Page 71 of Ruthless Bratva King

I want to scream, to demand answers, to shake him until the truth spills out. But I don’t. Instead, I let him hold me, let the steady rise and fall of his chest lull me into a fragile calm.

If he won’t tell me what’s wrong, I’ll have to find out myself.

As he drifts into sleep, his breathing evening out, I lie awake, my mind churning with possibilities.

I can’t shake the feeling that something is coming, something dangerous and unstoppable.

51

ELENA

The soft light of morning filters through the window, painting the room in golden hues.

I sit cross-legged in the armchair, a steaming cup of coffee warming my hands.

Across from me, Dmitri leans against the windowsill, his broad shoulders backlit by the early sun.

“What made you want to be an architect?” he asks out of nowhere.

I take a sip of my coffee. “My grandfather’s study was my favorite place growing up,” I say. “He was an architect, and his shelves were filled with books—blueprints, designs, structures from around the world. I’d sit there for hours, running my fingers over the pages, pretending I understood what I was looking at. He used to tell me it wasn’t work for girls.”

His brow furrows slightly, a small gesture that always makes me feel like he’s holding onto every word I say. “You taught yourself?”

I smile faintly. “Yeah. Eventually, I started teaching myself. I’d copy the lines from his blueprints, try to recreate the designs.It felt safe, you know? Predictable. Buildings made sense. People didn’t.”

He tilts his head, his gaze softening. “Why didn’t people make sense?”

I let out a small, bitter laugh. “Because people are complicated. They lie, they leave, they hurt you. But buildings? They stay. They’re sturdy. Solid. If something breaks, you can fix it. There’s no guesswork, no second-guessing intentions.”

His silence feels heavy, but not in a bad way. He’s absorbing my words, piecing together the puzzle of me. “That’s why you design buildings now?” he asks. “To create something unbreakable?”

“Maybe,” I admit, lowering my eyes to my coffee. “Or maybe it’s just because I’m good at it. It’s easier to focus on something tangible than to get lost in the messiness of everything else.”

When I glance back up, his expression has changed. There’s a depth there, something raw and unspoken. “You’re good at it because it’s part of you,” he says quietly. “Your way of making sense of the world.”

The vulnerability in his voice surprises me, but before I can respond, he crosses the room and crouches in front of me. He takes the cup from my hands, setting it on the small table beside us, and folds my hands in his.

“I get it,” he says, his voice low. “Not having something solid to hold onto. I never had that. No family, no home. Just surviving.”

I squeeze his hands, urging him to go on. His gaze drops to our joined fingers, his thumb tracing slow circles over my knuckles.

“When you grow up without a home,” he continues, “you start to believe you don’t deserve one. That there’s no place for you anywhere.”

The words hang between us, heavy and fragile. I don’t know what to say, so I cup his face in my hands, my thumbs brushing over the sharp lines of his jaw. “You can have a home if you want it,” I whisper. “With me.”

I tilt my head, studying him, waiting for him to speak. His dark eyes flicker between me and the floor as if he’s searching for the right words.

“When I was a little kid,” he begins, his voice low and steady, “I used to pretend I was invisible. It made it easier to get through the day.”

I blink, caught off guard. “Invisible?”

His lips quirk into something that almost resembles a smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “If no one could see me, they couldn’t hurt me.”

My chest tightens. “Dmitri…”

He holds up a hand, silencing me. “It’s fine. I don’t think about it often. Or at least I try not to.” His gaze shifts to the window, the light catching on the hard lines of his face. “But growing up with no one? There’s no such thing as stability. You’re always moving, always adjusting, always preparing to lose everything that matters to you. Soon enough you stop getting attached to anything.”

I stay silent, my heart aching for the boy he must have been—alone, unprotected, and invisible.

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