Page 39 of Mafia King’s Broken Vow (New York Bratva #5)
THE CHOICE
MILA
T he café buzzes with midmorning activity, a perfect curtain of white noise to mask our conversation.
I trace the rim of my cappuccino, watching the foam dissolve as I struggle to find the right words.
There are things I should be discussing with the woman across the table, topics we need to address.
Katarina waits with the patience she’s perfected through years of our friendship, her expression open but carefully neutral.
When I texted her yesterday, asking if we could talk, her immediate reply was, “Of course. Where do we meet?”
“You’re stalling,” she finally says, pushing a plate of untouched pastries toward me. “Whatever it is, Mila, just say it. I’ve known you since we were fighting over toys in my parents’ living room. There’s nothing you can’t tell me.”
If only that were true. I take a deep breath, centering myself as I used to advise my patients to do before making difficult disclosures.
“I’ve crossed a line, Kata,” I say quietly. “And I don’t think there’s any going back.”
Recognition dawns immediately; Katarina’s always been quick. “Yakov Gagarin,” she says simply.
I nod, relief and anxiety warring within me at having the truth acknowledged.
“It started as therapy, real therapy,” I explain, needing her to see. “I kept distance. But then…”
“Then what?” she prompts gently when I falter.
“Then he saw me.” The simplicity of this truth catches in my throat. “Not just the therapist, not just the Bratva connection. Me. The parts I hide from everyone. The pieces I’ve learned to disguise under clinical competence.”
Katarina reaches across the table, her fingers warm against mine. “And that frightened you?”
“What frightens me is how much it didn’t frighten me,” I admit. “How natural it felt to be understood by someone who should be terrifying.”
“Because of what he’s done.” Again, not a question.
“Yes. No.” I withdraw my hand to push strands of hair behind my ear, an old nervous habit. “What he’s done should make him a monster in my eyes. I know his crimes, Kata. I know exactly what he’s capable of. But when I’m with him…”
“You feel safe,” she finishes for me.
Her insight startles a nervous laugh from me. “How is that possible? He orchestrated kidnappings, Kata. He nearly tore your family apart. He?—”
“He’s a man shaped by loss and driven by loyalty,” she interrupts. “A man who protected his nephew at any cost. A man capable of transformation.”
I stare at her, bewildered by her unexpected understanding. “You don’t hate me for this?”
Her expression softens. “Mila, do you remember how Nikolai and I began? He literally kidnapped me. Held me captive in a secret room in his house. Threatened everything I cared about.”
“That was different,” I protest weakly.
“Was it?” She raises a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “Or are you holding yourself to an impossible standard because you’re trained to maintain boundaries?”
The question strikes deep. My ethics have always defined me. Violating them feels like losing myself.
“I’m his therapist, Kata.”
“Former therapist,” she corrects. “You transferred his case. Officially.”
“But unofficially?—”
“Unofficially, you’re a woman who’s found a connection with a complicated man.” She studies me for a moment. “What disturbs you more, your feelings for Yakov or how he makes you feel about yourself?”
The question lands like a perfectly aimed blow, targeting vulnerabilities I’ve carefully avoided examining.
“When Pablo cornered me that night,” I say slowly, “and Yakov appeared…I felt relief. Not just at being saved, but at who was doing the saving. There was this moment when Pablo grabbed me and part of me—a part I didn’t recognize—wanted Yakov to hurt him. To make him pay for touching me.”
Katarina nods, unsurprised. “That darkness exists in all of us, Mila. Even careful, ethical psychologists who specialize in trauma recovery.”
“But I shouldn’t want it. Shouldn’t crave it.” I lower my voice further. “Shouldn’t feel this electric current every time he looks at me, like he’s memorizing every detail. Shouldn’t wake up thinking about his hands, his mouth, the way he says my name like it’s something precious.”
Heat creeps up my neck as I realize how much I’ve revealed, but Katarina just smiles.
“Sounds like more than just crossing ethical boundaries,” she observes.
