Page 28 of Innocent Plus-Size Bride of the Bratva (Sharov Bratva #15)

I don’t see Adrian all day. I don’t know if he’s hiding, or if he’s giving me the space he thinks I need, but the mansion feels full of him anyway. His scent lingers on the pillows in our bedroom. His voice, low and clipped, echoes in the corridors when he speaks to his men.

Even the creak of the stairs at dusk makes me look up, expecting him—and then my chest aches when it’s not.

I try to escape the weight of everything that’s happened.

I wander the gardens, trailing my hands through the wild roses and tangled vines, letting the cold air bite at my skin.

I lose myself in the library, running my fingers over spines of books I have no desire to read, pretending that knowledge can still save me from the wreckage of love and war.

There is no hiding from it. There is no outrunning what Adrian has done, what I have become.

Every time I close my eyes and think of Eli, I also see Adrian’s face—the raw truth in his eyes when he said, I did it to protect you. That’s what undoes me. Not the lies. Not the violence. The fact that, for a moment, I almost believe him.

I’m still dazed, lost in a maze of memory and longing, when the housekeeper finds me. She’s breathless, anxious, as if afraid of the message she carries.

“Someone’s waiting for you in the study,” she says, eyes wide. “She said it was urgent.”

Something cold tightens in my stomach. The study is always locked unless Adrian is home, and even then, only a handful of people ever cross its threshold. I move quietly through the halls, senses straining, every shadow sharp with threat.

I push open the study door and freeze.

Yelena stands in the center of the room, back ramrod straight, lips painted in a cruel red smile. She’s alone, draped in an elegant coat, her hair perfect as always, eyes glittering with something feral. For a moment I almost laugh. She looks like she’s come for a duel, not a conversation.

“Surprised to see me, darling?” she purrs, her accent rolling off every syllable.

I don’t answer. There’s no point in talking to a snake.

She doesn’t wait for a reply. Instead, she slips a hand into her purse and draws a small pistol, sleek and black, aiming it directly at my chest. Her smile never wavers. “You really think this ends with a wedding dress?” she hisses.

The air is sucked from the room. I freeze, pulse thundering, every instinct screaming at me to run. Then I remember the lessons Adrian drilled into me in the bunker: how to recognize a real threat, how to use momentum, how to survive.

She moves to squeeze the trigger. Time fractures. My vision narrows to the weapon, her hands, the angle. I lunge sideways, knocking her arm away with a desperate swipe. The gun goes off, the crack deafening in the small space. I feel a white-hot sting slice across my upper arm.

I stumble back, half falling, breath ragged. The pistol clatters across the rug. For a second, I can’t move, can’t think, can only taste copper and fear. Yelena swears and dives for the gun.

Just then, the door bursts open. It’s Adrian, eyes wild, his own weapon already drawn. He doesn’t hesitate. He fires once, and Yelena drops, the shot punching through her thigh. She screams, the sound high and animal, echoing off the bookshelves.

Adrian’s men flood the room, moving like shadows. Two of them pin Yelena’s arms behind her back, dragging her, still shrieking, toward the door. Blood stains her stockings, her mouth twisting in agony and hate.

Adrian’s focus is all for me. He drops to his knees in front of me, hands trembling as he rips open my sleeve, searching for the wound. “Let me see,” he commands, voice breaking. “Let me—God, Talia—”

The pain is sharp, but it’s the fear in his eyes that undoes me. I let him press his hand over the bleeding gash, let him pull me into his arms, let the adrenaline and terror drain out of me in shaking sobs.

He holds me tight, whispering my name, his words hot and desperate against my hair. “You’re all right. I’ve got you. I’m here.”

I don’t let go, not until the room is empty again, not until the sound of Yelena’s screaming fades down the hall and out of the house. Only then do I realize I’m crying, clutching him, blood smeared between our fingers.

He touches my face, gentle now. “I should have been here. I should never have left you alone.”

I shake my head, dazed. “You taught me how to survive. I remembered. I… I did it.”

A ghost of a smile breaks through his fear. “You did more than that. You saved yourself.”

We sit there on the rug, surrounded by shattered glass and the scent of gunpowder, the taste of death hanging in the air. For a long time, neither of us speaks. The world narrows to his arms around me, his breath in my ear, the rough cadence of his heart under my palm.

Somewhere outside, the night moves on.

Here, for just a moment, I let myself believe that survival is enough. That the man who nearly destroyed me is the same one who put me back together again.

And in that fragile silence, I know that forgiveness is possible—not because he deserves it, but because I need to let myself live.

Sometimes, even in a house built on secrets and blood, love finds a way to survive.

***

The night is silent, the kind of silence that rings in your ears. Every lamp in the house is off, but moonlight spills across the polished floors, lighting my way.

I don’t remember making the decision. I don’t remember changing out of my pajamas and pulling on a silk robe.

I only know that my feet move without my permission, carrying me down the hall to his door. I think I’m just restless, that I need answers, that I want to prove I’m not afraid… but as soon as I reach for the handle and turn it, I know it’s something deeper. Something I can’t admit to myself.

I don’t knock. I just open the door and step inside.

Adrian stands by the window, arms folded, his black shirt rumpled and sleeves rolled halfway up his forearms. He’s a shadow cut against a darker night, jaw tense, eyes lost in the city below.

For a moment, he doesn’t notice me, or maybe he does and won’t look.

But when the door closes behind me, he turns, gaze meeting mine across the distance.

