Page 47 of Bratva Bride
"Thank you," she whispered.
"Always," I said, then took a breath. Time to bridge from breakfast to bigger things. "Are you ready to talk about what this looks like? Our dynamic?"
Her fingers found Peanut's ear again, stroking the worn velvet in a rhythm I was starting to recognize as self-soothing. But she nodded, meeting my eyes with a mixture of fear and determination that made me want to wrap her in blankets and promise nothing would ever hurt her again.
"I'm scared," she admitted, the honesty of it hitting like a physical weight. "But yes."
I moved around the island, maintaining careful distance but getting closer to her eye level. "Being scared is okay. This is new. Different. But we'll figure it out together. Your pace. Your rules. Your dynamic."
She took a bite of oatmeal, probably to buy time to process, and made that soft sound of pleasure that was becoming my favorite noise in the world. The strawberry smile had already been destroyed by her spoon, but she'd seen it. That was what mattered.
"Okay,” she said. “Let's talk."
Wesatatthedining table like we were negotiating a merger, except instead of quarterly projections, we had notebooks labeled "Our Dynamic" in Anya's precise handwriting, and instead of profit margins, we were discussing how to rebuild a childhood that had been stolen.
I'd pulled out legal pads, good pens—the kind that didn't skip or smudge—and arranged them with the same precision I used for legitimate construction contracts. The formality seemed to help Anya. Made this feel official. Real. Not something that could be yanked away on a whim.
She sat across from me, Peanut in her lap under the table where I pretended not to notice him. Her pen was already moving, creating headers in that neat script that looked like it belonged in a medical journal: "Rules," "Boundaries," "Needs," "Wants."
"Rules aren't about control," I started carefully, needing to establish this foundation before her father's voice could poison the conversation. "They're about care. About giving youstructure that helps you feel safe. But we build them together. I propose, you approve or modify. Your dynamic, your rules."
Her pen stopped moving. She looked up, dark eyes searching my face for the lie, the trap, the moment when I'd reveal this was all manipulation.
"My father had rules," she said quietly. "No toys after seven. No fiction books. No friends who weren't useful. No crying. No choosing. No—"
"Those weren't rules," I interrupted, gentle but firm. "Those were weapons. Designed to make you smaller, less human. Our rules are designed to help you heal. To give you framework when the world feels too big. To remind you that someone is paying attention, someone cares whether you ate lunch or got enough sleep."
I slid my paper across the table. I'd started with the basics, the foundation everything else would build on.
"Basic self-care," I read aloud. "Eat three meals. Sleep minimum six hours. Take medications if needed. Communicate when you're struggling."
Anya studied the list, pen tapping against her lips in that rhythm I now recognized as her processing cadence. Tap-tap-pause-tap. Her thinking heartbeat.
"What if I can't eat?" The question came out small. "Anxiety makes it hard sometimes. My stomach just . . . closes. Like it forgets what food is for."
"Then you tell me, and we find another way." I kept my voice steady, matter-of-fact. This wasn't failure; it was problem-solving. "Smoothies. Small snacks every two hours. Protein shakes. Soup. Whatever works. The rule isn't 'force yourself to eat.' It's 'take care of your body, and ask for help when you can't.'"
She absorbed this for a moment, then her pen moved across the page. I caught the words upside down: "Daddy helps when it's hard."
The casual way she wrote "Daddy"—like it was already mine, already ours—made something in my chest constrict.
"Sleep," I continued. "Six hours minimum, but that's flexible. If you can't sleep, you tell me. We figure out why. Maybe you need a different routine. Maybe you need Peanut and some warm milk. Maybe you just need someone to read to you until your brain stops spinning."
"You'd do that?" She looked genuinely surprised. "Read to me?"
"I'd do whatever helps you rest." The truth of it was absolute. "Your brain needs sleep to function. But more than that, you deserve rest. Deserve to feel safe enough to close your eyes."
Her pen moved again. "Bedtime can include stories."
"Medications," I said, though this was theoretical for now. "If you're prescribed anything—anxiety medication, vitamins, whatever—taking them is non-negotiable. But if they're not working or causing problems, we discuss immediately."
"I'm not on anything," she said. "Father said medication was weakness. That I should just—manage better."
Of course he did. I filed that away for later discussion with my private physician. Anya's anxiety wasn't something to white-knuckle through.
"Communication rules," I moved on, needing to get through this before my anger at Viktor Morozov derailed everything. "Use safewords—red for stop, yellow for slow down, green for good. These apply to everything. Scenes, conversations, daily life. If you're overwhelmed at the grocery store, you can yellow. If a conversation is triggering, you can red. They're not just for physical things."
She wrote quickly now, catching up. "Safewords for everything."
