Page 11 of Captured By the Masked BRATVA
It’s my father who will be the larger problem. The Orlov name doesn’t bend for anyone, not even for me. But as I look down at her sleeping in my arms, I realise I don’t care. I’ve done everything that man ever asked of me; spilled blood, brokered fear, built empires from ruin. If I ask for one thing in return, it will be this woman.
She shifts slightly in her sleep, pressing closer. My hand finds the curve of her waist and stays there, as if my body has already decided for me. The thought that someone like her could belong to me feels impossible and inevitable all at once.
I imagine her waking next to me, wearing my ring, her laughter filling my sterile home. I imagine her carrying my children, her music filling the house that has been silent since Lev died. The image feels both wrong and holy, like a prayer said over a crime scene.
Because that’s what this feels like. The second act of something I didn’t mean to begin.
And I already know how it ends.
Not with her dying in this room. But with her taking my name.
She stirs against me just as the light starts creeping across the floorboards. Pale gold filters through the curtains, cutting through the last traces of night. For a moment, I lie still, pretending I’m not awake, just so I can feel her weight on my chest and the slow, even pull of her breath.
When she shifts again, her hair brushes my chin. She tilts her face up, eyes heavy with sleep. I’ve never seen anything so quiet or so dangerous.
“Good morning,” she whispers, voice still husky from the night.
It hits me in the chest, how easily that could become a habit. Waking like this. Her in my arms, the world outside not able to touch us.
“Morning,” I say, my voice rougher than I expect. “Did you sleep?”
She nods, smiling faintly. “For the first time in a long time.”
I reach up, tracing a finger down her temple, following the line of her cheek. She doesn’t flinch, doesn’t shy away. The womanwho trembled when I first touched her now looks at me like I’m something she’s chosen, not survived.
“You look different,” I tell her. “Peaceful.”
“Maybe I am,” she says, curling her hand against my chest.
We stay like that for a while. The silence between us doesn’t feel like a wound anymore. It feels like a reprieve.
“I’m not going to kill you,” I say.
Her eyes widen, her brows furrow. “But—”
“I can’t, Elena. There’s too much between us now. Not just Lev, something else, something bigger.”
She sighs, glancing toward the window. “I was ready to die.” Her voice is flat. “I figured if it wasn’t at your hand it would be at someone else's. Then I was glad it was you. It felt right.”
“That’s the problem,” I reply. “Because everything we have done tonightfelt right.”
We fall into silence for a beat, her hand stroking over my chest.
“It’s the second night of the masquerade tonight,” she says quietly. “I don’t usually attend. I’ve heard…things about it that I didn’t like the sound of. But when the masquerade is over—”
I cut her off, “No. Whatever this is, it’s forever. It’s me and you and no one else. It might not make sense—fuck, it doesn’t make sense. But I know it.”
My hand finds it’s way to between her legs and parts her with my fingers.
“This is mine, forever. No one else ever gets to look at you, much less touch you. Do you understand?”
She nods, but truthfully, she doesn’t understand at all. She walked into this room expecting her life to end, and now it looks like it’s just beginning in a twisted, confusing way.
Her lips curve, a small, knowing smile that shouldn’t undo me the way it does. “You always sound like a threat when you’re trying to be sweet.”
I study her for a long moment. There’s a light in her now that wasn’t there before. Fragile, but fierce. It makes something deep in my chest tighten until I can barely breathe.
“Maybe I don’t know how to be anything else.”
