The next morning, Kaz awoke to the sound of a key grating in the lock of Allie’s apartment door. The woman herself was still cuddled by his side, snoozing away, so his protective instincts immediately went on high alert. Had Salko discovered the location of Allie’s apartment? Kaz had been careful to cover his tracks when coming here, but Salko had spies everywhere. Had one of his bodyguards shown up to deal with them all?

Carefully, so as not to wake her, he slipped out of bed and quickly tugged on his jeans from the night before, then moved across the apartment to grab his gun from the pocket of his coat where it hung from a peg on the wall by the entrance. Pulse pounding, he waited in the dim, early-morning light, his naked back pressed to the cold wall and his weapon at the ready.

Light streamed in as the door creaked open, temporarily blinding him. Kaz blinked hard and squinted at the figure who now stood on the threshold of Allie’s apartment. Male, several inches shorter and about fifty-pounds-less-muscle lighter than Kaz. The light from the hall caught a crop of shaggy brown hair, pale skin, and eerily familiar hazel eyes.

Danny Charman.

Kaz had him by the neck in an instant, slamming the guy back up against the wall as he kicked the door closed with his bare foot. Any thoughts of waking Allie were buried beneath an avalanche of anger and resentment for the douchebag now within his grasp. Spoiled, selfish, self-centered Danny fucking Charman. How dare Danny show his face at his sister’s place when he’d run out on his debts and left her to clean up his mess!

“About time you showed up, you worthless piece of shit,” Kaz growled, vaguely aware of Allie’s startled gasp from the bed across the room and the sound of rustling sheets. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

Danny squirmed against the wall, his feet dangling useless about an inch off the floor as he clawed at Kaz’s hand choking off his windpipe. “I came to see my sister,” he squeaked. “If you let me go, I can explain.”

“Fuck you and your explanations,” Kaz all but spat in the guy’s face. He’d had it with this asshole’s excuses and lack of care for his sister’s sacrifices on his behalf.

“Wait!” Allie ran over to them, clutching a sheet around her. “Don’t hurt him. You promised.”

“I promised not to make his injuries permanent or fatal.” Kaz bared his teeth. “But there will be pain involved. Lots of it.”

To prove his point, he slammed his weapon down hard on the side of Danny’s head. Blood trickled from his scalp and Allie screamed. “Let him go! Stop it! He’s turning blue, he can’t breathe!”

Her sobs slowly penetrated the red haze of fury in his brain and slowly Kaz released Danny. The guy slid down the wall to land in a heap on the floor, the side of his face bloody and his pained gasps filling the air. Disgusted, Kaz turned away, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand while Allie crouched beside her brother, using the corner of her sheet to dab the blood from his cheek.

“What’s he doing here, Al?” Danny whispered to his sister. “Don’t tell me you’re sleeping with this guy. He’s a—”

Kaz swiveled fast, gun raised and cocked, his aim at Danny’s heart. “Watch what you say next. Your words may be your last.”

“Put that away,” Allie said, angrily. “He’s my brother and he’s bleeding. I need to help him.”

“All you ever do is help him, kotenok,” he said, his tone harsh. “Perhaps if he had to deal with his own messes, your precious Danny would finally grow the fuck up.”

“Fuck you!” Danny snarled, glaring at him from the floor. “How dare you get my sister involved in all this.”

“Me?” The tight leash on Kaz’s rage frayed a little more. This bastard had the audacity to accuse him of mistreating his sister? But Kaz was a better man than Salko. He didn’t murder people over money. Over Allie, however, he might be persuaded. “Don’t you dare to even speak about me, you pathetic piece of shit. You’ve done nothing but take advantage of the people who love you your whole life. Do you even care about Allie? Were you just being stupid when you gave me her address? Have you ever once been concerned for her welfare? Maybe if you would’ve paid your debts to Salko on time,” he said, waving his free hand in Allie’s direction, “then your sister wouldn’t have to sell the business she loves to save your lying, cheating ass.”

“What?” Danny pushed Allie’s hands away and scrambled to his unsteady feet, his gaze darting from his sister to Kaz. “What’s he talking about, Al? You’re selling Charmante?”

