like the act of doing it was the whole point. Ana used to say chess was about intention, not domination.”

A pause.

“She sounds like she was wise.”

“She was sharp,” I correct. “And intuitive. And completely impossible. And I failed her.”

Her head tilts, just slightly. “Because you didn’t stop her from loving Igor?”

I don’t answer immediately. That would be too easy.

“She came to me for advice,” I say at last. “And I missed it. I thought she was being vague to protect someone’s secrets. I didn’t know the secret was hers.”

“And now you carry the aftermath,” Mila says gently.

“I carry the blood,” I say flatly. “And the silence. I was supposed to keep her safe.”

She leans forward. “You think if you had seen her more clearly, she’d still be alive?”

“She was always the one who saw me,” I say. “She understood things no one else could. And I didn’t give her the same in return.”

There’s a quiet between us, not clinical, not strategic. Just…human.

“You’re not the only one carrying that kind of guilt,” Mila says, pauses, then continues. “I didn’t notice when my mother’s health started failing. I dismissed her fatigue, her shortness of breath. I was too busy diagnosing everyone else to see the one person I should’ve known best.”

The confession sits between us, raw and exposed.

We are two people shaped by the same wound.

“Maybe that’s why I keep coming back to you,” I say. “You don’t pretend it doesn’t hurt.”

She blinks once but doesn’t look away. “And maybe that’s why you keep fighting me.”

“Because it does,” I finish.

Her voice softens. “And maybe because you want it to stop.”

The session timer goes off, shrill and sudden. We both jolt.

“Time’s up,” she says, but makes no move to leave. We’re still too close, the air between us electric.

“Mila.” Her name comes out like gravel. “This thing between us?—”

“Can’t happen.” But she’s swaying toward me even as she says it.

“It’s already happening.” I reach out, let my fingers ghost over her wrist—barely a touch, but she shivers. The same spot I gripped before. The same place that made her gasp. She remembers, I see it in the way her breath catches, the way her eyes flutter closed for just a second.

“Still feel it?” I murmur. “I do. Still feel your pulse under my fingers. Still remember how you leaned into it before pulling away.”

A beat.

“You feel it every time you walk in here. Every time you leave. Every time you lie awake thinking about?—”

“Stop.” She pulls back, but her eyes are dark with want. “I’ll see you Monday.”

She’s at the door when I speak again. “Mila?” She turns at the sound of my voice. “Wear burgundy again.”

She pauses, hand on the doorknob. “Why?”

“Because I’m going to spend the weekend imagining taking it off you.”

The door slams behind her.

But I saw the way her hands shook. The way her breath hitched.

I move to the window, watching her cross the grounds below. She looks back, once, then steps into her car.

My phone buzzes. Her number—the new one she thinks I don’t have.

Mila: Don’t

One word. But I know what she means. Don’t text. Don’t push. Don’t make this harder.

I type back:

Me: Too late

Monday. Three days. Seventy-two hours of her fighting this pull.

She’ll lose. We both will.

And I can’t fucking wait.