Page 26 of Innocent Plus-Size Bride of the Bratva (Sharov Bratva #15)

The truth is a fracture running straight through my chest. Eli is alive.

Adrian helped bury him. That knowledge sits in my stomach like a rock—too heavy to swallow, too jagged to spit out.

I spend the night locked in a guest room, pacing furiously, wringing my hands, replaying every memory: Adrian’s eyes, his mouth, the way he touched me like I was both a secret and a promise.

The way he looked at me like I was more than a game. Like I was his. Like he could be mine.

Now, in the hard light of betrayal, all of it feels like a trap I willingly walked into. My own fault. I remember every choice I made, every lie I told myself about being in control, about getting justice for my brother.

Justice is tangled up with everything I want and everything I hate, and I can’t find a way out.

Dawn creeps in, washing the stone floors in cold gray light.

I haven’t slept. My mind is raw, my skin prickling with leftover anger and something that feels too much like grief.

I wait until I hear his footsteps downstairs, the muted rumble of his voice as he gives orders to his men, the house awakening to another day where nothing is as it should be.

I leave the guest room and make my way to the living room, barefoot, still in yesterday’s clothes.

He’s there, waiting. Always waiting. He sits on the far side of the room, back straight, hands folded, as if he’s ready for anything I might do.

I don’t speak. I don’t even look at him for more than a second.

Instead, I cross to the nearest sideboard, pick up the first thing I find—a heavy crystal glass—and hurl it against the far wall.

It shatters, sharp and final. The sound echoes, ringing louder than my own heart.

“You used me,” I say, the words tearing out of me. I want to sound strong, but my voice breaks somewhere in the middle. “You let me believe—”

Adrian doesn’t flinch. He just looks at me, eyes hard, jaw tight. “So did you,” he says, and the words cut deeper than any lie.

It’s true. I came here to destroy him. I came here to make him pay for what he did to Eli, for what he’s done to everyone he’s ever hurt. I thought I could keep myself clean, above it, safe.

I lost myself instead.

We stare at each other, trapped in a silence thick with everything we cannot say. The air between us is dangerous: electric with want, with anger, with something neither of us is willing to name.

After that, everything changes. We don’t eat together.

We don’t sleep in the same room. The house becomes a maze of locked doors, polite nods, and the space between us that feels impossible to cross.

I keep to myself, drifting from one cold room to another, jumping every time I hear footsteps behind me.

At night, when the house is quiet and his footsteps echo down the hall, my body still responds. I hate it. I hate him.

I want him. Not just the man, but the monster—the heat, the pain, the power. I tell myself it’s trauma, or chemistry, or just lust tangled up in everything I’ve lost.

I know better. The worst part is knowing that he still wants me too—and that he refuses to come to me. He leaves me in the silence, and that silence is worse than any fight, any violence, any betrayal.

I try to distract myself. I start writing again in a notebook I hide under the mattress, the one place in this house that still feels like mine.

I scrawl headlines in the margins: not about Bratva corruption or criminal empires, but about a girl who got in too deep.

About a woman who stopped believing in black and white.

About a man who might be both the villain and the only person who ever really saw her.

The words spill out, messy and urgent, a confession I can’t give to anyone but the empty page.

I write until my hand cramps. Until the ink smears with tears I refuse to admit I’m crying.

Sometimes, I let myself imagine what it would be like if things were different. If I had never lost Eli, or never needed revenge. If I could be the kind of woman who walked away and never looked back.

I’m not. I’m the woman who stayed. I’m the woman who still aches for his touch even as I plot how to make him pay.

Days blur. I overhear his men talking in low voices about threats, about changes, about me. I know they’re watching me. I know they’re waiting for me to make a mistake. Sometimes I think Adrian is waiting for the same thing.

At night, in the dark, when the house is asleep and only the memory of his hands is real, I let myself remember what it felt like to be wanted. To be ruined and remade by the same man. To belong to someone who was never safe.

I can’t forgive him. Not yet. Maybe not ever. I can’t let him go either. That’s the worst part of all.

In the quiet hours before dawn, I press my palm to the window, watching for the first hint of light.

I think of Eli, of everything I still owe him.

I think of Adrian, of the way he looked at me the night he finally let himself fall apart.

I think of the truth, and how it broke me. I wonder if it broke him too.

***

That night, I hover outside Adrian’s bedroom door, feet bare on the cold runner, heart pounding so loud I wonder if he hears it too.

The hall is silent but for the faint crackle of the fire somewhere downstairs.

