Page 112 of The Cold Bratva King and His Forced Curvy Bride

“If you stay, you die.”

“Maybe.” He paused. “If I leave, he wins, and I can’t let him win.”

“Then I’ll come get you.”

“No.” His voice was sharp. “No extraction. If you come in, you blow my cover. You blow everything. You have to let me finish this.”

“What if you don’t make it?”

“Then you keep your promise.”

The line went dead. I sat in the dark, the phone humming in my hand. I thought about Freya. I thought about her laugh, her stubbornness, the way she looked at me with those big, green eyes.

I thought about Ayaan, sacrificing everything for a sister who thought he was a loser.

I stood up and walked to the window. The city lights twinkled below, ignorant of the wars being fought in the shadows.

I was going to protect them both. Even if I had to burn the city down to do it.

***

The bathroom door opens.

I open my eyes, the past fading away like smoke. Freya walks out, a cloud of steam billowing around her. She’s wearing one of my robes, the white cotton hanging loose on her frame. Her hair is wet, slicked back from her face.

She looks like an angel. She stops when she sees me sitting there.

“You’re awake,” she says.

“I’m awake.”

She walks over to the bed, hesitating. She sits down on the edge, careful not to touch me.

“He’s really alive,” she whispers.

“He is.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

I reach out, taking her hand. Her skin is warm, damp from the shower. “I promised him,” I say. “He made me swear that you would never know.”

She looks down at our joined hands. “He loves me.”

“Yes.”

“He almost died for me.”

“He would have died a thousand times for you.”

She looks up at me, her eyes swimming with tears. “And you?”

“What about me?”

“Did you do it for him?”

I look at her, really look at her. I see the woman I’ve fallen in love with. The woman I’ve fought for, bled for, lied for.

“At first,” I say honestly, “it was a debt. A promise to a dying man.”