Page 9 of BRATVA'S Avenging Bride
The certainty in those two words sends heat crawling up my spine. Not fear. Something worse.
Something that feels like recognition.
"The door locks," he says, nodding toward the handle. "From the inside. You want privacy, you have it. You want to leave this room, you can. But you leave this penthouse without me, and I can't protect you."
"I don't need protection."
"Everyone needs protection, Katherine. The difference is whether you're smart enough to accept it." He straightens, starts to turn away, then pauses. "There's a phone on the nightstand. It's secure. Only one number programmed in. Mine. You need anything, anything at all, you call."
"Why are you doing this?"
He looks at me for a long moment, something complicated moving behind his eyes.
"Because you walked out of the fire," he says finally. "And I've never seen anything more beautiful."
Then he's gone, the door closing softly behind him.
I stand there in the too-big room with the too-soft bed and the too-new clothes, and I realize with cold, creeping certainty: I've traded one cage for another.
This one just has better locks and a man who looks at me like I'm something holy instead of broken. I don't know which is more dangerous.
I shower, scrubbing the ash and soot and smoke from my skin until the water runs clear. The cuts on my palms sting. The bruises on my hip from landing in the dumpster are already turning purple.
My entire body is screaming in pain, screaming that I'm alive.
I shouldn't be, but I am.
When I finally crawl into the bed, wearing one of the silk slips from the closet because all my clothes are ruined, my body sinks into the mattress like it's trying to swallow me whole.
It’s too soft. Too quiet. Too safe to trust.
I'm used to thin sleeping bags and Mira's snoring and the constant fear that someone will kick down the door.
Here, there's nothing but silence and expensive sheets and the faint hum of the city beyond the bulletproof glass.
I stare at the ceiling and try not to think about the way Matvey looked at me.
Like I'm not a problem to solve. Like I'm a weapon he wants to sharpen. Like I'm—
The door opens.
I'm on my feet in a heartbeat, the lamp from the nightstand in my hands before my brain catches up.
Matvey stands in the doorway, hands raised. "Easy, zhar-ptitsa."
"I locked that door."
"I own this building. There isn't a lock I can't open." He steps inside, and I notice he's changed too. Sweatpants, bare feet, white t-shirt that does nothing to hide the tattoos crawling up his arms and over his chest. "You're not sleeping."
"How do you know?"
"Because I'm not sleeping either." He nods toward the bed. "May I?"
"May you what?"
"Sit. Talk. Make sure you're not planning to set my apartment on fire."
"I don't have any accelerant,” I mutter.
