Page 25 of Bratva Daddy (Underworld Daddies #1)

"Because this feels like finding myself inside layers I didn't know existed," I explained, face heating at the vulnerability of the admission. "Each smaller doll hidden inside, protected, held. And because it's Russian, like your grandmother's garden. Something beautiful despite being hidden."

Something flickered across his face—surprise maybe, or approval. "Matryoshka," he repeated, accent making the word musical. "Good choice. Memorable, meaningful, impossible to mistake for anything else."

He made a note in the margin of the contract, and I watched his hands move with the same focus I'd started bringing to everything about him. Those hands that had killed seventeen men, that had brought me tea and comfort, that would soon own every inch of my body if I signed this contract.

"Section four—hard limits," Alexei said, and his voice softened in a way I hadn't expected. "Tell me what you absolutely won't do. This part isn't negotiable—these are boundaries I'll never cross."

The shift from commanding to careful made my chest tight. He was giving me power here, real power, in a dynamic where he'd hold most of the control. These would be my walls, my absolute nos, and he was promising to respect them completely.

I thought about it, really considered what would break me versus what would just push me. The distinction mattered. I wanted to be pushed, wanted to find my edges, but there were some lines that couldn't be crossed without destroying something fundamental in me.

"No bathroom control," I said finally. "I've read about that in some dynamics, but it's not for me. That level of control would make me feel less than human."

He nodded, making notes in the margin. "Understood. What else?"

"No food restriction as punishment." The words came out faster now, more certain. "I already have a complicated relationship with eating. Using food as a weapon would be . . ." I paused, searching for the right word. "Damaging."

"You'll eat properly because I require it, but never as punishment or reward," he confirmed. "Continue."

"No isolation." This one was harder to articulate. "Being sent to my room is fine, having corner time or whatever is fine. But not locked away from you for days. Not abandoned in silence as punishment."

Something flickered across his face—understanding maybe. He knew about abandonment, about being left alone with your thoughts until they turned poisonous.

"And . . ." I hesitated, this last one feeling too vulnerable to voice.

"Tell me," he commanded gently. "This is important, Clara. I need to know all of them."

"No calling me stupid." The words came out in a rush. "My father did that. Every time I had an opinion, every time I tried to contribute to a conversation, every time I existed as more than decoration. 'Don't be stupid, Clara.' 'That's a stupid question, Clara.' I won't hear it from you."

The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. Alexei's expression went from attentive to murderous in the span of a heartbeat.

"Never," he said, the word coming out as a growl.

"You're brilliant. Defiant and maddening, but fucking brilliant.

You understand people in ways that take others decades to learn.

You see through bullshit immediately. You retained everything from listening to your father's criminal conversations and drew connections he was too arrogant to notice you making. "

He leaned forward, eyes intense on mine. "You are anything but stupid, and anyone who made you feel otherwise was threatened by your intelligence."

Tears pricked at my eyes. Twenty-three years of being dismissed, and here was a man who'd known me for less than two weeks telling me I was brilliant with such conviction I almost believed it.

He made more notes, then looked up. "My hard limits."

I blinked, surprised he was sharing them without my asking. This felt like equality, like building something together rather than him just dictating terms.

"You never interact with bratva business," he stated firmly. "If I have people here for meetings, you stay in your room. If danger comes—and in my life, it might—you hide where I tell you without question. No heroics, no trying to help. You disappear until I come for you."

The thought of danger finding us here made my stomach clench, but I nodded. This was reasonable, protective rather than controlling.

"You never lie to me about your health or safety," he continued. "If you're sick, hurt, scared, struggling—you tell me immediately. Pride doesn't matter more than your wellbeing. I can't take care of you if I don't know what you need."

"Okay," I agreed softly.

"And if you're in little space, truly small and vulnerable, punishment waits until you're big again." His voice gentled on this one. "I won't discipline a vulnerable little. Only a bratty sub who knows exactly what she's doing. The distinction matters."

The fact that he saw those as different states, that he recognized when I might be genuinely vulnerable versus deliberately defiant, made something warm bloom in my chest. He really had been studying me, learning my patterns and needs.

"Section five," he said, turning the page for me when my hands stayed frozen. "Aftercare."

This section was shorter but somehow more intimate than the sexual boundaries. It detailed what would happen after—after punishment, after sex, after any intense scene between us.

"After punishment, after rough sex, after any intense scene," he read aloud when I stayed silent, "I'll hold you. Clean you up with warm cloths. Put lotion on any marks. Tell you you're good, that you're mine, that I'm proud of you."

His voice had dropped to that dangerous velvet again, and I could picture it so clearly—being held against his chest, feeling his hands gentle on skin he'd just marked, hearing his voice telling me I'd done well.

"You don't go to sleep hurt or alone," he continued. "Ever. If punishment happens before bed, we don't sleep until you're settled, until you know you're forgiven and cherished. If you're dropping after an intense scene, I stay with you until you level out."

"Dropping?"

"Sub drop. The crash that can happen after intense play when all the endorphins fade. It can feel like depression, like being hollowed out. Some subs need hours of holding, others need chocolate and bad movies. We'll learn what you need."

The care in his voice, the assumption that he'd learn my needs and meet them, made my eyes burn with unshed tears.

