Page 75 of Forced Virgin Bride of the Bratva
“I’m fine.”
He doesn’t push.
“Don’t call this number unless I do first,” I say. Then I hang up.
The silence rushes back in. I tuck the phone back into the book, replace it, close the shelf. The routine should make me feel in control.
It doesn’t, it makes me feel like I’m drowning slower.
I slip the phone back into the hollowed-out book, wrap it in its cloth, and slide the cover shut. My fingers shake, just a little. I tell myself it’s leftover adrenaline. Nothing more. Thespine slides neatly into place between the others. No evidence. No sign I was ever here.
Still, I take a beat. Breathe in. Out. My pulse pounds in my throat, louder than it should be.
I turn to leave, and that’s when I hear it. Footsteps.
Not the idle wandering kind. Not staff. Not the sound of someone passing through with a tray or adjusting curtains. These are measured. Deliberate.
The air shifts before I see him. The scent of him hits first—woodsmoke and something darker. Then he steps forward from the shadows between shelves like he’s always belonged to them.
Maxim.
My stomach drops.
His face is unreadable, all smooth lines and silent power, but it’s his eyes that hit hardest. Too calm. Too sharp. Not cold, but focused. Focused onme.
I can feel it—how he’s studying every detail. My posture, my breathing, the exact shelf I’d just been standing in front of. The way I haven’t moved an inch since spotting him. His gaze rakes over me slowly, not unkind, but unrelenting.
Stripped bare. That’s what it feels like.
My mouth goes dry.
I don’t know what to say. Not because I don’t have a dozen lies tucked behind my teeth, but because none of them feel safe right now. Not with the way he’s looking at me. Not with the silence hanging between us like a noose.
Chapter Twenty-Four - Maxim
I see it before she even steps into the west wing. There’sa shift in her gait, too focused to be casual, too careful to be coincidence. Kiera walks like someone who has something to hide—shoulders set, eyes forward, steps light. She doesn’t linger by the windows or glance at the artwork like she usually does when she’s pretending to wander. Not today. Today, she walks like someone with a destination. And I already know where she’s headed.
I don’t follow right away. I let her think she’s alone, let her slip into that false sense of security she’s grown so good at wrapping around herself, but I’ve been watching her too long not to notice when the mask shifts. She disappears through the library doors, and that’s when I move.
Quiet. Deliberate. Every step soaked in the kind of tension that makes men pray.
The door creaks as I push it open—unlocked, of course. I disabled the security weeks ago. Her head whips around.
She freezes.
There’s a beat of silence so thick it could choke us both. Her hand’s half raised, hovering near the bookshelf. Her eyes go wide—not in surprise, but recognition. Like a thief caught mid-step. She doesn’t speak. Doesn’t try to explain. That says more than any excuse ever could.
I close the door behind me.
“What are you doing?”
My voice is calm, but it carries weight. The kind of weight that silences a room before the bullet ever leaves the chamber. Her mouth parts, like she’s about to answer, but then she doesn’t. Her fingers twitch. She won’t look at me.
That’s all I need.
I cross the room slowly. Her breath hitches when I reach the shelf, the one with the tattered books I haven’t touched inmonths. My fingers slide along the spines, deliberate, pausing over one that looks just slightly out of place. I pull it free.
Dune.
