Page 61 of The Bratva Enforcer and His Virgin Bride

A sound slips out of me before I can stop it.

“Lukyan—wait.”

He pauses at the foot of the stairs.

He doesn’t turn.

Doesn’t look at me.

I move toward him before I can overthink it, eyes fixed on his hands.

“Your hand,” I say, sharper now. “What happened?”

“It’s nothing,” he answers, already stepping up again.

That does something irritating in my chest.

I follow him.

“You can’t say it’s nothing,” I snap. “You’re bleeding.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine.”

He keeps walking like I’m background noise he’s chosen to ignore.

That makes me angry enough to reach out.

I grab his hand.

He stops.

I hold his hand up between us, forcing him to look at it whether he wants to or not. “This isn’t fine,” I say. “You need to clean it and treat it.”

His eyes finally shift to me. Cold. Flat. Annoyingly calm.

I glare right back at him without blinking.

For a moment, neither of us moves.

It feels less like silence and more like a standoff neither of us is willing to name.

Then he exhales. A small, restrained sound. “There’s a first aid kit in my bathroom,” he says.

His bathroom.

I hesitate for half a second too long.

But it’s already too late to pretend I didn’t hear him.

I nod once, tight. “Fine.”

I release his hand reluctantly and follow him up the stairs.

I step into his bedroom for the first time, not knowing what to expect. But as I take in the space, I immediately conclude I don’t like it.

It’s dark, lit only by the faint spill of light from the hallway behind us. The space is almost aggressively bare—no warmth, no decoration, nothing soft enough to suggest someone actually lives here. Just clean lines, expensive furniture, and a cold order that makes my skin tighten.