Page 4 of Forced By the Obsessed Bratva (Yezhov Bratva #8)

The dress prickled my skin like a warning.

Black satin. Hugging my body. Too fancy for dinner, but when my stepmother rammed it into my arms and said, “Here, your father wants you to wear this tonight,” I didn’t have the energy to argue because whatever Blake Carter said was final.

Something in the way she refused to meet my eyes, in the way her hands trembled as she smoothed the fabric, made me shiver.

“What is this?” I asked as I took the dress from her. “Where are we going?”

“Don’t ask any questions, Zoella,” my father answered from the doorway. He strolled into my room with his hands folded behind his back. “It’s important.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Get dressed.”

So I did as they said. I got dressed in the shiny black dress they handed me. Despite the churning in my stomach and the pounding in my chest, I had to play along with whatever they wanted.

Twenty minutes had passed, and we were in the rear of a gleaming black SUV, speeding through the middle of Los Angeles. City lights whizzed by the windows, but I barely saw anything.

My brain lashed beneath my silence.

Lillian kept spinning her bracelet round and round, her eyes darting toward my father every few seconds, apparently begging him to please say something, maybe to ease the tension in the air.

He didn’t.

None of them said a damn word.

The deeper we went into the city, the more anxious I became. I knew there was something wrong. I knew there was no way this was just a fancy family dinner or a normal dinner with business partners. There had to be something more.

Air drained from my lungs when I spotted a skyscraper that was more fortress than restaurant—dark glass, black marble pillars, subtle elegance with a harsh, brutal edge.

There was no sign. No lights. Only a discreet valet and a single gold crest etched into the doors: a serpent encircling a dagger.

My gut roiled.

Everyone understood what that symbol meant.

The Yezhovs.

This was not dinner like I thought. It was a wake masquerading as haute cuisine.

God, I’d hoped I would never have a reason to share a space with the Yezhovs since Yulia’s funeral. But it looked like I’d been wrong because my father never patronized their business outside of when he had a meeting with them.

I reluctantly got out of the car when the driver pulled up by the entrance of the restaurant. I did a sign of the cross, holding my breath and praying I make it through the night.

We walked inside the restaurant, and my blood chilled at the silence that swallowed us. The kind of silence that did not seem peaceful—it seemed calculated. Fatal.

The interior of the restaurant was basically velvet and black stone walls. Low lighting. Bodyguards lined every corner of the place, and my father’s bodyguards trailed behind and in front of us as if war was expected to break out at any second.

I could throw up any second from the anxiety reeling inside me.

“Private dining,” my father murmured to the waitress who came to receive us. “Under Yezhov.”

The woman nodded and led us down a long corridor, her heels silent on the plush carpet.

Each step made my chest tighter. I had no freaking idea of what this was, but I suspected I was not going to like it.

My father’s face was frozen. My stepmother’s was white and knitted up in worry.

They exchanged a glance, but neither of them said a word. The silence was killing me.

The private room was large, with dark wood paneling on the walls, and only a long table set for a handful of people. The lights were low. The mood was suffocating.

Everyone else knew why we were here except me, and I felt like prey being led to its cage.

I kept my chin up as I settled down on one of the chairs around the table. A part of me wondered if Yulia’s death had caused a fallout between the Carters and the Yezhovs, but that couldn’t be all there was to it.

My father wouldn’t bring me along to a business meeting unless there was something else.

I was still trying to make sense of what was happening when Matvey Yezhov stepped into the room.

He was tall. Well dressed. Black-suited like a ghost given flesh. His expression was cold, contained, completely devoid of emotion. He didn’t even look at me. Just pulled out a chair at the head of the table and sat down.

And standing behind him—

My breath caught in my throat.

Rurik.

Yulia’s husband. Her murderer in Bratva clothes. He sat across from me like he hadn’t just put my sister in the ground two weeks ago. His presence made my blood boil. And I hated how he dominated the room even without saying a word.

No one spoke until my dad cleared his throat and turned to me. “Zoe, I want you to know this is nothing personal. It’s just politics. A formality for the good of the families.”

I remained quiet as my brain tried to process what he was saying. It didn’t make any sense.

“I don’t understand you, Dad,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “What is happening? What do you mean?”

My father remained quiet for a moment while I burned with anticipation. A part of me must’ve caught on to what he was trying to say, but I couldn’t accept it.

“You will marry Matvey Yezhov,” he finally answered after what felt like an eternity.

For an instant, I didn’t think I had heard him correctly.

The room spun around.

