Page 34 of Secret Baby of the Bratva
My throat tightens.
I can’t stay.
Slowly, carefully, I ease out from under the covers. The sheet drags against my bare skin, making me flinch at how exposed I feel even in the half-light. My feet find the rug, cool and plush, and I push to standing, keeping my movements quiet.
Each step is deliberate, silent, the way you move when you’re afraid of waking something you don’t know how to face.
I tell myself it was a mistake.
That’s what last night was: a collision of storm and dark, of fear and hunger wound too tight. Nothing more. My mind clings to the words like a shield, repeating them as I gather the pieces of myself scattered across the floor. My dress lies crumpled by the bed, a torn scrap of lace beside it, proof I can’t pretend away. My hands shake as I pick them up, clutching the fabric to my chest.
It was a mistake.
Except the warmth in my chest betrays me. It doesn’t feel like a mistake, not when the memory of his hands still lingers, not when my body still hums with the way he touched me. I want to believe the words, to let them harden into fact, but every time I whisper them in my head, they fracture.
The bathroom mirror doesn’t forgive.
I lean over the sink, twist the tap until cold water gushes, and splash it over my face. Droplets run down my neck, seeping into my collarbone, chasing away the last traces of sleep. I look up, expecting to see the same sharp lines, the same practiced neutrality I wear for the world.
What stares back at me is softer.
My eyes are wide, lips fuller, cheeks flushed. There’s a looseness to my expression I don’t recognize, a trace of something I don’t want to name. Something that makes me look less like the girl who survives on defiance and more like someone who’s already surrendered.
I grip the sink harder, knuckles blanching. “It was nothing,” I whisper to the empty room. The words sound brittle.
I think of him. Of the way his voice wrapped around me, low and certain. Of the way he touched me like he owned every piece of me. The way my body gave itself over, not in fear, but in want. The softness in my reflection mocks me, because it knows.
I drag in a breath, cold water dripping from my chin, and list the reasons I shouldn’t want him.
His world: violence, blood, shadows that eat the light.
His control: the leash around my throat, the cage dressed up in silk sheets and locked doors.
The danger: the man I saw put a bullet in someone’s head without hesitation, who looked at me after like I was the next decision to be made.
I cling to those reasons like they can save me. Like they can build a wall high enough to keep out the heat still curling low in my stomach.
Still, the softness in the mirror doesn’t fade.
I stare at it until my chest aches, until the quiet of the estate presses too heavy, until the pale morning light feels less like safety and more like exposure.
No matter how tightly I hold on to those reasons, I can’t make myself believe them completely.
When I step back into the bedroom, he’s awake.
He’s propped against the headboard, shoulders broad beneath the rumpled sheet, his bare chest still and steady as if he’s been waiting for me. His eyes follow me across the room, unreadable, heavy enough to make my skin prickle.
I freeze in the doorway, clutching my dress tighter to my chest. The silence between us is thick, louder than any storm.
“You left,” he says at last, voice low and calm, but edged with something I can’t quite place.
I shrug, forcing casualness into my tone. “Needed water.”
Dimitri’s gaze doesn’t waver. “And answers, perhaps.”
The words slice too close. My pulse jumps, but I keep my expression steady, dropping my eyes to the fabric in my hands. “Don’t flatter yourself. Last night was…” I trail off, tugging at the dress as though the frayed hem demands my full attention. “…it shouldn’t have happened.”
The pause that follows is long enough to make me wish I’d bitten my tongue.