“It’s impossible,” I say, the word carrying all my frustration and longing. “Even if he’s granted more freedom, even if the syndicate eventually accepts his rehabilitation, there’s too much history. Too many complications.”
“Love transforms complications into possibilities.”
“Love?” I echo, the word simultaneously terrifying and thrilling. “I didn’t say anything about love.”
Her knowing smile makes me want to sink into my chair. “You didn’t have to. It’s written all over your face when you talk about him.”
I look down at my cooling coffee, unable to deny her observation.
“What am I supposed to do with this, Kata? The ethics board will have my license revoked. It’s just a matter of time before they come to their decision.
The medical community will ostracize me.
Meanwhile, it’s not even clear our relationship has a chance, given that he’s still essentially a prisoner. ”
“You know what Nikolai taught me? Love changes people in ways nothing else can. Not fear, not revenge—love.”
“You think Yakov is capable of that kind of transformation?” I ask, voicing the question that keeps me awake at night.
“I think you wouldn’t be sitting here torn apart by this if you didn’t already believe he is.” She squeezes my hand again.
The image of Yakov flashes in my mind—not the calculated strategist others see, but the man who held me with unexpected tenderness, who whispered vulnerability against my skin, whose eyes hold a future I never expected to want.
“I wasn’t looking for this,” I whisper. “Any of it.”
“None of us ever are.” Katarina’s smile is gentle. “The most meaningful connections rarely arrive when we’re prepared for them.”
“What happens now? What should I do?”
She shrugs elegantly. “Maybe it ends in heartbreak. Maybe it transforms both of you. But can you live with never knowing?”
The question resonates deep in my chest.
“My therapist says I’m using Yakov as a proxy for my own darkness,” I admit. “That I’m drawn to him because he embodies parts of myself I’m afraid to acknowledge.”
“And what do you think?” Katarina asks.
“I think it’s both simpler and more complex than that.” I look at her directly. “I think I see him, the real him, not just the monster or the damaged man or the strategic genius. I see all of him. And he sees all of me. That kind of recognition is…rare.”
Katarina’s eyes soften with understanding. “Then maybe the question isn’t whether this is ethical or wise or practical. Maybe the question is whether you’re brave enough to accept being fully seen, with all the vulnerability that entails.”
Her words strike at the heart of my fear—not professional censure or Bratva complications, but the terrifying intimacy of being known completely. Of having no masks, no distance, no protection from the raw intensity of connection.
“He’s made his choice clear,” I say quietly.
“And have you made your choice?”
I stare into my coffee cup as if it might hold the answer, but I already know. Have known since that night in his arms when the world narrowed to just us, when boundaries dissolved and possibility bloomed between us.
“I already chose him,” I whisper, the words both terrifying and liberating. “I torched my whole life for him.”
Katarina smiles, approval in her eyes. “Then don’t back out now, Mila. There are enough external obstacles without adding your own.”
“When did you get so wise about love?” I ask, attempting to lighten the moment.
She laughs; the sound bright against the café’s ambient noise. “Somewhere between being kidnapped by a Bratva boss and building a life with him. Love isn’t for the faint hearted in our world, Mila. But it’s worth every battle.”
As we finish our coffee; we change the subject to lighter and easier topics. Gradually, bit by bit, I feel a shift inside me, a decision crystallizing, a path opening before me that’s neither safe nor certain, but undeniably right.
Yakov Gagarin has shattered every ethical code I’ve prided myself to have lived by. He’s made me question my judgment, my principles, my understanding of myself.
And yet, when I imagine walking away from him, continuing my life without the intensity of his gaze, or the strength of his arms, or the surprising tenderness in his voice when he whispers my name in the darkness, I can’t breathe.
Some choices define us not because they’re wise, but because avoiding them betrays who we are.
Tonight, I’ll see him again. Tonight, I’ll tell him what I’ve just admitted to Katarina—that despite everything logical and rational, despite my professional ethics and his complicated past, I choose him.
I choose us.
And whatever storms that choice brings, we’ll weather them together.