Page 31 of Prey of the Bratva

“You think fear keeps people close?” I continued. “It doesn’t. It just makes them stay long enough, but they eventually leave. I am sure Nico and Jarek will leave you as well if you keep acting this way, and then you will actually be all alone.”

His gaze darkened. “You’re crossing a line.”

“Am I?” I asked. “Or am I just saying what everyone else is too careful to say?”

“You don’t know my family.”

“I know patterns.”

“And you think you’ve figured me out?” he asked.

“I think you are rather predictable,” I said.

That did it. He stepped forward abruptly, closing the last inch of space between us.

“You don’t get to stand here,” he said, voice low and dangerous, “and analyze my life like you understand it.”

“And you don’t get to interrogate mine like you control it,” I shot back.

My foot shifted instinctively as I moved, pain flaring sharper than I expected. I turned slightly, intending to step away, but his hand closed around my jaw before I could take more than half a step. His touch was not rough, but firm and unyielding. As if he could hold me through everything.

“Careful,” he said quietly. “You are not fully healed.”

My breath caught for half a second, but it was not from pain. It was from proximity instead. His grip wasn’t forceful, but it anchored me in place, his thumb resting just beneath my cheekbone, fingers curved along the side of my face. He was too close. I licked my lower lip at his touch, wanting to do nothing but close my eyes and lean into it.

“Let go,” I said, forcing myself out of it.

But my voice wasn’t as steady as I wanted it to be. His eyes dropped briefly to my mouth, and everything changed between us. The air between us thickened instantly, tension snapping into something sharper. Hotter. My pulse jumped, betraying me in the quiet space between us. His hand didn’t move, and neither did I.

For a fraction of a second, the anger dissolved. And something else slipped through. Desire. His gaze lifted back to mine, slower this time. My breath hitched slightly, and I hated that he could probably hear it. Feel it. The space between us felt impossibly small. Too small.

“You’re insufferable,” I murmured, but my words came out like a whisper.

“You’ve mentioned that before.”

“And yet you keep proving it again and again.”

His grip shifted slightly, not tightening, but not loosening either. “You don’t walk away from me mid-conversation, Misha.”

“I wasn’t walking away,” I said. “I was ending it.”

“That’s not your decision.”

“It always is.”

Silence stretched again, but this time, it wasn’t sharp. It was charged. His gaze dropped again, and it was slower and more deliberate this time. I didn’t pretend not to notice as my heart kicked harder against my ribs. My fingers curled slightly at my sides, resisting the instinct to close the distance instead of maintaining it. It was a mistake.

This would be a mistake.

I knew that, and so did he. And yet neither of us moved. The moment stretched and tightened. It hovered on the edge of something neither of us had acknowledged out loud. His breath brushed against my skin, warm and steady, and I could feel the shift in him.

Without waiting for anything to escalate further, I shoved him back.

Hard.

The movement cost me, with pain flaring up in my side and down my leg, but I didn’t care.

“God, you’re impossible,” I snapped, putting distance between us.