Page 25 of Forced Virgin Bride of the Bratva (Sharov Bratva #13)

The ballroom pulses with low laughter and clinking glasses, the scent of money and menace soaked into every corner.

Men in tailored suits drift like sharks in still water, all teeth hidden behind polished smiles.

Their wives and mistresses hang off their arms like jewelry.

Cigar smoke curls through the chandelier light, gilding the air in something sour and expensive.

I know this world. I helped build it.

I shake hands with men I wouldn’t piss on if they were burning.

Smile at sons of traitors who would sell their own blood for power.

The orchestra plays some lazy jazz number beneath the din, but no one’s really listening.

Everyone here’s too busy posturing, measuring, slipping deals into the cracks between words.

I should be doing the same, but my eyes keep finding her.

Kiera.

She’s across the room, haloed in warm light and silk, a dark red dress hugging every inch of her like it was cut from sin and stitched into temptation.

Her hair’s up, neck bare, the slope of her shoulders sharp and gleaming.

That mouth—painted to match the dress—curves around a champagne flute like it’s a promise.

She’s talking to someone. Laughing, even. That laugh I’ve started to memorize. That smile she wears like armor. Easy. Practiced. Polished to a shine.

I know it’s a performance. I trained her in this, even if she doesn’t realize it.

When the man beside her leans too close, when his eyes linger on her hips for a moment longer than necessary, something sharp coils in my gut.

Possession. Jealousy. I hate both words. I hate that I care.

I shift the weight of my glass in my hand, jaw tightening. My tie feels too tight, my skin too hot beneath the collar. I’ve bled for this life. I’ve killed to keep it clean. But tonight, I feel off-balance, one step behind my own instincts, and all because of her.

She meets my gaze from across the room.

Not by accident. Slow. Measured. A deliberate act of knowing. She knows what she’s doing to me.

Her eyes flick down my body, then back up, unhurried. Like she’s taking stock. Like she owns the right to. When the corner of her mouth lifts—barely—it’s not a smile. It’s a challenge.

My fingers tighten around the glass.

This woman will be my ruin. Worse: I think I’ll let her be.

I’m still mulling it over when Volkov finds me near the far end of the ballroom, where the crowd thins and the music softens.

The man always moves like he belongs in every room—shoulders back, coat tailored within an inch of its thread—but tonight there’s a different weight to the way he approaches. Intentional. Measured.

“Maxim,” he says, reaching out to clasp my hand. His grip is firm. Firmer than usual.

I don’t let it show, but I feel it. That quiet shift. A ripple in calm waters.

“Gregory Volkov,” I return, voice low. Controlled. “Didn’t expect to see you here. Thought you were still overseas.”

He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Business brought me back early. Good timing, I think.”

The last word lands too neatly. He steps closer, casually now, glass of something amber swirling between his fingers.

“I’ve been meaning to speak with you,” he says. “Something came across my desk the other day. A shared holding—minor, nothing flashy, but I couldn’t help noticing your name attached to it. Surprised me.”

My brow lifts. “Which holding?”

He shrugs. “Offshore development deal. Canary Islands. Fronted by a shell, but even those leave fingerprints.”

I give nothing away. “And?”

He grins, but the edge is there now. Thin, silver-sharp. “It got me thinking. About how much reach you still have, even after disappearing for a decade. Impressive, really.”

My jaw works once, briefly. “If you’ve got something to say, Gregory, say it.”

“Not at all,” he says, almost too quickly. “Just admiration. A man like you knows how to keep things close. How to keep leverage in all the right places.”

The word lands harder than it should.

Leverage. He’s baiting me. Testing. He’s not supposed to know about Obelisk. None of them are.

I nod slowly, giving the illusion of consideration, but inside my mind clicks into motion.

Volkov’s name was near the top of the file—one of the more fragile links in the chain.

History of embezzlement. A mistress with ties to a foreign agency.

A very carefully buried trail of blood money funneled into weapons that were never supposed to surface.

He should be sweating. Instead, he looks relaxed. Confident. Like someone handed him a shield I didn’t approve.

“I don’t like vague conversations,” I say evenly.

“Neither do I,” he replies. “Lately it seems a man can’t afford to be too direct.”

He glances toward the dance floor, toward Kiera. Just for a second.

My spine straightens, instincts flaring hot and immediate. “Enjoy your evening,” I say, voice chilled now.

He inclines his head. “You too.”

Then he’s gone, disappearing back into the crowd like smoke curling through silk.

I stand there a moment longer, watching the space he left behind. Something’s wrong.

Volkov’s tone, his posture, the calm that shouldn’t be there—none of it fits. And that look toward Kiera…

It wasn’t random. Either he suspects something, or worse—he knows.

My gaze drags back across the room, landing on her again. She’s laughing at something someone said, her body turned just enough to suggest ease, but I know her better than that now. There’s tension in the set of her shoulders. She’s performing again.

I should be angry. Should storm across the floor and demand answers, but all I feel is cold.

I down the rest of my drink and set the glass aside. It’s time to find out which of my monsters has stopped fearing the dark.

***

The laughter lingers in my ears long after the doors close behind us. Hollow. Forced. All the same masks reshuffled across different faces. I’ve lived long enough in this world to know the sound of rotting civility, and tonight the stench was worse than usual.

Kiera slips into the car without a word. Her silence doesn’t comfort me.

