Page 44

YULIAN

Kallie meets me in front of the ER doors. “She’s in there,” she says, nodding towards the ladies’ changing room.

Smart girl. I can see why Maksim likes her. She must have guessed I’d start barking orders the second I came through those doors, demanding to be taken to Mia. It wouldn’t have been pretty.

However, those thoughts end up buried deep under the urgency that moves me.

Nothing else matters. Nothing but Mia.

I find her huddled with a blanket around her shoulders and a young man handing her tea. He takes one look at me, wolf-whistles, and says to Mia, “Girl, you weren’t kidding. I’d grate all sorts of dairy products on that washboard.”

She chokes on her tea. “Thanks, Reese,” she coughs, half sincere, half I’m going to murder you later for that. It will not be quick. It will not be painless. “You should go. I don’t want to get you into trouble with Gwen, and?—”

“And I’m one wheel too many,” he finishes for her. “Got it, babycakes. But if I see you back out there wearing purple again, I swear to God, I’ll file a sexual harassment complaint against you and get you sent home the hard way.”

Far from feeling threatened, Mia squeezes his hand. “Thank you,” she whispers, this time genuine. “Seriously.”

“Treat her well, Mr. Hunk,” he tells me as he passes by, making an I see you gesture. “If you don’t, I’ll know.”

Then we’re alone.

Mia’s blue eyes peer up at me. They’re rimmed with red, puffy from crying. She takes in my sweaty appearance, the gym clothes and ruffled hair, and guilt immediately blooms on her face.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I shouldn’t have called you, you were busy, I?—”

“You did exactly as you were supposed to do.”

I kneel next to her. It’s a new thing, even for me, with all I’ve seen and done. A pakhan doesn’t kneel—ever. It’s too close to a show of weakness. Submission. Everything I am not.

But today, for Mia, I do.

She won’t look at me now. Her fingers tighten around the cup, shoulders curling inward like she wants to disappear into the blanket wrapped around her.

I fucking hate it.

“Mia.”

She still won’t meet my gaze. Her eyes fall to her wrist, and I follow them reflexively.

A sharp exhale escapes me. “He hurt you.”

“It’s nothing?—”

“It’s not fucking nothing.” I reach for her hand, take it in mine, turn it over to examine the purpling bruise around her wrist. Her pulse is erratic under my thumb, rabbit-quick. Like she’s preparing to bolt any second now. Her old defense mechanism, roaring back to life. “He hurt you.”

Her breath shudders. “It’s not that bad. He just?—”

“Don’t lie.” My voice drops, steel beneath it. “Do not fucking lie to me, Mia Winters. I know you. I can tell when you’re feeding me bullshit.”

I can tell when you’re too scared to speak.

Her eyes snap to mine. Heat floods her cheeks. “It wasn’t— He didn’t touch me, Yulian. Not in the way you think. He was just here to scare me.” Her throat works, gaze wandering nervously around the room. “I swear, nothing happened.”

But he wanted it to.

I can see it in her face. In the way her body trembles, the way her breath hitches.

Fury coils in my chest. Hot, bright, seething fury.

If Brad was here now, every doctor in the hospital combined wouldn’t be able to save him.

I shift closer, until there’s barely a breath between us. “I should have killed him at StarTech,” I growl. “I shouldn’t have let him walk out of there. Not on his own two legs.”

She swallows hard. “You can’t fix everything by killing.”

“You’d be surprised.”

Her lips part, but she doesn’t argue. Instead, she drops her gaze to the floor again. “He threatened him,” she confesses, her voice a whisper. “He threatened Eli.”

My blood goes cold. “He knows?”

“I don’t think so. Not yet. But he said…

” Her hands start shaking around her paper cup.

“He said he’ll find out about my secrets.

All of them.” Panic fills her voice. Her breaths grow short again, quick, too quick.

“I have to take him away, Yulian. I can’t stay here with this threat hanging over our heads. I have to run, I have to?—”

“You have to calm down.” Once again, I touch my forehead to hers. Like I did back in the car, a whole month ago.

That night, I was the one who ran. Me. The fearsome pakhan, the shadow king of New York, the untouchable CEO, sent running by a wisp of a woman in a crumbling Brownsville apartment. By the words she whispered to me in the dark.

“Go. Before we do something we’ll both regret.”

“Like what?”

“Fall.”

How fucking cowardly.

“Breathe,” I command, tone steady. My hand finds the back of her head, holds her gently through it. “In, hold, out.”

With a breathless nod, Mia obeys. Always obeys, no matter what I ask her. No matter how bright the fire in her burns, that riotous part of her soul that never wants to yield.

I thought I’d tamed her, in that room at the Goldenrod, but I didn’t have a clue, did I?

Mia Winters doesn’t break.

Not for anyone.

Not even for me.

And that’s what scares me most of all. That I might not want her broken. That I might want her whole, exactly as she is, fierce and indomitable and the worst pain in the ass I’ve ever fucking met.

That I might want her at all. Not just to use, but to keep.

To have and to hold.

“Thank you,” she whispers, steadier now. Her perfume lingers around her, violets and candy and something else I can’t place. Something uniquely hers. “I’m okay now.”

“Good.”

I don’t want to part from her. To let go of her scent, her warmth.

But if I don’t, I’ll never be able to do it again.

I push to my feet, take the tea from her hands and set it aside. Then I hold my hand out. “Come.”

She hesitates. “Where?”

“Away.”

“With…” She hesitates. “With you?”

“Yes. For the weekend.” She needs a place you can recharge, clear her head without that mudak looming over her. Otherwise, she actually might run.

And I’ll never see her again.

That thought shouldn’t bother me. It shouldn’t cause me more than a passing annoyance, for losing money and losing an asset. For the hassle of having to replace her.

Instead, it fucking guts me.

Mia’s brows knit. Disappointment flits on her face, but it’s gone as quickly as it came. “Yulian, I can’t.”

“Yes, you can. You’re free for the next two days.”

She blinks at me. “You know my schedule?”

“I make it my business to know things.”

Something warm spreads across her face. Soft, rosy— alive. “I… I really can’t,” she whispers again, with a twinge of regret. “I can’t just leave Eli on his own. Especially not now.”

“I’m not asking you to.”

Her eyes widen. “You—you want me to bring him?”

“I do.”

You’re crazy. The rational part of me is banging its head against the wall. Drop everything and leave? My Bratva, my duties, my company? Just to spend one weekend with Mia?

No— with Mia and her son?

If Maksim were here, he’d call me insane. Remind me of my plans, my goals. Tell me I can’t have it both ways, that I have to choose.

But I don’t have to choose quite yet.

She’s watching me now. Trying to gauge if I’m regretting my words, if I ever truly meant them. After a month of radio silence, she’s got every right to doubt me.

“Yulian—”

“Pack a bag,” I cut her off. “We’re leaving tonight.”

She stares at me, and I see the conflict war in her gaze. The need to be strong, to be independent. To care for her job and her kid more than her selfish desires.

To refuse me.

But she’s exhausted. And scared. And deep down, she knows I won’t take no for an answer.

So, after a long moment, she nods. “Okay.”

“Okay.”

Only then can I finally let out the breath I didn’t know I was holding.