I smiled, but it was a mirthless smile coated in denial. “You’re joking, Dad. If this is some sort of joke, then—”

“It’s not a joke,” my father cut in. “I’ve consented to this marriage already.”

And then it hit me—the truth, the realization that I’d been right and I was a prey being led to her cage.

A wave of rage rolled through me, and before I could process what was happening, my head was banging with anger, and my blood pressure was spiking with disgust and hate. “Have you lost your damn minds?” I growled, my voice shaking.

“Zoe, please. Calm down,” Lillian said as she grabbed my hand. “Please. Don’t react like that—”

“Don’t react?” I erupted, jerking my hand away. “You brought me here to pawn me off to him. And what? You expect me to smile and nod and say, ‘I do’ like some submissive mongrel?”

“You’re getting married, not being pawned off,” Lilian said gently.

“Oh, no. I’m not getting married!” I jumped out of the chair, scraping it back. “I was right, you’ve lost your goddamn minds. You want to use me as a pawn to patch up your failing business. You’re selling me off to these—these beasts who killed Yulia!”

Matvey didn’t say a word. He just sat there like a statue, watching me come apart.

My father’s voice went hard. “That is enough!” He didn’t need to raise his voice for his words to ripple through me like thunder. “The Yezhovs have protected us for years. You think we’d be here if not for them?”

I glared at him. “I’d sooner burn down all that we have than let you sell me like merchandise.”

Lillian stood there, her face streaked with tears. “You think I want this?” she panted. “You think I’m willing to watch you leave after what happened with Yulia? But if we don’t do this, something worse will happen.”

“Something worse?” I scoffed as I took in the fake tears streaming down her face.

She didn’t care about me or Yulia. To her, all that mattered was securing the future for my half-brothers. All my father cared about was maintaining his power and growing his business.

They were all sacrificing me for their legacy.

For the first time since Matvey entered the room, he made a sound—cleared his throat to draw attention to himself.

He set his glass down slowly, then looked at me with those dark, soulless eyes that I hated more than anything else.

“I know you’re angry,” he said softly. “This isn’t what you want, but it’s what both families need.”

His voice was smooth and deep and nearly kind. It was the kind of voice that coaxed folks to step right up without their even realizing they were walking into a trap.

I did not move.

Did not inhale.

Because something primal in me already knew what was in the works.

He stood up and fastened his jacket with deliberate nonchalance, as if this was just another business venture to him. Then he came around to the table, never once glancing away.

“Your sister’s death left a void,” he told me, his face hard and emotionless. “A void between two powerful families, and it cannot be ignored. Our lives, our legacies, our alliance depend on this.”

My breath hitched. “Don’t you use her as an excuse for this. I know what you did to her. I know everything.”

He quirked a brow, his dark eyes glistening with twisted amusement. “You do?”

My chest constricted, tension spilling over in my stomach. “Yulia did not die of heart failure. She died in your house. Under your name. Your family killed her, one agonizing breath at a time.”

Something flickered in his eyes. The only crack in that flawless composure.

“Maybe she died because she was married to a man who couldn’t love her,” I screamed, louder now, eyes aflame. “Maybe she couldn’t stand being your chess piece. Maybe she saw what I see now, that the world you built is not one of family. It is one of power. Control. Obedience.”

“Stop,” my father commanded, but I didn’t.

“She’s dead, and now you want to put me in her place?” I laughed. “You think I’ll go quietly? I’ll smile for your cameras and warm your bed and forget that your brother buried her with his secrets?”

“I think you’ll do what’s necessary,” Matvey said, advancing on me. His voice was the same, but his eyes…they were hardened. Cold, dark steel.

I backed away. My back hit the wall behind me.

“You don’t get to dictate what happens to me,” I snarled, but the shake in my voice betrayed me.

“You have no choice,” he said, his tone as cold as a knife. “You’ll marry me willingly…or you watch everyone you love die.”

The words were like a bullet straight to my heart.

The room was silent as death.

Lillian took a trembling breath, her eyes fluttering shut. My father said nothing, not even attempting to protest.

This wasn’t a marriage proposal or an engagement dinner. This was an execution in silk garb.

I stared between my stepmother, wringing her hands, and my father with his flat face. Neither of them cared. No one in this room cared about me or even Yulia.

They were offering me up like a lamb to appease the wolves, and that broke something inside of me.

My world shrank in that moment. It was a silent implosion.

Not a shattering of glass or a scream. No.

Only silence. Frigid and terminal.

The trap was shut.

And there was no one remaining to rescue me.