Page 4 of Captive Virgin of the Bratva

Silence.

Eventually, my fingers move. I turn the key. The engine shudders to life with a low, rough growl, the heater coughing up lukewarm air that spills weakly from the vents. I back out slow and smooth, headlights slicing through the mist ahead.

The drive home is short. Eight minutes if the lights are with me. Ten if they’re not. Tonight, they are. Every intersection is empty. Every signal green. I pass shuttered storefronts and shadowed apartment blocks, their windows dark, their outlines familiar only because I’ve memorized the cracks in the paint and the way certain bulbs never get replaced.

My building sits at the edge of a quieter block—narrow, old brick, the kind of place that never fully got around to modernizing. The radiators groan like dying animals. The plumbing screams when someone dares to shower after midnight. It isn’t much, but it’s mine.

I park in my usual spot. Climb the stairs, each one creaking under my weight, the echo of my shoes bouncing off the stairwell’s concrete walls. The day clings to my shoulders like a wet coat I can’t shrug off.

Apartment 4B.

The lock sticks, as always. Then gives with a click.

Inside, everything is still.

The air holds a faint chill, not quite cold but untouched by any warmth. I flick on the entryway lamp and step out of my shoes. My coat slides from my shoulders with a heavy thump as I hang it up on the crooked hook by the door.

My apartment is small. Functional. Clean in the way that reads more clinical than cozy. The living room doubles as a workspace, one corner taken up by a small desk, the other by a modest gray couch. A worn medical textbook lies open on the coffee table, the corners curled slightly. Beside it sits a cup of tea from two mornings ago, untouched, its surface still faintly stained with leaves. I scoop it up on my way to the kitchen and pour it down the sink without looking.

No clutter. No photos. No magnets on the fridge. No postcards from places I haven’t visited. The walls are bare except for a single clock above the stove, its ticking too loud in the silence.

I don’t mind. I prefer it this way.

I change into an oversized T-shirt and leggings, tossing my scrubs into the hamper and already calculating when I’ll do the next load. Probably not tomorrow. My toes curl against the cold tile as I pad to the bathroom to wash my face. The mirror is still streaked with old condensation—something I hadn’t noticed this morning. Or hadn’t cared.

In the soft light, I study myself just long enough to register the tiredness under my eyes. The faint crease between my brows. The way my jaw stays clenched, even at rest. I look like someone older than twenty-four. Someone who’s seen enough blood to know there’s always more to come.

I dry my face with a towel and don’t bother turning on the overhead light in the bedroom. The sheets are cool when I slide between them, limbs heavy, head thick with sleep. But something inside me won’t quiet. My eyes stay open, the ceiling above me washed in soft blue light from the streetlamp outside.

I reach for my phone.

Set the alarm—early. Too early, really. Earlier than I should, earlier than anyone would after a shift like the one I’ve just survived. I’m used to early. I don’t know how to sleep in.

I don’t dream. Not that night.

In the morning, I won’t remember the stillness. Won’t remember what it felt like to lie in bed without danger close, without blood on my hands, without something looming at the edge of the day.

Maybe.

Chapter One - Kolya

The wheel creaks under my grip, leather groaning as my knuckles bleach white against it. The black SUV growls beneath me, hungry and hot, each turn of the engine a pulse that matches my heartbeat. We fly through the city like a bullet through bone—precise, brutal, inevitable.

Boris is beside me, radio in one hand, barking clipped Russian into the mouthpiece.

“Southbound, approaching Grand. Sedan is damaged—rear axle dragging, he’s losing control. Push him.”

I don’t need to be told.

The city lights stutter across the windshield in streaks—green, gold, the occasional harsh red that blinks like a warning. But I don’t stop. Don’t even slow. My foot presses deeper into the gas pedal as we close the gap, inch by inch.

Ahead, Yuri’s car swerves violently to avoid a merging truck, skimming the lane divider with a screech of tortured metal. The bastard’s desperate. I can see it in the twitch of his brake lights, the way the battered sedan fishtails after every sharp turn. He’s running like a dog that knows the end is coming.

Good. He should.

“He’s panicking,” Boris mutters, leaning forward, voice lower now. “Almost hit that truck back there.”

“He doesn’t know the streets like I do,” I say, calm as steel. “We’ll box him before the bridge.”

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