Page 97 of The Bratva Enforcer and His Virgin Bride

I lean into the car, press a final kiss to her cheek, and murmur, “I’ll see you later. Stay safe.”

“I will,” she beams.

I step back, shutting the door, and watch as the car drives off down the long estate driveway, taking a piece of my peace of mind with it.

The second the taillights of her car disappear past the iron gates, the lighter atmosphere completely evaporates. The warmth drops out of the air, and the cold reality of my world settles right back onto my shoulders.

Alone with my thoughts, my mind locks instantly onto the problem that has been eating away at me for weeks. The unresolved puzzle. The hidden code and the terrifying, definitive knowledge that Sofia is Creed’s daughter.

I turn on my heel, ignoring the stack of business manifests waiting on my desk, and hurry back up the grand staircase. I stride straight into the quiet library. This time, I’m not just looking around passively to see what kind of stories my wife likes to read. I am looking with raw, calculated intent.

I walk up to the massive floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, my eyes scanning the leather-bound spines.

Sofia’s system.

It’s subtle. Books arranged and rearranged, not randomly. To anyone else, it would look like a reader’s comfort ritual.

But I’ve seen patterns like this before.

Creed’s patterns.

And now I can see the echo of him in her.

This isn’t conscious coding. It’s muscle memory. Learned structure. The kind a child absorbs in the background of a life she doesn’t fully understand.

Creed didn’t just build systems. He trained instincts. He must have done it with his daughter. The answer has to be here somewhere.

I pull one book out. Nothing unusual. I slide it back. Still nothing. But then I notice something small—almost invisible unless you’re looking for it the way I am. A spacing inconsistency. Three shelves down, second row. A pattern that repeats, but only when viewed across different categories instead of within them. Fiction on one shelf, philosophy on another, biographies somewhere else entirely.

I move across the room slowly now, scanning instead of reading.

And then it clicks in small fragments.

It isn’t the books themselves.

It’s theorder of movement.

She isn’t just arranging books.

She’s rotating them.

Repositioning them across a cycle only makes sense if you’re tracking something across time.

A ledger.

A key.

Or a map disguised as domestic routine.

I exhale slowly through my nose and step back. I don’t understand it fully, and something tells me I will not completelyunderstand until I involve Sofia. She’s the only one who can decode this.

But how do I tell her without risking this fragile life we’ve built?

Chapter 15 – Sofia

The first place Ashley and I go is Sharon’s bookstore. Stepping across the threshold, it feels like an absolute lifetime since we were last here together. The familiar, comforting scent of old paper and dust hits me. I breathe in the smell of the books and lean all my weight against Ashley’s shoulder.

“I can’t believe I’m back here.”