I stare at the dark line where the door meets the floor, willing myself to raise a fist, to knock, to say something—anything—that would bridge the gap between us. I think of the words burning on my tongue: accusation, apology, the raw confession that I still want him.

My hand never lifts. I stand there far too long, haunted by the memory of his touch and the echo of his silence.

In the end, I walk away. My chest aches with the weight of all the things we never said.

About Eli, about truth, about what we are to each other now.

I’m not sure which part hurts more—that Adrian let me walk away, or that deep down I wanted him to come after me and didn’t even realize it until the moment passed.

The corridor is empty, echoing my footsteps as I try to outrun my own regret. Of course, that’s when I run straight into Miroslav. He always appears when I least want to see him, as if he’s been waiting in the shadows for a moment of weakness.

He doesn’t bother with a greeting. His arms are folded, eyes flat and unsmiling. “If you keep wandering the halls at night, people are going to talk,” he says, voice low and sharp.

I brush past him, but he steps into my path, blocking the way. “Not now, Miroslav.”

He gives a sigh that’s more irritation than sympathy. “I don’t care what time it is. I’m sick of watching you and Adrian circle each other like wounded animals.”

I stop, too tired for a fight. “Is this where you warn me again? Or tell me to leave?”

He shakes his head. “I’m not here to threaten you.

Not tonight. I just want this to end—one way or another.

” He leans in, lowering his voice so no one else could possibly hear.

“Adrian might not want to kick you out. He might not want to kill you. I can’t stand this awkward dance between the two of you. It’s tearing the house apart.”

I bristle, but there’s no venom in my reply. “What do you want me to do? Pretend nothing happened?”

He shrugs, gaze unwavering. “You have a choice, Talia. You came here for a reason. You wanted revenge, you wanted answers, and maybe you got some of them. So either finish what you started. Burn it all down, take him with you, whatever it is you planned. Or forgive him. Stay. Make a decision.”

I swallow hard, the words like acid on my tongue. “It’s not that simple.”

“It is,” he insists, voice softening by a fraction. “It’s just not easy. You can’t keep living in limbo. None of us can.”

For a moment, the hallway feels like it’s closing in, the stone walls pressing tight with the weight of choice. I remember Eli’s name on the burned folder, the hard line of Adrian’s jaw as he watched me break, the way his hand lingered on my skin even after the truth came out.

I remember the pain, the anger, but also the longing—the part of me that still wants, that still hopes, that still aches for something more than justice or survival.

I meet Miroslav’s eyes. “What about you? You want me gone too?”

He shakes his head. “I want peace. For him. For this house. For all of us. We can’t move forward until you choose which way to go. Don’t waste any more time.”

His words hit harder than I expect. I realize how much the tension between Adrian and me has poisoned everything in this place. Even Miroslav, who thrives on discipline and order, looks weary. I can’t keep clinging to the past and wishing for a different ending.

I have to decide what happens next.

I nod, the gesture shaky but real. “Thank you,” I manage, surprised to mean it. “For being honest.”

He gives the smallest, grudging smile, then steps aside, finally letting me pass.

As I walk away, I feel the pull of two worlds. The girl who came here to find her brother and burn the empire down, and the woman who let herself want the man at the heart of all that darkness. Miroslav’s right. I can’t live in limbo forever.

I slip back into my room and sink onto the edge of the bed, letting the decision settle over me. My hands shake, not with fear, but with possibility. I stare at the hidden notebook, the one where I’ve written all the stories I can’t speak aloud.

Tomorrow, I will choose. Tomorrow, I will either confront Adrian with everything I know and make him pay… or I will forgive him, and let myself have whatever future we can build from the wreckage.

Either way, this house cannot hold us all hostage to the past much longer.

The city below is dark, quiet, the estate lit only by a few golden lamps and the distant red eye of the security gate. I hug my knees to my chest, forehead pressed to the glass, breathing in the chill and letting it anchor me.

Miroslav’s words echo in my mind, refusing to fade: either finish what you came for, or forgive Adrian.

My thoughts race in loops: Eli’s name, Adrian’s touch, the rage and longing that will not let me rest. I want justice.

I want closure. I want to believe I could hurt Adrian the way he hurt me, but the truth is messier.

The truth is I want him, even after everything.

I want him to fight for me. I want him to trust me enough to confess.

I want to trust him back.

The sky lightens, just a fraction, over the city’s jagged rooftops. I realize that standing outside his door—waiting, hoping, then turning away—is its own answer. I can’t run from what I feel. I can’t keep punishing him for secrets he was never meant to share.

Tomorrow, I will choose. Not for Eli. Not for revenge. For myself.