Page 18 of Possessive Bratva’s Kidnapped Virgin

“Never mind. Thank you,” I eventually said with a small smile.

She nodded and said, “You don’t have to wait for him.”

“I’m sure he said that, too,” I muttered.

She smiled and then turned around to leave.

I drank my coffee, and exactly five minutes later, the door opened, and he walked in looking like a man who was headed to a board meeting.

He sat down across from me. Poured his own coffee. Cut a piece of fruit with the economical precision of someone for whom breakfast was a task to be completed efficiently rather than a meal to be experienced.

He looked up and found me staring.

“You didn’t sleep,” he said.

“Observant,” I dropped.

“It wasn’t an observation. You have circles under your eyes that weren’t there yesterday.”

“I was being kidnapped yesterday. My skincare routine was interrupted.”

The corner of his mouth moved. It was so small I might have invented it. “Eat,” he said.

“You said that yesterday.”

“You ate then, too.” He picked up his fork. “So the instruction appears to be effective.”

I ate the eggs. They were good—lighter than yesterday, exactly as described, which was somehow the most irritating thing he’d done yet.

I ate them while I assembled the questions I’d been organizing for hours, arranging them in the order that moved from least to most dangerous, the way I arranged an event timeline: logistics first, the things that required concrete answers, and the charged things saved for when the groundwork was laid.

“What’s your name?”

“I thought we already established that we knew each other’s names,” he answered coolly.

“Yeah, I know you’re Mr. Golovin. Mira has mentioned that a trillion times,” I pointed out, half rolling my eyes. “I meant your first name. Do your family members and friends call you Mr. Golovin?”

“Alexei,” he declared, his eyes on mine. “Alexei Golovin.”

“Hm,” I muttered, nodding and pretending I wasn’t sorely tempted to hear how smooth it’d sound from my lips.

We ate in silence for another few seconds before I spoke again.

“If I agreed,” I started.

He looked up. Nothing changed in his expression, but I had the sense of something sharpening.

“If,” I said again, firmly. “Hypothetically. What would that actually look like?”

He set down his fork. “Specify.”

“What kind of—” I pressed my fingers against my coffee cup. “What kind of husband would you be? Practically speaking. Would I be allowed to work? To leave the building? To have—” I cast around for the word that wasn’t life because life felt too large. “—autonomy. Any version of it.”

“Yes.” No hesitation. “Your work continues. Your business continues. You would have security—you would not have a visible leash. The goal is that you appear to be my wife. Not my prisoner.”

“There’s a difference?”

“In outcome, yes. Significantly.” He looked at me steadily. “You would have access to your phone, your contacts, your professional obligations. Events, clients, whatever your calendar holds. You would move through the world as Isla Golovin—”