Page 15 of Mafia King’s Broken Vow (New York Bratva #5)

IN THE SPACE BETWEEN

YAKOV

T hey don’t realize I’m listening to every word they say.

Two guards, whispering just outside my door, trying to keep their voices low, but not low enough.

“Storm’s too rough. Roads are a mess,” one says.

“That’s what they’re saying,” the other replies with a dry chuckle. “Sokolov didn’t want her driving back with that Colombian still sniffing around.”

Rage floods my system, hot and violent. That bastard is still lurking around her. If I wasn’t locked in this cage, I’d have already carved his heart out for daring to threaten her.

My body stills. My mind doesn’t. It moves fast—cataloging, deducing, reorienting around this new variable. Mila is here. Under the same roof. Not in the safety of her apartment or the structure of our scheduled sessions. She’s somewhere in this house, unguarded. Mine for the taking.

I lie on my bed, unmoving, eyes open, watching shadows shift across the ceiling. But it’s not the weather keeping me awake.

It’s her.

The memory of her voice, quiet but certain. The way her fingers felt against mine, brief but irrevocable. The look in her eyes when I told her she should fear me, and she didn’t.

That moment cracked something open. I haven’t been able to close it since.

Three hours pass. Restless. Pointless.

Then I move.

Lying still makes me vulnerable. Imagining is worse. Better to know . Better to see the terrain for myself.

The lock isn’t a joke.

It’s Bratva-grade—complex, redundant, rigged to flag tampering and freeze access. Designed by men who’ve contained monsters before.

But none like me.

I’ve studied its rhythm for weeks. Counted the delay between the green light and the magnetic release. Watched how the night shift gets lazy, trusting steel and code to do their job.

They shouldn’t.

A sliver of tempered metal from the back of a picture frame, shaped by hand. Pressure applied just right.

Seventy-four seconds later, the door clicks open.

Not because the lock is weak.

Because I’m better.

The lights are dim. Cameras sweep in predictable arcs. I know the pattern. I know the blind spots. I slide past them like shadow.

Logic says she’ll be in the east wing. Guest rooms.

But instinct pulls me elsewhere. Toward the light.

I spot a faint glow through the kitchen door. Quiet movement. The scrape of a spoon against ceramic. A figure moving in low light, hair falling in dark waves down her back.

She’s barefoot, wearing silk that clings to her curves in the humid air. No bra; I can see her nipples through the thin fabric. My cock hardens painfully, and I have to grip the doorframe to keep from crossing the room and taking what I’ve been craving.

“Couldn’t sleep either?”

She startles. Just a breath. Then she turns.

Not afraid.

Not yet.

“You shouldn’t be out of your room,” she says. But her voice doesn’t rise. Her hand doesn’t reach for the panic button. She just watches me, assessing.

“And you shouldn’t be here alone,” I counter, stepping fully into the kitchen. “Yet here we are.”

Lightning hits the sky, turning her face to stark lines and shadows for a single beat. When it fades, something lingers, something like relief. Like my presence confirms a theory she hadn’t admitted to herself.

“Tea?” she offers, as if this is routine. As if we aren’t standing on the edge of an abyss.

I nod, moving closer.

“Why didn’t you go home, Mila?”

She doesn’t pretend the question is about the storm.

“My apartment was broken into,” she says, quiet but composed. “During our session. Nothing stolen. Just…touched. Enough to make a point.”

“The Colombian,” I say, though we both already know. My hands clench into fists. “Did he touch anything personal? Your bedroom?”

She shakes her head, but I see the tremor in her hands. “We don’t know it was him. Igor is having his men investigate. Someone just…moved things.”

“I’ll kill him.” The words escape before I can stop them. “Slowly.”

Her eyes widen. “Yakov?—”

“No one threatens you.”

She pours another cup, her hand steady until it isn’t. “They insisted I stay here until it’s handled. They brought me some clothes and personal items.”

I take the mug she offers, careful not to touch her fingers. Not yet.

But I’m close enough to feel her body heat, to see the pulse fluttering at her throat. Her pupils are blown wide, and I know she’s as affected as I am. The air between us crackles with everything we’re not saying, everything we’re barely holding back.

“Smart call,” I say, voice low. “Men like Montoya don’t go away. They escalate.”

She nods, and for a moment, we just stand there in the storm-lit hush of the kitchen, tea cooling between our palms, both of us waiting for something neither of us wants to admit we’re hoping for.

“That’s what Nikolai said,” she murmurs, watching me over the rim of her mug like she’s trying to read between the lines of a report she didn’t write. “How did you get out of your room?”

I lean back against the opposite counter, calculated distance, deliberate calm. “Does it matter?”

“It does if I’m the one meant to call the guards.”

“But you haven’t.” I tilt my head, watching her carefully. “Why is that, Mila?”

The silence stretches between us. Not cold. Not awkward. Just tight with meaning.

Thunder cracks, close enough to rattle the windows. The lights dim for a breath, then return. She doesn’t look away.

“Maybe I don’t see you the way they do,” she says.

Abandoning pretense, I move closer, setting my tea aside untouched. One step. Then another. She doesn’t retreat. I watch her chest rise with each breath, slow but deep, like she’s steadying herself for impact.