Allie straightened and gave Kaz a pointed stare. “We have to come up with the money, Danny. You know I don’t have that kind of cash in savings. What other choice do I have?”

“So you give yourself to a scumbag like this?” Danny looked Kaz up and down with the same horrified expression most people reserved for shit stuck to the bottom of their shoe. “He’s nothing but a thug, Allie. A killer for hire. A worthless, uneducated, punk who—”

Kaz was used to insults. Hell, he lived with them every day from Salko. But hearing a dirty fucker like Danny Charman spew such hatred at him caused something inside Kaz to snap. He charged at Danny and the guy took a swing at him. An actual fucking punch and the game was on.

The next few seconds were a blur for Kaz, a barrage of flying fists and grunts and groans punctuated by the soft thud of bone hitting bone and the jarring pain of bruised muscles and torn flesh. Danny managed to land a knee to Kaz’s gut and he doubled over. But before his opponent could do any more damage, Kaz wrapped an arm around Danny’s neck and yanked him away from the safety of the wall, throwing him down on the floor then landing atop him, sending a non-stop flurry of left-crosses and right hooks into Danny Charman’s too perfect, detestable face. In the back of his mind, his promise to Allie reverberated, along with her cries at both of them to stop. He wouldn’t kill the guy, wouldn’t do any damage, but he sure as hell would give this asshole a beating he’d never forget.

Time seemed to slow as he struck Danny over and over again. All his pain, all his anger over the years unloading with each punch until finally Danny stopped fighting back and just lay limp beneath Kaz’s straddling legs. Allie’s sobs broke through the violence at last and Kaz stopped hitting, stopped punching, stopped it all and just concentrated on the plan ahead of him.

“Get my phone,” he said to Allie, his breath uneven and his words laced with pain from what was most likely his broken ribs. For such a coward, Danny had a few good moves in him and had landed a few blows himself.

“Go to hell,” Allie yelled, rushing over to Danny’s side again. “I swear to God if you’ve killed him I will take your life with my bare hands.”

“He’s fine. He’s breathing, see?” Kaz climbed off Danny then pointed at the slow rise and fall of the guy’s chest. Sweat and blood stung his eyes and he blinked hard, scrubbing his hand over his face. His knuckles were cracked and bruised from the violence, not to mention the stab of regret in his chest each time he heard Allie sob. Beating Danny up was a necessary evil, but perhaps doing it in front of Allie had been a mistake.

Instead of saying anything more, he stalked back over to his jacket and pulled out his phone. Opening the camera app, he walked back over to Danny, who was still out cold, and started taking photos of the bloody injuries to his face. Judging from the crooked angle of his nose, the guy’s nose was broken. Good. That should be sufficient proof for Salko that Kaz was doing as ordered.

“Stop it!” Allie said, glaring up at Kaz as he snapped more photos. “What kind of animal are you?”

“The kind of animal who’s trying to save his own life and your business.” Kaz took a few more shots of Danny then shut off his phone, hating the hurt that streaked through him knowing that Allie’s allegiance still rested firmly with her lowlife brother despite the passion they’d shared the night before. “Perhaps showing Salko that I’ve beaten up Danny will buy us a bit more time, kotenok.”

“Don’t call me that.” She ran a tender hand over her brother’s forehead then straightened to face Kaz, her expression furious. “You lost that right when you attacked my brother.”

Frustrated, Kaz stalked over to her kitchen sink and washed the blood off his hands and face then grabbed a nearby dish towel to dry off. “We went over this last night. The plan was always to beat up your brother. His arriving here unannounced made things easier, that’s all. Why are you so upset with me now?”

“Talking about it and seeing it in action are two different things.” She crossed her arms over her chest, tugging her sheet higher around her. “And you said beat him up, not beat him senseless.”

“There’s a difference?”

“There is to me.”

Jaw clenched, Kaz tossed the towel aside and scowled down at his toes. He’d been open with Allie, both physically and emotionally. More than he had with anyone in years. He’d let her see the heart of him, the person he kept hidden from everyone else. He’d thought perhaps she was different, that they might have a future together after all this mess with her brother was over. But he could see now he’d been wrong. No matter what he said or did, she’d always see him as nothing but a Bratva bully, a hired thug, a stupid, worthless piece of mindless muscle.

