Page 35 of Pregnant Virgin of the Bratva
There’s a pause. Then, “What kind of delivery?”
“Did I stutter, are you angling for the job yourself?”
Yuri rolls his eyes. “Sorry, Boss.”
I sit behind the desk, lean back in the chair with one leg propped on the desk. “If you must know, I need books.”
Another pause, longer this time. “Did you just say books?”
“Don’t make me repeat myself.”
He exhales through his nose, amused, maybe a little confused. “You want titles?”
I glance at the list I pulled from her phone three days ago, when she was still unconscious in the basement and I had the time to go digging through every inch of her life. A reading wish list. Some rare. Some out of print. A few only found in local libraries back in that quiet little town she came from. She never told me about them. She didn’t need to.
“I’ve got them,” I say. “Use the list I sent.”
He grunts. “You planning to start a new collection, or is this for her?”
“I don’t pay you to ask questions.”
“Right. I’ll have them delivered this morning.”
He hangs up with a sigh, and I can hear the roll in his eyes.
I know Esme. Even the quiet, tucked-away parts she thought no one would ever see. I know what she wants. What she reaches for. What her mind clings to when the world is too loud. That knowledge is mine now.
Later, I watch from the doorway as she unwraps them.
The box is left outside her room with no note. She finds it after her shower, still in a fresh robe, hair damp around her face. Her fingers move over the edges of the box before she lifts the lid. Slowly. Hesitantly. Her hands shake when she sees what’s inside.
Her fingers graze the spines like she’s afraid they might vanish if she touches them too hard. She pulls one out—a hardcover first edition with her hometown’s library barcode still on the back—and holds it against her chest like she’s trying not to fall apart.
Then, after a long silence, she turns.
She sees me watching from the doorway. Her mouth tightens. Her shoulders go rigid… and then she erupts.
“This doesn’t make you a good person.”
Her voice is sharp. She doesn’t yell, but she’s furious, the kind of anger that’s been simmering too long beneath silence. She clutches the book in one hand, like she wants to throw it. I almost want her to.
“This,” she says, holding the book up, “this doesn’t undo anything. It doesn’t make what you did right. You’re not generous. You’re not thoughtful. You’re a horrible, violent bastard whohappensto have access to a courier.”
I step into the room.
Her eyes narrow, but she doesn’t back down. That only makes me want to test her more.
“You think these change something?” she asks. “That because you know what I read, or where I’m from, or what kind of paper I like in my notebooks, that you’ve earned anything from me?”
I step closer, let the arrogance settle between us. “I don’t have to earn shit from you, Esme. I do this because I can. Because it entertains me. Don’t pretend you’re not impressed. No one else in your life has ever known you this well. No one else ever will.”
The truth lands like a slap. She flinches, just slightly. “Control, then,” she says coldly. “That’s what this is.”
“Control, fun, it can be both.”
She goes quiet again.
The book presses against her ribs. Her fingers twitch. She’s shaking, not with fear, but frustration. Containment. She wants to scream and doesn’t. She wants to fight and knows it will do nothing. That awareness is what draws me to her again and again. The fire she can’t smother.
