Page 16 of Trapped by the Bratva (The Valkov Bratva #5)

DMITRI

I did my best with the exercises, but it wasn’t the same. I didn’t have an option to not do them. My goal was to get stronger, and that meant putting my body through the moves and making it work.

Without Hannah here to guide me along, I felt stuck. The exercises and stretches weren’t that complex. I knew how to work out, and I’d maintained my physique with workouts since I was a teenager.

Not having her near and watching me, I felt lost. Even though I knew how to do all of this, I valued her feedback. I like that she seemed to care.

After I showered following the lengthier session of exercises, I wondered if she’d left. If shouting at her the day after I fucked her was too much for her to bear.

I wasn’t going to sit around and think about it. I set out to find her. An apology wasn’t waiting on my lips. I wouldn’t take it back. We’d fucked, and I wanted to again.

I went to her room, knocked once, then let myself in.

She was a guest here, anyway, but she wasn’t in the room.

Her things were still present. A single bag lay opened in the closet, a few clothes were hung up and folded in drawers.

She didn’t have much, but it looked like she hadn’t taken her things and run off.

Is that all she has?

I didn’t like the possibility that this was all she had to her name. That Hannah had such few things to fill a closet or dresser.

How would I know, anyway? I hadn’t taken the time to get to familiarize myself with her past the obvious. The few times I tried to learn more about her, she clammed up and gave me short, bald answers that painted a vague picture.

Because getting to know her would indicate more. It would make this far more than a fling or a casual hookup while she works here.

Neither of those scenarios should be happening. However, the longer I went without seeing her, the more I felt like shit for lashing out at her.

I was stuck missing her and wanting her more than I should have, and not finding her in her room didn’t help. It left me confused. Annoyed. And curious.

“What are you doing?” Amy asked me later when I went to the kitchen for a snack. Reaching up high wasn’t an easy feat with my shoulder still so limited in its range of motion, and reaching up with my opposite arm wasn’t any better.

She patted baby Pyotr as she came through the room. “Need help?”

I frowned, glancing at her holding a sleeping newborn and the jar of olives I wanted to get down. “Who the hell put them so high, anyway?”

She smiled and handed me the baby. “I’ll get them.”

I cradled the dozing baby against my chest, glad I was confident in my arm strength to hold my nephew. It was reaching up high that I couldn’t manage yet.

She used a step ladder and got the jar down, but she didn’t leave. We switched, baby for the olives, and she gestured for me to sit with her at the large kitchen island.

“Where’s Margie?” I asked.

“Off with Emily somewhere, I’m sure.” Amy adjusted Pyotr in her arms. “Why?”

“Curious.” The housekeeper always seemed to be around when I wanted someone to chat with, and she wasn’t too nosy to piss me off when we did.

“What’s on your mind?” she asked, raising her brows when I looked irritated. “What?”

“Why would you think I want to talk about anything?”

“I didn’t. I only want to know how you’re doing.” She licked her lips. “It takes a while to get over the initial trauma of being captured and tortured, but with time, it heals.”

She’d know. The Ortez Cartel had almost sold her in their trafficking ring.

“I wasn’t…” She cleared her throat, almost like she knew that she needed to choose her words with care. “I wasn’t hurt like you. Not by a long shot.”

I ate the olives to avoid making eye contact. I hated talking about this with anyone, but Amy was an ideal person to discuss the topic of torture. “They still roughed you up.”

She nodded. “I was spared a lot of the physical duress you suffered. But the act of being taken and held against your will like that… It takes a toll.”

“I think it had to be worse for you.”

She narrowed her eyes. “How so?”

“You were taken to be sold. You were sold, and you had the stress of running from that fate. The thought of being someone’s slave had to be a daunting threat to hang over your head.”

She huffed. “So, just because you were a man taken instead of my being a woman taken, that’s easier?” Her hair fell loose as she shook her head. “No. I’m not buying that. He almost killed you, Dmitri. If Nadia and Maxim hadn’t found you when they did, I’m sure he would’ve succeeded in killing you.”

I doubted that. After we were released and Nadia explained everything to Alek and the rest of us, I realized that Erik didn’t want to get mixed up with the Valkov Bratva.

He merely wanted to take over the Avilov outfit from his uncle.

Nadia overheard him not wanting to bother with us until he cemented his power as the new Avilov leader.

