Page 21 of The Bratva's Hunted Bride
Oh my god, this has got to be Stockholm syndrome, right?If I had my phone, I’d be going down a serious internet rabbit hole right now, trying to figure out the symptoms of Stockholm syndrome. But I know that no internet search could clarify this muddy situation. It’s too complicated for that. Timofey is a monster, I know that to my core, but he’s more than that. At least with me, he’s more than that.
I shudder, remembering the violence he’d enacted so easily on those men who’d tried to kidnap me. But he’s so gentle with me. Is this how the women who fall in love with serial killers feel? Like a special little exception to their psychopathic boyfriend? Probably, right before they get chopped up.
I’ve never thought of myself as a stupid person, but maybe I am. Right now, I’m lingering, watching Timofey’s broad chest rise and fall in his drugged sleep when I could be running away. The car keys are sitting on the kitchen table, and I’m sure I could find my way back to the city and safety right now. So why am I not moving?
He’s so big he makes that full-size couch look like a love seat, but he’s so gentle, too. And the way he looks at me… it can’t be love, but it’s something adjacent. Devotion. I’ve never felt that from anyone before, having always had to keep the men I meetat arm’s length. No one’s ever gotten close enough to care about me like that.
And he saved me. Yes, I know, he’s probably the biggest actual threat to me. He stalked me. Kidnapped me. Trapped me. That’s the modus operandi of a dangerous man, and there’s no guarantee that he’s not still planning something terrible for me. Perhaps protecting me from those men was just a way to protect his investment.
I pace around the kitchen as these thoughts swirl out of control. Continuing down that train of thought, maybe he just hired those men to stake out my brother’s house on the chance I escape. Then he gets to show up and play the hero, and I’ll start to trust him, and then… I could go on for hours like this. Cutting through all of that to get to what my gut is telling me isn’t easy, but my gut says Timofey doesn’t want to hurt me. That, in his own twisted way, he actually cares about me.
Maybe that’s why I don’t take the chance to run off when I have it. Or maybe it’s Stockholm syndrome. Either way, I spend my time while Timofey is sleeping rustling up dinner from the collection of canned goods. It’s not a gourmet meal, but it’ll fill our stomachs.
Every so often, a flash of that man getting a knife through his eye hits me, and I have to fight back a gag. It does a great job stifling my appetite while I wait for Timofey to wake up. What sort of world am I living in now? After my brothers had tried so hard to keep me from it, I’d managed to stumble into it anyway.
The pot of soup simmers away on the stove. I glance at Timofey, still out cold, and decide to use my time to explore. There’s a single bedroom, its windows looking onto the expanse of open space behind the house, and a tiny bathroom. It’s so unlike the mansion that I can hardly believe it belongs toTimofey, and the decor is nothing like the garish mess stuffed into every room at his other place.
Which one is the real him? There are two sides to this man, and I’m unsure which one to believe.
I dig through the closet in the bedroom, unable to resist sating my curiosity. There’s a rack of guns on the back wall that makes me swallow, and the first box I open holds a variety of knives in different shapes and sizes. I get the feeling the man likes his knives. Recalling the way he ran the blunt side of one down my spine when he’d had me handcuffed sends a peculiar shiver down the same region.
Pushing the box aside, I keep digging until I find a dusty box of paperbacks and a set of well-worn playing cards, well-worn. The paperbacks are mostly in that genre of “man on an adventure.” Between this cabin in the middle of nowhere and the books, I start to wonder if Timofey missed his calling as an outdoorsman. Maybe, like me, he was born into a family where he doesn’t quite belong but can’t escape from.
I hear movement from the other room and hurry to shove everything back into the closet. Too late. Timofey clears his throat behind me. I turn and find him leaning up against the doorframe, arms crossed, and one of those unreadable expressions on his face.
“Find anything interesting?” he asks, cocking his head to the side.
Getting to my feet, I nudge the box of knives with my toe. “You have a concerning number of knives for one man.”
He smirks. “I’m a collector. You’re not concerned about the guns?”
He nods toward the back of the closet. I wipe dust off my hands onto my shorts. “Knives seem more personal. A gun, I understand, sort of. You’re in a dangerous line of work. But knives? Getting up close with someone? That says something.”
“What does it say, Talia?” he asks, an edge to his voice. A challenge. He’s daring me to put into words what I’ve only started to wonder about him.
I stand a little taller. “That you get some kind of perverted enjoyment from it. That you prefer knives because they’re personal, and they let you get your hands truly dirty.”
He stalks closer, pushing off the doorframe. I lift my chin to maintain eye contact, refusing to back down from this line of thought. “Maybe they’re just useful for close-quarters combat. Fighting gets messy. Distance collapses. There are many reasons to use a knife.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “So you’d have a knife or two. But this,” I say, gesturing behind me, “says that’s not at all.”
He towers over me and having him so close with all these weapons around should scare the crap out of me. But it doesn’t. I push. “And the way you touched me with the knife back at your other place? That tells me something more.”
His smirk grows wider, and my heart starts to race. “And what’s that?”
I swallow. “You like to play with them, don’t you? It gets you off.”
It’s a shot in the dark, but I think I’ve hit home. He takes a step closer, and I’m forced to crane my head back to look up at him. I’m still between him and the knives, and if he makes any sudden motions for them, I’ll have to dart past him to get out of the door. Did I push too far? The man is a walking killingmachine, and I’m taunting him about his fetishes. Have I totally lost my mind?
The words linger in the air between us, and he lets me dangle. When he opens his mouth to talk, I don’t get the answer I’m waiting for. “Did you kiss me?”
That shuts me up. I snap my mouth closed and then stammer out some nonsense, feeling my cheeks blaze hot.
“No, definitely not. Maybe those pain meds were a little too strong for you,” I stammer out, hoping he buys it. “I think the soup is ready.”
I slip past him, but not before catching the amused expression on his face. I don’t think he bought it. He definitely remembers the kiss, and unfortunately, I can’t forget it either. Whatever else is happening between us, there’s no denying the way my body responds to his.
Thankfully, he lets it go and sets the table, pulling out bowls, spoons, and a ladle from the drawers and giving them a quick wipe with a towel to remove any dust that might have gathered on them.
