Page 20 of Forced Virgin Bride of the Bratva (Sharov Bratva #13)

On Friday morning, I go downstairs to hear raised voices echo down the hall—sharp, jarring, urgent. One of them is my mother’s.

I move fast, boots heavy on the tile. There’s a current in the air, an undercurrent I recognize from years of bloodied floors and silenced rooms. This isn’t the usual tension that haunts the estate. This is something worse.

A staff member nearly collides with me as I round the corner. She startles, bows her head, and mumbles something I don’t catch. I ignore her, pushing forward. The voices grow louder. The static of chaos crackling beneath the surface.

Then I see it.

In the main hall, under the golden spill of chandelier light, Darya has Kiera by the arm, knuckles white with force. Her face is flushed, lips trembling, eyes wide and wild. The staff around them stand frozen, unsure, some retreating into doorways, others watching like deer in headlights.

“She said she’d kill me,” Darya shouts, voice slicing the air. “She was holding a knife—I saw it. She was waiting for me to turn my back!”

Her spine is straight, chin lifted. Her arm remains caught in my mother’s grip, but her hand holds nothing more than a kitchen towel, streaked faintly with yellow-orange. She speaks softly, almost clinically.

“It was a mango,” she says. “I was going to slice a mango.”

It’s not the explanation that makes me pause. It’s her voice.

Too calm, too even.

Like this isn’t the first time she’s been accused of something she didn’t do—or maybe it is, and she’s already decided it won’t touch her. That’s what unsettles me. Not the accusation. Not Darya’s hysteria. Kiera’s stillness.

“Enough.” My voice cuts through the chaos.

Darya looks at me, eyes glossy with panic and fury. “You don’t believe me?” she snaps. “You think I’d lie about this?”

“I think you need to let go of her,” I say, walking forward.

She doesn’t. So I do it for her.

I take Darya’s wrist and pry her fingers off Kiera’s arm, firm but controlled. Her grip is tighter than I expected. For a moment, she resists.

“I’m not crazy,” she hisses. “This girl—she’s a snake. You’ll see.”

“I’m sure.” My tone doesn’t change.

I nod at one of the maids. “Take her upstairs. Make sure she takes her medication. She needs rest.”

Darya tries to protest, but I turn away before she can spit another word. Her footsteps recede behind me, muffled sobs trailing off as the maid guides her from the room.

I look at Kiera. She doesn’t cry. Her eyes shine, but she doesn’t drop them. Doesn’t tremble.

I don’t know whether to be impressed… or concerned.

She doesn’t run. Doesn’t bolt down the hallway, doesn’t retreat behind a wall of staff or duck behind me. She simply stands, arm cradled to her chest, eyes wide but not broken. That registers. That matters.

The blow lands. I hear it in her breath, the way it catches, sharp and wounded. The maid steps in gently, guiding her up the stairs with soft words and careful hands. I keep my back to them until the footsteps fade.

The staff scatter like dry leaves. None of them want to be in this moment. None of them want to be the one caught between a Bratva son and his half-shattered mother. They vanish, quiet as ghosts, slipping behind doors and down corridors. In less than thirty seconds, the hallway empties.

Now it’s only us.

I face her again.

Kiera stands in the same place, towel still in her hand. It’s smudged with juice. Mango, probably. Her face is unreadable, but her lashes are damp. She’s holding it in with everything she has. Her chin lifts a fraction when I step closer.

She’s not afraid of Darya, or of me. That, more than anything, twists something low in my chest. Not in a way I understand.

She shifts like she’s going to speak, then doesn’t.

Good. I’m not sure I want to hear whatever it is she thinks she needs to say. Not tonight. Not now.

The hallway holds its breath between us, and I know—I should walk away.

The hallway is quiet now—quiet in that heavy, post-storm way. Every shadow stretched long. Every breath feels like it echoes. I watch her. Closely. More than I should.

She doesn’t cry, but her eyes are glassy, holding everything back with a kind of trembling pride that cuts deeper than if she’d fallen to pieces.

