Chaos ensued as bullets rushed through the air. There was nothing more frightening than the sound they made as they split atoms on their way to their intended target. I watched in horror as Yuri hugged the pavement. Sergei was tackled by his bodyguard. Katya stood tall and defiant, as if taunting the gunman or the bullets.

I raced to her aid and folded her in my arms. The impact of the bullet that lodged in the back of my vest sent us both to the ground with her tucked under my body for protection. I reminded myself to thank my brother for insisting I vest up.

The bullets weren’t meant for the Wilde or O’Leary families. Each one fired headed straight for Sergei or Katya, and it became clear who Yuri put the hit or—almost clear. My thoughts went straight to Sergei, who was upsetting the balance of power in the Petrenko household. Then again, Yuri could have put the hit on Katya. Without a daughter to marry off, Sergei wouldn’t have a reason to stay.

Maybe the hit was on Yuri. If Sergei was intent on taking over the territory, he’d need to get rid of him. All three were possibilities.

When the car screeched away, I moved from Katya. She lay on the sidewalk and laughed. The damn woman laughed.

“What the hell is wrong with you? You could have been killed.” I winced at the pain in my back. It was a lot less than had the bullet ripped through my body, but it did feel like I’d been punched in the kidneys with a sledgehammer.

“Nothing is wrong with me.”

I rose and helped her to her feet. All around us, people rose from the cement and checked for injuries. No one seemed to be hit. Katya took a step forward and nearly fell again.

“What hurts, sweetheart?” She hobbled to the wall and leaned against it. Pulling up the skirt of her dress, she flinched at the injury to her thigh. The knife she had strapped there had lost its sheath and sliced into her skin.

She smeared the blood aside to get a look at the wound. It wasn’t deep, but it was about an inch long. “Dammit. My dress is ruined.”

Leave it to a woman to worry about her dress. The blood seeped to the surface and ran down her leg. “Hasn’t anyone told you to never bring a knife to a gunfight?” I turned to see who would be coming to look after Katya. As much as I wanted to, it wasn’t my place—yet.

What I saw sent fire through my veins. Yuri was at the hearse, talking to the priest as if nothing had happened. Sergei got checked out by his bodyguard. The man was taking inventory of him like he was a sale item on a rack. He turned him around again and again until he was certain he hadn’t been hit.

“Let’s get you cleaned up.” I walked her back into the funeral home.

“Wait up,” my brother called after me. “You’re hit.”

Katya stopped and spun me around. “Oh my God. You’re hit." She tore at my jacket until she got it loose. When she didn’t see blood, she pulled my shirt from my pants and lifted it to see my vest. “Thank God. I don’t know what I would have done if you were injured again.”

I looked at my brother, who was flanked by two of our four bodyguards. “Where’s Faye?” I’d grown fond of my sister-in-law and wanted to make sure she was okay.

“I’ve sent her home with Tony and Frank.” Frank was new to our team, but he came highly recommended by Max, who stood with his back to our group, watching for trouble.

“She’s probably shaken up. Take Max and go to her. I’ll keep Sam, and as soon as I get Katya taken care of, I’ll head back to the casino. We should talk.”

My brother waited for a few minutes. He looked at Katya, then back to me. “This isn’t smart. You know that, right?”

I nodded. “Not smart, but right.” I helped Katya down the hallway, where we entered the women’s bathroom. I locked the door behind us and lifted her to the counter. She weighed nothing in my arms.

“You should go home. Your brother’s right, this is not your place.” She leaned over and pulled handfuls of paper towels from the dispenser. She shimmied her dress up to expose what should have been the milky white skin of her thighs. It pained me to see the blood staining her flesh.

I cupped her face. “I’m so sorry, Katya. I should have chased after you the other day. I was torn between who you are and who your family is. You are not your father.”

Despite the situation, she giggled. “No, I’d never know what to do with a penis. If I had one, the other day would have looked much different.”

“You joke.”

She pressed the paper towels against her cut. “If I didn’t laugh at my life, I’d never stop crying.”

I dropped my hand to where she’d strapped her knife. “You’d be safer with a gun.”

Her head fell forward. “My father forbids me to have one.” She cleared her throat. “I think he’s afraid I’d use it—on him.” She gave me a smile that said she’d do exactly that if given the chance.

I pulled the belt free and set her knife aside while I cleaned her wound. With a little pressure, it stopped bleeding. “I don’t think you need stitches, but you should put a bandage on it when you get home.”

“Right. I’ll do that.” She fisted her weapon and tried to jump off the counter, but I pressed my body in front of her. Her knees spread to give me room to stand between them.

