Page 12 of Pack Baby for the Bratva
Her eyes begged me to save her.
"Go with Gregor," I ordered.
“You can’t take her—” her father began.
“I need to know if we're compatible,” I said.
Gregor’s voice was a growl as he shielded Mary from his view and took her out of the room.
3
Ivan
“Are you okay?” Iasked Mary.
Two days ago, we’d moved her to a safe house for her own safety, because she begged us to help her, telling us she’d be punished for speaking out and not keeping her mouth shut.
So, until the McCarthys were in a less hostile mood, she was under our care. Not that she looked like a captive while she was lounging on the sofa, looking like a queen holding court.
Her black hair fanned out behind her, her green eyes sharp as she watched the two hulking bodyguards—Killian and Blade—standing like statues on either side of the door. They were there to protect her, but from the way she was smirking, it was clear she was enjoying the view.
“I want to stay here forever,” she declared, stretching her arms above her head. “If I thought you’d be as nice as you are, I would have agreed to marry you or your brother.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You’re not ours, Mary. We have an omega. We just have to find her again.”
She pouted, but there was a twinkle in her eye. “She’s very lucky.”
“She didn’t think so,” I admitted. “She ran.”
Mary laughed, a bright, unexpected sound. “You are scary-looking.”
I turned to the mirror on the wall, taking in my reflection. Dark brown hair, a beard-covered jaw that had seen its fair share of fists, and sapphire eyes that had a habit of making people confess things they weren't supposed to.
“Not your face,” she clarified. “Your demeanor. You have an energy about you that is…” She glanced at Killian and Blade, who were doing their best impression of immovable objects. “You all have this scary-but-sexy energy.”
Killian’s cheek twitched. Blade’s eyes were on me, but I could have sworn I saw the ghost of a smile.
I was about to respond when a phone buzzed on the table. I looked at Artem as I picked it up.
He nodded. Brothers never hid anything from each other.
As I read the message, my heart stopped beating and I’m fairly certain my blood stopped moving.
CARD ALERT: Card ending 0926.
Amount: £1,042.90.
Online: Boots.
Click and collect: Post Office, Lothian Road, Edinburgh
Boots.
I stared at the word until it rearranged itself into something my brain could process. Boots. Not a hotel. Not a train station. Not a passport office.
Boots.Where people bought things for babies.
The math hit me like a freight train.Nine months.She’d been gone for nearly nine months. And that was not a coincidence. Itwas nearly nine months since we had two nights in Prague and for those two nights to become a permanent consequence.
