Hidden Monsters (Volkov Bratva #4)(96)

A sharp yelp of pain sounded just outside the door, and Luka’s voice, louder than she had ever heard it, made her sit up straighter, already anticipating the moment he would be there beside her.

Mishca slipped off the bed as the door crashed open, Luka standing in the entryway with wild eyes. Despite the company in the room, he only had eyes for her. But it wasn’t just him that ignored Mishca, Alex noticed. Her brother barely spared his enforcer a glance as he left the room without a goodbye, pulling the door closed on his way out. Despite the illusion of privacy, she knew he wouldn’t go far.

She was out of the bed in an instant, practically throwing herself in his arms as she clung to him. She felt the tension leave him as his arms came around her and squeezed, taking her breath away.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, his lips at her ear. He said it again softer, as if he needed to say it again to make it true.

But it wasn’t him that she thought should be sorry. It wasn’t as if it was his fault. And even with the enemies that her family had garnered over the years, she didn’t blame Mishca either. No, the blame was solely for the person who had got off on burying her.

She shivered, thinking back to how the dirt had sounded as it hit her temporary prison, how pungent the earth had smelled as more and more blocked out the streams of sunlight bleeding in through the glass for that short period of time. Squeezing her eyes shut, she forced those images out of her head and tried to focus on the present.

There were plenty of times in her life that she had felt fear but not like that.

His hair was damp, his skin as well as though he had recently showered. She briefly contemplated why this was, but thoughts of this fled as he gently extracted himself from her hold.

He hardly moved away at all, and like the night she had wrecked Mishca’s car, he looked her over starting from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. His hands followed the path of his eyes, even drifting beneath her shirt to skim along her shoulders, along her ribcage, and the down the flat of her stomach.

She hadn’t noticed the bruises on her wrists and arms until he lingered over them.

“Did you see them?”

She had to remember, as Luka asked her that question, that he wasn’t upset with her because the chillingly calm way he asked that made fear slither down her spine. “It was fast, but there were at least two of them, and they both had on masks. I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

“Breathe. You’re doing fine. Just finish.”

But from the way his body had stiffened, she wondered what she had said to make him have that reaction. She hadn’t had the opportunity to tell Mishca what happened, but maybe he too knew that Luka would get it out of her, and he would then relay it to him.

“There was a white van, but that’s all I remember because one of them hit me and knocked me out.” Alex looked away from him then, trying not to hyperventilate as she thought about being in that ground. “Next thing I knew, I was in a coffin, and I could hear standing up there. He was holding something metal, the shovel I think, and he kept hitting it against the ground. Every time he would drop more dirt over me, he would tell me what it would be like once I was completely buried. He didn’t care that I was begging him. It was like he was enjoying that the most.”

He shushed her then, pressing his lips to her forehead for a moment, wanting to calm her. It helped, but she didn’t know how long it would.

“You know I’ll find him, yes?”

“Of course, but I don’t want you to get hurt over this. Over me.”

“Aleksandria.” It was the first time he had ever said her name in its entirety in all the years she had known him. “I’ll burn this whole f*cking city to the ground if I have to.”

He kissed her forehead, a promise in itself, and then kissed her so thoroughly that it took her breath away.

As quickly as he had come, he was leaving again. “I need to go.”

Alex didn’t mean to grab him as tight as she did, but the moment he’d said those words, her hand grabbed his bicep, practically trying to force him to stay. “You can’t leave.”

“I have to finish this.” His hands clenched into fists as he said this, then he looked tired all of a sudden. “Stay and rest. No one can get to you here.”

With no other choice, she nodded, watching him leave. It wasn’t for her that she felt fear now, but for the men they were going to go after.

No matter their differences personally, between the three of them—Luka, Mishca, and Klaus—when it came to revenge, they were all in accord.

____

The momentary relief Luka felt at seeing Alex safe was short lived as his mind worked with the possibilities of how this could have happened and what it all meant.

Just down the hallway, Mishca and Klaus were waiting, their faces carefully arranged into that of blankness. But Mishca wasn’t as careful and Luka saw the one thing he had hoped never to see in the man’s eyes.

Suspicion.

Luka didn’t think he had connected all the pieces yet, but it was an easy enough assumption that this was because of him. If they had wanted to hurt Mishca, they could have easily gone after Lauren.

No, hurting Alex, while it affected Mishca, was aimed solely at Luka.

“I’ll take care of it,” he said simply, continuing on and not bothering to explain more as Mishca’s phone chimed.