Page 91 of Forced Plus-Size Bride of the Bratva

He fires. I fire.

The world narrows to a heartbeat.

A flash. A thundercrack.

Pain rips across my shoulder, hot and slicing—but I don’t stop. Don’t fall.

I see my bullet land—Matías stumbles, a grunt escaping his throat, blood blooming beneath his ribs.

Alina screams behind me—sharp, broken—but she doesn’t fall either. She stays standing.

A breath. A blink.

Matías staggers back, clutching his side, fury and desperation replacing arrogance in a single second. His men surge in from the other hall, laying down cover fire, yelling in Spanish. He disappears behind them like smoke, dragged into the shadows, leaving a trail of red behind him.

Coward.

His escape is sloppy, panicked. It won’t save him.

Not for long.

Alina is at my side, her eyes wide, skin pale beneath the dirt and blood. She’s trembling—bad—but upright.

I reach for her without thinking, one hand gripping the side of her face, cradling it roughly, turning it toward the light.

I scan for blood that’s not mine. Wounds I missed. Anything.

“You’re hit,” she gasps, reaching for my shoulder.

“Doesn’t matter,” I mutter. “Are you hurt?”

She shakes her head fast. “No. No, I’m fine. I’m—” Her voice catches, tears threatening again.

She doesn’t cry, she doesn’t collapse. She’s fire. Barely breathing, but burning.

I pull her in. My arm wraps around her back, pressing her into my chest, grounding both of us in something real.

“You came,” she whispers against me, voice raw with disbelief.

My grip tightens. I don’t kiss her. Don’t say anything soft. That’s not what this moment is for.

“Always.”

One word. Cold. Certain.

She nods once, her body sagging against mine for just a second before she catches herself.

We aren’t safe yet, but she’s alive.

I got to her in time.

Now Matías Ortega knows exactly what it means to fuck with me.

Chapter Twenty-Five - Alina

The room is wreckage.

Smoke still curls from bullet-split beams, rising like ghosts through the broken ceiling. Shattered glass crunches beneath my boots, and somewhere to my right, a pipe drips steadily, the sound sharp against the silence.

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