Page 9 of The Bratva Enforcer and His Virgin Bride

“What are you doing right now?” she asks.

“Looking.”

“At books?”

“Yes.”

She sighs dramatically. “See? This is what I mean. Normal people look for books. You… commune with them.”

I finally glance at her. “That’s not a thing.”

“It is in your world.”

I turn back to the shelf before she can drag me into a longer argument. My fingers pause on a worn spine. The cover is slightly faded, the kind of book that has been read too many times to still care about being pretty.

I pull it out carefully.

Ashley watches me.

“Oh no,” she says. “That face. That’s the ‘I’ve found my emotional destruction for the week’ face.”

“It’s just a book.”

“It’s neverjusta book with you.”

I ignore her and open it, scanning the first page. The words settle in easily, like they’ve been waiting.

My shoulders loosen without me realizing.

This is what I like.

I read all kinds of books. I’m not picky. From romance in every shade of heartbreak and longing to non-fiction that explains the world in ways people assume are simple, I read it. If a book calls out to me, I pick it up.

Ashley is just like me—a huge reader—but she sticks mostly to romance. She reads for fun, for escape, for feeling.

I don’t think I ever learned how to read only for fun.

I read because it’s my life.

I cannot remember a time when I wasn’t reading. When I wasn’t curled over a page, following words like they were instructions for staying steady in the world.

Sharon’s bookstore is my sanctuary. My place of silence. My place of control.

It started during the worst of it—when Valeria was being hunted by Anton here in America, and everything around us felt like it could collapse at any moment.

Anton was picking off everyone who helped her. Anyone loyal to her. Anyone close enough to be useful, or dangerous, or both.

And since everyone knew I was her best friend… since everyone knew I helped her leave Russia after he murdered her entire family…

I felt hunted too.

I felt watched.

Unsafe in a way that never fully left my skin.

This bookstore became my hiding place.

Not just somewhere I visited.