Ravaged Throne: A Russian Mafia Romance (Solovev Bratva #2)(65)

Except that it still doesn’t feel quite right. We both have too many secrets we’re protecting.

“Excuse me,” I say. “Changing here.”

“Like I haven’t seen it all before,” he says with a raised brow. “Back at it again so soon?”

I shrug. “I wasn’t satisfied with my last round. I need to work on my upper body strength.”

“You’re pushing yourself too far.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Willow—”

“I hate it when you say my name like that,” I snap. “I’m not a child, Leo. Stop treating me like one.”

“There is such a thing as burn-out, you know? But if you can’t restrain yourself, then I’ll have to do it for you.” He snatches my sports bra out of my hand.

I whirl around to face him, venom in my glare. “Oh, very mature. Give that back.”

He doesn’t move an inch.

“Fine. I guess I’ll just train without one,” I say. “That should give your men a real show.”

His eyes flash, his knuckles whiten, and the next thing I know, I’m pinned against the bathroom wall with his breath in my face.

I push on his chest and try to keep a brave expression. “You’re the reason I need stronger arms, always pinning me against walls.”

“Only because you ask for it.”

I push him off me again, successfully this time, but only because he lets me. “You’re infuriating, you know that?”

“I have your best interests at heart. You’re going to injure yourself if you keep this pace. It’s not healthy.”

“I can handle myself.”

“Why do you have to be so damn stubborn all the time?”

“Probably the same reason you are,” I retort.

He rolls his eyes. “Life would be easier if you’d admit that sometimes I know better than you do.”

“Leo,” I say, my voice dropping, “I have to do something, okay? If I don’t train, I think. And when I think, I keep dreaming… I imagine the worst possible scenarios.”

He sighs. “Willow—”

I shake my head and cut him off. He needs to understand this. “You can talk all you want about your plans and your power, but until Pasha is in my arms again, I can’t have faith in anything.”

Leo sighs. His face falls, from that ever-present crackle of arrogant tension to something softer, more vulnerable, more malleable.

“Come here,” he says quietly.

I shake my head again. “I’m drowning, Leo. It’s crushing me. The worry, the guilt. I feel like I can’t breathe. But as long as I’m moving, then I can handle it. So I can’t stop. I have to keep moving.”

I try to walk past him, but Leo stops me. He grabs my face between his huge hands. “Stop for a second. Just stop.”

And I do.

But not because he told me to. The days of me accepting Leo’s orders at face value are over. I stop because there’s a catch in his voice that matches the softness in his eyes.

It isn’t a command. Not this time. It’s a request, made from one person to another based on respect. Based on affection. Maybe even based on love.

The warm glaze in his eyes bolsters me. It gives me something to hold onto, a life raft in the storm.

“All this worry…” he murmurs. “What will it change?”

“Not a damn thing. But I can’t help it.”

“Yes, kukolka, you can. You can’t control this situation, but you can control your reaction to it,” he says. “That’s your lesson for today. Be the master of your own mind.”

“Is that lesson supposed to distract me from the fact that your meeting with Belov is today?”

He smirks. “Don’t worry about Belov. I can more than hold my own.”

“I’m not worried about that.”

He lets go of my face, but doesn’t step back. “Then what are you worried about?”

“Will he bring Pasha?”

“Unlikely.”

I bite down on my bottom lip. “What about Ariel?”

“She’s Brit now, Willow,” he reminds me. “We can’t give Belov even the slightest hint that she is not a hundred percent on his side. Even if she is there, I can’t ask her how Pasha is. She won’t be able to tell us anything. Not in his presence.”

“I just need to know that Pasha is okay,” I whisper desperately. “I wish I could come with you.”

His expression grows wary. I know he’s expecting me to try and convince him to take me. But I’m done with begging.

“It’s best this way,” he says instead. He steps back, then moves past me into the bedroom.

Now, it’s my turn to follow after him. I walk up behind him and trace my hand down the rippling muscles lining his back.

He flinches at my touch. Stiffens. Then he rotates slowly, letting my fingers trail over his skin until my palm is against his chest. I skim over the muscles there, the defined lines of his abs, the winding tattoos that snake over his skin.

“I’ve never asked you about your tattoos. What’s this one?”

“The sigil of the Solovevs,” he says, pointing to the dragon with the flaming eyes.