“You should,” I say. “I’ve orchestrated kidnappings. I’ve ended lives for less than what you’ve dared to ask me in a session.”

Her voice doesn’t waver. “I know you won’t hurt me.”

I stop just short of touching her, my hands braced on either side of the counter behind her, trapping her without contact.

“You see too much,” I say, eyes locked on hers.

She exhales slowly, eyes scanning mine like she’s searching for the moment I might flinch. I don’t.

“I see a man trying to hold himself together with anger and control because grief broke him,” she says. “And I see that he’s tired of it.”

No one’s said that to me before. Not in that way. Not like they mean it.

“This is reckless,” I murmur, even as I lean in. Her scent—vanilla and rain and the impossible calm she somehow carries—pulls me tighter into the moment.

“Yes.” Her voice falters just slightly, just enough. “Ethically, professionally…”

“Will that stop you?” I’m closer now. Breath to breath.

She’s silent. Her eyes flicker to my mouth, then back. That hesitation—raw, real—is louder than any confession.

“No.” She shakes her head, voice like a thread pulled tight. “Even though I’m afraid you’re playing me. That I’m just part of your game.”

“And if it’s true?”

“Then you’ve already lost,” she whispers. “Because connection isn’t something you fake and win. It’s something you either feel…or you don’t.”

The air frays between us.

And then I snap.

My mouth crashes down on hers, not gentle, not questioning. She opens for me eagerly, and I almost lose it right then and there. Her mug hits the floor, shattering, but neither of us cares. She gasps against my lips, and I swallow the sound, pressing her back against the counter.

“Yakov—” she breathes, but I cut her off with another bruising kiss, deeper this time. My tongue slides against hers, and she moans, her hands fisting in my shirt.

I lift her onto the counter, stepping between her thighs. She’s wet—I can feel the heat of her through the silk—and it takes every ounce of my control not to tear the fabric away.

“We can’t,” she gasps, even as she arches against me.

“I know.” But my hands are already sliding up her thighs. “Tell me to stop, little doctor.”

“I—” Lightning flashes, illuminating her face—lips swollen, eyes wild. “I don’t want you to stop.”

Footsteps in the hallway. Guards doing rounds.

We freeze, her legs still clinching my waist. My hand inches from where she’s burning for me.

“Fuck.” With a growl of pure frustration, I tear myself away. My cock throbs. My hands shake. She looks wrecked—hair messed, lips swollen, silk rucked up around her hips.

“Fix your clothes,” I growl, turning away before I lose the last thread of control. “They can’t find us like this.”

I hear her slide off the counter. When I turn back, she’s composed again. Except for her eyes. They’re dark with want.

“We should be careful,” I say, voice low, hands steady even when nothing else is. “They’ll check the cameras.”

She blinks and nods, the flush in her cheeks slowly fading as composure claws its way back into place. “You’re right. This is?—”

“Complicated,” I finish, tone clipped. “And dangerous. For both of us.”

Another step back. Distance reestablished. My body resists it, the muscle memory of her so close still buzzing on my skin. I want…too much. I want her pressed against me. I want her beneath me. I want to hear what she sounds like when she comes wrapped around me.

I want.

And that’s the problem.

“Go back to your room, Dr. Agapova.” The cold edge in my voice is deliberate. Armor. “Lock your door.”

Her eyes narrow, sharp despite the softness still clinging to her lips. “Is that what you want?”

Want is weakness. Wanting her— needing her—is something I cannot afford.

“What I want doesn’t matter,” I say, forcing steel into every word. “What matters is focus. Survival.”

She flinches, barely. Just a flicker in her gaze. “So I’m a distraction.”

“No,” I say. Quiet. Honest. “You’re more.”

I turn before I can betray myself further, every step toward the door a test of restraint. But just before I cross the threshold, her voice stops me.

“Yakov.”

I pause, back to her, every muscle taut.

“Sometimes the endgame changes,” she says softly. “Sometimes we find something worth more than winning.”

I don’t respond, but her words follow me down the hall, sinking deeper with every step. I slip past the guards, re-engage the lock on my door, and sit in the dark like a man who’s just come back from the edge of ruin.

Worth more than winning.

More than vengeance.

A dangerous thought.

I lie down, staring up at the ceiling as rain patters against the windows. And I wonder, if what I felt in that kitchen was real…or just another crack in the armor I thought would not fail.

I close my eyes, but all I see is her. All I feel is the warmth of her hand in mine. All I hear is her voice wrapped around my name like it belongs to someone who could still be saved.

And for the first time in years, I wonder if that man is still somewhere inside me, buried beneath the blood, the grief, the fury.

The man I used to be.

My phone buzzes.

Her number.

Mila: I can still taste you

I groan, pressing my palm against my aching cock and type back.

Me: Go to bed little doctor

Mila: Can’t sleep

Mila: Too wet

Mila: Too empty

Fuck. She’s going to kill me.

Me: Touch yourself

Me: Pretend it’s me

Three dots appear. Disappear.

Mila: Already am

I come in my hand like a teenager, her name on my lips.