Page 68 of Baby for the Bratva King

I burst into flames. You belong to me. Four small words and I’m home.

“Our relationship seems to be a trending topic at the moment,” continues Felix. “But trends are washed out by new ones. We’ll be a passing thought soon.”

I still worry that might be the case with Felix.

“My father will kill me.”

“Too bad you’re not your father’s property, Honeysuckle,” he says darkly.

“You don’t know that man like I do.”

“Perhaps not,” says Felix. “But I know how dangerous men like him can be.”

“And yet you’re risking your reputation to piss him off.”

“I like justice. Too many innocent people are getting hurt.”

I watch his brow, watching the lines get deeper. He hides so much of himself from the world, but I recognize the hurt on his face. It takes one broken person to understand another. “Your brother.”

“My father was a reckless man. My younger brother Yusen paid the price.” Felix takes a long sip of champagne, staring at the blank TV screen in front of us. He shakes off the silence. “It was a very long time ago, back in Russia.”

“Why did you come over here?”

“To be free,” says Felix, staring at me sidelong, his eyes glowing in the dim cabin light. “Land of the free and all that.” He sniffs a laugh, raising the champagne flute to his mouth again. “I was a naïve teenage boy who wanted to escape his corrupt village leaders, thinking that if I moved across the world, I would somehow be able to compensate for Yusen’s death. I wanted things to stop hurting. I wanted to feel warm, for the cold ache in my bones to disappear. My father stole money from the rich, and we flew over here after burying my brother in the snow. I thought we were starting over, and after a while, the cold ache in my bones would start to ease.”

“But when your mind is a prison, you can never truly escape.”

“You can try,” says Felix. “The West makes it easy for people to run away from their problems, to lose sight of the end goal. Evil takes a different form here. It’s less obvious. More subtle. People will always seek power, but they disguise their hunger and pretend to be good citizens, honorable, selfless; always putting others first, all the while they’re filling their own pockets.” Felix continues watching me. “I tried to escape. I went to school, college. I never wanted this life. I believed in the land of the free. I wanted to live, but my father lived too hard, and he paid the consequences.”

“With his death…” I sit back into the seat, mulling some things over. “The land of the free is the name of the song you caught me dancing to.”

Something shifts in Felix’s gaze.

You choose your prison, and you stay there.

Even Felix feels trapped, and he’s supposed to have everything.

“Who killed your father?”

“He messed up, indulged too hard and accidentally slept with the wife of a powerful mob don. The man said he was doing me a favor. At first I didn’t understand, but I eventually saw the lesson, and I started carving out my own path.”

“And it brought you here,” I finish.

“Running a Bratva is the only way I can stay out of the mess.”

I bit my lip, guilt running through my chest. “Until now.”

Felix necks the rest of the champagne, twirling the flute, examining the glass for a moment. He tenses his jaw and puts the glass down, running a hand through his silver locks in frustration.

“You’re the first woman who has ever run away from me.”

“I find that hard to believe as a mafia leader.”

“Well, nobody knows the truth,” says Felix. “You run when you should want to stay, and vice versa.”

“We all have our reasons for wanting to stay.”

“Just like we have our reasons for wanting to cross our own boundaries, all to taste something sweet.”