Danny was her brother, her blood, her family. He would always come first.

Kaz understood that sentiment, even embraced it himself when it came to his own kin.

But understanding it didn’t make it any easier to accept.

Didn’t make it any less painful either.

“Fine,” he said, stepping around her and walking back to the bedroom to pull on the rest of his clothes as her brother started to come to on the floor. “I’m leaving.”

“Hang on a minute.” Allie padded behind him across the hardwood. “What about last night? What about us? You’re just going to walk out on all that like it meant nothing to you?” She stopped several feet from him and blinked at his stoic face. Kaz had been hiding his emotions for so long he was good at it. Maybe too good. “It doesn’t mean anything to you, does it? Last night was nothing but sex for you, a way to relax and blow off a little steam.”

The brittleness in her tone nearly brought him to his knees but he had to be strong. There were still too many lives at stake for him to fall apart now—Allie’s, Danny’s, his own. “I need time alone to regroup.”

“You know what? I see now that you were just taking what you want from me, and now that you’ve gotten it you just want to leave. That’s fine. I was beginning to think maybe I’d misjudged you. That maybe you were more than the thug I’d expected you to be in the beginning. But I was wrong. Obviously.”

He shoved his feet into his black motorcycle boots then stepped around her to head for the door. He did his best not to see the anguish on her face as she turned back to her moaning brother and failed miserably. Still, as he strapped on his shoulder harness then shrugged into his jacket, Kaz steeled his heart. All his life he’d compartmentalized his feelings in order to survive. He’d done it when his father had walked out on him and his mom when Kaz was just a kid. He’d done it when he’d been eleven and he and his mom had run into his dad and his “new” family at a shopping center one day and Kaz realized the father he’d worshipped was happier with his “new” wife and kids, that Kaz would never have the same kind of close relationship with his father that the “new” family had with him. And he’d done it on every single collection call Salko had assigned him over the years. Closing off his heart with Allie now should be a piece of cake.

Except it wasn’t. Not at all.

In fact, if felt like someone had carved out his heart with a dull spoon, leaving an open, raw gaping wound in the center of his chest. The only thing he’d ever wanted in life was to be someone’s top priority, their number one. He’d thought for a moment, maybe he could have that with Allie.

He’d been wrong, too.

“I’ll call you when I know something more,” he said, as he walked out the door of her apartment, his last image was of her kneeling beside her brother as he sat up, Allie’s expression full of pained anger.

* * *

Kaz drove around for several hours trying to get his head back on straight. Part of him wanted to run back to Allie’s place and make sure she was okay, erase that look of devastation and regret on her face. But the other part of him knew they needed to use the day or two they had left to get the money together to pay Salko in full, somehow.

He glanced in the rearview mirror of his old Chevy Cutlass Supreme and spotted the non-descript gray sedan that had been following him for the last half hour. In hindsight, sending those pictures to Salko had most likely been a mistake, since it gave the guy his GPS coordinates and now they were tracking him, but he’d needed to do something, goddammit. The Cutlass had more rust than green paint left and was a far cry from the fancy, tricked-out Bentley his half-brothers had ridden around in during their time with the Bratva—usually with Kaz chauffeuring them. But the Chevy was his and that’s all that mattered.

Cranking the classic rock up even louder on his car stereo, Kaz headed south toward the old Bratva safe house in the strip mall. They hadn’t had use for the place much since his half-brother Nik’s fiancée, Daphne, had been housed there for protection. Kaz snorted and sped through a yellow light to try and lose his tail.

As he pulled into the rundown strip mall parking lot a few minutes later, he noticed several cars he recognized parked out front, mainly other low-level enforcers for the family who were probably hanging out in the lounge. Perfect.

He` parked in front of the pawn shop that fronted the safe house, then got out. The clerk behind the counter, a young girl with a hot pink Mohawk, barely looked up as he made his way back through the store and through another door into the secret Bratva lounge in the back. The place reeked of stale cigarettes and booze just like always. Several of the enforcers greeted him as he made his way to the bar at the back of the room and grabbed a bottle of Johnny Walker from the shelf on the wall. It wasn’t even ten o’clock yet but man-oh-man did he need a drink.

