Page 64 of The Cold Bratva King and His Forced Curvy Bride

Nikita glances around, his jaw working. He turns back to me, his eyes blazing. “We are done here,” he says, his voice low and deadly.

“Are we?”

I turn and walk away, leaving him standing by the glass doors.

I don’t look back.

Chapter Eighteen - Nikita

The monitor on my desk is a rectangle of cold light in the dim office, but it’s not the spreadsheets I’m seeing. It’s the live feed from the living room camera.

Freya stands by the floor-to-ceiling window, a glass of water beaded with condensation in her hand. She’s wearing one of my shirts, a slip of ivory silk that hangs off one shoulder, revealing the soft curve where her neck meets her body. The fabric skims her thighs, and when she lifts the glass to drink, the hem rides up, exposing a length of pale skin.

My hand tightens around the pen.

For an hour, I’ve been staring at the same column of figures, the numbers blurring into meaningless symbols. My focus is fractured, splintered by the memory of her on the balcony. The scent of her skin. The sound she made when I entered her, a choked gasp that was part surrender, part shock.

She sets the glass down and stretches, her arms rising above her head, her spine arching in a long, fluid line. The shirt pulls taut, hinting at the lush weight of her breasts before settling again.

She thinks she’s alone. She thinks the world beyond the penthouse walls is the only thing watching her.

She’s wrong.

I watch her turn from the window, her path taking her toward the secondary office. Freya doesn’t know I’m tracking her, cataloging every flicker of interest, every unconscious glance toward the locked door.

Since the night on the balcony, her curiosity has evolved from a sullen defiance to a sharp, focused investigation. She lingers when I’m on the phone, her head tilting at the mention of certain names—Lorenzo, Sokolov, the Brooklyn fronts. At dinner last night, when Viktor mentioned the Colombos, I saw the flash in her eyes. A hunter spotting movement in the undergrowth.

She’s assembling the pieces. She thinks she’s operating in the shadows, but to me, she’s a flare in the dark night.

It’s fascinating. It’s also a liability.

Freya needs to understand the boundaries.

I set the pen down, the click echoing in the quiet room. I stand, straightening my cuffs, checking my reflection in the dark glass. Calm. In control. A predator in a tailored suit.

Time to remind her who is watching.

The heavy oak door of the secondary office is soundproof. She doesn’t hear me approach.

She’s hunched over a shipping manifest, her finger tracing a line of dense text, her lips moving slightly as she forms the words. The concentration etched on her face is so complete, she’s a universe unto herself.

“Careful.”

She startles violently, spinning around. A stack of papers skids across the polished surface of the desk.

“Christ,” she breathes, pressing a hand to her chest. “You move like a ghost.”

“Only when I want to.”

I cross the room, not bothering to go around the desk. I move into her space, stopping on the opposite side of the mahogany expanse. I don’t look at the manifest. I don’t need to, I know exactly what she’s found.

“You’re jumpy,” I observe.

“I’m surprised.”

“You’re frustrated.”

I pick up a heavy silver letter opener, testing its weight. “You’re looking for connections that aren’t there, Freya. You’re seeing patterns in the chaos.”