Page 11 of Bratva Daddy (Underworld Daddies #1)

Clara disappeared into the hallway again, and I heard the closet door open. The silence that followed was loaded with discovery. When she reappeared, her face had shifted from defiance to disgust.

"You bought me clothes." Not a question, an accusation.

"I provided appropriate attire. What you're wearing is hardly suitable for an extended stay."

"Extended?" The word cracked slightly. "How long—"

"That depends entirely on your father's cooperation. Given his current financial situation and demonstrated reluctance to prioritize anyone but himself, I'd estimate several weeks. Perhaps months."

I watched that timeline settle over her like a weight. Saw her realize this wasn't a overnight hostage situation that would resolve with sunrise. This was captivity with no defined endpoint, no guarantee her father would pay quickly or at all.

She stood in the center of my living room, arms wrapped around herself like armor made of flesh and bone. "I need to understand the rules."

Smart. Establish parameters, understand the cage before testing its bars. This Little Girl needed boundaries. I leaned back in the leather chair, steepling my fingers in a gesture I'd learned from my father. Authority performed through stillness.

"First, you will not attempt escape. Every effort will be met with consequences, and I promise you won't enjoy my methods of discipline.

" I let that word—discipline—hang in the air between us, watched color rise in her cheeks.

"Second, you will eat the meals provided.

My housekeeper arrives twice daily to prepare food. You will not make her job difficult."

"I'm not hungry."

"I didn't ask if you were hungry. I said you will eat." Her wants were irrelevant now; her needs would be met on my schedule, my terms. "Third, you will wear the clothes I've provided. They're appropriate, expensive, and clean. Your alternative is to wear nothing at all."

Her arms tightened around herself. "You can't—"

"I can do whatever I want, Clara. You exist here at my discretion. Your comfort, your dignity, your autonomy—all of it belongs to me now."

“That’s not fair.”

"Fourth," I continued, "you will answer when spoken to. Silence is defiance, and defiance has consequences. Fifth, no phone, no internet, no contact with the outside world. Your father knows you're alive and unharmed. That's all the communication necessary."

She sank onto the couch across from me, the fight temporarily leaving her body. One shoe on, one foot bare, dress torn, makeup smeared—she looked like she’d been through hell. But her eyes remained sharp, calculating, processing information like a computer running survival scenarios.

"And if I refuse?" she asked quietly. "If I don't eat, don't change clothes, don't speak?"

I stood slowly, letting my full height register in her widening eyes.

Moved around the coffee table with deliberate steps until I stood close enough to see the pulse hammering in her throat.

She tilted her head back to maintain eye contact—brave little tiger, even now—and I saw the moment she understood the answer.

"Then you'll learn that I'm not a patient man," I said softly. "Your defiance might feel like control, but it's an illusion. You can make this easy or difficult, but the outcome remains the same. You belong to me until your father's debt is paid. And if you defy me, you will learn to submit."

"I won’t submit to you," she whispered.

"No?" I reached out slowly, telegraphing the movement so she could pull away if she chose.

She didn't. My fingers found her chin, tilted her face up to study it properly in the light.

Exhaustion painted shadows beneath her eyes, and something else—resignation, maybe, or the first crack in her defiant armor. "Then what will you do?"

Her mouth opened, closed, opened again. No answer came because we both knew the truth. She would do whatever I wanted.

I released her chin and stepped back, needing distance from the heat of her skin, the way her breath had caught when I touched her.

"Your bedroom is through there. The bathroom is stocked with everything you need.

Tomorrow morning, you'll shower, dress in the clothes provided, and join me for breakfast at eight sharp. "

"And if I don't?"

"Then I'll dress you myself."

The threat should have been clinical, matter-of-fact.

Instead, it came out rough with promise I hadn't intended.

Her pupils dilated slightly, and I wondered if she was imagining it—my hands on her body, removing the torn dress, replacing it with something I'd chosen.

The thought sent heat through my gut that I ruthlessly suppressed.

I turned away before she could see how much her presence affected me. "Get some sleep, Clara. Tomorrow you begin learning what it means to be owned by me."

