Page 62 of Forced plus-size Bride of the Bratva

“Psychology isn’t just about what people say,” he once said, twirling a bent paperclip between his fingers during a lecture. “It’s about what they hide. And if you’re lucky, they’ll hide it behind a cheap lock.”

He’d laughed, then showed us how to pick one using a paperclip and a steady hand. I never thought I’d actually try it.

I find a clip in the drawer with some spare notepads and straighten it out. I kneel down, press my ear close, and start picking.

Click.

Click.

Click.

It pops open with a softsnick, and what I see inside makes my blood freeze.

Photographs. Dozens of them.

All of me.

Some recent—me leaving the university library, grocery shopping, standing in front of my old apartment, even one of me laughing with Zoe.

Some older—me at the bookstore last winter, curled up on a bench in the park, talking to Logan outside the hospital.

I pick up one. It’s me in my old kitchen, pouring tea in an oversized hoodie. The window’s open behind me. I didn’t even know someone had been there.

They’re all carefully stacked, not a single one creased or torn. All black-and-white. Crisp. Clear.

I grab another handful and shuffle through them, my fingers trembling.

He’s been watching me.

For how long?

And why?

A chill runs down my back, thick and suffocating.

This isn’t just obsession.

This is surveillance.

This is stalking.

I stare at the photographs, my heart pounding so loudly I can hear it in my ears.

He told me.

He told me he’d been watching.

Told me he had bodyguards near me for protection. Told me he’d seen me before—wanted me ever since.

But it didn’t hit me then. Not like this.

Now, it’s real.

Now, it’s staring me in the face.

These aren’t just pictures. They’re evidence. Of every private moment I thought I owned.

There’s another one of me in class, head bowed over a textbook, biting the tip of my pen. Another from that night Maria and I went to a club—me in a black dress under flashing lights, laughing with a drink in my hand. I remember that night. I remember thinking I was safe.