The liquor burned his throat and steeled his resolve. He’d stay here through the afternoon, play some poker, win some money, He took another swig from the bottle, noticing several of the other men eyeing him with wary suspicion. Several had taken out their phones, discreetly texting about him to Salko, most likely.

Good. Let the bastard come here and face him head on.

A few of the guys Kaz could depend on, to stand with him if it came to that in the end. Salko was a cruel, vindictive bastard who ruled through intimidation and brute force. That might make others serve him out of fear, but it didn’t win him any loyalty in the friends department.

Kaz walked over and plunked his bottle down on one of the faded green felt table tops and straddled his chair. Four other guys were sitting around the table smoking and drinking, small piles of poker chips stacked in front of them. Kaz hiked his chin toward the guy holding the deck of cards. “Deal me in.” He took a seat and began to play, hoping he could add to the funds they already had to pay Danny’s debts.

Six hours later, he’d banked about six grand when his phone finally rang. Kaz pulled it out to see Salko’s name and ugly mug flash on his screen. Shoulders tense, he answered. “Yeah.”

“Less than twenty-four hours,” Salko said, his tone almost gleefully sinister. “Those pictures you sent of Danny Charman were cute, but smashing his face in isn’t enough, unless you’ve got the money he owes too, and I know you don’t. An eye for an eye, Kaz. His life for yours. Or maybe you’ve gone even softer than I first thought. For your sake, I hope not, because then I’d be obligated to make your death an example for others. You’d still die, but it would be long and painful in coming. Then again, maybe I’d enjoy that even more. I do love a good torture session.”

“Does this conversation have a point?” Kaz said, his voice flat despite his pulse slamming loud in his ears. He had no doubt Salko would savor each moment of his pain and suffering. The sick fucker. Still, he was beyond caring if he was being disrespectful. Any respect he might’ve had for Salko had disappeared a long time ago. He stared down at the straight flush in his hand then at the large pot of poker chips at the center of the table, raking in another two grand from his win. “I’m kind of busy. If you think you can take me, have at it, asshole.”

Salko chuckled, a rough guttural noise brimming with insanity. “Don’t be an idiot. Torture, my friend, takes many forms. I don’t have to hurt you directly to make you suffer. I know you’re fucking the girl, Danny’s sister. Allie is her name, yes?”

Kaz stiffened in his seat, a muscle ticking near his tight jaw. “You watched us? You’re even more depraved than I thought.”

“You think you can outsmart me, Volkov, but you can’t. Even now, as you sit in that filthy lounge playing poker, I see that you have a good hand. I know what you’re going to do even before you do it, you pathetic piece of shit. So here’s how this is going to go down.”

Swallowing hard, Kaz placed his cards face down on the table and stood, walking to a far corner of the room to hear better, adrenaline pumping hot and fast through his bloodstream.

“Someone still has to deal with Danny Charman by his deadline. And seeing how the rest of his shithead family dotes on him, I’m guessing they’re going to be pretty upset when he winds up face down in a gutter somewhere, drowning in his own blood. So, I suppose I’ll have to take them all out too. Wouldn’t do to have them making a stink about the murder.”

“I swear to God, if you fucking touch one hair on her head I’ll—” Kaz growled, not caring who heard him.

“You’ll what?” Salko taunted. “Beat me up like you did Danny? I’m not scared, Volkov. Not at all. You’re weak and you’re soft and you’re pathetic, just like the rest of your family. Your father was like that too, such a fainthearted bastard. I couldn’t stand the fucking sight of him. The day he died was the best day of my life. Good riddance.”

Kaz gripped his cell phone so tight the plastic protective case cracked. Salko had just signed his own death warrant with those words. Bad enough he was threatening the woman Kaz cared for. To insult his father was to insult Kaz personally. They might not be as close as they once were, but in the Bratva, family was everything. Vengeance would be his and Salko would pay.

