Page 25 of Secret Baby of the Bratva
“What do you have patience for?” he asks after a pause.
I huff a quiet laugh. “For people proving me wrong, I guess. Doesn’t happen often.”
He tilts his head. “About what?”
The answer slips out before I can stop it. “I don’t believe in heroes.”
His brow lifts. “No?”
“No.” I shrug, eyes still on the fire. “Never met one who wasn’t just another liar in a different suit. Every so-called savior has a motive. They hide it under good deeds, but it’s there. Always.”
He studies me, the glass balanced easily in his hand. “That’s a cynical view.”
“It’s the truth,” I say softly. “People always talk about saviors, but in the end they all want something. Fame, power, forgiveness. It’s never about saving anyone else. Just themselves.”
The silence that follows is different this time—thicker, weighted. The fire pops, sparks rising, but neither of us moves. His gaze doesn’t waver. He watches me the way someone studies a painting up close, searching for cracks in the canvas.
Finally, he speaks. “I don’t believe in luck.”
I glance at him. “No?”
“No.” His tone doesn’t rise, but there’s something behind it, a shadow that edges the calm. “People survive or they die because of choices. Not fate or chance. Every breath you take is bought by a decision—yours, or someone else’s. Luck is the excuse people use when they don’t want to admit they failed.”
The words sink into me, heavy and unyielding. He says them like a man who’s lived them, who’s carried the cost of every choice on his back. There’s no softness in his voice, but there’s history. Old scars, old blood, stitched into the quiet spaces between his words.
“Do you really believe that?” I ask, my voice quieter than before.
His eyes narrow slightly. “I know it. You wouldn’t be here otherwise.”
The implication burns through me, and I look back at the fire quickly, my pulse stuttering. He’s right. My choices brought me here—every small step, every decision to push, to test, to survive. And every one of his choices has pinned me inside this gilded cage.
I lean back into the chair, studying him in turn. The firelight paints hard lines across his face, throwing shadows into the hollows of his eyes. I wonder what kind of decisions carved him into the man sitting across from me. What it cost him to believe so fully that fate doesn’t exist. What scars are hidden beneath the crisp lines of his suit.
The library feels smaller suddenly, the fire too warm, his presence too close. I hug my knees tighter, unable to keep the question from circling in my mind.
Why, despite everything I know he’s capable of, despite everything I’ve seen—why I want to know the answers anyway.
The air between us shifts. It isn’t romantic, not even warm, but it’s real in a way our earlier exchanges never were. The silence has weight, substance, like something fragile that could break if either of us pushed too hard. I open my mouth, almost asking him the questions burning at the back of my throat—who he was before, what he lost, what he’s hiding behind that impenetrable calm. But the words stick, and I swallow them down.
He looks at me too long. His drink sits untouched in his hand, forgotten. Then, without a word, he rises, his movement fluid, precise, final. He sets the glass down on the table, the faint clink making me flinch harder than it should.
He leaves without explanation, his footsteps absorbed by the thick carpet. The door closes, and with it the heat of the fire seems to fade, leaving the room colder, emptier. I stare at the flames, waiting for their warmth to return, but it doesn’t.
I tell myself I’m imagining it—that the fire hasn’t changed, only my perception has. But part of me knows better. This was the first real conversation we’ve had, stripped of games, stripped of masks.
It won’t be the last.
The thought unsettles me more than the silence ever could. Because beneath the unease, I can’t deny the truth: I enjoyed having his company.
I close my eyes, forcing myself to remember the night in the storage hall, the body crumpled on the floor, the sharp echoof a gunshot in my ears. I remind myself of the blood, the smell of iron, the cold way he’d said,“You had your chance.”
He is a killer. A man who bends the world to his will and discards anyone who doesn’t fit. No amount of quiet conversation by the fire can change that.
The night stretches long when I finally leave the library. The corridors echo faintly under my steps, each shadow I pass thick with weight. I climb the stairs slowly, my body heavy with exhaustion but my mind alert, replaying every glance, every word. I expect to feel relief that he left before the silence turned dangerous. Instead, I feel the opposite. An ache, sharp and uninvited, at the space he left behind.
I crawl into bed but don’t sleep. The firelight stays burned into my vision, the lines of his face drawn sharp against it. I toss and turn, angry at myself for caring. Angry that I wanted him to stay. Angry that part of me wonders what might’ve happened if he had.
Hours pass before I drift into shallow rest. My dreams are jagged things—gunshots, firelight, and eyes that see too much. I wake with my heart pounding and the faintest trace of his voice in my ears.“Luck is the excuse people use when they don’t want to admit they failed.”
