Page 45 of Bratva Bride

I stare at him, jaw locked.

“What the fuck did you do to her?” My fingers twist into the lapels of his jacket, dragging him forward. “You show up out of nowhere, and now she’s bleeding, limping, and you’re standing there like you belong here?”

He doesn’t answer. Just stares at me with that same unreadable expression I remember. The same one I saw the night he came to our home to warn Nadya. Too late then. Just as late now.

“You’ve got some nerve showing up here after what you did,” I growl, my voice low but venomous. “You betrayed her.”

“Konstantin.” Her voice slices through the tension, but I don’t look at her. I can’t. “Let go of him.”

“He—”

“I said let go,” she snaps.

I glance at her then.

She’s standing straight despite the way her knees almost buckled moments ago. Chin raised, eyes blazing. And when she looks at me, it’s not just a plea—it’s a warning.

I release him with a hard shove and step back, breathing hard.

“He saved my life,” she says, calmer now, but the words land like a slap.

I look at her face, try to find the cracks, the tremor in her voice, but there’s only truth in her eyes.

She’s serious.

Pyotr, the same man who vanished when she needed him, the same man who fed Alexei information that led to the massacre—saved her?

The elevator dings softly, the doors sliding open.

No one moves at first.

My hands are still curled into fists. My jaw feels wired shut.

Nadya walks into the elevator first, favoring her right leg. I move to help, but she doesn’t reach for me. Doesn’t look back either.

Pyotr steps in behind her.

I trail them both silently down the hallway, my thoughts raging louder than my footsteps.

If he hadn’t shown up with her, I’d have killed him.

I still might. Because if there’s one thing I know about men like him, it’s that redemption doesn’t come free.

We step into the apartment. The living room is quiet, the city lights bleeding in through the wide windows like ghosts watching us. Nadya heads for the kitchen without a word, as if she’s trying to put distance between all of us, or maybe just trying to breathe.

Pyotr lingers near the doorway, his boots still dusted with dirt. He surveys the place with a quiet kind of knowing, like he’s been here before in another lifetime. I stand between him and the rest of the apartment anyway, still not convinced he deserves to come past that threshold.

“You’re not staying,” I say flatly.

He doesn’t flinch. Just nods like he expected it.

“I didn’t come to stay. I came because she needed help.”

“You think that erases the past?”

“No,” he says. “But maybe it earns me five minutes.”

I open my mouth to tell him to go to hell when Nadya speaks from behind me.