Page 3 of Forced Virgin Bride of the Bratva (Sharov Bratva #13)

The drink in my hand sits untouched. I swirl it once, watching the amber liquid catch the light, then let it settle again. It’s a habit more than anything—something to do with my fingers while I wait.

The room around me is silent. Polished. Immaculate. Like everything in this city that costs too much to show its price.

I’m dressed for the occasion. A dark tailored suit, nothing flashy, nothing soft. A knife in silk. There’s no warmth in the way I wear it. My face is a closed door. My thoughts locked behind it.

This isn’t a date. It’s not about attraction or charm. I don’t need to impress her.

This is leverage.

A blood-tied alliance with the Ortegas means more than peace. It means control. It means influence. Marry her, and her brother owes me. Publicly. Permanently. He becomes an extension of the Bratva’s reach.

Knowing that doesn’t make the bitterness taste any better.

I resent being offered up like a solution. Like a name to sign on a contract in blood and bone. Dominik didn’t phrase it as an order, but I’ve been under him long enough to hear what goes unspoken. This isn’t about want. It’s about necessity.

Marriage as a weapon. A transaction. A calculated move dressed up in tradition.

It stinks of hypocrisy.

They talk of unity. Peace. Except, peace by force isn’t peace at all. It’s just a quieter form of war.

I glance at my watch. She’s been waiting, I’m the one stalling.

I know she’s in the next room—alone, waiting for a stranger to decide her future. And I’m sitting here nursing a drink I have no intention of finishing, dragging out the moment like that’ll change anything.

I expect the usual. A girl dressed up in borrowed grace. Soft hands, polished manners. Someone who thinks her name means something outside of her brother’s reach. A liability wrapped in silk and vague promises. Someone too spoiled to know the cost of survival.

My guard shifts subtly behind me. He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t need to. The room is locked down. Every corner secured. Even the staff know better than to linger.

Enough stalling.

I stand, adjusting the cuffs of my jacket, then head down the corridor. My shoes make no sound on the carpet. The air grows tighter the closer I get.

The door at the end opens with a soft push.

She’s seated, back straight, hands folded in her lap. Composed. Expectant.

The second our eyes meet, something flickers between us. Not fear. Recognition?

I take her in without hiding it. Every inch.

The dress clings to her in quiet ways—modest, expensive, carefully chosen to project purity, not seduction.

But it doesn’t hide her. It frames her. Soft curves beneath silk.

Shoulders drawn back despite the nerves I can feel rolling off her in waves.

There’s a flush rising along her cheeks, high and pink. Embarrassment? Nerves? Fear?

She’s beautiful, and far too innocent to be sitting across from me.

I shouldn’t want her. Not like this. Not when she’s being used as a tool. Not when this entire arrangement reeks of desperation and control.

But I do.

“Mr. Sharov?” she says, voice low and careful.

Something in me shifts. It’s the way she says it. Not with awe. Not with challenge. Just… quiet recognition. Like she’s naming something she’s been told to fear, but can’t quite believe in.

I nod once, a sharp flick of the chin, then gesture toward the chair across from her. She’s already sitting, but she straightens, adjusts. Obeys.

She moves like she’s been practicing all day.

I lower myself into the seat opposite her, letting the silence stretch. She doesn’t fidget. Doesn’t speak again. That surprises me. Most girls in her position—used to leverage, to family power—they fill silences. Try to charm their way out of discomfort.

Kiera doesn’t; she simply watches.

Too sweet. Too unsure. She doesn’t belong in a room like this. Doesn’t belong in a negotiation where her body is the price and I’m the buyer with blood on my hands.

I lean back in my chair, one arm draped along the side, watching her. “How does it feel,” I ask, “being offered to your father’s killer?”

Her shoulders tense. Not a flinch, not quite, but it’s obvious nonetheless.

Her mouth presses into a line, tight and tense. Then her eyes meet mine again, and for the first time, there’s something sharp in them.

“Maybe my brother doesn’t like me very much.”

The answer lands harder than I expect. That cuts deeper than it should.

I study her in a new way. Not as a liability, and not as a symbol of Tiago’s weakness.

She has shadows. I can see them now. Beneath the quiet, beneath the practiced sweetness, there’s a fracture line waiting to split.

I lift the glass but don’t drink. The vodka’s already warmed from my hand, and it doesn’t promise anything I need. Still, I take a sip—more for the act than the taste.

Her voice stays with me. “Maybe my brother doesn’t like me very much.”

It should’ve landed like sarcasm or a brat’s sulk. It didn’t.

I let the silence stretch between us, watching how she wears it. She doesn’t squirm, doesn’t try to fill the space with nervous chatter. She waits. Carefully composed. Still folded into herself like a question without an answer.

I tilt my head. “Do you hate me?” I ask.

