Page 11 of Obsession of the Bratva

“I know how you built a whole life after me. I saw a glimpse of it today. I don’t want to know anything else. I watched you replace me, and I don’t think I can watch or understand anything else.”

The room went silent because I had no response to that. Because from his perspective, this was exactly what had happened.

“You think this is about reconciliation?” he asked. His laugh was cold and short. Dangerous. “Please don’t be mistaken into a fantasy here. I didn’t take you because I missed you or wanted answers. I took you because I wanted to see your perfect little future collapse so you know what pain feels like.”

The honesty stunned me. Not because it was cruel but because it was sincere. I could see he meant every word. Every single one. Something inside me shattered because this wasn’t the Nico I remembered. The Nico I remembered had laughed too easily, and smiled with his entire face. He had kissed my forehead when he thought I was asleep, but this man looked at me as if I were an enemy. And I had made him that way.

A strange sadness settled over me.

Not for myself but for him. For the person he had become. My lips curved before I could stop them. A small smile. Soft and unintentional.

Nico frowned. “What’s funny?”

The memories resurfaced once again. The rainy afternoon at the animal shelter, when I had walked into the shelter carrying a box of donated blankets and a dog had escaped. Chaos followed, and people shouted, with volunteers running everywhere. I spotted a tall, dark-haired man standing nearby and assumed he worked there. I shoved a leash into his hand.

“Can you help?”

He stared at me, confused.

“What?”

“The dog.”

“The what?”

“Get the dog!”

The golden retriever had sprinted directly between us, and without another word, he chased it. Five minutes later, he returned carrying seventy pounds of an extremely happy dog, but his suit had been ruined. His shoes were muddy, and his expression suggested he was reconsidering every life decision that had led him to this moment.

I laughed while he glared at me.

The dog had licked his face, and somehow that had been the beginning. The first time I ever saw Nico smile. The memory faded, and reality returned, reminding me how he was no longer the same man. The man standing in front of me now looked nothing like that version. The smile disappeared from my face.

Nico noticed. “What?”

I shook my head slowly. “Nothing.”

His eyes narrowed, and for a second, it looked as if he wanted to push further. Then he stopped himself, and the moment passed. Just another casualty, like everything else between us.

Finally, he spoke. “Your room is upstairs.”

I blinked. “My room?”

“You’re staying here.”

The statement wasn’t presented as a possibility but as a fact.

“Nico—”

“I have already told you I don’t care about what you might have to say. I don’t care what explanation you’ve rehearsed.”

“I haven’t—”

“I don’t care.”

His voice dropped lower. Dangerously calm.

“You are not going back, and you are not justifying your actions with any explanations. What you did made me hate you, and now the hate will stay. We have run out of time.”