Page 21 of Mafia King’s Broken Vow (New York Bratva #5)

TRIGGER POINT

YAKOV

I know it’s her before I cross the room. The way the silence gathers, expectant. The faint scent of amber drifting through the crack under the door.

She shouldn’t be here. The lockdown protocols are explicit. But as I twist the lock I rewired weeks ago, I realize I’ve been waiting for her to break the rules.

She stands in the hallway in silk pajama pants and a fitted shirt, hair loose around her shoulders. But it’s her eyes that stop me—wide, restless, holding something I haven’t seen before.

Not just desire. Decision.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I say, even as I step aside.

But I want her here. Have wanted it since the moment Igor sealed us into separate rooms like caged animals. The way she moves past me, close enough that her shoulder brushes my chest, tells me she knows exactly what she’s doing. This isn’t impulse. She’s considered this carefully.

“I know,” she murmurs, slipping past me. Her scent lingers, teasing my restraint.

I close the door. Lock it again. “The guards?”

“North corridor. I watched them rotate, right on schedule.” She doesn’t look at me when she continues. “Sixty seconds in the blind spot between camera sweeps. Just long enough, if someone had hypothetically disabled the electronic lock from the inside.”

I study her profile as she speaks. The careful way she doesn’t meet my eyes, the slight tremor in her hands she thinks I haven’t noticed. She’s nervous, but she’s here anyway. Calculated risk. Deliberate choice.

“You’ve been planning this,” I observe.

She finally looks at me, chin lifted in defiance. “Yes. Since I realized I was tired of letting other people decide what’s safe for me.”

Interesting. Dr. Agapova, the woman who follows protocols and maintains professional boundaries, just broke approximately six security measures to get into my room. Either she’s having a breakdown, or she’s finally giving in to what’s been building between us.

I’m betting on the latter.

A flicker cuts through the tension—wry, reckless, familiar.

I almost smile. “And if they’d caught you?”

“I had a backup story,” she says, wrapping her arms around herself. “Igor mentioned your psychological state. I would’ve said he sent me to evaluate it.”

I raise a brow. “So you’d lie.”

She exhales. “I planned to.”

I study her, the tight set of her shoulders, the quiet tremor she’s trying to hide.

“You didn’t come because of the threat.”

She shakes her head, stepping past me into the room. “I came because of what you told me today. About Anastasiya. About why you protect Damien.” She turns to face me, vulnerable but steady.

“Mila—”

“I kept thinking about what you said. That you’re afraid of failing again. Of watching someone else die.” Her voice drops. “And I realized something.”

“What?”

“I’m tired of being afraid too.”

She moves to the window, wrapping her arms around herself. “After today, after what you shared with me, I couldn’t stop thinking.”

“About?”

“About how you see yourself. As someone who fails to protect the people he loves.” She turns back to me, eyes bright with unshed tears. “But you saved Damien. You’re still saving him. And today, when Igor wanted to put me somewhere else, you made sure I was close. So you could keep me safe.”

I don’t answer. The way she’s looking at me undoes me.

“You don’t need a therapist anymore,” she says quietly. “You need to start seeing yourself the way I do.”

“And how do you see me?”

“As someone worth trusting. Worth wanting.” She takes a step toward me. “Worth choosing.”

The words hit like a physical blow. In all my calculations, all my strategies for getting close to her, I never considered this: that she might choose me, not despite who I am, but because of it.

“You should go back to your room,” I say, but there’s no conviction in it.

“Should I?” She takes another step until there’s barely a breath between us. “Or should I stay and let you show me how much you want me?”

I don’t answer immediately. Instead, I let the silence stretch, watching her face in the dim light filtering through the windows. She holds my gaze without flinching—no small feat, considering I’ve spent the better part of a month systematically dismantling her defenses.

“You think you know what you’re asking for,” I say finally, moving closer. Close enough that she has to tilt her head back to maintain eye contact. Close enough that she can feel the heat radiating from my body.

“Don’t I?”

“You’re asking a killer to stop pretending he’s harmless.” I reach up, fingers barely grazing her cheek. “You’re asking me to show you what I look like when I stop holding back.”

Her breath catches, but she doesn’t pull away. “Yes.”

“And after? When you realize that I’m not the broken man you’ve been trying to heal, but the monster who was never really tamed?” My thumb traces the line of her jaw. “What then, Dr. Agapova?”

“Then we’ll figure it out.” Her voice is steady, but I can feel her pulse racing beneath my touch. “Together.”

The word lands like a promise I don’t deserve but desperately want to believe.

The way she says it—soft but certain, like she’s made peace with allowing danger—shifts the stakes in the room. Because she’s offering herself to me.

And every instinct I possess recognizes it for what it is: surrender disguised as choice.

I nod once. “Then stay.”

Her hand lifts and her fingers curl into my shirt, gripping the fabric like she can’t decide if she’s anchoring herself, or pulling me under.

“Yakov,” she whispers, her voice in shreds.

I should let her go. But when she looks at me like that—like I’m a man worth saving—every rational thought crumbles.

“This will change things,” I warn, rough with want.

“I know.” She reaches up, fingers grazing my jaw. “I’m counting on it.”

The touch breaks my last thread of control. I catch her hand, pressing it flat against my cheek, letting her feel the way my breath hitches at her contact.

“Ask for it,” I demand, needing to hear the words. Needing to know this isn’t therapy or sympathy or some misguided attempt to save my soul. “Tell me exactly what you want.”

“You.” The answer comes without hesitation, clear and unflinching.

“I want you, Yakov. Not the patient I’ve been assigned to heal.

Not the broken man hiding behind psychological warfare.

I want you, the one who delivered his nephew with bloody hands.

The one who spent years planning revenge and then chose mercy instead.

The one who made sure I was safe today even though it meant revealing his hand.

“I want the man who’s been hunting me since the day we met, who made me feel alive in ways I didn’t know were possible.” Her fingers find the front of my shirt, fisting in the fabric. “I want you to finally take what you want.”

The honesty in her voice—raw, unfiltered, unafraid—destroys the last of my restraint.

She wants me.

Not because I’ve manipulated her into it. Not because she pities the broken man I’ve shown her. But because somewhere in all my calculated moves and careful revelations, she’s seen the truth—that beneath the monster is a man who would burn the world down to keep her safe.

“Mila,” I whisper her name like a prayer, like absolution I don’t deserve but desperately want.

“Show me,” she breathes against my lips. “Show me what it feels like when you stop holding back.”

I cup her face in my hands, thumbs tracing the delicate lines of her cheekbones. She’s so soft, so warm, so impossibly alive beneath my touch.

“You’re sure?” I ask, though we’re past the point of return and have been since the moment she knocked on my door.

Instead of answering with words, she nods.

And I’m lost.