It’s not a provocation; I want to know. I’m used to fear, to admiration laced with caution. Hate, when it comes, is usually louder.

She lowers her gaze, lashes brushing against her cheeks. When she looks back up, the honesty is sharp enough to register.

“I didn’t know him,” she says. “My father.” There’s a pause. “He sent money. Christmas cards with nothing written inside. I had dresses, tutors, a school that wasn’t in our neighborhood, but he never came to any parent meetings. I don’t think he ever asked about them.”

Her hands are still in her lap, but she shifts her weight slightly, steadier now. There’s a rhythm forming, one that belongs to her and not the performance they dressed her in.

“I don’t mourn him,” she adds. “Still, I don’t want this either.” Then, without flinching, she adds, “I don’t like you, but I don’t have a choice.”

That last line should sound childish, like a tantrum held in check. It doesn’t. It lands clean and level, unafraid.

Something shifts. Not in her—she’s already settled—but in how I see her.

The silk, the quiet posture, the careful answers—they’re not submission. They’re calculation. She knows where she’s been placed. She knows what they expect.

She’s playing the part. I wonder if she even realizes how much of that fire shows when she speaks plainly. When she stops performing and starts telling the truth.

That line keeps ringing in my ears. “I don’t have a choice.”

Neither of us do.

The difference is, I’ve already learned how to turn that fact into something sharp. She’s still holding the blade by the wrong end.

She fidgets when my gaze lingers too long.

It’s subtle, not the kind of twitch or shift most men would notice, but I’m not most men.

I’ve spent too long reading people, watching their tells in boardrooms, back alleys, and interrogation rooms. I see how her fingers tighten against the silk of her dress, then smooth it as though the fabric’s to blame.

I see the way she draws a breath, shallow and quick, every time the conversation edges closer to something sharp.

When she looks at me, it’s direct. Controlled. When I push—when my tone deepens, when I ask something she hasn’t rehearsed for—her gaze falters. She glances toward the far wall. Studies the glassware. Fixates on the lines of her napkin, turning the edge between her thumb and forefinger.

She’s scared, but not of me. She’s scared of what this means.

I wait for her to settle. Then speak, calm but deliberate. “Have you ever been with a man?”

The words drop between us like a match into dry grass. Her spine stiffens, just slightly. She startles, and I don’t miss the flash of heat that rises in her cheeks. That moment of wide-eyed silence, the quick dart of her eyes to mine, then away again.

She gives a breathy laugh. The kind meant to disarm. “I’m not sure that’s relevant.”

“It is,” I say. “To me.”

She stops laughing. Her lips press together in a thin line. She’s weighing her answer. Thinking through what I want to hear, what she’s allowed to say, what won’t cost her.

I don’t speak again. I let the silence stretch long enough that it can’t be ignored.

“You’re young,” I add after a moment, quieter now. “Too young to be thrown to wolves.”

The silence breaks. “I haven’t,” she says.

Her voice is barely above a whisper. Still, it doesn’t waver. She looks at me then. Really looks. Chin tipped up, eyes sharp beneath the surface.

“I’m a virgin,” she says again. Then, almost to herself, “Of course I am.”

I watch her brace for something. An insult. A joke. Some confirmation of what she’s probably been told her whole life— that innocence is weakness. That men like me don’t want women like her.

She expects disappointment. Or worse—disdain.

Instead, I lean in. “Good,” I murmur.

Her breath catches. She doesn’t try to hide it. Kiera studies me like she’s unsure what she’s hearing. Her mouth parts, but no words come. I sit back slightly, but my eyes stay locked on hers.

It’s not cruelty that stirs in me. It’s not hunger, not exactly. It’s want. Not despite her innocence—but because of it.

I don’t want to hurt her, I don’t need to prove anything, but I want to be the first. I want it because it would mean something. Something real, in a world where nothing is.

Her first kiss given with care. Her first touch, her first ache, her first surrender—mine.

She’d remember it. I’d leave something behind that no one could take.

The idea coils low in my chest, thick and unwelcome. I shouldn’t want this. Shouldn’t be thinking about her mouth or her breath or the way her legs are pressed tightly together beneath that silk dress.

She’s watching me now, still waiting for the blow that doesn’t come. Her discomfort hasn’t faded, but her guard is shifting. Not down—tilted. She’s trying to understand what I am. What I want.

I don’t lie. “I don’t want a liar at my table,” I say. “Or a doll someone dressed up to placate me. I want to know who you are.”

She doesn’t answer. Not aloud anyway, but her hand goes still on her lap, and her gaze doesn’t move from mine.

There’s no pretending now.

Only the truth between us, sharp and bare.

If I reach across the table—if I touched her now—she’d shake. Not from fear. From anticipation.

She doesn’t realize it yet, but I do. She was raised to obey. Taught to be beautiful and silent and useful, but she wants to be wanted.

God help me, I want her too.