Page 44 of Bratva Bride
"Breathe," Clara said gently. "You're spiraling."
I forced air into my lungs. Held it. Let it out. The rhythm Ivan had taught me, though thinking about Ivan made my chest seize with new panic.
"What if he thinks I'm broken?" The fear escaped before I could stop it. "What if this is too much? Too weird? Too—"
Eva actually laughed. Not mean laughter but genuine amusement that cut through my spiral.
"Anya." She shook her head, lavender hair catching the fairy lights. "Ivan know all about Littles. I think he’ll be delighted."
My breath stopped entirely. "What?"
"Both his brothers are Daddy Doms," Clara added, her tone gentle but certain. "I’ve heard Ivan ask about it. I’m sure he’s into it, too.”
The elephant in my arms had absorbed so many tears it was damp, but I held it tighter anyway.
"What if I'm too broken?" I whispered. "What if I don't know how to be Little right? What if—"
"There's no right way," Eva interrupted firmly. "There's just your way. What makes you feel safe. What helps you heal. What lets you finally breathe."
She pulled back slightly to look me in the eye, her expression fierce with understanding.
"You get to have this, Anya. The childhood you missed. The softness you were denied. The chance to be small and protected and cared for. You get to have all of it."
The words settled into my chest like seeds that might grow into something. Hope, maybe. Or just the possibility of hope. The idea that twenty-six wasn't too late to have the childhood that had been stolen. That Ivan might want to give that to me. That I might actually deserve it.
Theelevatorrideupfelt like ascending into a new life, carrying a bag that weighed nothing and everything simultaneously. Inside: a gray elephant named Peanut whose button eyes had watched me cry out twenty years of grief, a journal with a soft cover that begged to be written in, a set of sixty-four crayons that Clara had insisted were essential. Small things. Soft things. Things that seven-year-old me would have treasured and twenty-six-year-old me clutched like life rafts.
The doors opened onto Ivan's penthouse—our penthouse, though I still struggled to think of it that way. Late afternoon light painted everything gold through those massive windows, and Ivan was at the dining table, laptop open, surrounded by the careful order he used to manage his anxiety.
He stood the moment he saw me. Not casually, but with the immediate attention of someone who'd been waiting. His gray eyes tracked over my face—swollen eyes, blotched cheeks, the general destruction that came from crying until your body ran out of tears. Then to the bag in my hands, where Peanut's trunk poked out the top, visible and undeniable.
Understanding dawned across his features like sunrise.
"Anya."
Just my name, but weighted with so much knowing that my knees almost buckled. He crossed the space between us in three strides, stopping just outside my personal bubble, hands at hissides but ready. Always ready to catch me if I fell, but never assuming he had the right to.
"You were away for a while. What happened?" His voice was gentle, careful. The same tone he'd used this morning when he'd apologized for pulling away from our kiss. But underneath the gentleness was something else. Anticipation, maybe. Or hope.
I set the bag down with shaking hands, Peanut's trunk still visible, a gray flag of surrender or victory—I couldn't tell which.
"I'm a Little."
The words came out steadier than expected. Maybe because I'd already said them once today. Maybe because Clara and Eva's acceptance had made them real. Or maybe because Ivan's expression didn't show surprise, just careful attention that said continue, I'm listening, I'm here.
"I think I always have been," I continued, needing him to understand the depth of this. "But my father never—I never got to be a child. He took that from me when I was seven. Threw away my toys. Told me I was too old for soft things. Made me into something useful instead of letting me be young."
My voice cracked, and Ivan's hands twitched like he wanted to reach for me but was waiting for permission.
"Today, at that store, I realized I've been grieving for a little girl who never existed." Tears threatened again, but quieter now, exhausted from the earlier storm. "For the childhood I should have had. For memories I'll never make. For all the soft things he stole because my brain was more valuable than my happiness."
"Anya—"
"Did you know?" The words rushed out, needing to be said before I lost courage.
His jaw worked—that tell that meant he was choosing words carefully.
"I suspected," he admitted quietly. "The way you self-soothe. The sleeve chewing. How you curl up small when you feelsafe. The way you responded when I made decisions for you at Junior's." He paused, gray eyes holding mine with intensity that made my breath catch. "But I needed you to discover it yourself. To choose it. I couldn't—I wouldn't push you toward something just because I thought it might help."
