Page 93 of Captive Virgin of the Bratva

“He gave you away,” Kolya says, voice low. “He doesn’t get to call himself a father.”

“I know,” I murmur. “It just feels… strange.”

Kolya tosses the towel aside and stands straight. “You’ll feel a lot of things,love.I’ll deal with them all. One by one.”

He turns away, moving to strip off his bloodied shirt, and suddenly I’m cold without him near.

“I thought I was going to die down there,” I say softly.

His back stiffens.

“I kept waiting,” I continue, “for someone to come through that door and never let me leave.”

Kolya turns.

“I knew you’d come,” I admit. “I didn’t know if it’d be in time.”

He crosses the room in two strides and grabs my face—not rough, not gentle—justfirm. His thumb brushes the curve of my cheekbone, his eyes locked on mine.

“I will always save you in time.”

Something in my chest cracks open. I lean into his hand, eyes fluttering closed.

Chapter Twenty-Three - Kolya

She hasn’t left my sight since I pulled her from that fucking basement.

She’s wrapped in one of my shirts now—sleeves too long, collar stretched, hem brushing her bare thighs as she sits on the edge of my bed like a ghost in cotton. The fabric clings to her in places, rumpled from sleep or nerves or both. Her knees are drawn together. Her fingers twist in the blanket like she doesn’t trust her hands not to shake.

I watch her from across the room. From the shadows. My arms crossed, jaw tight, fists curled so tight the skin across my knuckles threatens to split open again.

She won’t look at me. She hasn’t said a word in hours.

The silence between us is thick with unspoken things. She feels it. So do I.

My rage hasn’t burned out. It simmers low, just beneath the surface. Not at her. Never at her. Ateverything else—the men who touched her, the father who sold her out, the fucking world that keeps trying to break her.

She did run. She left me.

Sheput herself in danger.

I step forward. My boots are silent on the carpet, but she feels the shift in the air anyway. Her head lifts, chin angling toward me with that same stubborn glint I’ve seen since the moment she entered my life. Even now, pale and exhausted, bruised and still healing—she defies me with just her eyes.

“I told you not to run from me,” I say finally. My voice is low. Steel dragged against stone.

Her lips part. “I needed answers,” she says.

The honesty in her voice sets me off.

I move before I even think, crossing the room in two strides. My hands hit the bed on either side of her, caging her in against the mattress. She sucks in a breath. Her eyes go wide. I’m so close, I feel the tremble in her chest, the shift of her thighs. My heat wraps around her. My scent. My anger. My obsession.

She doesn’t push me away. Sheneverdoes.

Her fingers curl in the sheets. Her breathing spikes. “I don’t understand you,” she whispers.

My jaw flexes. “No?”

“One second, you treat me like a prisoner. The next, you burn a city down to bring me back.”

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