Page 22 of Bratva Stalker Kidnaps His Bride

Her disbelief transforms into fury.

“You are not even going to argue?”

“There is nothing to argue.”

She throws up her hands.

“They will see me as an outsider! A threat!”

“Yes.”

“As someone who should never have access to their world!”

“They will, yeah.”

Each answer only fuels her frustration.

“Then why the fuck would you force this?”

I close the distance between us slowly, deliberately, until only a narrow strip of charged air remains between our bodies. Her breathing shifts, and though she hides it well, I notice everything. Doing otherwise is impossible for me.

“Because acceptance is irrelevant. I don’t give a rat’s ass if they approve of you,” I murmur evenly. “My only concern is whether they understand the consequences of touching you.”

I hold her gaze until she has nowhere to look but at me. The city glows around us, but the world has narrowed to this space, this conversation, this collision of will.

“If you stand beside me publicly,” I continue, “you stop being vulnerable collateral. You become mine in the eyes of every network watching.”

Mine.

Her expression hardens immediately.

“That is exactly the problem.”

There is a current beneath every exchange now, dark and heated and impossible to ignore. The memory of her mouth againstmine rises without permission, the curve of her ass as it jiggled with each thrust. Heat and fury coil deep in my loins.

“The other night changed something,” I state lowly.

Her jaw clenches, hands curling into fists by her side as she looks away from me.

“No,” she quickly denies. “That was a mistake.”

I ignore the pinch of hurt that my heart complains of.A mistake. Yeah, right.

“I am willing to give this marriage something real,” I continue, “if you allow it.”

Her brows furrow in conflict so brief it might be imagined if I did not know her intimately. Then it vanishes, buried beneath steel.

“No.” She steps back, restoring distance like a wall being rebuilt, brick by brick. “No, you do not get to do this. You do not get to imprison me, force me into marriage, kiss me, and suddenly decide this can become meaningful. You took my freedom, my choices; you forced me into something I never wanted. To me, you are still what you were in the beginning: an obsessive man who decided what was best for me and never cared whether I agreed.”

Her breathing quickens with every poisonous word, eyes burning with unfiltered fury.

A hunger in my gut makes itself known because of her words. It feels less like weakness—and far more like devotion sharpened into obsession. The seeds of obsession in my gut bloom into something denser, darker, more consuming because of her refusal to bend to me.

She turns and walks away, rigid with anger, disappearing down the hallway without looking back while I stand still, watching the space she occupied seconds earlier.

The penthouse falls quiet again.

Chapter 7 - Zara