Hidden Monsters (Volkov Bratva #4)(74)

Being with him was becoming her new regular.

Luka laughed as she toed off her shoes, hopping around as she tried to pull off her jeans next, though it tapered off when she was left in nothing more than her tank top and panties that were all yellow lace.

She climbed up onto the bed, straddling him as though they did this every day, resting her hands on his chest. When she shifted, trying to get more comfortable, his hands automatically flew to her waist, his fingers drifting beneath her shirt to skim over her waist, enjoying the contact just as much as she seemed to.

“You know,” she said after some time, “I hardly know anything about you.”

He figured this would come up eventually, had resolved himself to it, but more than that, he actually wanted to share his past with her. He didn’t know if he would tell her everything, not now at least, but he would share as much as he could.

“Ask me.”

If for no other reason than the answering smile he received, he would give her anything she asked for.

“We can start with something easy. Where are you from? I know Albania, but what—”

“Berat, it’s a small village. You might not have heard of it.”

She was trying not to seem too eager, and he could practically see the excited energy churning inside of her. “And your parents? Were they…”

“My father, yes. My n?n?, no. She was born in Russia from what she tells me.”

Her face fell. “Did you never get to go there with her?”

Luka had a choice. He could either give her half-truths, just so she would continue to smile at him as she had been, or he could tell her the truth and watch as the story chipped away at her happiness. He wanted to pick the first option, but that wasn’t who he was. If she ever hoped to understand exactly who he was and why he acted the way he did, she had to know the truth, no matter how ugly it was.

“My n?n? was bought by my father while he was married to another woman. When she was brought over, she could never leave the country again. My father was…well, he was a pretty powerful man at the time and his word was law.”

Nothing else could kill the mood quite like that did, but she did good, hiding her shock as best as she could for his sake. He appreciated the thought but knew that it sounded just as bad as it did.

“But you can’t just do that. You can’t just buy people.”

“She was a prostitute, Alex. To some, she wasn’t even a person.”

He saw it, the moment it all clicked in her head. She was thinking about Natasha, probably about how he had not necessarily defended the girl, but the names she was called. Shame and regret were clear in her eyes.

“I’m sorry.”

Luka shook his head, squeezing her side until she looked down at him. “We all say things we don’t mean when we’re upset. Next question.”

She shook her head, as if she was afraid that any question she asked now would achieve an answer worse than the one before. He gave her a pass. There was a reason he didn’t like talking about his past, and for now, he’d said enough.

“What was your happiest memory?” Now, it was his turn to ask the questions, and if he had his way, he would chase away the melancholy that had briefly surrounded them.

“My happiest memory? I don’t know. I guess I have a few. There was the day that Mishca took me for ice cream when I was six, or the time I’d found a turtle in our backyard and I named him Sunshine. Then, there was the day I met you.”

“How could that have made you happy?” That truly baffled him. From what he remembered, they’d barely spoken.

“But you don’t remember your face when I opened the door. I’m sure you were expecting Mish, and you had this weird look on your face like you didn’t know how you were going to act, but when you saw me, you smiled."

He laughed, his eyes lighting up. “’Cause I wasn’t expecting you.”

Truthfully, he had been preparing himself for the sight of Mishca and what that would do to him. Never had he ever expected to find Alex on the other side, let alone form a bond with her.

Blushing, she tucked her hair behind her ear. “What’s yours? And it can’t be related to me.”

“But what if you were my best?”

“Don’t try and charm me, Luka. You’ve already gotten in my pants.”

Tucking his hands beneath his head, he racked his brain for an answer to her question because most of the memories he kept were painful. Before Alex, there was a lot of bloodshed, especially in the Pit, and after…there was more bloodshed, but for a different person.

But still…

“I was seven,” he said, telling her something he had never told another. “And my n?n? was obsessed with keeping my hair the way she liked it. Most of the boys at my school had haircuts, but I was the only one there with hair like a girl. I was teased about it relentlessly, and since I was so small then, there wasn’t much I could do about it. One day, I just got fed up and told her I wanted to cut it all off. At first, I could see the sadness in her eyes, but she ultimately agreed, but only if she could cut her hair, too.” He shook his head as he thought back on that day. “She told me some women in her building had made remarks that her hair didn’t look like theirs, so it was unattractive. I was angry as f*ck, and I made sure to let her know that I thought her hair was beautiful, that she was beautiful, and she shouldn’t let any of those bitches—no, I didn’t call them bitches in front of her—make her feel bad.”