Page 30 of Sexting My Bratva Boss (Mafia Silver Foxes #1)

Konstantin

W hen the call comes I’m in the study, blinds drawn against the night, watching the soft flicker of security footage on the corner monitor. Audrey’s apartment has been quiet for hours. Lev’s men confirm she hasn’t left. Her building is locked down tighter than a vault.

It’s after midnight and my private line buzzes. The name flashing on the screen surprises me; we haven’t spoken since I took down the coup meant to take him out.

“ Da .”

“Konstantin,” Giuseppe’s smooth voice slithers down the line, lightly accented.

With the last few months behind us, the emotions that surface catch me off guard; for the first time ever his voice sparks a sense of calm in me.

Sartorre has become, oddly, a kind of father-figure.

Not that that would stop him from killing me someday.

“I thought you might want to know… your girl just walked into my front door.”

For a second, I don’t speak.

The world tilts.

“My girl?” I ask carefully, though I already know the answer.

“Audrey Wolfe. Small, dark hair, big eyes, soft mouth. She asked for you like she owned the place. Ballsy thing. I have to admit, I admire it.”

I’m already moving. Pulling on my jacket. Texting Lev to have the driver pull up and have his gun loaded and ready. The click of my own holster is louder than it should be in the silence.

“What does she want?”

“To find you,” Giuseppe replies lazily. “Says no one will tell her where you’ve been. And considering how hot she looked when she stormed in? Can’t blame her for getting desperate. Hell, if I was a younger man?—”

Some things never change.

“If you touch her, I’ll paint your walls with your blood.”

There’s a pause. Then a low chuckle. “I apologize, Konstantin. I just meant to comment on her beauty. And ferocity. She’s fine, in one piece.

The boys know to leave her alone. I’m calling because, despite our truce, you’re not the only one with enemies.

You should know where your queen is moving on the board. ”

The line goes dead.

Lev is already in the foyer, his eyes and gun glinting in the dark.

“Car. Now.”

We don’t speak on the way. Lev knows better.

His silence is a weapon sharper than any blade, but I can feel his tension crackling beside me.

He’s the best soldier I have, but that doesn’t change the fact that only weeks ago he was released to get back to his “normal” life.

Of course, the doctors didn’t know what he gets up to in his spare time; running down men almost as bad as him, slitting throats.

He’s good at what he does, and I’m sure part of the tension in his shoulders comes from almost being killed.

He knows this could be a setup. That Giuseppe might be luring me in, tired of playing nice.

I don’t care.

I’d walk into a death trap blindfolded if Audrey was inside it.

She came looking for me.

It shouldn’t undo me the way it does, but it does.

She came to them—walked into the lion’s den—because I disappeared. Because I made myself scarce, convinced myself that was what she wanted. That she’d be better off.

Has she really changed her mind?

Hope rises in my chest, unfamiliar and warm.

When we pull up outside the Sartorre compound, Lev’s eyes flick to me. I nod once, and he steps out first. Two guards flank the door—posturing, expensive suits, hands near their guns. They don’t move.

“Tell Giuseppe I’m here,” I growl.

One disappears. The other just looks at me like I’m already dead.

I wait.

Fifteen seconds.

Twenty.

The lock clicks.

They let us in.

I walk through the gilded doors of Giuseppe’s headquarters like I own the place, because fear is a luxury I stopped affording decades ago. The floors are marble, the air tinged with cologne, money, and blood. Lev shadows me like death itself.

Down the corridor, past flickering sconces, and lingering eyes. Sartorre’s place is never empty. His guests, the worst of the worst men and women in the world, rotate through luxurious rooms, fed anything they desire.

Then—

There.

Audrey.

She’s sitting in a velvet chair in the gallery, spine straight, arms crossed tightly over her chest like armor. Her eyes snap to mine the moment I enter.

Her mouth parts. She stands.

And the only thing I can think is Thank God.

I cross the space without blinking, without a single word for Giuseppe or the men watching from the balconies above. I don’t care about the statement this makes—about how unhinged it looks for Konstantin Martynov to crash into enemy territory over a woman.

Let them whisper. Let them wonder.

Let them know she matters.

“Audrey.” My voice is too low, too rough. Moving through the room is like moving through a maze, or a massive chess board, sculptures and statues littering the checked floor. I reach her in three long strides.

She’s trembling, but her eyes are fierce. Already she’s so much bigger than she was in the hospital—but it’s gorgeous on her, the way she carries it at her hips, her shoulders back and full breasts pushed out.

