Page 20 of Bought to Bear Bratva Heir

"Are you going to kill me?" I didn’t want the last thing I saw to be his beautiful blue eyes. The same eyes I had grown to love. From beneath my lashes, I glanced up at him.

For a second he looked shocked, and then his eyes narrowed into slits. "You can’t kill what is already dead."

My heart slammed into my chest. There he went again. Talking like I had died. Blaming me for disappearing when it had been him that had made me disappear.

I opened my mouth to tell him that, and he cut me off. "I am not sure what I am going to do with you yet, Daisy," he admitted with a sigh. "Do you recognize this room?"

The change of direction in the conversation caused my head to snap up. Where was this going?

"Yes," I mumbled. Of course I recognized it. It was my room. Even when I had moved into the master suite with him, the only thing that had moved with me was my clothes.

"I didn’t change a thing after you," he paused. And the first note of sadness entered his voice before he shoved it back down inside of himself. "Died."

"I didn’t die, Ilya."

His head snapped up. "I can see that, Daisy. It might have been better for you if you did. It would definitely be better for me. You coming back to life is a complication I don’t want to deal with," he mumbled and sighed. It sounded like the weight of the world was on his shoulders. "You should have stayed dead."

I didn’t say a word. What could I even say to that? He knew I hadn’t died.

"Strip."

My head shot back up, my eyes widening. "What?"

"Take your clothes off," he ordered.

Nothing had changed there; he still expected to be obeyed. I shrugged my coat from my shoulders, holding it out for him.

He stared at it for a second, and then, closing his hand back around my arm, he pulled me into the bathroom.

"Drop it there." He pointed to the tile.

I did what he asked without question. My hands shook as my blouse and skirt followed it. And that’s where I paused.

I was standing there shivering in front of him in just my underwear.

"Ilya."

He didn’t answer me. His eyes were glued to the swell of my breasts against the plain cotton bra. The tip of his tongue snaked out to slide across his bottom lip, and his eyes darkened.

I knew the look on his face. I had seen it a hundred times before.

He wanted me.

Even now when I was terrified of him and covered in my own filth, he wanted me.

"Take your clothes off, Daisy, now."

"No."

That one word caused his head to snap up. "You dare to tell me no?"

"I dare. I’d rather you kill me than rape me." My words came out braver than I felt.

Ilya's face tightened; his eyes dropped from my defiant face to my breasts to my stomach. Or more specifically, the scar that dissected it. Where my child had been ripped from my body six years ago, and the surgeon hadn’t even bothered to care enough to stitch me up neatly.

It happened in an instant. One second there was lust darkening his eyes, and the next they were flooded with rage.

"You think I want to touch you?" Again my arm was grabbed. Always the same arm at the same place. I was going to havea bruise. He pushed me into the shower, turning the ice-cold water on me as I screamed in shock.