Page 113 of Owned Bratva Bride

That was when I saw the white bandage peeking from under the sleeve of his shirt. His eyes followed mine to it.

“It was just a graze,” he explained. “Lucien is dead.”

“What? You…?”

He nodded in the affirmative.

“For me?”

“Baby, death is too kind for someone who hurt you. Nobody will ever touch a hair on your head.”

Of course, he had just proven it.

And, in that moment, I knew exactly what bliss was.

***

“So, who changed my clothes?”

“ThatI did,” Eduard answered.

Eduard had assigned himself as my nurse, guardian, and everything in between since I woke up the day before. He had barely left my side, even though, from the calls his men gave him, he had things to do. The only thing he hadn’t offered or even insisted on helping with was going to the bathroom.

And I loved every part of his doting affection; I wasn’t going to deny it. There was something heartwarming about Eduard, such a force of strong energy, pouring all of his attention on me.

The doctor had just left, and I was sitting on the couch, enjoying the soup Agatha had made for me. The dark, greenish broth surprisingly tasted good; it was sweet and quite spicy.

When I’d had enough of Eduard’s wordless stare from the edge of the bed where he sat, I blurted, “Are you going to make me guess?”

He had the nerve to look clueless.

“I know when you’re looking at me,” I told him.

He chuckled. “I’m always looking at you. You just have to be in the same room with me for that to happen.”

My cheeks burned, and it had nothing to do with the heat of the soup.

“What’s on your mind?” I persisted.

He leaned closer to the stool between us.

“You have no idea how much of an effect you have on me. It’s deeper than you can ever fathom. You’ve reached places within me I never thought existed. I find it hard to believe you’re mine. That you chose to be mine,” he told me, his eyes boring into me.

“And I still have to remind myself that you really said the words yesterday. So, I guess that makes the two of us.”

He shook his head.

“It’s not the same, baby,” he claimed. “I wasn’t always good to you. In fact, I was more bad than good. I want you toknow that hurting you hurts me; it always has. All the times I withdrew from you, that I pushed you away and turned my back on you, I did it because I thought it was better that way. I thought it was safer for both of us if we were on different lanes,” he confessed, his expression solemn.

“But you always came back,” I pointed out.

“I was never good at staying away from you.”

I chuckled before saying, “It always felt like the opposite.”

“Baby, you underestimate how alluring you are,” he remarked. “It took all my practiced restraint not to jump you when you walked past me in the closet or looked up at me with those eyes.”

I rolled my eyes at him.