Page 10 of Bratva Bidder

Just like that—it’s done.

She’s mine.

I watch her as the spotlight dims. She doesn’t collapse. Doesn’t cry. She simply turns, regal to the last, and walks offstage like a queen walking into exile.

I’ve been in rooms like this my whole life. Watched women go from people to property with a raise of a paddle. It never stirred anything in me. Never broke through the ice.

But her? There’s something there. I don’t know what it is yet, but I plan to find out.

Lev mutters, “Well. That was dramatic.”

I ignore him. “Get the car. Tell security she’s coming with us. No delays. If anyone objects, remind them what happens when someone interferes with a Buryakov transaction.”

He’s already on the move.

I stay behind for just a second longer, because the curtain behind the stage is still swaying, and when I look up, she’s still watching me. I feel a thrill go down my spine.

This is going to be fun.

3

NADYA

He saved me.

I’ve been trying not to think it. But the words keep echoing like a drumbeat under my skin.

He saved me from that man. That animal with the broken nose and the hungry eyes. I would’ve ended up in a locked penthouse or a trunk by sunrise if he hadn’t stepped in. Fifteen million, and everything changed.

Only I don’t knowwhatI’ve been saved for.

What can he possibly want from me?

The room they’ve put me in is gilded but sterile. Big enough to pace in—and I do. Over and over. My heels are gone. My hair is coming undone. I’ve ripped off the heavy earrings and dropped them on a glass table near the couch.

No one’s come in since the auction ended.

There’s no clock. No windows. Just the soft hum of hidden speakers playing low instrumental music, like this is a spa andnot a waiting room for the next phase of my life being bought and signed in ink.

I run my fingers through my hair, yanking it out of the tight twist. I can’t think straight with it pinned back like that. I feel raw. Exposed.

The door stays closed.

I don’t sit. I can’t. If I sit, I’ll start crying, and I swore to myself I wouldn’t do that—not for him. Not for Pyotr. Not even for the man who now owns my contract.

Because that’s what this is. A contract. Mafia-approved. Legally binding. My name, his name, stamped under the Buryakov seal. I’m not just a woman anymore. I’m a line in someone’s asset portfolio.

But the moment I saw him—reallysawhim—standing up there in the shadows like some specter from the past, the memory snapped back with brutal clarity.

Barcelona. Five years ago.

One night. No future. Just heat, a rooftop, and the quiet kind of connection that shouldn’t have existed between two people like us.

I never forgot him.

I just never thought I’d see him again.

And definitely nothere—not like this.