Hidden Monsters (Volkov Bratva #4)(103)

Alex was aware that she was shaking, but she didn’t feel connected to herself. This was happening, actually happening, and no one seemed surprised by what he was saying. Maybe Lauren, but Alex wasn’t about to turn around to see. Until the second he finished speaking, she would give Luka her undivided attention.

“I spent three days torturing the hell out of him. I did everything I knew how to make him talk, but he didn’t. Refused, actually, said that he wasn’t who we thought he was. Turns out he was right, but I didn’t bother to check that until after Jetmir Besnik lit his girlfriend on fire.”

Even Alex flinched at that, becoming aware of how tense Klaus had gotten.

“His stars were missing. It was the easiest thing to check for, but I didn’t look until after, and by then, the damage was done. He was barely alive, but in the end, he was innocent. So, I made a call to one of Mishca’s people.”

Now, to that, Mishca and Klaus both looked at Luka wearing matching expressions of surprise. This, apparently, was something neither of them knew.

“He lived. I killed a few people—”

“You murdered nineteen of our men,” Fatos interrupted with a roll of his eyes.

“—And I left everything behind. Anyone who knew of me died that day with the exception of Jetmir and Fatos.”

“Six years ago,” Alex said, finally finding her voice. “I met you six years ago. You were…so after everything that you’d done, you came…I don’t understand.”

And she didn’t. Why would he willingly come to them, of all people, accept a job, work his way into their folds if he knew that if any of them had learned the truth, he would have been killed?

“At first, no one was looking for me. They would have left it buried, but I killed Bastian last year.”

She remembered that name, remembered what he had told her of his former…well, she didn’t really know what to call him. It had been the night before she’d went to Anya, when they’d been outside smoking a cigarette, and blood had covered his hands.

Protecting her had cost him…

“Once was forgiven, twice cost me a blood debt.” His mouth was still open, as if he was trying to find the words, some kind of explanation to give her, but in the end, he just said, “I’m sorry.”

Those two words, more than anything else that he’d just revealed to her, broke her heart.

“Now you have what you wanted, Volkov,” Fatos spoke up. “He’s ours.”

Alex tried to go to Luka, needing to touch him, make sure this was actually happening, but Celt grabbed the back of her shirt before she could.

“Let her go,” Mishca and Luka both said simultaneously, but there was only one person Celt actually listened to.

“Yes,” Fatos said as though this was all one big entertaining event to him. “Let them have their moment.”

She paid none of them any mind as she crossed the floor, her hands balling into the front of Luka’s bloodied shirt as she held onto him, afraid to let go. She saw everything he couldn’t say bare for anyone to see, and she didn’t care about anything around them. Because Mishca would fix this. If he knew how she felt about him, what he meant to her, then he wouldn’t let this happen to Luka.

She hadn’t realized she was crying until he pressed a hard kiss to her lips, and he pulled away just far enough that she could hear him say, “Don’t cry for me. Don’t ever cry for me.”

“Please don’t—”

But he silenced her with another kiss, and this one told her what the other one hadn’t. He knew this was goodbye and he wasn’t fighting it.

“All right, that’s enough.”

Fatos gestured for one of his men to grab Luka, forcing him backward.

She knew as soon as his eyes went to Fatos then back to her what he was going to say and she couldn’t handle it. “Don’t say goodbye.”

Luka shook his head, even as Fatos laughed.

“Don’t say it!”

“Au revoir, Alex.”

“It’s time to go. Pleasure doing business with you, Volkov. I hope to never see you again.”

When two of the men grabbed Luka, one on each side, both Lauren and Alex made a sound of protest, but Alex was already trying to go after them, an arm binding around her waist preventing it.

She screamed with everything that was inside of her, fought as hard as she could, but she couldn’t prevent them from taking him from that place. Not even after they’d cleared the door did the person restraining her let her go. No, they waited for at least a minute before releasing her, and the moment she was free, she swung around, her fist already flying before she’d completed that turn. The force behind her punch forced Klaus back a step, but he recovered quick enough and didn’t look angry in the slightest that she’d hit him.

Before he could grab her again, she was racing through the doors, out onto the street, looking in both directions for any sign of Luka, but even in that short amount of time, he had vanished, and she had no idea what kind of cars they’d left in.

Desperation squeezed her chest as she went back in, could hardly see with tears blurring her vision. Mishca remained in the same place, but Lauren was out of her chair, her face wet from crying, trying to talk sense into her husband.

“What are you doing? They’ll kill him! You know that!”