couldn’t touch it.
“No,” he admitted. “I’m not.”
“Wait—are you in the fucking shower?”
“You called me.”
“You didn’t have to answer, no?”
Kolya leaned forward until his forehead pressed against the cold tile. It did very little to soothe the ache beating in his skull, not to mention the stress tightening his shoulders. He would give anything to go back to when he woke up just so he wouldn’t pick up that goddamn phone call from his father.
Brand her.
“Do you just wake up in a bad mood?” Konstantin asked.
“I woke up to Vadim.”
His brother made a harsh noise in the back of his throat. “That’ll do it.”
Kolya let out a hard breath and smacked his head against the wall once or twice. “He told me to do something.”
“He tells us to do lots of things. Be specific.”
“Brand her—he said to brand her.”
Konstantin’s silence answered Kolya back but he wasn’t offended. His brother was probably trying to come up with something appropriate to say, but really, there was fucking nothing. Kolya had been trying to come up with something, too—he was going to have to tell Maya, after all.
And he had nada.
Not a fucking thing.
“Is that exactly what he said?” Konstantin asked after a long pause.
“Yes.”
“Just—”
“Brand her, yeah.”
“Nothing else?”
“Konstantin.”
“Don’t get fucking snappy with me—this is important, but I can let you fucking handle it yourself, if you want to play that game with me, brat.”
Kolya scowled at the wall, and then slid his gaze to the phone. “I don’t see any other way out of this. The boss gave an order—all things considered, I have to follow through if I don’t want to be killed for disobeying him.”
“He just said brand her.”
“Jesus Christ, Kon—”
“Yes or no?”
“Yes, that was it. Nothing else.”
“It makes sense, no?” Konstantin asked. “Protection and status, that’s what a brand gives.”
“Yes, the status of property. Boykov property. A slave to be bought or sold, if I or he fucking chose to do that.”
“But he just said brand her,” his brother pointed out.
Kolya’s brow dipped. “And obviously, he meant—”
“To brand her, yeah, I got that. So, do that, no? Give her your stars—that’s a brand. A proper brand that labels what she is, to whom she belongs, and the status and protection she has because of it. It’s a brand that can’t be argued or disputed.”
“It’s not what he means.”
“But he didn’t specify.” Konstantin waited a beat in time, then asked, “Right?”
“Yeah, no, he didn’t specify.”
And Kolya was thinking, now.
Considering.
It was dangerous and probably stupid. Women didn’t get the stars of a Vor put on their body just because. And yet, Konstantin was right. Vadim hadn’t specified, and Kolya could make of that what he wanted. Even if he did understand exactly what his father had actually meant when he ordered for Maya to be branded.
It was a loophole.
A loophole on fire, sure.
But one nonetheless.
Maya needed to be protected.
From the Albanians.
From anyone else who wanted her.
From Vadim, likely.
Kolya was going to do just that.
“Who did Vadim say to do the brand?” Konstantin asked.
Kolya was already reaching for the water valves to turn them off as he answered with, “Viktoria and I have to go.”
“Wait a second, yeah?”
“What?”
“Be kind and give Maya a warning, then, before you take her to Vik. You know how she is, that’s all.”
Yeah, calling their younger sister a bitch would be nice. And it would probably make Viktoria Boykov smile like a happy cat. One with claws already sharpened and coming for your throat. People said Kolya was perpetually pissed off. Well, his sister could put him to shame.
“Planned on it,” Kolya said. “Now, bye.”
He scooped his phone up and hit the end call button. At the same time, he grabbed the towel hanging from a hook. He made quick work of running the towel through his hair, and wiping the water from his body. He stepped out of the bathroom to find Maya was finally awake, and resting on her side on the bed as she stared out the hotel window where the light was filtering in.
Kolya tightened the towel around his waist as he took a moment to appreciate the sight of the woman in front of him. Content and sweet. Naked under white sheets, but showing off her delicate shoulders and pert breasts with the way she was resting.
His arrival didn’t go unnoticed—she turned her head just slightly to blind him with a brilliant, happy smile.
He adored that. He’d had her in this hotel for a week—ever since that night when she was attacked by the