Page 8 of Innocent Plus-Size Bride of the Bratva (Sharov Bratva #15)

Another delicate laugh, this one meant for the wider audience, calculated to be just ambiguous enough. I can feel the table’s attention shift, the curiosity sharpen. Some glance Talia’s way, others toward me, measuring my silence for cracks.

Markian snorts softly into his napkin, catching my eye. He raises one brow as if to say, You’re on your own here, cousin. He knows Yelena too well to offer rescue.

I turn back to my meal, not bothering to respond to Yelena’s latest provocation.

Talia’s silence is more effective than any retort—she gives Yelena nothing, not even the satisfaction of a reaction. I suspect that frustrates Yelena even more than open defiance would have.

Across the table, Talia finally shifts. She sets her fork down and picks up her phone, thumb moving quickly over the screen, ostensibly checking her notes for the evening’s social coverage, but I see the way her eyes flick toward Yelena, just once, before returning to her task.

She’s cataloging the threat, adding it to a private ledger somewhere behind her careful expression.

The course continues, conversation picking up again around politics and supply chains and the finer points of imported wine.

I nod where required, offer the occasional word to Petr or one of his sons, but my mind keeps drifting back to Talia’s composure, the way she refuses to bend even under Yelena’s scrutiny.

After a time, Yelena loses interest, her attention snagging on a passing compliment from a Czech banker with more money than sense. She turns, her laughter too bright, too sharp, and I exhale quietly, letting the tension bleed away.

Markian nudges my shoulder with a knowing smirk. “You collect strays now, do you?” he murmurs.

I give him a look, half amusement, half warning. “She’s not a stray. She’s here for work.”

He lifts his glass, hiding a grin. “Of course she is.”

The table settles, but I do not. My focus keeps returning to the girl with the cheap blouse and big eyes, the one who meets every challenge with silence and every threat with careful restraint. She is still a mystery; one I have not decided whether to solve or savor.

Yelena glances at me once more, eyes cold, assessing. I let her look. Let her wonder. She plays her games; I play mine.

By the end of the course, the room has grown warmer, the tension masked by candlelight and good wine. Beneath it all, the currents run sharper than ever. At the center of it, silent but unbroken, is Talia—holding her place, holding her secrets, holding her own.

The game between us is growing more interesting with every passing minute.

The third course arrives, some delicate arrangement of fish and caviar, announced with a flourish by a server whose smile doesn’t touch his eyes. Around the table, conversation shifts and reforms: old stories, cautious jokes, all the lines rehearsed and recited in careful cadence.

Yelena turns her laughter up a notch, her hand drifting to my arm with the practiced ease of a woman who knows every camera angle, every eye in the room.

I let her perform, giving nothing back. My mind is elsewhere. My eyes stray again to Talia. She keeps her posture perfect, never fidgeting, always listening. She sips water, types notes on her phone, occasionally nodding at something a guest says. She never interrupts, never draws attention.

The servers don’t look at her twice, but I see how the older men at the table notice her—at first as novelty, then as threat. She’s an unknown, and in this world, unknowns are never truly safe.

Dessert comes, something rich and dark.

Yelena declines with a flick of her hand, all sharp edges and faint disdain. Markian, beside me, teases the youngest Chernikov about his appetite, winning a reluctant smile.

I contribute the bare minimum, offering a toast to the host, a few polite words about legacy and tradition. I watch as the wine glitters in the candlelight and think how thin the mask of civility is here. We are all animals, some of us better at wearing suits.

Talia is offered dessert by a passing server.

She accepts, but only tastes a spoonful, eyes distant.

I imagine she’s making calculations—how long to stay, how quickly to retreat, what faces she needs to remember for later.

She looks up once, meets my gaze, and holds it for a heartbeat longer than before.

There’s something stubborn in her eyes. Not a plea, not fear. I almost smile.

The final course is cheese and fruit, a forced gesture of hospitality. The room is warmer now, the guests a little more at ease, voices louder.

Yelena’s mask slips only once when a staffer brings the wrong port to her elbow. She snaps at him, low and cold, and I see the boy’s hands tremble as he backs away. The cruelty is effortless, as natural to her as breathing. My irritation sharpens, but I say nothing.

When dinner is finished, the table dissolves into smaller clusters. Petr gestures for a private word with one of my men.

Markian tugs me aside, a familiar hand on my shoulder. “Care for a smoke?” he asks, but I shake my head. I need air, but not with company.

Yelena stands at my side, looping her arm through mine, her perfume sweet and cloying. “Come, darling. Show the Chernikovs you’re still part of the family.”

“I need to make a call,” I say, and her eyes narrow for a moment before she smooths her expression. She lets me go with a gracious smile, but I know she’ll remember the slight.

I slip away, letting the cold air of the terrace bite into my skin. The night is silent except for the soft crunch of snow beneath my shoes and the distant hush of conversation through closed doors.

Stars hang low and hard above the estate’s black silhouette.

I take a deep breath, letting the cold clear my mind.

Unpredictability is the one thing I cannot abide in my world.

Control is what keeps me alive, but as I think of Talia, her silence at the table, the refusal in every careful word she does not say, I find that unpredictability doesn’t feel like a threat tonight.

It feels… intentional. Dangerous, yes, but intriguing.

Most who enter these rooms learn quickly to flatter, to submit, to dissolve into the background. She resists in quiet ways: by listening too closely, by refusing to shrink, by holding herself together in the lion’s den.

There is a kind of courage in her that I rarely see, and I am old enough to admit I want to understand it. I want her where I can watch her closely.

Inside, the rooms begin to empty. Guests drift to the lounge, the billiards room, the cars idling outside.

Yelena reappears at my elbow, eyes bright and brittle. “Everything settled?” she asks.

“For now.” I don’t elaborate.

She gives me a look—sharp, searching for meaning—but I offer nothing. I excuse myself, claiming business, and slip away toward the library.

The security chief, always hovering at the periphery, looks up as I enter.

I stand at the window, watching the last of the guests depart in a string of headlights.

Talia is among the last to leave, her coat wrapped tight, her posture still proud even in the shadow of the estate.

She pauses at the bottom of the steps, as if taking a mental picture of the building.

For a moment, she glances up at the darkened windows.

I stay out of sight but feel the weight of her attention, even at a distance.

When she’s gone, I linger in the quiet. My mind drifts over the evening—not the threats, not the old feuds or the business whispered behind raised glasses, but the puzzle of her: the sharpness, the wariness, the resilience that refuses to soften even under scrutiny.

It is reckless, I know, but I have made a career out of trusting my instincts, even when they run counter to caution. I want to see what Talia Benett will do when the walls close around her, when the boundaries between guest and captive, observer and participant, begin to blur.

Later, when I see Yelena drifting through the halls, her laughter echoing, I turn away. Her games are old, predictable, hollow. What I want now is something different. Something that refuses to yield, that stirs a challenge I can taste.

Before I sleep, I send the order again: Talia, to the inner office. My territory. My rules.

Just close enough to watch. Just far enough to pretend it means nothing.

I remind myself, as I have every night for years—control is everything.

As I close my eyes, the image that stays with me is not of the table, the business, or even Yelena’s poisonous beauty.

It is of Talia, silent and self-possessed, holding her place in the center of the storm. I am not certain if that is a victory… or the start of something I cannot control at all.