Hidden Monsters (Volkov Bratva #4)(75)

Luka reached up to touch his own hair. “She told me if I felt that way, why didn’t I believe her when she told me my hair was fine as it was? I never complained again.”

He glanced up when the silence stretched between them, wondering what she was thinking, but Alex was just staring at him with those wide eyes. “Don’t you dare…”

“But that’s so sweet, Luka.” And her voice wavered as she blinked, a shaky smile forming.

“That doesn’t mean you cry about it.”

“I bet you were adorable when you were a kid.”

“I was a little shit.”

She shook her head. “I refuse to believe that. So where is she? Is she still in Albania?”

He opened his mouth, ready to tell her, but the words died on his tongue. How easily he could speak of others’ murders, but he couldn’t, not for his own mother. “My father, Ahmeti…he killed her.”

He waited for her to stiffen beneath him, to react to the horrific truth he had just told her, but besides the slight stilling of her hand, she gave no other physical reaction.

“Luka…”

“Don’t apologize. You didn’t take her from me.”

Her fingers slipped free from his hair, drifting over his side. “Was this her name?” she asked softly.

Besides the predatory ink he had gotten done, along his ribs was her name in cursive letters. “Yeah…Her name was Galina.”

He remembered the last thing she had ever told him.

Show her the real you, even if you hide from everyone else.

“She would have liked you,” he found himself saying.

Alex waved his words away. “Maybe not.”

“No, I’m sure. She would have liked you because you—” he caught himself before he could finish that statement, changing it at the last second “—because you make me happy. And that was all she ever wanted for me.”

She didn’t seem to catch his slip.

She would have liked you because you love me.

It was there, he knew. That suffocating emotion that always enveloped them when they were together, but he wouldn’t presume to know what she had yet to tell him aloud.

And not when he couldn’t bring himself to say the words to her in return.

When you loved someone, you could tell them your secrets, trust them with the truth…but he was still too afraid to really give her the chance to accept him and his past.

But until the secrets grew to be too much, he would enjoy this…for as long as she would have him.

____

When Alex woke up the next morning, she felt different, but for reasons she didn’t know. It wasn’t that anything had changed in her physically, but having stayed up all night with Luka talking about his life, she felt like she knew him better.

But she did notice that he seemed to be holding back from her. Sure, he talked about his life, but he only spoke of it up until he turned thirteen, then moved on to his life here with the Bratva. There was a vital piece missing, and she knew that this piece was the essence of who he was—mainly because he guarded it so tightly it seemed—but since he was opening up more, she figured he would tell her when he was ready.

Having already been up and about, she wanted to seize the day and do something for just the two of them before he had another job to do and she had to get back to training.

Luka was on his back, an arm thrown over his face to block out the sunlight. She doubted he was still sleeping, though. She had learned he had a rather religious schedule he stuck to when it came to his sleeping patterns. While the amount of time he spent asleep varied, he never went more than eight hours. Ever.

She poked his side, waiting for him to acknowledge her, but when he didn’t even stir, she poked him harder. “Hey, Tiger.”

He tried to pretend he was still sleeping, but she did see his mouth twitch. “It’s too early.”

“We can’t stay in bed all day,” she said, straddling his lap, hoping to get at least another kind of reaction out of him.

But he merely ignored her, still pretending to be asleep.

Climbing off him, she glared. “Luka…”

Fine. If he didn’t want to answer, then she had something for him.

In the time it had taken her to walk downstairs, fill the pitcher with both ice and water, and return, he still hadn’t moved. Loki was sitting in his usual spot, surveying them like he had better things to do. Alex stopped at the end of the bed, looking down on Luka, waiting for him to look at her.

“I’m serious. What do you say?”

He grumbled something she couldn’t make out, but still didn’t bother to even open his eyes and look at her.

He deserved his fate, Alex thought as she raised the pitcher, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to enjoy it immensely.

Biting her lip to stifle her laughter, she tipped the pitcher and dumped the contents on him.

Laughing loudly, she jumped back as he reared up, sputtering, his eyes wide as he shoved the dripping wet strands of blond hair from his face. She only laughed harder as he looked down at himself as if he had never encountered water before.

That look of wonder was soon replaced and she could see the intent clear in his eyes as she stumbled back a step when he immediately made a grab for her.

“We don’t have to fight about this,” she said between laughs, almost at the door. “I only wanted your attention. Now we can skip past this and get to the heart of the issue.”