Maybe he would’ve let me go, or maybe not.

I didn’t like to play supposition games like that.

“But that was it. Death. That was the only threat hanging over me. We’re all going to die someday. It’s inevitable.”

“That doesn’t mean he had any right to kill you.”

“No,” I agreed. “He didn’t. For a long while, I wished he would have. I prayed he’d put me out of my misery.”

Her face softened, and she laid a hand on mine. “I’m so sorry, Dmitri. No one should ever have to think that.”

“Well, I lived.” I huffed a bitter laugh. “And now he’s the reason I want to live. I wake up every morning with nothing but the drive to get stronger and fitter. Just so I can hunt him down and kill him. To pay him back in kind.”

“That’s a lot of anger built up in there.”

I rolled my eyes.

“Don’t let this… this need for revenge consume you.”

I chewed on my lip, afraid it was far too late to prevent that from happening.

“It can’t be worth it.”

“You don’t understand.”

She sighed. “Then help me to understand.”

“You got to fight back.”

“Not really. Nik hid me here.”

“In the end, you got to fight back.” She had. When the customer who paid for her broke into the mansion, she used a knife from the dinner table to try to defend herself from him. “You had a chance to attack the person responsible. And that had to feel satisfying. Like closure.”

“Not really.” She shrugged. “This feels like an argument about semantics, but it’s not like that. The Cartel captured me and roughed me up. Not Diego. Diego only bought me and wanted to collect. There’s no way I could’ve sought retaliation and gotten revenge on the entire Cartel.”

I showed her my hand that was missing two fingers. “But you could. You weren’t wounded so badly that you were weak and worthless.”

She squeezed my hand that still rested on the counter. “You are not worthless.”

“I won’t know my own worth until I find and kill Avilov. I haven’t had a chance to fight back.”

“So what? Your brothers have and will. We are all supporting you, Dmitri. Justice will be served—one way or another—by your loved ones. And that’s not something to scoff at.”

It is if my brothers let the Feds have Avilov. I’d never be able to go after him then. My opportunity for closure and payback would be taken from me for good.

“You understand that, right?”

I scowled at her.

“You Bratva brothers act as one. You are a unit. A family. What one brother does is a projection of what all do.”

“It’s not the same.”

She stood. “It can be. It can be the same.”

“You’re saying I should give up?”

She shook her head. “Not at all.”

“What’d you do with your need for revenge?”

“Let it go. I met Nik.” She lifted her arms a bit to emphasize her baby. “We looked forward, not backward.”

Yeah, but Nik killed that fucker for you. It is the same thing I want. The chance to kill my torturer.

“All I will say is that you should rest, Dmitri. Your body—and mind—will heal.” She tilted her head to the side. “Isn’t Hannah reminding you of that? To be patient and recover at the pace your body needs to?”

I rolled my eyes. “Yes, she says stuff like that all the time.”

Amy smiled. “Because it’s true. Be patient. I was. And it helps.”

“I’m trying,” I said, not entirely lying about it.

“Go easy on her,” she advised.

“On Hannah?” But she comes like a goddess when I’m rough with her, just like she likes it.

“Yes. She seems so sweet.”

Tastes sweet, too. Still, the reminder of the woman I yelled at bothered me. “It’s not like she’s staying.”

“No?” she challenged.

I shook my head and screwed the lid on the olive jar. “No. She’s just my nurse. Or therapy aide. Whatever. She’ll only stay until I’m better.”

She paused, stepping back toward me. “And you’re okay with that?”

I stared at her, refusing to let her see my reaction to the idea of Hannah leaving.

I hated it. That one time fucking her wasn’t enough.

“Aha.”

“No aha .”

“You’re enjoying her being your nurse, aren’t you?”

Fuck. “No.” I said it too quickly to be convincing.

“Admit it.” She tipped her chin higher. “Admit that you want her,” she taunted.

I narrowed my eyes, feeling caught. “I do.” Saying that was too easy. “But I won’t pursue her.”

I refused to let her be my goal, my drive, my reason to live. The revenge had to take precedence.

Unlike my sister-in-law, I was tethered too tightly to the experiences of torture Erik had dished out on me.

I couldn’t move forward until I settled my past. That was the logical sequence to focus on. No matter how much I lusted for Hannah or thought about her constantly.