All Chapters of Breathe Me, Bratva King: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

EstinaI opened the door as quietly as I could and entered. A maid was still seated there in a chair, watching over her. Smirking at the maid dozing, her head hanging to the side as she, too, couldn't manage to be awake in the middle of the night, I approached Masha.Her bruises would fade. The cuts on her skin would heal without much scarring. But the damage was inside. She was traumatized by her capture. She was heartbroken and lost without a family to support her.But it's not my fight.I was taxed enough with fighting to survive in the aftermath of ever crossing paths with her father.Prioritizing her care couldn't be my mission. I cared. I wanted to be here to see her smile and reconcile with Anatoli and Gunsyn and everyone in this building. I just couldn't do so without sacrificing my life and my happiness.It's not my place.Reaching over to tuck her loose hair back off her face, I sighed and tried to wall off the emotions that watching her gave me. Already, I was compromised.

EstinaGoing back to my apartment wasn’t an option. It didn’t even cross my mind. Nothing was left there that I couldn’t live without, anyway.All I had as I walked out of the Marcelli building, paused by the guard only to tell him that I was leaving, simple as that, was my phone. My purse. And the clothes I had put on this morning.My passport was digital, thank God, but I needed to get a ticket back across the ocean to the small town where I’d grown up outside London.Leaving the skyscrapers in New York would feel right. But as I rode into the area near the hospital I’d come here to work at, I struggled with the enormity of actually leaving Anatoli. Of abandoning Masha. Because that was what it was. There was no other way to view it. I was dropping her as my “patient”, unable to risk staying and getting further involved.I was already complicit, and I as detoured to stop at a hotel, checking in quickly just to have a place to stop and sit and think before planning a ticket out of th

AnatoliGunsyn became more involved with Masha over the course of the day. He was my go-to in terms of making sure her needs were met, yet whenever he checked in with me around the meetings and such, he hinted at her not entirely warming up to him. Which didn’t surprise me. She had to get used to having a brother before she could adjust to having a sibling caring for her.I was grateful that he stepped in like this. As he did with so many other things, he was my right-hand man, the son I could depend on no matter what. Raising him had been a pleasure. However, I was still at a loss for how to connect with her, especially after she saw me as the reason she was here at all. The reason she was ever targeted.Without my making a move to fix this disconnect between us, I was at a loss for what else I could do right now to reach her. It emphasized how much I had been counting on Estina in that regard. I had been looking at her for the first, crucial step in helping with my daughter’s recove

EstinaThe doors were yanked open from the rear. Loud, grinding creaks of the ungreased hinges whined, but no light shone inward.They'd parked inside a long, dark garage of some sort. Narrow walls threatened claustrophobia. The lack of lights made every shadow more sinister. But it was the approach of the beefy Giovanni men that scared me the most.Two men grabbed me out of the van and dropped me to the rough floor. Cracked pavement didn't give me any cushioning to rely on. I was further wincing and hissing through pain when they grabbed my ankles and dragged me. Like I was an animal, a sack of inanimate junk, they dragged me over the floor through this tunnel-like space.Once they reached a big room with only one light in it, they released my ankles. Unprepared for the abrupt stop, I couldn't brace for the impact. My legs dropped down, and I tensed at the hit of my heels on the concrete floor.They spoke behind me, resorting to Italian and only a few words of English. All I could un

EstinaFidelis didn't stay long. After my initial arrival in this room, he joined the Mafia men in taunting me. They loomed over me after they tied the ropes to an anchored hook on the floor, making sure I couldn't even stand with my arms behind my back. My face was pressed to the grimy floor, and with every hard exhale through my nose, a cloud of dirt fluffed up to irritate my eyes.They threatened to whip and beat me, but they didn't lay a finger on me at all.I quickly understood that this was just a game for them. There was no doubt in my mind that they had taken me for some grand purpose. A motive lurked behind their kidnapping, something that they wanted to be rewarded for and paid for. But until they would actually make good on their threats, they wanted to play with me.It was psychological warfare at its worst.I flinched every time they came near. I cringed at the crude, derogatory, and threatening insults they slurred.Sticks and stones could hurt me, but I refused to let t