Page 56 of Forced Plus-Size Bride of the Bratva

The word drifts through my mind, a mockery and a claim all at once.

I never wanted this. Never needed softness or connection. Love is weakness. Marriage is a transaction. Always has been. Always will be.

Yet here she is: mine—not through vows or promises, but by the sheer inevitability of my will. By force. By circumstance.

After tonight, she belongs to me more deeply than any contract could make real. Not just in name, not just on paper or through the hollow mechanics of power and fear. I own her in the places she cannot take back—the corners of herself she probably never even knew existed.

I tap ash into the crystal tray beside me, the soft hiss barely audible over the low hum of the surveillance equipment. Every camera feeds into my private server, every movement, every breath preserved. I savor the weight of the moment, rolling it between my fingers like the glowing end of the cigar.

There’s still work to do.

The world outside this room doesn’t stop turning because I finally laid claim to what’s mine. Deals wait. Enemies sharpen their knives. Alina’s father still breathes, and with him, a hundred tangled debts and secrets that will either feed my empire or bleed it dry.

I lean forward, extinguishing the cigar with a slow, grinding twist of my wrist.

When I look back at the screen, she’s turned in her sleep, her face pressing into my pillow like she knows, even now, what she belongs to.

A slow smile curls my mouth.

She’ll learn soon enough.

The burner phone buzzes against the glass tabletop, rattling faintly. I reach for it without taking my eyes off the screen where Alina shifts again, restless in her sleep.

“Da,” I answer.

Dima’s voice crackles through the line—sharp, efficient, as always. No wasted words. “Ortega’s active. Miami. He’s pushing on the port, rerouting small shipments. Nothing major yet. Looks like disruption, not theft.”

Not about money. Not about territory.

It’s about me.

I tap the ash from my fingers absently, listening as Dima outlines the rest: minor sabotages, contacts shifting loyalties, whispers designed to stir fear. Small moves. Careless, even. Matías Ortega thinks he can needle me into responding publicly. He thinks he can claw back a shred of the respect he lost.

My mouth tightens into something that isn’t quite a smile.

Matías has always been petty. Insecure. A man who wears silk suits and gold watches to cover the thinness of his skin. Dangerous, yes—but not because of his power. Desperation makes men reckless. Makes them unpredictable. Makes them willing to burn everything just to feel like they’re still standing on top of the ashes.

I lean back, letting the chair creak under my weight, eyes narrowing slightly as Dima continues.

It’s a stupid game. Transparent. A ploy to bait me into lashing out, into making a mistake. Matías doesn’t understand—he never did—that I don’t move unless I mean to destroy.

Again, I think of Monaco, three years ago. The race was nothing, just a cover for the real business being handled behind closed doors. But Matías made the mistake of believing it was personal. That beating me on the track would humiliate me.

Instead, it was his humiliation.

Public. Unmistakable. The crowd watched him stumble, fall, watched him bleed in front of the cameras, and no one—no one—stepped in to help. His face, his worth, stripped away in broad daylight while I stood untouched.

Men like him never forget that kind of defeat.

I end the call with a clipped acknowledgment, tossing the phone back onto the table where it buzzes once more and goes still.

A thin smile cuts across my face, sharp as broken glass.

I know exactly what kind of enemy I’m dealing with.

“Cowards are always the most dangerous,” I murmur under my breath, “until they aren’t.”

I reach for the notepad beside the monitors, jotting down a single line in heavy, deliberate strokes:

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