The Final Hour (Volkov Bratva #3)(69)

“Places to go,” Alex replied simply with a shrug of her shoulder. “I need to leave.”

“You can wait for me.”

She frowned, her anger the easiest emotion to summon at the moment. “I don’t have time for this, Luka. Go find your hole.”

A dangerous light entered his eyes as he grabbed her arm, guiding her down the hall. “Don’t make me throw you over my shoulder. You remember how well that went, no?”

Yep, she would never forget the day he took her to the safe house.

He didn’t seem to notice that she was butt naked, glaring over at him. No, she was wrong. He did notice and he wasn’t shy about perusing her body either. But that was the thing though, she wasn’t going to shy away from him, maybe before her world had been rocked and she’d had to grow a thick skin quickly, but not now. If he wanted to look, so be it.

Truthfully, she wouldn’t have been that calm if it were anyone else. Luka made it easy for her. Majority of the time, the men Mishca sent for her looked through her, treated her like she was precious glass, but Luka seemed to see her as a person.

After several moments of memorizing every inch of her body, Luka finally tore his gaze from her, instructing her to get dressed as he waited for her to finish. He might have tried to hide his reaction from her, but from what she could see by the way he swallowed and mumbled beneath his breath, she affected him.

Alex took her time getting dressed, ignoring the sound of Luka’s loud sighing outside her room, though it did make her smile. Since he had been such an ass about it, she took her time, not caring that he was getting more agitated by the second.

She was just grabbing her hoes when he threw the door open, grabbing her and carrying her kicking and screaming out the door. Even when they got to the safe house, the gate locked behind them, he still made it a point to carry her inside, making her feel like an idiot.

Yet inside, she was elated.

“Fine,” she said snapping back to the present.

She allowed him to drag her away. The silence was welcome, the night air cooling her heated skin, but Luka didn’t seem content with that as they arrived at his car. Instead of opening the door for her, he caged her against it, his arms on either side of her.

“It’s going to eat at you,” Luka murmured. “Might not be today, but you’re going to feel that shit you did tonight and you’re not going to be able to deal.”

“You would know from experience, right?”

He smiled tightly. “Yes.”

She didn’t actually think he would admit to it, but it made sense. Luka didn’t seem like the type of person to uselessly lie—stretch the truth perhaps, but not lie.

They were so close that if she just titled her head up just a whisper, their lips would touch. Alex was practically shaking with the need to do it, to see if she would feel something by doing it or would he be like all the others that had crossed her path.

All night, she had been all over the place. Anger. Sadness. Happiness. Even now, she was seeking an escape, knowing that what Luka was saying was true.

“You want me,” Luka said, not arrogantly with a smirk, but curiously, as though the concept had never crossed his mind despite all of their encounters in the past.

“Yes,” she whispered back before she could stop herself.

The back of his scarred fingers came up to caress her cheek, pale eyes following the movement as though mesmerized.

“I’d wreck you.”

He pulled away from her, cold air hitting her chest instead. His rejection stung, but she wasn’t going to acknowledge it because when she did, when she acknowledged everything that happened this night, she would need something a lot stronger than alcohol to deal.





It wasn’t too cold when Lauren opened the doors to sit out on the balcony, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Stars littered the night sky, no clouds obscuring their beauty. Really, it was a perfect night, but it was hard for her to find any beauty in it, not when she was constantly reminded of the ugliness of the world when she saw the scar on Mishca’s chest or the now haunted look in Alex’s eyes.

While his scar was healing—and looked far better than it did when he was discharged from the hospital—she doubted Alex’s wounds would heal so easily.

Lauren pulled her knees to her chest as she sat, closing her eyes as the wind blew in her hair. She couldn’t have been sitting out there for long when the doors opened.

His gaze flew to her immediately as he stepped outside, in only a pair of lounge pants, his feet bare. Not bothering with grabbing anything, he came to her side, motioning for her to sit forward so he could climb on the chair behind her. She attempted to pull the blanket off and give it to him, but he stopped her, wrapping his arms around her middle.

“The cold doesn’t bother me.”

She was stiff, trying to hold her weight off of him while leaning back against him at the same time. “Should I be laying on you?”

He sighed. “You worry too much.”

Mishca didn’t give her the chance to move away any further, tugging slightly until she was resting fully against him. If she concentrated on everything else, ignoring the feel of the scar against her skin, she could almost imagine that everything was okay.

“Talk to me,” he whispered next to her ear, and as though he couldn’t help himself, he kissed the spot just below it.