Page 105 of The Bratva Enforcer and His Virgin Bride

I’m not doing this for him; I’m doing this for me. Because if my father hid something inside me, I want to find it. To honor him. To show him he didn’t make a mistake entrusting it to me.

I pick up one of the books again. This one I’ve read at least five times alone, and multiple times with my father. A novel about grief and memory. Nothing suspicious on the surface. Nothing that should feel like a puzzle.

But now everything feels like a puzzle.

I flip through it slowly, watching the pages more than reading them. Notes. Underlines. Dog-eared corners. My habits. My fingerprints and my father’s all over it.

Did I always mark this paragraph? Or did I do it because something inside me told me to?

My throat tightens.

“No,” I murmur. “This is ridiculous.”

But my hand is already reaching for another book. Then another.

I start comparing them without meaning to. Spines aligned. Placement. Order. Which ones I reach for first when I’m anxious. Which ones I always return to at night. Which ones I avoid without knowing why.

A pattern begins to form at the edge of my thoughts. It’s not clear. Just… a feeling. Like standing in a dark room and sensing the shape of furniture before I touch it. I pause.

My breath catches. Suddenly I remember something. My father’s voice. I blink hard, trying to pull it closer.

We’re in his study. I’m younger—small enough that the books feel like towers around me. He’s watching me struggle with a puzzle, smiling like he already knows I’m going to give up before I succeed.

“You always look too hard,” he says gently.

I frown. “I’m trying.”

“I know.” A pause. Then softer: “But some things don’t want to be chased.”

That memory lands strangely in my chest. I sit still, the book halfway open in my hands.

Don’t chase it.

My eyes shift slowly across the room again. The way I always return books to the same places. The way my hand hesitates over certain titles before choosing others. The way I feel calmer when the arrangement isjust right, even if I never questioned why “right” felt like that.

My heartbeat changes. Like something inside me is waking up. I set the book down and stand. Walk to the shelf. Stop.

Instead of grabbing anything, I simply look. Really look. And for the first time, I stop trying to solve the books. I start trying to remember myself. Memories cause me to sink to my knees.

The soft click of the library door latch makes me stiffen. I don’t even have to look up from the mess of books scattered around my knees to know it’s him.

Lukyan steps into the room, his dark eyes instantly taking in the scene—the splayed novels, my frantic notes, the desperate lines I’ve been trying to connect. He immediately understands where I’m headed. He sees that I’m trying to crack my father’s code myself.

But instead of the calculating triumph I expect to see on his face, a look of pure anguish crosses his features. He doesn’t encourage me. Instead, he steps closer and speaks, his voice thick with a heavy, unexpected emotional weight.

“Stop, Sofia. Please, just stop.”

I snap my head up, glare at him through a veil of tears, and pull a book protectively against my chest. “Get out, Lukyan. I can do whatever I want. They’re my books; it’s my father’s memory, and I don’t answer to you.”

He shakes his head, dropping to his knees right in the middle of the mess of paper, completely disregarding his usual rigid pride. He looks up at me, his eyes entirely desperate.

“Zaychik, please… I want to fix this,” he pleads, the rough edges of his voice cracking. “This is all my fault. I know that. But please… I’m hopeless without you. Please forgive me. You don’t have to force yourself to do this. I don’t want the code anymore, Sofia. If it means losing you, if it means you look at me with that hatred in your eyes for the rest of our lives, I don’t want a singlecent of it. I am content with what I have. I have enough power, enough wealth. I don’t care about the network. I just need you.”

I tilt my head slightly, watching him intently. A sudden, jarring shift vibrates through the air between us. For the first time, I’m violently confronted with the glaring contradiction between his cold past actions and the bleeding, raw vulnerability of his current words.

The agonizing conflict inside me doesn’t just vanish, but the anger begins to morph into a painful, confusing ache, moving us in a completely different direction.

“What are you even talking about?” I ask, my voice trembling as I look at him. “How can I possibly trust a single word that comes out of your mouth after everything?”