“No one would tell me where you were.”

“You shouldn’t have come here.”

“What was I supposed to do? I left messages. I went to the Spire. Olena said you were busy and?—”

“I was protecting you.”

“I don’t need protection. I need answers. I need you .”

Silence surges between us, thick and sharp as a blade.

Her lips tremble before she swallows hard and wipes at her cheek. Furious at the tears. “You just disappeared.”

“I know. I thought that’s what you wanted.”

She draws a deep breath in. “I did too, at first, but…”

“I thought you were done with me.”

“I’m never done with you.”

I can’t take it anymore. I grab her hand, pull her against me. Her body crashes into mine, and I feel it—the heat, the rage, the relief. She struggles for half a second, then folds against my chest, our child between us.

I hold her like I’ve just ripped her back from the brink of death. That’s what it feels like, Eurydice and Orpheus but in reverse. I was walking straight into hell, a ghost, and Audrey came after me.

Giuseppe appears in the archway, drink in hand, watching like it’s a show.

I meet his eyes and give him the coldest nod of my life, a small smile on his lips.

Then I walk out, with Audrey’s hand in mine.

Let the whole fucking city see.

I’ll never let her go.

The car is silent. She won’t look at me.

Tears dry on her cheeks, but her arms are crossed, body tucked into the far corner of the leather seat. It kills me, the distance. Lev rides up front, the privacy glass up and fogged.

“You going to yell at me now?” she asks tightly. “Because I really don’t feel like being punished for this. I did what I had to.”

I don’t answer. I’ve been trying to find the words since the moment we left Giuseppe’s compound, but they just won’t come.

How can I beg for forgiveness, thank her, promise her everything, chastise her, all at once? Everything I want to say tangles and sits heavy in my throat.

“Olena said you wouldn’t see me,” she whispers, staring out the window. “She said you were too busy. Didn’t want me to know where you were and would kill her if she told me.”

“She’s right,” I answer gruffly. Hurt flashes across Audrey’s face, and she tucks into herself somehow even more.

“I have been busy. She told me you came looking. But I had things to do. I buried Sal, burned his contacts. Hunted down the mole in the Spire and made an example of them. Your friend is safe,” I assure her at her startled gasp.

“In fact, she’s the one who led me to them.

I needed time, Audrey, after what you said to me. ”

I reach into my coat pocket.

Pull out the small black box I’ve been carrying for weeks.

When I open it, the diamond catches the light between us.

Audrey stares. Her gorgeous eyes catch on mine.

“You think I disappeared because I was done with you?” My voice is low, lethal. “You think I stayed away because I wanted to?”

Her eyes are wide, a hand resting on top of her belly.

She swallows.

“I’m obsessed with you, Audrey Wolfe. From the moment I saw you. From the first damn time you told me no.” I reach across the seat, sliding the ring onto her trembling hand. “You are mine. And now you’re going to be my wife.”

She covers her mouth. Her eyes brim.

And for the first time since I met her, she’s speechless.

“I love you,” I say, the only truth I’ve ever known. “You’re my obsession. My salvation. My punishment. I don’t care what anyone thinks. I don’t care if it makes me look weak. I’d burn this city to the ground for you.”

Then she’s in my arms.

Then she’s kissing me like she’s drowning and I’m the only breath she has left.

The Spire is dark when we arrive.

Lev disappears like smoke. The elevators are empty, the floor silent.

I barely get her into my office before I have her pressed against the wall, her dress hiked up, her legs around my waist. Her fingers tangle in my hair. My mouth crushes against hers like I’m starving.

“I’m going to marry you,” I growl against her neck, biting just hard enough to make her gasp. “You’re going to carry my name and my child. And everyone who ever looked at you sideways is going to fear you.”

“Yes,” she breathes, gasping as I tear her panties. “Yes, Konstantin?—”

I slam her onto the desk. Sweep the files off with one hand.

Her legs fall open. Just the scent of her, burned into my brain, is enough to make me hard. I press my palm to her slick heat, groaning at how ready she is.

“You came for me,” I rasp. “You came through them for me.”

“I had to,” she whispers. “I love you.”

My control snaps.

I slam into her with a growl, one hand gripping her thigh, the other tangled in her hair as I thrust hard, deep, claiming her. Her cries echo off the walls, desperate, hungry, pleading.

She’s mine.

She’s always been mine.

And now the world will know it.