Page 34 of Bratva Daddy
She set down her coffee and raised her arms without hesitation, letting me pull the silk pajama top over her head. The moment stretched, dangerous and electric—Clara standing there in just silk pajama bottoms and a barely-there bra, me holding her shirt, both of us breathing too carefully. My fingers ghosted across her collarbone as I helped her into the sweater, and she shivered despite the warm apartment.
"I can dress myself," she whispered, but made no move to take over.
"I know." I smoothed the cashmere over her shoulders, letting my hands linger for just a moment. "But this is better."
Better was a dangerous understatement. This was torture and paradise combined—touching her in ways that stayed just barely appropriate, feeling her skin warm under my fingers, watching her pupils dilate every time I got close. I was playing with fire, but I couldn't stop. Wouldn't stop.
Breakfast had become another form of exquisite torment. She'd push food around her plate, and I'd watch like a hawk, cataloging every bite.
"You're too thin, Clara," I said this morning, adding another piece of toast to her plate. "When did you last have a proper meal before coming here?"
She laughed, but it had edges. "Define proper. My father's chef made beautiful food. I just never had much appetite sitting across from him while he detailed his crimes."
The casual mention of her father's neglect made me want to hurt Viktor Petrov in new and creative ways. Instead, I pushed the honey closer to her. "Eat, davochka,"
"You're not my—" She stopped, color flooding her face as we both heard what she'd been about to say. Not my father. Or maybe, not my Daddy. Yet.
"Finish your breakfast," I commanded softly, and watched with satisfaction as she spread honey on the toast, taking a real bite.
I tried to work, tried to focus on contracts and territories and the million details that kept the Volkov empire running. But every hour, something would pull me from my office. She needed tea. She might be cold. She'd been too quiet for too long.
"You're hovering," she accused when I appeared for the fourth time, carrying sliced apples and peanut butter.
"I'm ensuring my asset remains in good condition." The lie came automatically, but we both knew better. I was checking on her because I needed to see her, needed to know she was still there, still safe, still mine even if I couldn't act on it.
The Russian lessons started by accident. She'd been reading Dostoevsky in translation, scowling at the page like it had personally offended her.
"What's wrong?" I asked, settling beside her on the couch, careful to maintain distance.
"This sentence is weird terrible. Feels like the word ‘soul’ doesn’t fit.”
I looked at the page.
“Very sharp,” I said. “It’s a poor translation. They turned 'dusha' into 'soul' but that's not quite right. It's more like the thing that makes you essentially yourself. Your spiritual essence, your emotional core, the part that exists beyond your body."
She turned to me with such delight I had to fight not to kiss her. "Teach me more! Teach me the words that don't translate."
So I did. Taught her toska—that aching spiritual longing for something you can't name. Taught her razluka—the pain of being separated from someone you love. Taught her all the words except the one that mattered most: moya—mine.
"How do you say 'fuck off' in Russian?" she asked one afternoon, curled in her corner of the couch with her knees drawn up.
"Otvali," I said, then watched her try to repeat it.
"Not blood?" she pronounced instead, mangling it so badly I actually laughed—a real laugh, not the controlled sounds I made in business meetings.
"No, little one. Blyad is fuck. Otvali is fuck off. Very different."
She tried again, failed again, and suddenly we were both laughing. Clara giggling until she couldn't breathe, me laughing at her terrible pronunciation and how oddly endearing it was. For a moment, we were just two people sharing a language lesson, not captor and captive, not pakhan and leverage.
The evenings were the hardest. We'd developed a routine—dinner at seven, then reading or watching something on TV, her in her corner of the couch, me in my chair, both of us pretending we weren't hyperaware of every movement the other made. By nine-thirty, she'd start yawning, trying to hide it behind her hand.
"Bedtime, little one," I'd say, and she'd go without argument, padding down the hallway in her socked feet while I tried not to watch the way her hips moved.
But tonight was different. Tonight she'd fallen asleep on the couch, book open on her chest, head tilted at an angle that would hurt when she woke. I sat in my chair for twenty minutes, watching her breathe, telling myself to wake her, send her to bed properly.
Instead, by the time I found myself sliding my arms under her, lifting her against my chest. She weighed nothing, fit perfectly in my arms like she'd been designed for this exact purpose. Her head found my shoulder immediately, nuzzling into my neck with a soft sound that destroyed me.
"Alexei?" she mumbled, not really awake.
