Page 54 of Obsessed Bratva's Pregnant Claim
“That’s complicated,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Because when you came to find me at the wedding—at the penthouse—you looked like a woman who very much wanted to leave.” She was choosing her words with care. “And you’re not looking at me like that now.”
“No.”
She was quiet for a moment. We walked past the shoe store, a clothing boutique, and a restaurant with chairs outside.
“Tell me what changed,” she randomly said.
I thought about the desert. About a forehead kiss that had been the most uncomplicated thing he had ever done, delivered at the moment when I had unconsciously come closest to telling him the truth and had retreated to something partial.
“He’s—” I paused. “He’s not what I expected.”
“What did you expect?”
“A monster,” I said. It came out tired. “I kept calling him that. To his face, even. And he kept—not arguing.” I looked at the middle distance. “He would just look at me. Like he was waiting for me to finish the sentence I actually meant.”
“Sofia, can I say something that might be hard to hear?”
“When have you ever not said those?”
She stopped walking and turned to me.
“Power like his doesn’t forgive. I don’t mean that as a judgment of him specifically—I mean structurally. Men in that world, with that kind of—everything staked on control and loyalty and the way information moves. When they feel deceived, they don’t—” she searched for the word— “they don’t have the same options that other people have for processing it.” She held my gaze. “Be careful.”
The words landed with the accuracy of something that had been true before it was said.
Be careful.
I looked at my friend’s face. I saw the worry in it, the love that was the reason for the worry, the face of a friend who knew something was wrong and could not see the whole shape of it,and was triangulating from what I was not saying as much as what I was.
“I know,” I said.
She looked at me for another moment. “Do you need help? Actually? Because I have—I don’t know what I have that would be useful in whatever this is, but I have it, whatever it is.”
“No,” I said. “Not right now. But Isla—” I stopped. “Thank you. For coming to the wedding. For being there.”
“I didn’t have a lot of choice about coming to the wedding party,” she said. “Men showed up at my apartment.”
“I know.” I held her gaze. “I’m sorry about that.”
She nodded, once. Then she linked her arm through mine and said, “Show me a jacket.”
We found her a jacket. I stood in the store, held things, offered opinions, and performed the ordinary ease of two friends shopping, which was the most normal forty-five minutes I had spent in weeks.
When Oleg drove me back to the penthouse after two hours, Isla stood at the mall entrance and watched the car go. I watched her face through the window getting smaller as we pulled away, and I felt the distance between where she lived and where I was going more than ever.
Viktor came home at 8 pm.
I knew his footsteps now. They were distinctive like those of a large man who moved with more care than his size required. I heard them in the hallway, and I was already sitting with a book I had not been reading.
He came in. Set down his jacket. Looked at me.
“How was your afternoon?” he said.
“I saw Isla.” I turned a page. “She’s well.”