"What about you?" I asked suddenly. "What's your aftercare?"

He blinked, clearly not expecting the question. "Dominant aftercare?"

"You're human too," I said, repeating my earlier words. "After you punish me, you might need reassurance that you didn't go too far. After intense scenes, you might need to know I'm okay, that I felt safe."

Something vulnerable flashed across his face, there and gone so fast I might have imagined it. The pakhan who commanded an empire, who'd killed seventeen men with his bare hands, looked momentarily uncertain.

"You hold me," he said quietly. "After. You let me hold you and you tell me you feel safe. That you're okay. That's all I need."

The simplicity of it broke my heart a little. This man who could have anything, who controlled half of New York's underworld, just needed to know he hadn't hurt me in the bad way. That I trusted him enough to be vulnerable in his arms.

"I can do that," I whispered.

"Then we understand each other." He slid the contract back toward me, producing a pen from his suit jacket—an expensive Mont Blanc that caught the light like a weapon. "Last chance to walk away, Clara."

But we both knew I wouldn't. I'd been his since the moment I'd broken his rules and begged for consequences.

The pen weighed more than metal and ink should—it weighed like a future, like a choice, like everything I'd never dared to want. The Mont Blanc sat heavy in my palm while Alexei watched me with those gray eyes that saw too much, understood too much, demanded too much.

"Once you sign, you're mine," he said, each word deliberate as a funeral bell. "Not until your father pays—mine until I decide otherwise. This isn't temporary anymore, Clara. This is you giving yourself to me completely."

The words should have sent me running. Should have triggered every self-preservation instinct I'd developed over twenty-three years of being someone's accessory. Instead, they made my core clench with want so intense it bordered on pain.

I met his eyes, seeing both the predator and the protector there. The man who'd killed for his family and the one who'd built a garden for his grandmother's memory. The monster who'd described drowning someone in concrete and the caretaker who'd brought me ice cream for my sore jaw.

"I've been yours since you grabbed my chin on that street," I admitted, the truth spilling out like blood from a wound. "Everything else has just been catching up to what my body already knew."

Something flashed across his face—triumph maybe, or possession, or just pure want. His hands clenched on the table like he was physically holding himself back from reaching for me.

I looked down at the contract, at all those carefully written sections that outlined exactly how he'd own me. Daily structure, punishments, sexual control, aftercare—every aspect of my life detailed and defined, waiting for my signature to make it real.

The pen moved across paper without my conscious decision, muscle memory taking over where courage failed. Clara Albright appeared in flowing script, looking small beneath all his precise writing. But it was there. Binding. Real.

I set the pen down with shaking hands, and Alexei picked it up immediately. His signature was sharp, aggressive, taking up more space than mine—Alexei Volkov written like a claim, like a brand, like a promise of everything to come.

He set the contract aside with careful movements, as if it was something precious rather than just paper and ink. Then his eyes found mine, and the full weight of what we'd just done crashed over me like a wave.

"Come here," he commanded, voice pure dark authority.

My legs felt like water as I stood, walked around the table on unsteady feet. Each step brought me closer to a future I couldn't fully imagine but desperately wanted. When I reached him, he pulled me down into his lap with one smooth motion, positioning me so I straddled his thighs.

One hand tangled in my hair immediately, pulling my head back to expose my throat.

The other gripped my hip hard enough that I knew I'd have bruises—marks of ownership that would bloom purple and blue beneath my skin.

The thought made me wet enough that I worried about leaving evidence on his expensive suit.

"Say it," he demanded, gray eyes boring into mine with intensity that stole my breath. "Say what you are now."

My mouth opened, closed, opened again. The words stuck in my throat—not from reluctance but from the sheer weight of them. Once I said this, there was no going back. No pretending this was just about debt or leverage or circumstances beyond our control.

"Yours," I breathed, the word barely audible.

His hand tightened in my hair, pulling hard enough to make my scalp sting. "Louder. All of it."

"Yours," I repeated, stronger now. "Your little girl. Your baby. Your property."

"Mine," he agreed, and then his mouth crashed into mine with the force of a natural disaster.

This kiss was nothing like our first—that had been exploration, question, possibility.

This was claiming, consuming, owning. His tongue invaded my mouth like he was conquering territory, mapping every surface, tasting every corner.

He kissed me like he was trying to crawl inside my skin, like he could possess me through this alone.

I moaned into his mouth, hands fisting in his shirt, pulling him closer even though there was no space between us.

His hand in my hair controlled the angle, tilting my head where he wanted it, taking what he needed.

The hand on my hip pulled me harder against him, and I felt his cock hard and insistent through his pants.

He bit my lower lip, sharp enough to sting, then soothed it with his tongue. The contrast made me whimper, made me grind against him seeking friction I knew he wouldn't give me. Not yet. This was about establishing ownership, not satisfaction.

When he pulled back, we were both breathing hard. My lips felt swollen, bruised, claimed. His eyes had gone dark as storm clouds, and the hunger in them made my stomach clench with anticipation.

"Daddy," I gasped, the word falling from my lips like a prayer.

"That's right, baby girl," he growled against my throat, teeth finding the sensitive spot where neck met shoulder. He bit down hard, marking me, and I cried out at the sharp pleasure-pain of it. "Daddy's got you now."