She’s still wearing that red dress—the one that made men forget their own allegiances—but now the effect is muted, dulled by something heavy in the air between us. Her arms are crossed. Her gaze locked out the window. I don’t speak.

I don’t trust myself to.

My jaw aches from how tightly it’s been clenched all night. I pull my phone from my pocket once we’re on the highway, thumb moving over contacts without needing to look. Platon answers on the second ring, no greeting—just the sound of wind and shifting gravel on his end. He’s working late. Good.

“Volkov,” I say. “Start digging.”

There’s a pause. “What am I looking for?”

“Everything,” I answer. “Quietly. I want to know who he’s been speaking to. What deals he’s nosing around in. Who he’s fucking, who he’s borrowing from, who he’s trying to impress. If he’s shifted any assets, touched any accounts, or made contact with anyone from the old network.”

Platon doesn’t ask why. That’s why I keep him.

“Understood,” he says. “Give me twenty-four hours.” He hangs up without another word.

I let the phone fall into my lap and press my thumb against the bridge of my nose, forcing back the tide of tension building behind my eyes. The night didn’t go wrong in any visible way. No gunshots. No outbursts. No bodies dragged out before dessert.

Something shifted.

I felt it in Volkov’s tone. In the way he looked at me—too casual, too smug. Like a man who’s finally been handed the match to light someone else’s house on fire. He should’ve been sweating. Instead, he was confident.

Confidence like that means someone’s feeding him.

I turn my head, glance at Kiera.

It bothers me how much I want to know what she’s thinking. Bothered me all night, the way her smile flickered around other men, how she tilted her head when they leaned in too close. Every part of her is a question I keep wanting to answer—even when I know I shouldn’t.

I look away.

She’s quiet until we hit the long stretch of private road leading up to the estate.

Then I feel it—that shift. That awareness between us like static.

When I glance over, her gaze is already on me, dark-lashed and unreadable in the low light of the dash.

There’s something shadowed in her expression, but not closed. Not cold.

“Everything good?” she asks.

Her tone is light, casual, but there’s weight tucked behind it. She wants to know what happened in that ballroom. What pulled me under, what made my hand clench around the rim of my glass hard enough to leave a mark.

I could tell her the truth. Instead, I go with the easier one.

“Nothing wrong,” I say, my voice rougher than it should be, “except I’ve been thinking about tearing that dress off you since you walked past me three hours ago.”

That gets her. She tilts her head slightly, lips curling. One strap of that sinful red dress slides off her shoulder like it’s been waiting for permission.

“That so?” she says, voice low and knowing.

She’s teasing me—openly now, deliberately—and it’s working. My patience, already thinned by Volkov’s venom and the long night, snaps like a pulled thread.

“Get in the back seat.”

I don’t raise my voice. I don’t have to.

She freezes for a breath, eyes sharp, and then—slowly, gracefully—unbuckles her seat belt.

Her heels make the faintest thud against the floor mats as she climbs into the back.

She doesn’t sit primly. She lounges, one leg bent, the other stretched out, a picture of careless invitation.

Her dress rides up along her thighs, that slick red silk catching the shadows.

I kill the headlights and shift the car into park, the engine idling low like it knows not to intrude. Then I climb over the console, hand braced to keep the shift from digging into her side.

The moment I’m close, her hands are on me, pulling me down by the lapels of my jacket.

I grip the hem of her dress and shove it up past her waist, the fabric bunching high on her hips.

She gasps when my mouth finds the side of her neck, the exact place she’s most sensitive.

I’ve learned her. I know the way her body arches when I press my palm between her thighs, how her breath stutters when I kiss the edge of her jaw instead of her mouth.

“You wore this to torture me,” I murmur, dragging her panties down with one hand. “You knew what it would do.”

“I was bored,” she whispers. “You looked busy.”

I slip two fingers inside her before she can say anything else.

She shudders—beautiful, fierce—and clenches around me.

Her nails dig into my shoulder, her lips parting around a breathless sound that dies against my throat.

I move slowly at first, watching the way her hips roll, how her head falls back against the leather.

She’s wet, already on edge, and I haven’t even unbuckled my belt.

“I should make you beg,” I say against her ear.

Her voice is shaky, defiant. “You could try.”

“Oh, I’ll succeed.”

I unzip, groan as I free myself, and hook her knees around my waist. No prep. No pretense. We’re past that. She’s ready, and I’m past pretending I can wait.

The first thrust is deep. Hard.

She cries out, and I catch her mouth in mine to swallow it whole. Her body arches beneath me, tight and hot and slick, and I can feel how much she’s been waiting for this—how badly she wants to forget the ballroom, the politics, the danger. How badly she wants me to make her forget.

I set a brutal rhythm, one hand gripping her thigh, the other cradling the back of her head. She moans into my mouth, panting, fingers clawing at my jacket until I shrug it off and let it fall.

It’s rough. Messy. Desperate.

There’s something else threading through it, something quieter, more dangerous. The way she looks at me between thrusts—like I’m the only real thing in her life.

She comes fast, her whole body pulling tight around me, legs trembling, nails raking across my spine. I follow soon after, buried to the hilt, my forehead pressed to hers, breath stolen from both of us.

We stay like that for a moment, tangled in heat and sweat and something neither of us will name.

Then she exhales, soft and shaky. “You really need to lose the tie next time.”

I laugh under my breath and kiss the corner of her mouth.

I don’t say it, but I’m already thinking about how long I can keep her in this car. How long I can keep her mine.