Shaking with rage, he hung up, not bothering to say anything more. He had to protect Allie first and foremost. Avenging his family’s honor would come later. But in order to do that, he needed to get back to her apartment.

He quickly walked back to the table and collected his winnings before taking a last drag off the bourbon bottle. Strength and fortitude. That’s what it would take to beat Salko. That’s what he prayed for as he walked to the door and through the pawn shop, heading for his Chevy in the parking lot. As he weaved his way through evening Chicago traffic back toward the north side, he kept glancing at the dashboard clock. It was going on six p.m. now. His deadline to deal with Danny Charman was noon the next day. Friday. Which gave him eighteen hours to come up with a plan to save both himself and Allie and get Salko off her brother’s back for good. He’d also need ammo and as much back up as he could muster from his loyal friends in the Bratva and also his half-brothers if he planned to make a stand. There were several shotguns and a couple of semi-automatic handguns in the trunk of the Cutlass, along with a box of bullets and extra magazines, but maybe that wasn’t the best course of action. The last thing he wanted was for Allie to get caught in the crossfire.

As he headed across the Chicago River and toward her apartment, he passed a travel agency. Maybe they could get out of town. Living on the run wasn’t ideal—he knew the Bratva would never stop looking—but if it kept them alive until they came up with something better, he’d do it. By the time he’d parallel parked near the curb several blocks away from Allie’s place and made sure he had his sidearm fully loaded from the rear of the car, Kaz made his way down the sidewalk, glad for the cover of night and shadows to make it harder for anyone to follow him.

He took a circuitous route, not wanting to give Salko any advantage, though given the fact Salko obviously already knew where Allie lived if he’d watched them make love—which made Kaz’s skin crawl—he wasn’t sure it would do any good. He entered Allie’s building through a back service entrance and used the stairs instead of the elevator to avoid detection. Standing on her doorstep, out of breath and out of time, he ran a hand through his disheveled hair then knocked twice, praying he’d reached her before Salko had.

She answered the door slowly, peering out at him through a crack left by the security chain. “What do you want?”

“We need to talk.”

“I’ve got nothing to say to you.” She glared at him, her hazel eyes sparkling bright olive green and her cheeks flushed. “Danny’s not here.”

“Then we need to find him fast. Salko’s going to kill him on sight, so we need to get out of town.” He tried to push her door open further so he could get inside, but she wasn’t budging. Frustrated and rattled, Kaz leaned close catching a whiff of her expensive floral perfume and savoring it despite the circumstances. “Now, let me in, goddammit.”

Several tense seconds passed before she reluctantly reached up and slid the chain free so he could enter her apartment. When he walked in, he saw the mess he’d made earlier fighting with Danny had been cleaned up. He also saw her brother still there, sleeping on the couch his bruised and battered face looking far worse than it had that morning. The black jagged zig-zags of his stiches contrasted sharply with his pale skin and dark purple bloomed from beneath the bandages on his swollen nose. Kaz looked back at Allie over his shoulder, scowling. “You lied.”

“Yeah, I did,” she said, walking over to stand beside her brother, clearly stating her side. “Now start talking before I throw you out.”

* * *

The flicker of hurt in Kaz’s eyes squeezed Allie’s chest, but she refused to give in. She was too pissed off at him. Yes, they’d discussed him beating up Danny to put on a good show for his boss, but they’d also discussed not causing her brother any permanent injury. After Kaz had stormed out earlier, she’d pulled on her clothes and hauled her brother’s ass to the nearest urgent care clinic for treatment. Thirty-seven stitches and a resetting and splinting of his broken nose later, Danny was in no fit shape to feed himself, let alone get into another brawl with Kaz. He was bruised and battered and on some pretty strong pain meds.

“Why are you back here?” she demanded, putting herself between Kaz and her brother. The thought she’d spent the night with Kaz, shared her body and her bed with him only made her feel more conflicted and confused. “If you try and hurt him again I’ll call the cops.”

Kaz exhaled slowly, his harsh gaze never leaving hers. “I’m here because we need to get out of Chicago.” His eyes flickered to Danny, who was snoring on the sofa now, his head back and his mouth open, bruised eyes closed. “All of us are in danger. Salko wanted to punish me.”

