Page 5 of Innocent Plus-Size Bride of the Bratva
Eventually, the event ends with a slow unwinding, the way a clock runs down after too much winding.
The main lights return to their usual brightness, bleaching the gilded trim of the old palace and draining the guests’ faces of the shine they wore for the press. The crowd filters out in clusters, laughter softening to exhaustion, hands lingering on coat collars and elevator buttons.
My security details sweep the corridors, silent and methodical, ushering the last stragglers toward waiting cars.
I do not linger in the ballroom, but step into the shadowed hallway behind the scenes, my drink finally left behind, forgotten on a marble ledge. Here, I can breathe again… almost.
A bank of monitors flickers against the far wall, fed by a web of cameras hidden above the chandeliers and behind columns.
I watch the footage: maintenance men coiling power cables, caterers stacking trays, interns packing the remains of the media kit into battered rolling cases.
My eyes find her immediately. She moves like a professional, not a student—quick, purposeful, lifting heavy cases without complaint or need for help. Her hair is coming loose from its tie, a few dark curls springing free against her neck and jaw.
She is not beautiful in the way these parties prefer—no glitter, no fragile smile—but there is something arresting about her. The strong line of her nose. The stubborn curve of her mouth when she’s concentrating. The way her hands, quick and certain, barely pause between tasks.
One of the other interns jokes with her as they untangle a cord. She smiles—brief, but real. There’s a warmth in her eyes that catches the light, the sort that makes a man want to linger, to see her look at him like that. It’s an old habit of mine, noticing. Especially women who don’t preen, who don’t perform for the room.
She is not just attractive; she is, unmistakably, my type. Practical, unpretentious, with a beauty that grows more striking the longer I watch her.
It’s not just attraction that sets my instincts on edge. She surveys the room constantly, eyes never resting, cataloging every movement, every conversation, every possible exit. Her gaze lingers on the security teams, the placement of the cameras, the entrances and exits.
Not paranoia—curiosity, perhaps. Or experience. She’s not a tourist to this world. She might not have the polish of these guests, but she carries herself like someone who’s had to learn the world isn’t kind.
My second-in-command, Miroslav, lingers nearby, arms folded across his chest as he reviews his own feeds. His eyes flick between the monitors and my face, reading the lines in my jaw. I trust Miroslav—more than most, less than I’d like.
“She’s not leaving with the others,” I say, my voice low. On the monitor, the girl kneels beside a battered case, carefully checking the clasps before snapping it shut.
The others have started to laugh, tired and free now that the party’s over, but she keeps working, focused. She glances up only when a senior staffer calls her name, then nods, lifts the case, and carries it out of frame.
Miroslav makes a note on his tablet. “The intern? Media crew. Talia Benett. She checked out, no flags.” He says it with a practiced ease, but he watches my reaction closely.
I shake my head. “She’s not here for credit or a paycheck. She watches too closely. She’s clever, and she’s careful. I want her background run again. Every phone call, every social profile. Anything that doesn’t fit.”
Miroslav nods, already sending a message. “You want a tail on her?”
I hesitate. Attraction is a liability in this line of work. It makes you reckless. I’ve learned to trust the part of me that doesn’t trust, the sense that twitches when someone is in the wrong place, at the wrong time, with the wrong eyes. “Keep an eye on her,” I say, voice softer now, barely above a whisper.
On the monitor, she stands in the middle of the empty ballroom, waiting while a manager checks off items from a clipboard. She scans the ceiling once. where she knows there’s a camera, but doesn’t look long enough to seem suspicious. Then she catches her reflection in a glass display and smooths her hair back, tucking a stray curl behind her ear.
The gesture is absentminded, unguarded, and it makes something inside me tighten. I am used to women who preen, who want my attention, who look at me and see an empire, a myth, a ticket to something. She doesn’t look at me at all.
Yet, as she lifts the last case and heads for the door, she pauses, just a moment, and glances up toward the balcony where I sometimes stand during events. Her eyes are dark and searching, intelligent and steady.
For a second, I wonder if she senses me watching, even through the bank of monitors. It wouldn’t be the first time someone like her recognized the gaze of a hunter.
“Do you want to meet her, sir?” Miroslav asks, watching me sidelong.
I consider it, then shake my head. “Not yet. Let’s see where she goes, who she calls, what she tries to find. If she’s what she seems, she’ll fade away. If not—” I leave the sentence unfinished. There are a dozen ways it ends, none of them gentle.
Miroslav nods, accustomed to this calculus. He vanishes down the hall, already texting instructions to the night team. I linger, staring at her figure as it disappears into the utility corridor, swallowed by the palace’s narrow, labyrinthine halls.
The scent of expensive perfume and sweat hangs heavy in the air, clinging to the velvet walls and my shirt collar. I let myself imagine, for a moment, what her hair would smell like if she pressed her face against my neck. What it would feel like to curl my hands into those wild curls, pull her into my lap, watch her smile widen just for me.
The thought is dangerous, and I know it. I banish it ruthlessly, locking it away behind the same walls I’ve built for every other risk, every other distraction.
Still, I feel it—a tug of want, primal and inconvenient, threading through the cold certainty of my suspicion. It leaves a heat in my chest that is unfamiliar, and a flicker of anticipation that is not unwelcome.
The building is empty now, but for the ghosts of the evening. I take one last look at the monitors, committing her face to memory: the curve of her cheek, the tension in her jaw, the softness that lives only in the corners of her mouth.
