Page 41 of Bratva Bidder
I press the phone tighter to my ear, my eyes already stinging. “Hi, babies,” I whisper. “Mommy’s here.”
There’s a little rustle, the sound of fabric shifting and a faint yawn before Mila’s soft voice fills my ear again. “Mommy? Is it morning already?”
“No, baby,” I whisper, curling forward on the bed, cradling the phone like it’s the only thing keeping me grounded. “It’s still nighttime. I just…I needed to hear your voices. That’s all.”
There’s silence for a moment. Then Nikolai’s voice, still groggy, cuts in. “Did you have a bad dream?”
I smile, even as my chest tightens. “Something like that.”
“Are you okay?” he asks. He’s only five, but there’s so much concern in his voice it nearly undoes me.
I blink fast, trying to breathe through the ache. “I’m okay now,” I tell him. “Just hearing you makes everything better.”
They both mumble their I love yous, already drifting back toward sleep, and I sit there for a while longer after Irina gently takes the phone back. She doesn’t say much—just tells me they’re fine, healthy, safe. I thank her and hang up, pressing the phone to my lips for a long moment before setting it down on the bed beside me.
The silence afterward is thick.
I curl onto my side, pulling a blanket over me even though I’m still in my dress, my hair tangled, makeup smudged. I don’t care.
For a minute, it’s just the quiet and the ghost of their voices, the sound of my daughter’s yawn, my son’s sleepy concern.
And then I feel it.
Not a sound. Not a movement.
Just presence.
I sit up slowly, turning toward the door—and there he is.
Konstantin. He’s standing in the open doorway, one hand braced against the frame, his shirt untucked, collar loose, his expression unreadable.
I don’t say anything at first.
Neither does he.
We just…look at each other.
How long has he been standing there?
Did he hear?
His gaze drops to the phone still glowing dimly on the bed beside me, then flicks back to my face. “Everything alright?” he asks, voice low, casual.
Too casual.
I nod, pulling the blanket tighter around myself. “Fine.”
He doesn’t press. Doesn’t ask who I was talking to.
But I see it—the flicker of something behind his eyes. Curiosity, suspicion…or maybe just the slow understanding that I’m not as simple as he thought I was.
I should be scared.
Before I can say anything else, Konstantin moves fully into the room, closing the door quietly behind him. My heart pounds hard enough that I’m sure he can hear it in the silence that stretches between us. His gaze, dark and unreadable, never leaves mine as he crosses the floor toward me.
“What are you doing?” I whisper, voice catching in my throat.
He doesn’t answer—not with words. Instead, he steps close, so close I can feel the heat radiating from his body, see the way his chest rises and falls, see the shadow of stubble along his jaw. My breath hitches sharply, every nerve in my body lighting up at the proximity.
