Page 16 of Bratva Bride
Unless I could make it something else. Unless I could give her what she'd never had—choice, agency, the ability to be herself instead of her father's tool.
The door opened.
Two guards entered first, Viktor's men, the kind who looked like they'd enjoyed hurting people even before they got paid for it. They flanked the doorway, hands near their weapons, like they expected someone to attack. Like they were guarding something valuable. Or dangerous. Or both.
Then she walked in.
And every calculation in my head stuttered to a complete stop.
She was smaller than the surveillance photos suggested, maybe five-foot-six in heels that looked like they hurt—the way she shifted her weight microscopically from foot to foot, redistributing pressure she wasn't used to managing. The red dress was gorgeous, cut to display without revealing.
Her dark hair was braided with mathematical precision—not a strand out of place, which told me she'd done it herself. No hired stylist would achieve that particular level of obsessive perfection.The braid was control. The braid was something she could manage when everything else spiraled beyond her grip.
But it was her face that stopped me. Not beautiful in the conventional sense that men usually meant when they said that word. Beautiful in the way complex equations were beautiful. Beautiful in the way perfectly optimized code was beautiful. Every feature served a purpose, worked in harmony with the others to create something more than the sum of its parts.
Her eyes tracked every exit first. Three seconds to catalog the door she'd entered through. Two seconds for the emergency exit behind Besharov that was painted over but still functional. One second for the windows—barred, reinforced, not an option. Then she cataloged every person in the room. Started with Besharov—the obvious authority. Moved to the Kozlovs—the obvious threats. Then the Sokolovs—neutral parties. Then us.
Her gaze lingered on Alexei for an extra second, recognizing the Pakhan. Slid to Dmitry, cataloged the enforcer. Then to me.
Our eyes met.
And I saw myself reflected back—the anxiety, the hypervigilance, the desperate need to calculate safety in an unsafe world. She was running scenarios just like I did. Calculating probabilities. Looking for patterns that would tell her how much danger she was in, how much pain was coming, how long she had to endure before she could disappear again.
Her lips moved slightly. Silently. She was counting.
Four counts in. Hold four. Out four.
The same breathing pattern I used. The same technique to manage panic when it threatened to crack you open from the inside. She was fighting a panic attack right here, right now, in a room full of predators who'd smell her fear like blood in the water.
But here's what struck me most: no one else noticed.
She'd learned to suffer quietly. Learned to break apart inside while maintaining perfect composure outside. The tremor in her hands was so slight you'd miss it if you weren't looking. The way her fingernails pressed into her palms—using pain to ground herself—was hidden by the angle of her arms. The counting was silent, invisible unless you knew what to look for.
She was terrified. And she was brilliant at hiding it.
Viktor grabbed her arm. Too rough. Possessive. The gesture of a man moving furniture rather than touching his daughter. She flinched—tiny movement, quickly suppressed, but I saw it. Saw the way she went very still afterward, like prey playing dead. Like she'd learned that stillness meant safety. That becoming nothing meant surviving.
Something in my chest cracked. Not the hairline fracture of sympathy. A complete break. A compound fracture of recognition so acute it physically hurt.
"This is acceptable," Besharov said, studying Anya like livestock at auction. His weathered eyes took in her dress, her posture, her breeding potential with the casual assessment of a man who'd traded women like commodities for longer than she'd been alive.
I wanted to put myself between her and every gaze in this room. Wanted to wrap her in something soft and bulletproof and tell her she was safe now. Wanted to burn down the entire bratva system that had made this moment possible.
Instead, I stood slowly. Moved around the table with deliberate calm. Each step calculated to seem routine rather than urgent.
She watched me approach. Those dark eyes tracked my movement, cataloged my body language, tried to predict my intentions. Her breathing stuttered—not quite four counts in. Three and a half. Three. She was losing the battle against panic.
I stopped eighteen inches from her. Close enough to speak quietly. Far enough to avoid triggering her obvious touch aversion. Her father still gripped her arm, his fingers leaving white marks on her skin that would bruise later.
"You won't be hurt in my house," I said quietly in Russian, pitched low enough that only she could hear.
Her eyes widened slightly. The counting stopped. For a moment, she just stared at me, and I could see her mind working—processing the words, analyzing the tone, calculating whether this was truth or manipulation.
Then something shifted in her expression. Not trust—she was too smart for that. But consideration. A question forming behind those analytical eyes: What kind of cage are you offering?
"The contract," Besharov said, his voice cutting through the moment like a blade through silk.
The leather-bound Code was already open to the correct page. The blood marriage contract, handwritten in Church Slavonic, the ancient language that connected us to traditions older than any of us. The paper was thick, handmade, designed to last centuries. Other contracts already lived in this book—alliances and treaties and agreements signed in blood by men long dead but whose words still bound their descendants.
