Page 58 of Captive Virgin of the Bratva

“I’m worried about what happens when the rest of the Bratva starts thinking you’re going soft.”

I exhale through my nose, the beginnings of a smirk tugging at my mouth. “Soft?”

“You’re not the same,” he presses. “You hesitate now. You let her stay. You gave her a ring.”

“That was strategy.”

“Was it?”

“Yes,” I snap, sharper than intended. “She saw too much. Knows too much. The safest way to keep her alive—and keepusprotected—is to make her untouchable. No one crosses the boss’s fiancée.”

“You could’ve put a bullet in her head and been done with it.”

“I could have,” I say, voice low. “I didn’t.”

“Why’s that?”

I don’t answer.

I don’t have one that doesn’t sound like madness.

He pushes off the chair and stands. “You want to marry her.”

It’s not a question.

I stare down the rim of my glass before I lift it and drink.

“She doesn’t want this,” I say, finally.

“Doesn’t matter. You’re not the kind of man who waits for consent.”

That makes something in me bristle. Not because it’s untrue—but because she’s different.

“I don’t want her if she hates me,” I admit, quietly. “Not like this.”

Boris tilts his head. “Didn’t stop you before.”

“It’s not the same.” I meet his gaze fully now. “I’ve been soft withher. That doesn’t mean I’ve gone soft with everything else. Business hasn’t slipped. My enemies still fear me. My men still follow orders. I’m not unraveling.”

“Yet.”

I rise from my chair, slowly. “You think I don’t know how this looks? That I haven’t weighed the consequences?”

He shrugs. “I think you’ve already made your decision. You’re just stalling. Trying to convince yourself it’s still logical.”

I pace toward the window, letting the cold glass press against my knuckles. Outside, the garden is shadowed in dusk. The guards make their rounds along the stone wall. Beyond it, the city pulses like a living thing. She’s somewhere inside this house. I know exactly where. I could be there in under a minute.

I could be in heragainin under two.

Yet I’m here, stuck between the man I was and the one I’m becoming, wondering if there’s a way to want her without losing everything I’ve built.

“You should leave,” I tell him, voice quieter now.

Boris watches me for a long moment. Then he nods once, finishing his drink and setting the glass down with a heavy clink. “She’s not just a complication, Kolya. She’s a mirror. Be careful what you see in her.”

When he’s gone, I remain by the window.

The thought of her, curled up on that couch again… it undoes me. I remember the sound of her breath in the quiet. The way her eyes looked when they opened and found me there. Not pleading. Not weeping. Justburning.

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