“I’m not going anywhere. Bad enough my business is in jeopardy. I won’t lose my home too.” She crossed her arms and gave him a stubborn stare. “Besides, thanks to you, Danny’s in no condition to travel. Anyway, it’s his loan, not yours. Salko would kill him whether you were involved or not because he hasn’t paid it back.”

“Nyet.” Kaz walked over to nudge Danny’s leg and wake him up. Danny returned to consciousness slowly then scrambled away from Kaz quickly to get to Allie’s side. “Dead clients don’t pay. Salko might be cruel and violent, but he’s also greedy. Normally, he wants his money, so he doesn’t kill those who owe him. Not until they settle their accounts. But this case is different.”

Allie put a comforting hand on her brother’s shoulder and didn’t budge, despite Kaz moving closer to her. So close, in fact, that his heat and the spicy scent of his cologne mixed with the faint smell of cigarettes surrounded her. She wondered where he’d gone after he’d left her apartment but didn’t dare ask. Most likely she didn’t want to know. “Why is this case different?”

At her question, he cursed under his breath and turned away. “Because of me.”

“Why?” she asked again, sensing there was more to his story.

“Because Salko has discovered I’m vulnerable. He knows he can use you and Danny to hurt me.”

“Hurt you?” She frowned. “How could what happens to us possibly hurt you?”

Kaz gave a sad chuckle and slumped down into an empty chair, dropping his head into his hands. “Salko thinks I’m soft. He’s been with the Bratva a long time and he knows my past. He knows about my father walking out on my mother and me to start a new family, a better family. He knows how that affected me, how I’ve spent my life since then trying to prove myself.”

His words broke her heart, for the abandoned little boy he’d been and for the wounded man he was now. Still, she kept silent, her heart pounding and her nerves zinging as she waited to hear the rest of his story. Her instincts told her whatever he was going to say next would be important.

“The day I walked into Charmante, I knew you would be trouble for me. You were too smart, too successful, too beautiful for a man like me, yet still I wanted you. I never should have touched you, never should’ve met with you after that. I should have given you my warning, given you an ultimatum, and been done with it. You pay or your brother will. The end.” Kaz raked a hand through his hair and sighed. “But I couldn’t. I couldn’t seem to stay away from you, Allie. Even though I knew it would be better for both of us if I did. Then I kissed you and I knew.”

“Knew what?” she asked, her voice shaking nearly as bad as her knees.

“Knew that I was in far more danger from you than I ever was from Salko.” He looked up at her then and from the emotion in his gaze—repentance, affection, desperation, need—she knew the truth, knew that he cared, even if he didn’t want to. Even if it might mean death for both of them. He cared. A lot.

All her life she’d waited for someone to make her feel important, make her feel like she mattered just as much as Danny did, maybe more. Now, here was the last guy on earth she should ever want to get involved with saying all the right things. “I-I don’t know what to say.”

Allie collapsed into the chair across from his, vaguely registering Danny’s alarmed expression as his eyes darted between the two of them.

“Wait a minute,” Danny said. “The two of you are romantically involved?”

“Your sister and I have slept together, yes.”

“Son of a—” Danny snarled, launching himself at Kaz again, only to have Allie grab his arm and haul him back down onto the sofa.

“Stop it!” she yelled, heat flaming in her cheeks. “There’s been enough violence here today. Kaz and I had sex once. That’s it. It was mutual. Now it’s over.” She didn’t look at Kaz as she said it, not sure she’d be able to fool him as easily as she could her brother. There was a lot of chaos between her and Kaz right now, but one thing was certain. Whatever that connection between them was, it most definitely was not over. At last she turned back to Kaz, her gaze lowered. “I still don’t see how your personal feelings would factor into Salko’s decision, unless you told him how you feel about me, which I highly doubt you’d—”

“He saw us. In bed together.”

It took a moment for the words to penetrate Allie’s beleaguered brain. “What?”

“Salko has spies everywhere, watching me. He saw us and he knows I care for you. He’s planning to use that against me to settle his beef with me over how I handle business for him. He doesn’t agree with my collection practices, of me paying for my clients when they can’t. In Salko’s eyes, that makes me soft and weak.”

