Page 62 of Captive Virgin of the Bratva

I don’t ask where we’re going. I already know it won’t matter. Whatever this is, it’s not for me. I’m just… a piece. Something he can put in place and use when needed. Tonight, I’m apparently meant to sparkle.

The car slows in front of a building so tall it disappears into the night sky, glittering with lights like a crown carved out of steel and glass. People are already streaming through the grand entrance, dressed in black, gold, deep reds—wealth on full display, every inch of them screaming power.

I don’t belong here.

Kolya steps out first, then circles around to open my door. He doesn’t offer his hand. He doesn’t need to. I slide out carefully, adjusting the hem of the dress as I stand, heels catching the light. The wind bites against my bare legs, but I keep my chin high.

Inside, the world smells like perfume, cigars, and politics. Chandeliers drip from the ceiling like crystal teardrops, casting fractured light across marble floors. Men shake hands with forced smiles, women air-kiss with painted mouths, and somewhere in the background, a string quartet plays a piece I can’t name.

Kolya barely glances at any of it. His hand finds the curve of my waist, pulling me to his side with a familiarity that shouldn’t exist. I stiffen, but his grip is iron.

Then he says it. “Meet my fiancée.”

The words fall like a guillotine.

My throat tightens, but I say nothing. I smile—small, polite—and nod at the older man standing in front of us. His eyes flick from Kolya to me and back again, expression unreadable, but I feel the weight of the judgment. I feel it from all of them. Every person we pass, every handshake exchanged, every too-long glance at the dress I didn’t choose.

To them, I’m a pretty thing. A decoration. A kept woman in too-high heels with sharp eyes and a dangerous man wrapped around her finger—or the other way around.

I don’t shrink. I can’t afford to.

So I smile tighter. Sharper. I let the fire behind my ribs keep me steady.

Kolya says little as we drift through the crowd, but he doesn’t have to. His hand never leaves me—resting at the small of my back, fingers brushing the edge of my spine, always touching. Claiming. And though I want to hate it, want to rip away from him and scream, I feel the heat of him at my side like a magnetic field.

He smells like clean smoke and something darker beneath it—something earthy and rich that always makes me breathe too deep without realizing.

People ask questions. Where I’m from. How long we’ve been engaged. What Ido.

“My Elise is a doctor,” Kolya answers once, voice like steel wrapped in velvet. “Brilliant, isn’t she?”

I narrow my eyes at him, but the man we’re speaking to only laughs and nods, impressed. It’s the first time Kolya has said something about me that didn’t sound like control.

Still, it’s not enough to make me forget who he is. What he’s done. What I’veseen.

“You must be very patient,” a woman says to me later, her diamonds glinting like knives. “Kolya is… intense.”

I sip my champagne and smile, just a little. “Patience is part of my training. But intensity doesn’t scare me. Men who hide behind manners do.”

Her brows rise—just a tick—but she laughs, a genuine sound. “Oh, you’ll be fun to watch.”

Kolya watches me the entire night.

Not just with the cold possessiveness I’ve come to expect—but something else. Something darker. Like he’s seeing me in a new light. Like every word I speak, every glance I deflect, only draws him in tighter.

He pulls me aside once, into a quieter corner of the ballroom where the music hums low and the light softens. His hand slides along my waist, settling on my hip.

“You enjoy this,” he murmurs near my ear.

“Enduring this, maybe,” I say tightly. “Enjoying it? Hardly.”

His mouth brushes the shell of my ear. “You looked like you belonged here.”

I turn my head, our faces suddenly close. “You mean I looked like I belonged toyou.”

He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have to.

I step back before the heat rising in my chest turns into something worse. Something I can’t hide.

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