“I care about you, Katya.”

She rolled those big, beautiful blue eyes. “Don’t waste your time on me.”

I grabbed her shoulders and gave her a shake. “You are a not a waste of time.”

“Tell that to my father.” She placed a hand on my chest. For a minute, I thought she’d push me back. Instead, her fingers skimmed down my shirt to the bottom button. She worked them loose one by one. “Let me take care of you.”

I wasn’t sure what that meant. “Here?”

Once my shirt was loose, she worked on the Velcro straps of my bulletproof vest. “I need to know you’re okay before I leave you for good.”

“I’m fine, and you are not leaving me for good.” I grabbed her hands and pulled them to my lips. The hot air of my mouth brushed over her fingers. “We’ll figure this out.”

“There’s nothing to figure out. Someone tried to kill you.”

I shook my head. “No. They tried to kill you or Sergei, and my guess would be Sergei. The Bratva sent him, and your father is not happy.”

She leaned forward and put her head on my chest. “Maybe they will kill each other and I’ll be free of them both.”

I stepped back to get a good look at her. “Has he hurt you? Has he forced himself on you?” It gutted me to think she might be sleeping with him.

“No. I’m not his type.”

“What the hell does that mean? You’re every hot-blooded man’s type.”

“He isn’t interested in me that way. He wants a son. If he lays with me, it will be with that objective in mind.”

“He can get a son anywhere. He wants a son with you so he can legitimately inherit the kingdom.”

She huffed out a breath. “I’d gladly give him everything if it was mine to give. In exchange, all I’d want is to walk away. I don’t want to belong to anyone.”

I moved in close so her thighs cradled my hips. I pulled her to the edge of the counter so only the fabric of my pants and her underwear kept us apart. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. You’ll never get your wish because you’re mine. You belong to me.” The thought of having Katya as mine to hold and love forever made my dick hard. I rolled my hips against her sex. That little mewling sound she made had me wishing we weren’t in a funeral bathroom but in my apartment, where I’d push her into the mattress and pound that reality into her body.

“I’ll never be yours as long as my father breathes.”

I unzipped my pants and pulled out my length. She needed to be reminded of what it felt like to have me fill her completely. I pulled the string of her panties aside and thrust deep inside her. “Feel me, Katya.”

Her legs wrapped around my thighs, dragging me deeper inside her. “Yes,” she whimpered until I moved my mouth over hers to eat up the sounds I knew she’d make when I made her come. When she left this place today, she’d know with certainty that she belonged to me.

“You’re mine,” I said against her lips. “I’m sorry I lied to myself and I lied to you, but baby, you’ve been mine forever.”

She bit her lips to suppress the moans. I was gentle, but I was thorough. Each thrust into her body was a claiming on its own.

“I’m yours,” she whispered. “If only in my heart.”

“Screw that. I’ll figure out a way to make you mine for good. Trust me.”

She nodded. I drove it home and felt her clench around me. She threw her head back as her body ruptured. What started as a flutter became a tight glove milking me to my release. We stayed like that for minutes until we heard sounds in the hallway.

There was a knock on the door. “What?” I asked.

“Mr. Volkov is looking for his fiancée,” Sam said.

“Shit,” I whispered. I pulled a few Kleenex from the box on the counter and cleaned Katya up before I tucked myself back into my pants. “We’re almost finished cleaning her up.” I looked back at her and winked.

While she put herself together, I buttoned my shirt and tucked it back into my pants. I walked in front of her to the door but stopped before I turned the bolt. “Don’t forget who you are and who you belong to. I will figure a way out soon. Will you be okay?” I hated to leave her in the hands of another, but until I had a solid plan, I had no choice. To claim her today would keep the funeral home busy for weeks.

She pulled her shoulders back and twisted the deadbolt. “Of course, I’m a Petrenko.”

She breezed past Sam and walked outside to where Sergei waited with the car. He gave me a look that said he knew exactly what we’d been doing, and I knew he’d use that against me. I waited until she pulled away to exhale.

Funny how in any other situation with bullets flying in a public space, the cops would be all over the place, but add in a few mob families, and no one showed.

They knew we would clean up our own messes. Without a doubt, I was making a big mess of things with Katya.

It fired me up to know she mattered so little to the men who were supposed to take care of her. That was why she needed me.

If I were being honest with myself, I probably needed her more. There was something about her that always managed to calm me from the inside out. It didn’t hurt when she calmed me from the outside in. Nothing would ever be as good as pressing into her soft, wet heat.