Page 33 of Captive Virgin of the Bratva

My heart’s pounding. He can hear it.

He doesn’t say a word, and I don’t ask. The silence stretches long enough to turn electric, thick with something unnamed.

Then he pulls away abruptly, standing fast like he’s burned himself.

He turns his back to me, one hand flexing at his side, jaw clenched hard. “Don’t be useless,” he mutters, already walking away.

I should be relieved.

My skin still remembers the way his hand felt on mine. My pulse still thrums in my ears. My whole body is flushed and tight, like something inside me has been wound just a little too far.

The worst part? I don’t know if it’s fear. Or something else entirely.

I stay in the chair long after he’s gone.

The pain in my side throbs, each beat of my heart a dull thud under the gauze. He stitched it well—tight, clean, too practiced for a man who pretends he doesn’t care if I bleed out. But it’s not the wound that has me gripping the edge of the chair. It’s everything else.

The feel of his hand on my skin. The pressure of his thumb over my pulse like he could control it just by touching it.

I groan, pressing the heel of my hand against my forehead.

What the hell is wrong with me?

The door creaks again. I brace myself, but it’s him. How long have I been sitting?

Kolya stands in the doorway, coat half off, sleeves pushed to his elbows like he didn’t give himself time to dress properly again. He stares at me. No words.

I narrow my eyes. “Didn’t you just walk out?”

His jaw ticks, and he presses a glass of water into my hands. “You looked like you were about to pass out. Again.”

“I’m fine,” I bite. “No need for the knight-in-shitty-armor routine.”

“You’re not fine,” he says flatly, stepping back into the room. “You’re bleeding, pale, and still haven’t shut up.”

“You stitched me up like a butcher, not a saint.”

“I saved your life.”

I scoff. “I was trying to save Yuri’s.”

That shuts him up. His gaze drops to my bandaged side, then lifts—slowly, deliberately—to my face.

I shift, suddenly too aware of how thin my shirt is, how low it’s riding now with the hem pulled up around the gauze. I should cover myself. Move. Saysomething.

Instead, I sit there, chest heaving a little harder than necessary, heat pooling low in my stomach.

He takes a step closer. I don’t stop him.

Then he pulls away, expression smug and says, “Drink. You’ll feel better.

I take a hesitant sip, and cringe. It isn’t water; it’s vodka.

***

That night, the air inside the farmhouse feels heavier than usual—thick with smoke, tension, and something else I can’t name.

I sit on the mattress in the dark, one hand pressed to the clean gauze at my side, the other clenched in the blanket draped over my legs. Every movement reminds me of what happened. The way he looked at me.

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