I walked to my office without looking back, though every instinct screamed at me to turn around, to watch her process what I'd said, to see if defiance or defeat would win the war playing out across her expressive face.

The door to my office closed with a soft click, another biometric lock engaging, sealing her out and me in.

Through the security monitor, I watched her sit on the couch for a long moment, staring at nothing.

Then she stood, walked to the hallway with careful dignity, and disappeared into the bedroom I'd prepared for her.

The door closed—no lock to engage, because I hadn't allowed her even that small privacy—and the light went out.

I poured myself vodka with hands that weren't quite steady and told myself it was anticipation for breaking Viktor Petrov, nothing more. But my office felt smaller with her in the penthouse, the air charged with her presence even through walls and locked doors.

I didn’t get a moment of sleep. Clara was up, pacing her room like a caged animal until four in the morning.

I'd laid in my bed, listening to the soft footfalls through the walls, counting her steps like a meditation that brought no peace.

Seventeen steps from window to door. Pause.

Seventeen steps back. Over and over until I'd memorized the rhythm of her restlessness.

By five, she'd finally gone quiet—not that it helped me rest. By six, I'd given up pretending I could sleep with Clara Albright three rooms away. Now, at seven-thirty, I emerged from my bedroom expecting to find her still unconscious, recovering from her nocturnal marathon.

Instead, I found warfare in my kitchen.

Eggs dripped from the granite counter. Coffee grounds created a messy constellation across the white marble floor.

Orange juice pooled around an overturned glass, sticky and spreading toward the custom cabinets.

The breakfast my housekeeper had carefully prepared before dawn—scrambled eggs with chives, fresh croissants, fruit salad arranged with architectural precision—had been systematically destroyed.

And in the center of this destruction stood Clara, still wearing last night's torn dress like armor she refused to remove.

Her chin lifted when she saw me, arms crossing over her chest in a gesture that was both defensive and aggressive. Her bare foot tapped against the marble, a nervous energy that betrayed the exhaustion written in the shadows under her eyes.

"I'm not your doll to dress up," she said before I could speak. "And I'm not eating your food."

Rage flashed through me, hot and immediate.

No one defied me in my own space. Men twice her size wouldn't dare destroy my property, wouldn't dream of such blatant disrespect.

The pakhan of the Volkov bratva didn't tolerate rebellion, especially not from a slip of a girl who should be grateful I was keeping her in luxury instead of a warehouse basement.

But underneath the rage, something else stirred.

Interest. Arousal at her rebellion that had no business existing but burned anyway.

She'd spent the night planning this, choosing her battle, deciding that destroyed breakfast was the hill she'd die on.

There was strategy in the chaos, intelligence in the insurrection.

"You think this is rebellion?" I kept my voice level, controlled, though my blood ran hot with emotions I couldn't separate—anger, want, something dangerous that tasted like possession. "This is a child's tantrum."

I moved toward her slowly, deliberately, watching her hold her ground even as her breath quickened.

Each step calculated to build tension, to make her wonder if this was the moment I'd snap, the moment her defiance would cost more than she could pay.

The destroyed breakfast crunched under my Italian leather shoes, coffee grounds grinding into the marble with sounds like bones breaking.

She didn't step back. Didn't flinch. Met my approach with eyes that burned hazel fire in the morning light streaming through the windows. Christ, she was beautiful. Torn dress, tangled hair, exhaustion painting shadows under her eyes, and still she stood against me.

"A child throws tantrums," I said when I stood close enough to smell her—sweat from her pacing, traces of last night's perfume, something wild and desperate underneath. "You're supposedly an adult. Act like one."

"Adults have choices," she shot back. "Adults have freedom. Adults don't get kidnapped and locked in penthouses with closets full of clothes chosen by their captors."

I studied the destruction she'd created, letting silence build between us until it became weight. She shifted slightly, that nervous foot-tap returning. Good. Let her wonder what came next. Let her realize that destroying breakfast was a pyrrhic victory at best.

"You'll clean every inch of this kitchen," I said finally. "By hand. Every surface, every splash, every coffee ground you've spread across my floor."

Her mouth opened to protest, but I continued over her.