Page 66 of Forced Virgin Bride of the Bratva
“I needed air.”
“This is where you come for air now?”
Her tone is careful, almost disinterested, but I’ve known her long enough to hear the note beneath it. I don’t answer. She walks further into the room, glancing at the decanter, then at the laptop in front of me.
“She’s still in your bed,” she says.
I glance at her. “That’s not a question.”
“No,” she says, stepping closer. “It’s not.”
She stops near the chair, runs a hand lightly across the velvet back, as if smoothing something invisible. “You even stay until morning, sometimes.”
“She’s my wife, of course I stay.”
Her mouth twitches. Not quite a smile. “I know.”
I watch her carefully. She isn’t here to argue. Not yet. She’s here to remind me of what she sees—what she knows—and how long she’s been part of this house. This life.
“She was here earlier,” Darya says, her fingers now resting on the edge of the desk. “In this wing. Alone.”
“Doing what?”
“Looking for a book, she said. Something obscure. She mentioned your taste in poetry.”
That gets my attention, though I don’t show it.
“She was in here for ten minutes. I checked with the staff.”
“No one’s supposed to be in this office.”
“She knows.”
I study her, weighing the words. Darya doesn’t play games. She brings truth like a blade—cold, sharpened, unadorned.
“Did she take anything?”
“Not visibly.”
I nod, slow, thoughtful. My thumb presses against the laptop lid again, still closed. Still locked. Still clean, as far as I can tell.
“She’s watching us,” Darya says. “She seems to know everything.”
“I’m aware.”
She tilts her head, eyes narrowing. “Then why haven’t you stopped her?”
Because I don’t want to, because some part of me is waiting for her to make the next move.
Darya breathes out, sharp. “You’re compromising yourself.”
“She hasn’t done anything I can prove.”
“But you feel it. Don’t you?”
I meet her eyes. “I feel something.”
“She’s going to be your undoing.”
