Page 18 of Forced By the Bratva

Her eyes squinted slightly, fazed by the confidence in my voice. “That’s not arrogant at all,” she whispered to herself, her tone laced with sarcasm.

I didn’t respond to that.

“Have you ever read the book?”

“This is my library. What do you think?”

“The fact that it’s your library doesn’t mean you’ve read every single book in here.”

I had, actually. All of them. But I didn’t tell her that.

She stared at me, suspicion creeping into her gaze as though she could see the possibility that I had indeed read all the books in the library.

I kept my eyes on the page instead of her, although doing that was more difficult than I imagined. She wore an oversized sweater, the hem barely reaching her knees.

Instead of piling her hair in a messy bun, tonight she let it spill over one shoulder. Beautiful.

“I know the details in there are wrong because I used to know the man they’re writing about.” My calm voice cut through the silence.

Her breathing changed. Slight. Barely there. But I noticed.

I could smell her perfume, mingled with shampoo and conditioner. Her fingers had gone still against the page, holding it too carefully, as if bracing for something.

I leaned in slightly, close enough to briefly explain the next paragraph over her shoulder. At that moment, I felt her go rigid beneath the blanket.

Her voice came out smaller than before. “That’s not in the book. What you just said.”

“No.”

“How do you know it, then?” she asked. She added almost immediately, “Oh, I forgot, you used to know the man personally.”

A beat.

The silence stretched, and I stayed in that position longer than I should have. I heard her breath catch as I shifted my weight. She didn’t move. Didn’t pull away. Just sat there, spine straight, fingers pressed flat against the page as if holding herself together through it.

I should have stepped back.

I didn’t. Not right away.

Her hand trembled slightly against the paper. Small. She probably didn’t know I could see it.

The tension in the room had gone sharp, too sharp, faster than I’d meant to let it. I felt it the same way she must have—that shift in the air, the kind that made staying in the room a decision rather than an accident.

She closed the book before I could say anything else.

“Um…” She scratched the back of her head, clearing her throat. “I’m tired.”

I watched her stand, blanket slipping off her shoulders, and only then did I step back a bit.

We held each other’s gaze a little longer, my heart swelling with something I still didn’t want to name.

Without a word, she broke eye contact and moved past me toward the door. She didn’t look at me on her way out.

The door shut behind her, softer than the ones upstairs, and I stood in the empty library with the fire still burning and her scent still lingering in the air where she’d been sitting.

What had just happened?

Chapter 7 – Iris