Page 55 of Possessive Bratva’s Kidnapped Virgin

“Stop being childish. That’s not what this is about,” he chastised, his voice carrying the coldness his expression didn’t.

“Oh, I’m a fucking kid. I’m a babbling—”

Then thunder cracked. And my words died on my tongue.

It was the type of thundering that registers in the chest cavity before the ears catch up.

I was standing in front of the desk before I could remember moving. My hands were flat on the desk, and I was standing with my back to the window, trying to get myself to breathe normally.

Alexei moved, not all the way toward me, but he came close enough that I could see the slight softening in his posture.

“You’re not expendable,” he said, almost quietly. “Not now. Not ever. I need you to hear that without filtering it through what you’re afraid I mean.”

“I’m… I’m trying,” I answered.

“Whatever Siroc thinks he’s playing at, you’re no longer alone.”

I sighed, unable to think of words that wouldn’t betray what his reaction was doing to my heart.

I looked at him in the dim light of the library with thunder moving away outside and the reports still spread across his desk.

And I understood, with clarity, that telling the truth hadn’t freed me.

It hadn’t released anything. The debt was still real. The threat was still real. The note was still on the nightstand, and the flowers had been in a vase in this penthouse.

None of that was resolved.

What had changed was that I was no longer carrying it alone.

The truth had bound me.

To him.

Now it was us, not me.

The thunder moved further away.

Alexei was still standing close, still not touching, still present in the way that was becoming the most reliable fact in my current geography.

“What happens now?” I asked, and my voice was steady this time.

“Now,” he said, “we know what we’re dealing with.”

I nodded.

“There’s work to do,” he added. “And you know things I need.”

And the fact that he was no longer in the dark was everything.

I was now bound even tighter to Alexei Golovin.

And I wasn’t complaining; no part of me was.

Chapter Fourteen

Alexei

I rebuilt the threat model from scratch.