Page 58 of Brutal Bratva’s Owned Hostage

Returning to Las Vegas felt like stepping back into a world that had never once paused for us. It remained bright, loud, and entirely indifferent to everything we’d survived while we were away.

The city looked the same. Neon still burned against the desert dark, tourists still crowded the sidewalks in shorts and sunburn, and the endless hum of the Strip still carried on.

But I wasn’t the same person who’d left it.

Something inside me had shifted during our time away, in a subtle but permanent way. It was a change I only noticed in fragments as we settled back into the penthouse. I found myself noting security patterns I’d never consciously registered before, the rotation of the men stationed at every entrance, and the way Dmitri’s shoulders carried a sharper tension now, since our conversation in that quiet island kitchen about what finishing this properly meant.

The penthouse itself had been reinforced considerably in our absence, with new locks installed throughout and the safe room’s entire access system rebuilt from the ground up according to Nikolai’s specifications. Roman walked us through the changes the first evening back, explaining new protocols in a low, careful voice. I listened without fully absorbing half of it, some part of me still processing the feeling of returning to a place where a man had once stood calmly while discussing my value as leverage.

I went back to work at the club a few days after we returned, under the same arrangement of discreet security Dmitri insisted on, though something in me approached the floor differently than I had before the island. Less anxious about being watched and more aware of everything happening beneath the surface of the ordinary shift—the coded glances between dealers, the attention security paid to certain tables, details I’d apparently absorbed without fully realizing it during months of living inside constant vigilance.

Camila’s eyes enlarged when she saw me. She abandoned her section to pull me into a hug tight enough to nearly knock me over. The familiarity of our little reunion felt both comforting and unsettling.

“You’re back. You’re actually back.” She held me at arm’s length, studying my face with an intensity that made me laugh despite everything. “Okay, something’s different. I don’t know what it is yet, but something is definitely different about you.”

“A lot happened while I was gone.”

“And while I was away, too. And you will sit down and tell me everything, woman.”

Before Dmitri and I went to the island, Camila had taken her leave from the underground poker lounge. So, we’d not seen each other for weeks.

“Hm-mm. We still have work to do, though.”

We found a quiet corner during our break, and I told her everything—or as close to everything as I could manage without violating the unspoken discretion Dmitri’s world required. The attack on the reception. The safe room, and Vale walking through its locks like they were nothing. And then the island.

Camila listened with an expression that shifted rapidly between shock, disbelief, and something almost giddy with vicarious excitement, occasionally interrupting with questions I did my best to answer honestly.

“Wait, he actually shot Varley? In front of everyone? At our lounge?”

“In front of everyone. Right here.”

“And you… watched that happen.”

“I watched it happen. It’s still the hardest thing I’ve had to process out of everything. Not because I think he was wrong to do it. Because watching someone I care about end a life that quickly, that decisively, forced me to actually reckon with what his world requires of him in a way I’d managed to avoid fully confronting before that night.”

“How did you get through it?”

“I’m still getting through it, honestly. Some days better than others.” I met her eyes, grateful for the ease of finally saying all of this to someone who wasn’t part of the danger itself. “He gave me space to process it without pushing. That helped more than I expected.”

“Did it scare you? Watching him do that?”

“Yes. Not because I thought he’d turn that on me, ever. Because it made real something I’d known abstractly for months but hadn’t actually had to look at directly. That the man I married is capable of ending a life in under two seconds, without his hand shaking afterward, and that this is simply part of who he is, not some aberration I can pretend doesn’t exist. I mean, all this started with him killing a man that would’ve killed me during that raid, didn’t it?”

“That’s a lot to carry,” she said, understanding in her eyes as she sighed.

“What helped, honestly, was him not pretending otherwise either. He didn’t apologize for what he did to Varley. He apologized for me having to watch it. That distinction mattered more than I expected it to.”

“And the island?”

Something in my expression must have shifted, because Camila’s eyebrows rose immediately, already anticipating whatever came next.

“The island was different,” I said slowly. “Quiet. Real, in a way nothing in our life together has really been up to that point. We talked. Actually talked, about things neither of us had said out loud before. What we wanted. What scared us. What we were actually building together, underneath all the strategy and danger that got us here in the first place.”

“Val.” Camila’s voice softened, something knowing creeping into her expression. “You look different when you talk about him. You know that, right?”

I considered denying it, but instead, I let myself actually think of her question.

“I think I love him,” I said quietly. “I haven’t said that out loud before.”