Page 73 of Bratva Stalker Kidnaps His Bride

Zara finds her seat between her parents, unlike the way she sat between them when we were returning from the airport terminal before everything fell apart. Her hand is in her mother's and her shoulder rubs against her father's, immediate and real.

Arman murmurs something low to her in the darkness. I don't hear the words, but I don't try to. Whatever they are talking about belongs to the three of them, and I am present without pressing, which I’m learning is not a bad thing to be.

“Mikhail,” Samira calls out to me. “You brought her here. Thank you,” she says quietly.

“She brought herself,” I smile. “I just kept up.”

Under the passing lights, Samira's face warms up. She nods once, and her smile mirrors mine, small but genuine.

Then Zara meets my eyes.

The look she gives me is not one I’ve seen before. It’s not the journalist's look, not the investigator's, not the fierce and combative look of the woman who has been at me since the alley in Dubai.

Something much quieter than all of those, hiding itself so cleverly, finally revealing itself.

Something that looks a lot like love.

The Athens night moves past the windows in its amber lights and dark shadows. The compound is behind us, and her parents are finally safe in here with us.

O’Connor is in Nikolai's custody.

There is nothing left to be done, because I am at last sitting across from the woman who has both been the object of all my desires and the bane of my existence.

She turns back to her mother.

I look out the window.

I have spent my entire adult life building walls, only for the last several months to see the walls completely fall apart, all thanks to the woman sitting right with me.

Chapter 27 - Zara

The penthouse feels… alive with my parents in it.

My mother now sits on the couch with her cup of tea cooling in front of her, the same place where I have spent the last three months reading case files and eating food Mikhail put in front of me without asking. It’s nearly surreal.

My father stands at the window where Mikhail stands most mornings when he is thinking, and the window looks different with him in front of it. Everything about this penthouse is being quietly changed.

And I welcome it with open arms.

On the flight back from Athens, I made the decision to let things happen without fighting it, without the defensiveness I usually carry around with me.

I have spent a very long time protecting myself from these things, the disruption of having people arrive in your life who were supposed to be there all along but weren't. I am done wasting energy on keeping up my walls.

It costs more than it saves.

My mother looks at me from the couch, her gaze curious and affectionate at once. My father is more fond of silence than he lets on.

“We owe you more than an apology, my dear,” my mother starts, patting the seat beside her in invitation.

I knew this was coming. I could feel it in my bones since we boarded that flight.

I let it come. I don't reach for my notebook like I would have to transform into the journalist. I take my seat next to her, and herhand automatically lands on my shoulder. She does that a lot, like she can’t believe that I’m real, so she needs proof to convince herself.

“You do, a little bit,” I joke, although I know she hears the hurt behind it.

My father turns from the window. His eyes are worn, like the day he has been dreading has finally come.

“What we did—” he starts, and then stops, a million emotions passing on his face.