Page 2 of Claimed and Bred By the Bratva

My fingers hover over the keyboard. The cameras were installed during her afternoon classes by a contractor who thinks he wired a rich man's paranoid surveillance of his own property. He has no idea he just gave me a window into heaven.

I shouldn't turn them on. There's a line here, invisible but concrete, and crossing it makes me something worse than what I already am. But my hand moves anyway, clicking the feed labeled "Living Room."

The screen flickers to life, and there she is.

Amani stands in the middle of her tiny apartment wearing paint-splattered leggings and an oversized university sweatshirt that swallows her whole. Her hair is down now, thick golden-brown braids cascading past her shoulders in waves that catch the lamplight. She's cleaning—dancing, really—moving to music I can't hear through the video feed.

She spins with a bottle of surface cleaner in one hand, using it as a microphone as she lip-syncs to whatever's playing through her earbuds. Her hips sway with unconscious sensuality, and that smile—that damned sunshine smile—never leaves her face.

Dammit. Is that all she ever does? Smile like the world hasn't tried to crush the hope out of her yet?

It's like she knows I'm watching. Like she's performing just for me.

But she can't know. No one knows, not even Viktor. I went outside the brotherhood for this job, paid a freelancer triple his usual rate, and enough hush money to ensure his silence. Because she's mine. Mine alone.

On screen, Amani finishes her impromptu concert and starts actually cleaning. She hums as she works, completely unselfconscious, completely unaware that a predator is cataloging every movement, every expression, and gesture.

She bends to pick up books scattered on the floor, and the sweatshirt rides up just enough to reveal a strip of warm brown skin above her waistband. My mouth goes dry. When she straightens, she stretches her arms above her head, arching her back in a way that makes the fabric pull tight across her breasts. Full, perfect handfuls that dwarf her small frame. My fingers curl, imagining their weight and how they'd fit in my palms like they were made for me.

My hand drifts south without conscious thought, palm pressing against the growing hardness behind my zipper.

Stop.

The word echoes in my head, but my body doesn't listen. Can't listen. Not when she's moving like liquid sex incarnate and smiling like an angel who doesn't know she's dancing for the devil.

She disappears into what must be the bathroom, and I curse under my breath. The camera doesn't cover that space—a small mercy that probably saved me from crossing an even worse line tonight. But she's back within minutes, face scrubbed clean of the light makeup she wore to work. Without it, she looks younger than her twenty-one years. Vulnerable in a way that should make me feel like the monster I am. Instead, it makes me harder.

She pads to her kitchenette—bare feet silent on worn hardwood—and starts making tea. Its domesticity wallops me. When was the last time I watched someone do something so normal, so peacefully mundane? Everything in my world involves blood, money, or violence. Usually, all three.

But Amani exists in a pocket of pure normalcy, a haven where people make tea, dance while cleaning, and smile at surly strangers in coffee shops. Do I want to change that? She settles on her secondhand couch with her mug, tucking her legsbeneath her as she opens a textbook. Even studying, she looks content. Happy.

I palm myself through my pants, stroking slowly as I watch her read. She bites her lower lip when she concentrates, a tiny gesture that waves fire through my veins. What would that lip feel like between my teeth? What sounds would she make if I—

Stop. Stop this now.

But I can't. My hand works faster, grip tightening as I imagine those bee-sting lips wrapped around something else entirely. Imagine her dark eyes looking up at me with trust instead of terror, which would be more appropriate.

She shifts position, and the movement draws my attention to her shirt's V-neck. The fabric gapes just enough to hint at the curve of her breasts and the shadows between them. I want to bury my face there. Want to taste every inch of that golden-brown skin, map every sensitive spot with my tongue until she's writhing beneath me, chanting my name like a prayer.

The fantasy builds, vivid and wrong and absolutely consuming. I picture her in my bed, hair spread across black silk sheets like spilled honey. Picture her looking up at me with those trusting eyes as I claim every part of her, mark her so thoroughly that no other man would ever dare touch what's mine.

My climax hits without warning, violent and intense and completely silent. I bite back the groan that wants to tear from my throat, shoulders rigid as I spill into my hand like a teenager who's never learned control. The shame comes immediately after. Hot and acidic and well-deserved.

What the hell am I doing?

On screen, Amani yawns and stretches, apparently finishing her study session. She moves around the apartment, turning off lights and checking locks, performing the small rituals of someone who feels safe in their own space. Someone who has no idea that safety is an illusion. Someone who doesn't know she'sbeing hunted by a man who just masturbated to watching her read a textbook.

I should delete the feeds, destroy the hard drives, and pretend this never happened. Should leave her alone to live her bright, normal life without the shadow of my obsession darkening her world.

But instead, my eyes dart to the next camera as she disappears down the hallway into the bedroom. Her bed is too damn small. How will I fit? I won't—just like I won't fit with the life she has planned. But it doesn't matter. Because twenty years of careful control just shattered against the force of one smile. Because I haven't wanted anything this much since I was a boy who still believed in happy endings.

Because she's already mine, even if she doesn't know it yet.

I close the laptop and head upstairs to my bedroom, but sleep won't come. Instead, I stare at the ceiling and plan.

Tomorrow, I'll go back to the coffee shop. I'll learn more about Amani Greene's life, schedule, and vulnerabilities. I'll figure out how to make her mine without destroying everything that makes her worth having. But tonight, I'll dream of sunshine smiles, brick red lips, and the way she says my name like it's something precious.

Tonight, I'll pretend I'm still the kind of man who deserves a woman like her.

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