Page 1 of Possessive Bratva’s Kidnapped Virgin

Chapter One

Isla

It had been a good night. The kind where everything worked and flowed smoothly.

I sighed in satisfaction as I watched Hendricks, my venue coordinator, lift the final bottle above a flute, tilting it with a theatrical twist from across the room. The donor beside him laughed at something he said.

I should give Hendricks a small bonus.

The Solaris Charity Gala had been on my books for eleven months. It had been eleven months of venue negotiations, floral logistics, celebrity handler emails, dietary restriction spreadsheets, lighting rigs, and one very dramatic disagreement with the sound team about the decibel level of the string quartet. Eleven months of turning a blank ballroom on the Strip into something that made people feel like the world was, for a few hours, genuinely beautiful.

And it had been beautiful. I knew how to make things beautiful. It was, arguably, the only thing I’d ever been naturally gifted at.

By the time the last guests filtered out in their gowns and their tuxedos, trailing perfume and goodwill into the Nevada night, I was running on fumes. Every muscle in my body ached. My feet had stopped forgiving me for walking around in four-inch heels for over three hours. But I was smiling because the numbers on the silent auction board had exceeded the client’s target by 30%, and that was the kind of occurrence that made eleven months feel like a gift rather than a grind.

I’d done a final sweep of the ballroom myself out of habit. That was when I had checked that the florals were being handled correctly by the breakdown crew, confirmed the lost-and-found box had been passed to venue security, and exchanged a genuine hug with the gala’s chairwoman, who smelled like gardenias and kept saying, ‘You’re a miracle, Isla, you’re an absolute miracle.’ I’d deflected the way I always did, redirecting the credit toward the team, the vendors, and the volunteers.

I never really knew how to hold a compliment. I just knew how to earn one.

By 11:20 pm, I was outside.

The loading bay at the back of the hotel was the unglamorous exit—the one nobody photographed, the one that smelled like recycled kitchen air and idling delivery trucks. I’d used it a hundred times at a hundred events. It was my version of a stage door: the place where the public appearance ended and I became just a person again.

Heels in hand, I unlocked my phone and dialed Val’s number, my phone pressed to my ear.

She picked up on the second ring.

“Tell me it went well,” she said, without hello. And that was typical Val, no intro, especially when she deemed the discussion very important.

Val and I met at an event I planned when she had just become a VIP hostess. Then we met more frequently at more events and, since then, she’d been the closest I had to a best friend.

“It went better than well.” I stepped over a coil of electrical cable the breakdown crew had left on the pavement, navigating it in bare feet. The concrete was still warm from the day’s heat. “The silent auction cleared four hundred and twelve thousand.”

Her shriek was loud enough that I pulled the phone from my ear and laughed.

“Isla.”

“I know.”

“Four hundred—”

“I know, babes,” I repeated, chuckling.

“We are celebrating this weekend. I’m not asking; I’m telling. Brunch, somewhere obscenely expensive, my treat.”

“Val, no, you can’t afford—”

“I said what I said.” I could hear her smiling through the phone. “Are you heading home? Do you need me to—”

“I’m fine, mother,” I cut in, laughing despite my tiredness. “I’m leaving the venue right now. We’ll talk later.”

“Sleep for at least eight hours. You hear me?”

“Yeah, yeah,” I drawled. “Bye.”

“I’m super proud of you. Take care.”

I thought of putting my phone into my bag but ditched the idea. I was too tired. Besides, I’d be in a cab in a minute. But then, holding my heels and phone seemed even more herculean an effort. So I unzipped my small bag and was about to place my phone inside it when I instinctively raised my head.