Page 34 of Captive Virgin of the Bratva

The heat of his palm on my skin. The way his thumb lingered just a second too long on my wrist, like he didn’t know what he was doing or couldn’t stop himself.

The way Ifeltit—every nerve lit up, every breath caught in my throat, every rational thought peeled away by the low rasp of his voice, the heat of his body so close I could feel the shape of it through his clothes.

I press my thighs together beneath the blanket, my cheeks hot.

God,what the hell is wrong with me?

He’s a monster.

He kidnapped me. Threatened me. Held a gun to my head.

Yet, there’s a part of me that keeps playing it back—slow, vivid, unbearable. The way his mouth tightened when he looked at my wound. The shift in his voice when he said I wasn’t fine. The flicker of something in his eyes when I said I didn’t ask him to touch me.

There’s something human in him. That’s the worst part.

Not the violence. Not the power. Thehumanity. It tempts me, and it makes me wonder.

That’s why I know I have to leave.

As soon as Yuri is well enough to survive without me, I’m going to run. I don’t care where. I don’t care how far. I’ll crawl into the snow if I have to. I just can’t stay here long enough to see more of the man beneath the monster.

Chapter Nine - Kolya

I can still feel her pulse.

It doesn’t make sense. I’ve touched countless people in my life—to break them, steady them, kill them. Hands coated in blood and bone. Nothing sticks. Nothing stays.

That subtle tremor beneath my fingers, the stutter of a frightened heart refusing to surrender—it lingers. The memory of heat, of softness, of vulnerability, loops in my head like a curse I can’t spit out. She didn’t pull away. Not right away. Even when I should’ve stepped back, even when I felt my control faltering, I stayed. Pressed too long. Thought too much.

She’s not supposed to matter.

Elise is a means to an end. A pair of capable hands to keep my informant alive. Nothing more.

She’s not nothing. She never was.

Yuri’s breath rattles through the room like wind through broken glass. He looks like death: pale, lips cracked, skin too tight against his cheekbones. He’s stable. Stable enough. And awake.

Boris paces near the doorway as I crouch beside the bed, watching Yuri’s eyes flutter open and drift unfocused across the ceiling.

“Yuri,” I say, low and steady. “You know who I am.”

A breath. A shallow nod.

“Tell me who paid you. Who hired the hit.”

His eyes twitch. He tries to wet his lips, fails. His voice is barely more than a whisper, but I lean in and catch it.

“Viktor….”

Again. I press in.

“Viktor who?”

“Viktor… Morozov.”

I feel the name slide into place like a final piece of a locked door swinging open. Viktor Morozov. That corrupt little shit. I should’ve guessed sooner.

“He said you… you were looking too close… wouldn’t stop… had to… shut you up….”

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