Page 20 of Forced By the Bratva

I didn’t understand it. I hated that I wanted to.

***

One cool evening, I wandered the gardens because staying in that room for another hour felt like it might actually kill me.

The estate had more green space than any house needed, with hedges trimmed into shapes too precise to be natural and gravel paths that curved without any obvious reason.

I walked without a destination, just to feel like I was moving somewhere. Besides, I needed to stretch my legs and clear my head. The scent of fresh flowers drifted through the air, accompanied by the chirping of birds.

I was strolling aimlessly when I heard it. Crying. Small, thin, coming from somewhere near the hedges to my left.

I followed the sound and found a kitten tangled beneath a broken section of wooden fence, one paw caught between two slats. Its cries grew more frantic as I drew closer. The poor thing couldn’t have been more than a few weeks old, all ribs and fur, terrified.

My heart was filled with pity, and before I could reach out to help, a large shadow fell over both of us.

Ilya appeared out of nowhere and knelt first.

I hadn’t even heard him approach. He was suddenly there, crouched beside me. His ease didn’t match his size at all, and his hands moved toward the kitten before mine could.

I expected him to grab it roughly. Toss it aside, tell one of the guards to deal with it, something in line with the man I’d built in my head.

Instead, his hands worked slowly and carefully around the trapped paw, checking it the way you’d check something breakable, something worth handling gently.

My brows arched in disbelief as this man kept proving he wasn’t quite the monster I’d painted him to be. A part of me wanted to hate how human it made him look, crouched in the dirt over a half-dead kitten, like it mattered to him whether it lived or not.

I crouched down next to him despite myself, unwinding the scarf from my neck without really deciding to. He glanced at me once, said nothing, and I wrapped the kitten in the fabric while he kept its injured leg steady.

Our hands brushed as I adjusted the scarf around it. Just a second. Barely anything.

It still sent something uncomfortable yet familiar straight through my chest. It was the same feeling that had coursed through me when his fingers grazed mine as he loosened the ropes on my wrists the first time I was brought here.

The same feeling that sent shivers down my spine in the library the night he leaned in too close. I knew, deep down, what it meant. But I wasn’t ready to face it yet.

“I’ll have the guards take it off the property,” he said, straightening once the kitten was wrapped and quiet, now tucked against my chest instead of thrashing against the fence.

“You will do no such thing,” I said, staring him down, daring him to argue. “If you’re going to keep me here against my will, at least let me have a companion.”

He studied me for a moment, like he was running the request through some calculation I wasn’t allowed to see the results of.

“Fine.” A pause. “You’re responsible for it from now on. Not the staff.”

I should probably thank him, but I didn’t.

That was the whole conversation.

He turned and walked back toward the house, leaving me standing there in the garden with the kitten wrapped in my scarf.

***

Later that night, just before he left my room after dropping off dinner, he paused at the door.

“Stay inside tonight. Don’t leave this room until morning.”

Something in his tone was sharper than usual. Not louder. Just harder, as if the words had edges.

“Why?” I demanded, watching him with suspicion in my gaze.

“Because I said so.”