Page 65 of Forced Virgin Bride of the Bratva
Eventually, the stillness becomes too much.
I watch her sleep a moment longer—her breathing slow, steady, lips parted like she’s whispering to ghosts. And then I slide out of bed, careful not to disturb her. She doesn’t stir. Not even when the mattress shifts. She’s too deep under, her trust in me like a blade turned inward.
I dress quickly, pulling on soft cotton and dark wool, not bothering with shoes. My bare feet make no sound on the hardwood as I cross the hall and descend the stairs.
The house is silent. Thick, sleeping silence, the kind that hides things in its folds.
I don’t head to the bar or the sitting room. I take the turn toward the east wing instead. Toward the study. My space. The one place no one enters without permission.
The moment I open the door, something tugs at me.
It’s subtle. A shift in the air. A flicker of instinct.
The room looks the same—the heavy desk, the shelves lined with books no one but me touches, the low burn of the lamp casting amber shadows across the floor. But there’s a tightness in my chest I can’t explain. A wrongness I can’t name.
I close the door behind me.
My eyes scan the room, slow and thorough. The decanter is exactly where I left it. No glass disturbed. No paper out of place.
Then I see it. A single strand of hair. Dark. Fine. Caught against the back of the velvet office chair.
Too long to be mine. Too short to be Darya’s. I know my staff—I keep them too close, too careful. No one cleaned in here today. I gave strict orders.
My jaw tightens as I step forward. I pluck the hair free and hold it between two fingers, examining it like it might confess something.
It doesn’t, but the fact of it lingers. Heavy. Unwelcome.
I brush it into the wastebin, then lower myself into the chair. My spine presses into leather that suddenly feels unfamiliar.
I tap the space bar. The laptop screen flickers awake.
Password prompt. I enter it. Accepted.
The desktop loads, exactly as I left it. No programs open. No files altered. Nothing out of place. I open the security folder, run a quick check—logins match, timestamps line up. No anomalies. I click through a few sensitive folders. Everything looks untouched. Clean.
Still, I don’t relax.
I can feel something under my skin, something crawling quiet through my thoughts like a warning too faint to decode.
I lean back, letting my gaze roam the room again. The books. The curtains. The corner where the light doesn’t quite reach.
It’s nothing, I tell myself. The hair was an accident. Static, wind, clothing—there are a hundred rational explanations. I could list them all.
Yet, my finger hesitates over the trackpad before I close the laptop.
I sit there a minute longer, letting the screen fade back to black. Watching my reflection blur in the glossy dark.
Then I close the lid slowly.
I sit there long after the screen goes dark, hands still resting on the closed laptop like the weight of it might offer answers. The room is quiet, but not peaceful. There’s a kind of stillness that comes after movement—after someone’s been where they shouldn’t have. And I can’t shake the feeling that something’s been disturbed. Not stolen. Not broken. But shifted. Subtly. Deliberately.
The hair was enough to catch my attention. The rest is instinct. A discomfort in my spine. A silence that feels too complete.
The door opens behind me. Not slowly. Not with apology.
Darya enters as if it’s her right, the silk hem of her robe brushing the floor, her presence composed but cool. She doesn’t ask if she’s interrupting. She rarely does. Her eyes sweep the study, then land on me, expression unreadable.
“You shouldn’t be awake this late,” she says, voice calm.