She shook her head, stunned. Any normal, rational person would see those traits in Kaz as strengths—compassion, loyalty, kindness. Then again, obviously Salko wasn’t normal or rational. He was a violent, psychopathic scumbag who enjoyed hurting others. “Can’t you go to his boss, the rest of your Bratva and explain the situation? Tell them Salko’s gone crazy and is trying to kill you? You said your family has been loyal members of the Bratva for years. That has to count for something, right? Surely they’d choose your side over his.”

“It doesn’t work like that.” He pushed to his feet and began to pace the room. “First of all, snitches are frowned upon in the mafia. Second, Salko holds a higher position than me. There’s no way they’d choose to believe me over him.”

Allie caught his arm as he passed her, needing to touch him, needing to reassure him. “Maybe they would.” At his incredulous look, she faced him, placing her hand over his thudding heart. “Listen, I’ve only known you a few days and already I can see that you’re tough and strong and brave. You have a good head for business and good instincts in a fight.” She glanced over at Danny and winced. As badly as he’d been beaten, even she had to admit it could’ve been so much worse. Kaz had pulled his punches. He’d told her the truth and kept his promise, no matter how much she’d tried to claim otherwise. “These men in the Bratva have known you their whole lives, they knew your father, have watched you grow into the fine, capable man you are today. Why wouldn’t they choose you over a scumbag like Salko?”

Kaz pulled away from her, his expression flat. “You didn’t choose me either. You picked Danny this morning after the fight, and you would pick having your shop open and thriving over me any day of the week. As it should be.”

“No.” She blocked his path when he tried to turn away from her again. “You’re wrong, Kaz. I didn’t choose my brother over you. He needed my help and I was angry, yes. But that doesn’t diminish the connection between us. And while I love my shop and enjoy running my business, it doesn’t keep me warm at night.”

He blinked down at her fingers on his chest, then up at her, the look in his eyes inquiring, gentle, hesitant. “I don’t understand.”

“Believe it or not, my heart is big enough for all three of you—my brother, my work, and you, Kaz.” She smiled, her eyes stinging with tears. She never cried, but damn. This was making her far more emotional than she ever would’ve imagined. “Until a few days ago, I never dreamed I’d give up my shop, but for my brother, for you? I would in an instant. Danny’s my family, I will always care for him, no matter what.” Danny cleared his throat then got up and moved to the kitchen to give them some privacy. Kaz started to pull away again, but she stopped him, cupping his cheeks this time to force him to look at her. “I care for you too, Kaz. I never would’ve slept with you if I didn’t. That’s just not me. And I won’t ever give up on you either, do you understand that? I fight for the things I care about and I will battle tooth and nail for you from now on. You and Danny and my business. You’re all in my heart together.”

Kaz remained silent for so long, just looking at her, that she feared something might’ve been lost in translation. But then he swept her up into his arms and kissed her so deeply and thoroughly that she felt it all the way to her toes. When they were done, Allie peeked over to see Danny watching them with a resigned look.

“Really, sis?” He shook his head, then winced and raised a hand to his nose. “That’s who you pick?”

“Don’t give me any shit about my life choices, buddy.” She turned in Kaz’s arms, her back to his hard, warm chest. “In fact, after all the crap you’ve put me and our parents through over the years, I’d say you lost your vote on what anyone else does with their life a long time ago. You’re the reason we’re all in this mess to begin with, so if I were you, I’d shut my mouth and start following orders. Got it?”

Danny scowled and crossed his arms, then nodded. “Fine.”

“Fine.” Allie turned back to Kaz again. “Right. So, what do we do now?”

“I don’t know yet, kotenok.” He took a seat and pulled her down into his lap, ignoring her brother’s disgusted glare. “If we go after Salko ourselves, we risk angering the rest of the Bratva.”

“But if we don’t, then they’ll come after us, after you.”

Kaz held her gaze.

“No. I won’t let you sacrifice yourself,” Allie said, her tone vehement. “There has to be another way. We just have to find it.”