Page 75 of Forced By the Bratva

I trusted him now. Genuinely. The kind of trust I hadn’t expected to feel again after everything that happened, after every reason he’d given me early on to hate him completely.

That trust scared me more than his violence ever had.

Whatever was growing between us didn’t follow the rules I recognized. It didn’t ask permission. It kept building, quietly, in the space between arguments, shared silences, and nights spent working side by side until the house went dark around us.

I still didn’t know what I was to him beyond the paperwork. Beyond the ring he’d slid onto my finger without asking. Wife, in the eyes of his organization. Something else, in the quiet moments neither of us named.

I thought about the attacks. The men who’d invaded our home came looking for me specifically. Every time I remembered that I was their target, something colder settled in my chest.

I wasn’t just afraid of the Bratva anymore. I wasn’t afraid of Ilya the way I used to be, lying awake those first nights, wondering if he’d change his mind about keeping me alive.

Now there was an entire faceless threat out there. Someone with money and reach and patience. Someone who’d apparently been watching long before I ever noticed anything wrong with those corrupted files.

I didn’t know if we’d find them in time. Didn’t know if any of this ended in a way that let either of us walk away intact.

What scared me most was how much I wanted to be here when we found out.

I had no plans of escaping or running toward some fantasy version of my old life.

I’d come to accept the fact that my place was here. Beside him. Working through whatever came next together the way we’d been doing for weeks now without either of us formally deciding to.

I used to think losing myself to this place, to him, was the thing I feared most. The reason I’d run that night in the rain, Whiskers in a box, convinced I needed to escape before I forgot who I used to be.

I hadn’t forgotten. Not completely. I still remembered the version of myself who existed before any of this. Still carried pieces of her in how I noticed patterns. How I processed fear. How I refused to let anyone underestimate what I was capable of.

But I wasn’t only her anymore either.

Maybe that was the real fear. Not losing myself entirely, as I’d been so certain I would. Just becoming someone new. Someone shaped by all of this. Someone who might not exist at all if I’d ignored the inconsistencies in the ledger months ago.

I set the teacup down on the small table beside me. The porcelain clicked softly against the wood. I looked back out at the stars one more time.

Whatever came next, I wasn’t running from it.

Not anymore.

I stayed at the window longer than I meant to. The tea went cold. The house stayed quiet around me.

Somewhere downstairs, a guard changed shifts—I heard the soft click of a door and the low murmur of voices that never quite reached words. The sound used to put me on edge. Now it just marked the hours.

I thought about the ledgers again. The patterns that still wouldn’t leave me alone even when I tried to rest.

Ilya had started trusting my opinions on them. That still surprised me. A man who solved most problems with force was letting me sit across from him and tell him where the money was lying.

I didn’t know what that made us. Partners, maybe. Or something without a clean name yet.

My fingers traced the rim of the empty cup. The porcelain had gone cool.

I thought about calling Eve once. Just once. Just to let her know I was alive. The idea never lasted more than a few seconds.

Any call would put her at risk. Any message would leave a trail. Better that she kept looking for a version of me that no longer existed than that she be pulled into this one.

I tugged the blanket from the back of the chair over my legs. The room was colder than I’d noticed. Or maybe I was just tired. The kind of tiredness that came after too many nights of waiting for the next breach, the next name, the next piece of the pattern to click into place.

I closed my eyes for a moment and listened to the house. Settling wood. Distant footsteps. The low hum of the heating system. Nothing out of place. For now.

Chapter 26 – Ilya

For the first time in days, we had a solid lead. Our team had found a courier tied to the foreign organization that’s attacked us twice already.