Page 26 of Secret Baby of the Bratva
The morning doesn’t help. Breakfast is routine: polished silver, perfect china, the quiet shuffle of servants. I slide into my chair across from him, force my shoulders straight, and keep my gaze fixed on my plate. He doesn’t mention the night before.
His silence isn’t empty. It presses against me with the weight of memory.
I stab at my food, aware of his presence in every breath. The guards speak quietly near the doorway. Outside, the storm has finally broken, leaving the air damp and heavy. I sip mycoffee and tell myself I imagined the shift in the library. That nothing’s changed.
Except it has. I feel it in the way my pulse jumps when his eyes finally flick up, meeting mine. It isn’t a long glance, barely a second. Still, it’s enough to make the coffee taste sharp, to remind me of the firelight between us, of the conversation that slipped deeper than either of us intended.
The rest of the day passes in fragments. Papers in his office, errands through the estate, a dozen moments where I feel his gaze land on me before he looks away. Each one is brief, ordinary, deniable. Each one is real.
Each time, I catch myself wanting to throw another stone into the still water, to see how far the ripples might spread.
The estate moves around me as though nothing has shifted, yet I can’t shake the weight of that night in the library. Every corridor feels altered, as if the firelight followed me into the walls. The guards are the same—watchful, silent, impersonal—but I catch myself wondering which of them heard our voices through the door, which of them noticed how long we lingered together.
I keep busy, or at least I try. Sorting paperwork in his office, noting deliveries, memorizing the ebb and flow of schedules. I move like I’m focused, efficient, the perfect little assistant. But my mind runs elsewhere, replaying his words, the tone behind them.
“Luck is the excuse people use when they don’t want to admit they failed.”He said it like someone who has never forgiven himself for failure, even if no one else ever saw it.
I hate that I want to know what choices carved him into that man.
At lunch, I sense him before he enters. The long dining hall feels smaller when he’s in it, the air tightening as if to make room for him. He takes his seat across from me, as always, hands steady on silver cutlery. He doesn’t speak, but when his eyes lift to mine, something sparks—recognition, maybe, of the conversation we’re both pretending didn’t happen.
I force my gaze back to my plate, but the food tastes bland, heavy. My pulse betrays me, thudding too loud in my ears.
The silence stretches. His smirk doesn’t surface, but the faintest tilt of his head tells me he knows. He’s watching, waiting, gauging how I’ll move next.
I swallow hard, pushing food I can’t taste around the plate, and remind myself of the truth: I saw him kill a man. I watched him deliver judgment without flinching.
He isn’t safety. He isn’t warmth.
When his gaze lingers, though, sharp and unblinking, I can’t deny the part of me that leans toward the fire instead of away.
Chapter Twelve - Dimitri
The street is too quiet. I know it the second the car rolls to a stop, tires crunching against uneven asphalt. This neighborhood has always been a place where shadows stretch long, where men keep their heads down and their mouths shut, but tonight the silence feels sharper. A street with no noise isn’t a peaceful one. It’s a waiting one.
I step out first, coat falling into place, eyes moving across the rows of shuttered buildings. I don’t look directly at the windows, but I mark each one. Two with blinds angled wrong, one with glass that’s been wiped clean while the rest are still fogged with grime. I take in alleys, cars left too close to the curb, the way a cat bolts into the darkness and doesn’t return.
All of it cataloged, all of it weighed.
Behind me, Annie’s door opens. She hesitates before her heels click against the pavement. She’s trying to match my stride, but her steps are shorter, lighter. I can hear the difference, even without looking. When she finally falls into step beside me, her voice is tight.
“Why am I even here?”
Her question isn’t loud, but it cuts through the stillness. I don’t slow. “You’re here because I told you to be.”
“That’s not an answer,” she mutters.
“It’s the only one you’ll get.”
I glance at her then. Her arms are crossed, her eyes scanning the same way mine do, but she’s looking differently. Where I see patterns, she sees unease. The emptiness of the street rattles her. It should.
“This is supposed to be a meeting,” she says. “Not… whatever this is.”
“It is a meeting,” I say. “Meetings aren’t always safe. Don’t forget that.”
She exhales sharply, almost a laugh but without humor. “You could’ve left me behind.”
“I could have.” My tone doesn’t shift, but I let the words land the way I mean them to. “I didn’t. So stay close.”