He doesn’t ask why I’m here. He doesn’t say a word.

I don’t explain. I don’t have the words for it.

I cross to the bed, letting the silk robe slip off my shoulders, sliding down my arms. The fabric pools at my feet, leaving me bare in the pale light.

I do it slowly, deliberately, challenging him with every inch of skin I reveal.

I want him to stop me, to say something, to make this about anger or revenge or closure.

He just watches, hunger and hurt and something unspoken flickering across his face.

I crawl onto the bed, knees sinking into the mattress, heart pounding in my throat. The sheets are cool against my skin, smelling faintly of his cologne and something wilder. I lie back, watching him, my breath shallow.

It’s an invitation and a test and a confession, all tangled together.

He doesn’t hesitate. He crosses the room in three silent strides, his hands already at his shirt, yanking it over his head. He’s all sharp lines and muscle, the scars on his torso pale in the moonlight.

Adrian kicks off his trousers and joins me on the bed, pinning me with his weight. There are no gentle words, no slow caresses. He kisses me like he’s drowning, teeth scraping my lips, his mouth hard and desperate.

His hands are everywhere: rough on my hips, greedy on my breasts, squeezing, claiming, thumbs circling my nipples until I arch and gasp. He bites my shoulder, sucks hard enough to mark me, and when I reach for his hair, he groans into my skin. The sheets tangle beneath us, twisted as our bodies.

He pulls back just enough to look at me, his eyes wild and dark, searching for something: fear, forgiveness, surrender. I give him none of it. I bare my throat, daring him to take whatever he wants.

He grabs my wrists, fingers tight but careful all the same.

My bandaged arm aches dully, and Adrian is careful not to nudge it even as he moves me into position.

He pins my hands above my head, and I feel myself clench around nothing, aching for him, for the pain and the power and the reckless need I can’t hide.

“Is this what you want?” he grits out, voice hoarse, his cock hot and heavy against my thigh. “After everything?”

“Yes,” I whisper, raw, defiant.

That’s all it takes. He lines himself up, rubs the thick head against my slick entrance, then drives into me in one long, unyielding thrust. I gasp, legs wrapping tight around his waist, heels digging into his back as he fills me: deep, brutal, claiming.

My body opens for him, my breath stolen.

He pulls back and slams into me again, harder, setting a punishing rhythm.

There’s no mercy. Only this. The slap of skin, the burn of friction, his mouth on mine and his hands fisted in my hair.

He fucks me like he’s angry, like he’s grieving, like he can pound every lie and secret out of my body and replace it with the truth of him.

His teeth find my jaw, my collarbone, my breast. He bites and sucks until I’m marked, branded, his.

My own nails score his back, hips rocking up to meet every brutal thrust. I want to hurt him. I want to please him. I want to come so hard I forget every name but his. He pins my wrists with one hand and slides the other down, fingers circling my clit, rubbing fast, relentless.

“Adrian—” I choke, thighs shaking, the edge coming at me fast.

He bites my ear. “You come for me, Talia. Now.”

I shatter, the orgasm ripping through me, hot and wild, my body bucking up against his. He doesn’t let up, fucking me through it, grinding into me, watching my face as I fall apart.

“Again,” he growls, letting my wrists go, both hands gripping my hips, dragging me down onto him, slamming into me harder, deeper.

He flips me onto my stomach, yanks my hips up, and thrusts back in. I cry out, face pressed to the mattress, the angle rough and perfect, his hand tangling in my hair. He pounds into me, each stroke sending a shockwave through my core, my breasts swaying with every slap of his hips.

His fingers dig bruises into my flesh, his other hand coming around to toy with my clit again, working me toward the edge a second time.

“Fuck, Adrian, please—” I sob, tears streaking my cheeks, not from pain but from the intensity, the need, the overwhelming relief of being ruined and remade in the same breath.

He grunts, fucking me harder, deeper, until I come again, squeezing him so tight I hear him curse. He shudders, then pulls out, flips me onto my back, and drives in again, face-to-face, his mouth on mine, tongues tangling, sweat slick between us.

He slows, the thrusts growing desperate, needy, each one deeper than the last. He grabs my thigh, throws it over his hip, and buries himself to the hilt, his forehead pressed to mine.

“Mine,” he breathes. “You’re mine.”

I pull him closer, mouth hungry on his, and when he comes, it’s with a guttural, broken sound, hips jerking, cock pulsing deep inside me.

He doesn’t stop moving, rocking into me until I feel him everywhere, until we’re nothing but heat and shaking limbs and the wreckage of every wall we tried to build.

When it’s over, he collapses onto me, both of us gasping, boneless, sweat-slick and shaking. I run my hands over his back, feeling the tremor in his muscles, the pounding of his heart.

He rolls to his side, pulling me with him, tucking me under his arm like he can’t bear to let go. My cheek finds his chest, my fingers curling around his wrist. I should leave—I should slip out and hide, tell myself it was just a way to earn back his trust. A safety net of sorts.

My body betrays me. I can’t move. I don’t want to.

His other hand rubs slow circles into my back, grounding, comforting, reminding me that I’m safe here, if only for tonight. I close my eyes, breathing in the scent of sweat, sex, and something sweeter. I let myself rest, let myself want, let myself belong to him for just this moment.

He presses a kiss to my forehead, gentle and lingering. “Stay,” he whispers, the word a prayer and a plea.

I pretend it means nothing. I know, deep down, I want to stay. I want him. Even after everything. Even after all the pain and the lies.