Page 23 of Forced Virgin Bride of the Bratva (Sharov Bratva #13)

She’s supposed to be a liability. A means to an end. Someone I took as leverage, as punishment. A name on a list. A way to settle the blood between us. And now—now she’s a woman tangled in my sheets, moaning my name like it’s sacred, curling into my side like I’m safe.

Her hand shifts again, pressing lightly to my sternum, and I feel that flutter deep in my ribs. Like a warning. Like a promise.

I tell myself I’ll deal with it later. The tenderness. The pull. The need that isn’t rooted in sex or dominance, but something worse—something gentler. I can bury that. I’ve buried worse.

Right now, she’s sleeping.

Right now, she’s mine.

And I let her rest.

Eventually, the stillness becomes too much.

I watch her sleep a moment longer—her breathing slow, steady, lips parted like she’s whispering to ghosts. And then I slide out of bed, careful not to disturb her. She doesn’t stir. Not even when the mattress shifts. She’s too deep under, her trust in me like a blade turned inward.

I dress quickly, pulling on soft cotton and dark wool, not bothering with shoes. My bare feet make no sound on the hardwood as I cross the hall and descend the stairs.

The house is silent. Thick, sleeping silence, the kind that hides things in its folds.

I don’t head to the bar or the sitting room. I take the turn toward the east wing instead. Toward the study. My space. The one place no one enters without permission.

The moment I open the door, something tugs at me.

It’s subtle. A shift in the air. A flicker of instinct.

The room looks the same—the heavy desk, the shelves lined with books no one but me touches, the low burn of the lamp casting amber shadows across the floor. But there’s a tightness in my chest I can’t explain. A wrongness I can’t name.

I close the door behind me.

My eyes scan the room, slow and thorough. The decanter is exactly where I left it. No glass disturbed. No paper out of place.

Then I see it. A single strand of hair. Dark. Fine. Caught against the back of the velvet office chair.

Too long to be mine. Too short to be Darya’s. I know my staff—I keep them too close, too careful. No one cleaned in here today. I gave strict orders.

My jaw tightens as I step forward. I pluck the hair free and hold it between two fingers, examining it like it might confess something.

It doesn’t, but the fact of it lingers. Heavy. Unwelcome.

I brush it into the wastebin, then lower myself into the chair. My spine presses into leather that suddenly feels unfamiliar.

I tap the space bar. The laptop screen flickers awake.

Password prompt. I enter it. Accepted.

The desktop loads, exactly as I left it. No programs open. No files altered. Nothing out of place. I open the security folder, run a quick check—logins match, timestamps line up. No anomalies. I click through a few sensitive folders. Everything looks untouched. Clean.

Still, I don’t relax.

I can feel something under my skin, something crawling quiet through my thoughts like a warning too faint to decode.

I lean back, letting my gaze roam the room again. The books. The curtains. The corner where the light doesn’t quite reach.

It’s nothing, I tell myself. The hair was an accident. Static, wind, clothing—there are a hundred rational explanations. I could list them all.

Yet, my finger hesitates over the trackpad before I close the laptop.

I sit there a minute longer, letting the screen fade back to black. Watching my reflection blur in the glossy dark.

Then I close the lid slowly.

I sit there long after the screen goes dark, hands still resting on the closed laptop like the weight of it might offer answers.

The room is quiet, but not peaceful. There’s a kind of stillness that comes after movement—after someone’s been where they shouldn’t have.

And I can’t shake the feeling that something’s been disturbed.

Not stolen. Not broken. But shifted. Subtly. Deliberately.

The hair was enough to catch my attention. The rest is instinct. A discomfort in my spine. A silence that feels too complete.

The door opens behind me. Not slowly. Not with apology.

Darya enters as if it’s her right, the silk hem of her robe brushing the floor, her presence composed but cool. She doesn’t ask if she’s interrupting. She rarely does. Her eyes sweep the study, then land on me, expression unreadable.

“You shouldn’t be awake this late,” she says, voice calm.

“I needed air.”

“This is where you come for air now?”

Her tone is careful, almost disinterested, but I’ve known her long enough to hear the note beneath it. I don’t answer. She walks further into the room, glancing at the decanter, then at the laptop in front of me.

“She’s still in your bed,” she says.

I glance at her. “That’s not a question.”

“No,” she says, stepping closer. “It’s not.”

She stops near the chair, runs a hand lightly across the velvet back, as if smoothing something invisible. “You even stay until morning, sometimes.”

“She’s my wife, of course I stay.”

Her mouth twitches. Not quite a smile. “I know.”

I watch her carefully. She isn’t here to argue. Not yet. She’s here to remind me of what she sees—what she knows—and how long she’s been part of this house. This life.

“She was here earlier,” Darya says, her fingers now resting on the edge of the desk. “In this wing. Alone.”

“Doing what?”

“Looking for a book, she said. Something obscure. She mentioned your taste in poetry.”

That gets my attention, though I don’t show it.

“She was in here for ten minutes. I checked with the staff.”

“No one’s supposed to be in this office.”

“She knows.”

I study her, weighing the words. Darya doesn’t play games. She brings truth like a blade—cold, sharpened, unadorned.

“Did she take anything?”

“Not visibly.”

I nod, slow, thoughtful. My thumb presses against the laptop lid again, still closed. Still locked. Still clean, as far as I can tell.

“She’s watching us,” Darya says. “She seems to know everything.”

“I’m aware.”

She tilts her head, eyes narrowing. “Then why haven’t you stopped her?”

Because I don’t want to, because some part of me is waiting for her to make the next move.

Darya breathes out, sharp. “You’re compromising yourself.”

“She hasn’t done anything I can prove.”

“But you feel it. Don’t you?”

I meet her eyes. “I feel something.”

“She’s going to be your undoing.”

“Maybe.”

Darya stares at me for a long moment. Her face softens—not with pity, but with something close to disappointment.

“She’s not what you want her to be, Maxim, and you’re not who she thinks you are.”

She turns, walking back toward the door. Her parting words are low, nearly swallowed by the dark.

“You’ll figure it out, but not before it costs you.”

She leaves, and I sit alone again, the weight of the silence now heavier than before.