Page 42 of The Bratva's Arranged Bride

Sitting in the warehouse office surrounded by my brothers, my eyes weren’t trained on anything in particular. My mind certainly wasn’t in the room while Alex and Damien went over a few pressing topics with the group of us.

As much as I should’ve been paying attention, I was struggling to do that.

Undoubtedly, I was distracted, but at the very least, nobody commented on it.

Eventually, we decided to take a break and splintered off for the time being. Alex, Damien, and Daniil wandered off on their own while I stayed back and waited in my seat.

It didn’t take long for me to feel Yuri’s eyes on me.

“You alright in there?” he asked, lifting a brow at me while he stood by the window with his hands in his pockets.

As irritating and unserious as he could be most times, he had always been perceptive, for better or worse.

After a moment of consideration, I thumbed at my chin absently. “Yeah, I’m fine…just thinking.”

“You’re gonna bust a couple of cogs, thinking that hard.”

Despite the teasing in his voice, a touch of concern was still present.

I only sighed, not feeling up for his usual antics.

While I had reached a new place with Tia, I was still unnerved by it all…by the way she couldn’t see through to the real me even after being intimate.

How she was still being so stubbornly persistent when it came to resisting me.

Before, I assumed she would just give up eventually. That she would finally admit her attraction to both of us, and she wouldn’t be able to put up that front anymore.

But it seemed I had severely underestimated her determination.

It was maddening.

“This is about Tia, isn’t it?”

Blinking through the flicker of surprise at his ability to guess correctly right away, my shoulders dropped slightly. “Yes…it is.”

I wasn’t too keen on admitting it, but by then, I didn’t see much choice in the matter.

Normally, I could handle any situation I was thrown into. Feelings and emotions were things I could easily tuck away without many repercussions. But with Tia involved, that just didn’t seem like the case anymore.

She was my wife, and as much as I tried to convince myself before that the business aspect of the arrangement was the most important part, I knew that wasn’t true.

I had been completely enamored by her…enraptured. I needed her more than anything.

And I did have her, just not in all the ways I wanted.

With a sigh, I rubbed at the side of my neck. “I’m trying to build something good between us, but she’s not giving me much to work with, regardless of what I try. I don’t know what to do at this point.”

Yuri studied me for a moment while he digested my words, and he softened by a touch. It had been quite some time since I saw that kind of understanding in his eyes, and to my surprise, it was almost reassuring.

“I’m sure you already know this, but you have to give her time,” Yuri said with a voice of reason that seemed more out of the ordinary for him than anything else. “Given how everything went down, it’ll take a bit for her to feel that trust. You can’t force it.”

I knew he wasn’t wrong on that front.

In one swoop, she had been blindsided by her dad, who was still actively withholding the truth of his success from her, and she was forced into my life against her wishes. It wasn’t something I’d easily recover from, either.

“I want to be patient, I do…But I don’t know how long I can keep it up,” I admitted, feeling strange about being so vulnerable at the moment. “I know she feels at least something for me, but it’s like there’s a brick wall between us. She’s still fighting me.”

Yuri hummed thoughtfully at that. “I’m sure it’s not easy, but it’s necessary for now. She needs to learn that you’re on her side.”

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