Page 19 of Forced By the Bratva

It had been almost a week since I was brought here, and my captor hadn’t even so much as raised his voice at me. Let alone touched me. He had never been violent with me. Not physically. Not verbally.

Instead of being treated like the prisoner I was, I was treated like royalty. I was fed three times daily, regardless of whether I barely ate the food. At first, I refused to eat for obvious reasons: lack of appetite and fear of the unknown. However, as the days went by and I started realizing this man might genuinely be interested in my safety, I began to loosen up a little.

If there was even an iota of truth in his claims about the Bratva wanting my head, then maybe living here for now wasn’t such a bad idea after all. At this point, lack of appetite was no longer the reason I ate so little.

The kitchen always served me traditional Russian dishes I hadn’t seen or tasted before. Because I wasn’t used to those meals, I barely touched them. Some were too spicy. Others simply didn’t taste like what “food” meant to a British-American twenty-three-year-old.

Fortunately, for me, there was a sudden change in the menu, almost like they figured out my reason for not eating properly. These days, they no longer served me Russian delicacies.

I was served foods I already knew. Roast chicken breast with herb butter, plated with roasted seasonal vegetables and a drizzle of jus. Fresh pasta with a light cream or tomato sauce, finished with shaved parmesan and basil.

Sometimes, it was artisan bread, soft-boiled eggs, and fresh fruit plated for breakfast. For dinner, it was finger sandwiches or wraps cut precisely, served with a side garnish.

I wasn’t sure why they changed the menu, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t glad they did. At least now I ate well.

Although I wasn’t allowed outside of the mansion, I was given the freedom to explore every inch of it. Under strict surveillance, of course.

Nobody had to follow me around all the time. There were cameras everywhere, meaning my every move was being watched.

I kept to myself most of the time, locked away in my own thoughts. My favorite part of this massive estate was the library. That’s where I went to escape my current reality.

The library was stacked with books of almost every genre you could think of. Yet my captor once made a claim that hinted he’d read them all. He never admitted it outright, but it was implied.

Honestly, I couldn’t care less whether or not he’d actually read all the books in his library. What concerned me was his behavior toward me. I used to think my stay here would be painful and that he was going to make me suffer.

Hell, I even thought he would, at some point, take advantage of me like the predator I thought he was. I’d already imagined the worst possible things a man like him would do to a vulnerable woman in his mansion, with nowhere else to go.

However, so far, he’d proven me wrong.

If he wanted to hurt me, he would’ve done so already. And that restraint alone was as unsettling as it was comforting. Was I supposed to believe that a man as cold as Ilya was gentle with me for no absolute reason?

I knew he was a dangerous, violent man. So why was he soft and gentle with me? Not that I was complaining or anything; it just didn’t make sense to me.

I mean, this was the same man whose mere presence always sent all the maids into a panic. They dared not look him directly in the eyes or make silly mistakes around him.

I wasn’t sure what the consequences were, but I guessed they had to be brutal to instill this kind of fear in his staff.

Whenever he was around, the man was always tense, and everyone was on their best behavior—not like they misbehaved in his absence anyway.

He was feared and revered by all the staff, including the mean-looking bodyguards who roamed the estate like robots.

Just like everyone else, I should’ve been afraid of him because a man like that could’ve easily thrown me in his dungeon and fed me the same food as his hounds.

Instead, he kept me in a massive guest room with access to everything I needed to stay alive and sane. No guard was allowed upstairs near me. They were all downstairs, never once posted outside my room.

The few times he came to check on me, he actually knocked first and waited to be let in. For someone dangerous, invasive, and controlling, that was super surprising.

It was almost as if he were a different person around me. Softer. Gentler. Patient.

Maybe—just maybe—all of this was why I wasn’t as scared of him as everyone else.

One time, I heard him on the phone through the door, his voice flat and final about something I didn’t let myself think too hard about. Numbers. Locations. Someone’s name, followed by a silence that felt like a verdict.

Then I heard him say, “Kill him,” with his usual calmness. “And make it clean. No witnesses.”

That afternoon, my heart sank into my chest, and I walked away before he realized I’d heard him.

A man as cold as that shouldn’t be capable of treating me like a fragile ornament. And yet, here he was, doing both.