That hollowness—the way she stands like she’s still ready to fight, but the blade’s buried somewhere too deep to reach—makes something twist in my chest. Sharp. Unfamiliar.

Her voice is soft when she speaks. “She’ll never accept me.”

She doesn’t look up. Her head is tilted down, gaze fixed on some invisible point between us. The towel in her hand is clutched tight, stained bright with juice that already looks like blood in the low light.

“She doesn’t even have to try. I walk into a room, and she already knows I don’t belong here.”

Her voice cracks at the end. Barely. But I hear it.

She tries to fix it. Straightens her back, squares her shoulders—like that’ll put the pieces back in place.

I take a step forward. She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t move away. Her breath comes slower now, more measured. Waiting. Anticipating.

I tilt her chin up with two fingers.

Her skin is warm. Her lashes wet. Her lips pressed tight like she’s sealing every word she wants to scream behind them. The hallway light casts a faint glow across her cheekbones, catching the faint shimmer of tears she refuses to let fall.

I should leave her alone. My voice drops, quiet enough that only she can hear it. “I only like when you cry in my bed.”

Her breath catches.

It’s a sound I know now, too well. The soft inhale, the quick skip of her pulse, the flicker in her eyes that jumps from fury to heat and back again. Her gaze flicks to my mouth—brief, reflexive—and then returns to my face, sharp with tension, but softer at the edges.

I brush a thumb beneath one eye. Catch the dampness there before it can trail down.

Then her lip.

Her lower lip, where her mouth is set in that stubborn line that always makes me want to ruin her composure.

My hand still cupping her face. My thumb still pressed gently against her lip. The air between us thick with a heat that has nothing to do with desire and everything to do with the dangerous way this is changing.

I feel it like a shift underfoot. This was never supposed to be soft.

Yet—here we are.

A girl standing with her fists unclenched and her heart wide open in all the wrong ways. A man who knows better and still doesn’t look away.

Her eyes are wide, unblinking, trying to read me. Maybe searching for some version of kindness. Or truth. Or anything she can hold on to that isn’t made of knives.

I walk away, before I press my mouth to hers.

Before I say something I’ll regret—something real.

That look in her eyes haunts me even after I turn my back.

Not afraid. Not fragile. Just wounded, proud, holding herself together with bare hands and refusing to let it show.

A girl who doesn’t know she’s breaking because she’s too busy pretending she isn’t.

I climb the stairs two at a time. The weight in my chest follows me, heavier than the day, louder than the silence waiting at the top. I don’t go to the study. Don’t sit at my desk or open another file.

I go straight to my room.

Inside, I shrug off my jacket, toss it across the arm of the chair without care. The lights are too low, but I don’t turn them up. I cross the floor like I’ve forgotten why I walked in. Like pacing will fix whatever’s clawing under my skin.

I pour a drink. Vodka, clean and cold, the same bottle I always reach for when the night’s too long.

It sits on the table, catching the light from the fireplace, waiting for a hand that never comes. I stare at it, jaw tight, thoughts heavier than the glass.

Why does it matter? Why does she?

She’s not safe. Not to trust. Not to keep. Kiera is a wildcard, unpredictable at best and dangerous at worst. A girl with blood on her name and heat in her stare, who could undo everything I’ve built if I let her too close.

Something about her feels essential. Like she’s already stitched into the seams of this place. Like I’d notice her absence even before I noticed the silence it left behind.

I think about her in the kitchen, mango juice staining her hands. Think about how calm she sounded, how steady her voice was while my mother accused her of planning a murder with a paring knife. That stillness—it wasn’t numb. It was survival.

Then I see Darya again. Her fingers digging into Kiera’s arm. That wild, unhinged fear in her eyes.

“She’s dangerous,” Darya said.

She’s not wrong, but not in the way she thinks.

Kiera’s dangerous because she makes me care.

I tell myself it’s strategy. That I’m only being cautious. That I’m protecting an investment, nothing more. She’s my wife now. A target. A symbol. She’s tied to every decision I’ve made since the alliance began. Keeping her safe is a business move. A necessity.

That’s what I tell myself.