Page 27 of Owned & Bred by the BRATVA

I stop walking. My stomach drops. My knees threaten to buckle.

“Clara,” he says gently, as if we’re just old friends meeting by chance. “You look lovely.”

I feel Maksim stiffen beside me, but I can’t move. I can’t speak. My heart slams against my ribs like it’s trying to escape.

“What… what is this?” My voice is barely a whisper.

My dad spreads his hands, as if this is some grand reunion. “Just a conversation, sweetheart. That’s all. No one can deny a father a moment with his daughter on her wedding day. Even if–” he skims his eyes over the room, his face twisted with displeasure, “–it’s not a proper wedding.”

Maksim takes a step forward, his jaw is clenched, expression hard, and that unreadable mask is back, the one he wears for everyone else.

My world tilts.

The man who sold me is standing in the same room where I’m meant to give my name to someone else.

And he wants totalk?

Maksim

She goes still beside me.

I feel it like a blade to the gut, the way her breath stutters, the way her fingers twitch in mine, the way her whole body freezes before her mind can catch up. Clara doesn’t speak. She juststares. At him.

And for one terrible heartbeat, she looks like that girl again.

The one from the video. The one I swore I’d never let exist under my roof. Small. Fragile. Afraid.

I almost kill him right there.

I feel the urge ripple through me. One clean order. One bullet. One flash of violence to erase the man who dares to stand in front of her and pretend he’s something other than what he is.

But I don’t.

Because I told myself I’d give her the choice.

It’s taking everything in me to relinquish control. To let her choose.

Because these last few nights, as she slept wrapped around me like I was the only safe place she had left in the world, I realized something.

She might never stop wondering.

He’d come back again and again, and every time he did, he’d get smarter. Softer. And the more I tried to keep him from her, the more she might questionwhy.

So I cage the monster inside me, this time.

Because if she’s going to choose me, I want it to bereal. Not out of fear. Not out of need. Not because I took the decision away from her.

I want her to look at the man who raised her locked up in that house,the man who sold her, and see him clearly. I want her to feel the lie in his voice, to recognize the rot beneath the polish. And I want her to stand beside me not because she was too sheltered to know better, but because she knowsexactlywho she’s leaving behind.

But I hate this moment.

Hate the way her eyes flick to mine. Hate the silence between us. I want to reach for her. Want to drag her behind me and tear the room apart. But I force myself to stay still.

She needs to move first.

She needs to decide.

Raymond smiles like he’s done something noble. Like this is a kindness. He keeps his hands visible, his posture loose. It’s all performance, all strategy, every detail meant to suggest safety, remorse, familiarity. Right down to his choice of a soft grey suit, his white shirt open at the collar, the crocodile tears in his eyes.

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