Page 10 of Bratva Stalker Kidnaps His Bride
“This is kidnapping.”
“This is the second time you’ve almost gotten yourself killed.”
“I was handling it.”
That finally earns a visible reaction. His snort is a clear signifier of how offended he is by my claim.
He opens the car door and looks at me with a stare so direct it feels invasive, like he is peeling apart thought itself.
“You were losing, Zara Khan.”
His quip lands like a blow to the chest.
Ihatehim for making truth sound like defeat and I hate myself even more for hearing no lie in it.
He guides—no, forces me into the car.
The door shuts and locks click.
The city blurs past the window on the drive back to the penthouse, all neon and glass and reflected headlights streaking across the black surface like smudged paint. Neither of us speaks. The silence grows.
By the time we enter the penthouse again, the restraint holding the evening together snaps.
The door has barely closed behind us before I turn on him.
“What exactly did you expect?” The words rip out sharper than intended, my voice raw from exertion and fury. “That I would just sit here while you decide which parts of my life I’m allowed access to?”
Mikhail removes his coat with an infuriating calm, each motion artificially controlled. I want that control to snap. I want to see what’s behind it.
“I expected you to understand reality, but clearly that was an unreasonable ask,” he replies acidly.
I laugh, the sound brittle.
“Reality?” I step closer. “Your reality seems to involve locking me in a penthouse, confiscating my phone, and pretending that counts as protection.”
“Itisprotection. That what they teach you for your little journalist degree?”
I bare my teeth. “It is control, you bastard.”
His jaw tightens, dark eyes a void, lips blood-red at the center.
“No,” he snaps, “control would have you chained up by your fucking feet and hands, on your knees in the dark.”
The air leaves my lungs.
Panic sears my brain dumb.Will he do that to me now? Is that how he will keep me here from this point on, as punishment for this reckless little stunt?
“You do not get to decide what happens to me!”
“Can you at least try to fucking understand?”
“Then explain it to me.”
His silence stretches.
I realize, with growing unease, that Mikhail speaks least when he is closest to something important. Words are tactical for him. He uses them only when necessary.
“That attack was coordinated,” he spits. “They knew where to wait.”
