Page 23 of The Bratva’s Captive Flame

I cross the room and take his hand in both of mine, sinking down onto the edge of the bed. "I'm here. I'm okay. Are they treating you right? Are you in pain?"

"They put a needle in me. The little doctor, he keeps coming back, talking to me in English I can barely follow." His thumb moves over my knuckles while his forehead creases. "I wouldn't eat until they let me see you. I thought…" Tears drip down his cheeks. "You never came back after that night. Solano told me they were going to kill you…"

"I'm sorry." Guilt snakes through my chest, suffocating me for a moment. "Papa, I'm so sorry I scared you. I should've told you. I just knew you'd never let me go."

"Let you go." He scoffs and almost laughs at me as he wipes his tears away. "Into a crate? Across the sea? No. I would've locked you in that room myself before I let you do something so stupid." His grip tightens. "And it worked, didn't it? You stubborn, impossible girl. It worked, and now look where it's put us both.

"It doesn't matter." He grips my fingers with a strength that surprises me. "Listen to me. We have to get out of here. You and me, we have to find a way out before they—" He glances at the door, lowers his voice, but I'm not sure any of these men even speak Spanish to know what he's saying. "These are not good men, Isabela. I don't know whose hands you've put us in, but we have to run."

God, my chest aches, but I agree with him. This place is every bit as much a prison as the one we left, just with nicer sheets. But the lock turns the same direction. Demin is not going to let us go now that he has a man who can make his drugs for him. But what else could I have done? Staying in Madrid meant losing him for sure, and when he was gone, potentially being sold or worse…

I shudder, unable to let myself go there. "The man who runs this place," I say carefully. "Demin. He's the reason we got you out." I watch his face as his eyes still plead with me. "He protected me, Papa. During the raid where we saved you." I hate this. I told that ass that I wasn't going to do this, but here I am doing it. "He saved my life, Papa. I fell and he came back for me, and when he did, he got shot doing it."

I stop short, not willing to tell him what I did in response but still needing him to understand. We don’t get a choice here. Right now, Demin is being kind about this, but if he doesn't do as they say, this family may well be worse than the Solanos.

Papa’s eyes squint and he shakes his head. "What does he want from you?"

"Nothing." It comes out too abruptly, and I press my palm to my forehead. Embarrassment burns in my cheeks as I think of his hands on me, his lips on mine. "I just—I'm trying to tell you he's not Solano. He's not…" I feel nauseous as I whisper, "Please, Papa, consider working for them." My eyes lift to see despair in his. "Please… He saved us."

I already know the answer before he gives it. I knew it before I asked. But I had to ask, because the only way we get out of this unscathed is for him to agree on his own.

"No," he snaps. "Listen to me, Mija. The Bratva, these Russians, they are worse than Solano, not better. Solano is a thug. He's greedy and he's cruel, but he's small. These people think big. A man who can buy six crates and run a raid across a border, who has a doctor on call and a house full of soldiers, a man like that doesn't free people."

Papa is furious, eyes bulging and hands waving. "He collects them." His nostrils flare and his face is growing red. "I will not cook for them. I would rather die a free man in the dirt than spend my last years making poison for someone who owns me."

"Papa—"

"Promise me you'll get us out."

"Papa, please⁠—"

"Isabela!" His shout draws Mishka and the other guard to the door. I hear them open it and stand there, and my head drops.

"I promise." My chest deflates, though I'm not sure why. "I promise I'll try to get us out." I know why he's so adamant. And I agree with everything he said. So why does it feel like betrayal now? Because I let Demin Roshin own my body and possess me so thoroughly? Because lust conceived and bore a child in my heart and now my body betrays me all because of the way one evil man spoke to me?

He sags back against the pillows, satisfied, and squeezes my hand. I can't tell him a single thing about how tangled up I've gotten inside. My father can never know how Demin has fucked with my head and twisted my desires so that some part of me has stopped wanting to run.

"I should go," I say, and I press a kiss to my father's forehead and stand.

"I love you," he whispers, pressing a kiss to his fingertips before he touches my hand again, and Mishka walks forward to indicate it's time to go.

This time when he escorts me, he doesn't grab my arm. He lets me walk at my own pace. When I get to the stairwell, Mishka stops me, saying, "He wants you in the study."

Sighing, I scowl at him and say, "Well, lead the way. It isn't like I know where I'm going."

Mishka's eyes track over my face as he moves past me. And even though I follow him, he glowers over his shoulder every few steps. Whatever Demin wants from me now, he's not going to get it. I've done my part, even the parts I swore I wouldn't do, and it didn't work. I just want peace now.

The study is a dark, book-lined room I haven't seen before. Demin sits behind a heavy desk sipping something in a glass, which is set on his desk as he gestures Mishka away. The door shuts, and I pace over to where he sits.

"Sit," he says. "How is your father?"

"Awake. Refusing to die just to spite your doctor." I don't bother sitting down. I don't want to be here. The things this man makes me feel are honestly a dagger in my heart driving a wedge between me and my father. "He let them put fluids in him."

"Well, out with the rest of it." He turns the glass in his hand and glowers at me. "You spoke to him about me." So someone does know at least a little Spanish, though if they knew what Papa proposed, this would be a very different conversation, I'm sure.

I'm too tired to fight this man anymore. I let the tips of my fingers drag over the desk and my shoulders slump. "I asked him. He said no," I tell him. "He won't cook for the Bratva. He'd rather die free than work for you, and nothing I say is going to move him on that."

Demin sips his drink and grunts. "You're not going to try?" he asks.