Page 35 of Forced Plus-Size Bride of the Bratva

He forces himself forward on his hands, crawling like something less than human. “Take me. Kill me. Do what you want—just let her go.”

I watch him. Carefully. Slowly. “Let her go?” I repeat.

His head lifts. His face is wet with tears. “She’s innocent. She doesn’t deserve this.”

“She’s your daughter,” I say, voice like ice. “Your blood, and that’s exactly why she does.”

“She didn’t know,” he says, choking. “She didn’t know what I did.”

“You think that changes anything?” I let go of Alina’s hand. She stays where she is, silent, motionless beside me. “You thought you could bury the past. That you could trade one life for another and forget the cost.”

“I was protecting her.”

“You killed Maxim to protect yourself.”

He winces like I struck him. “I was trying to survive—”

“You lived,” I cut in. “He didn’t.”

Carter lowers his head, shoulders shaking. “Please….”

This is the moment. The one I’ve been building toward all these years. Not the wedding. Not the dress. This.

Seeing him like this. Crawling. Weeping. Crushed beneath the weight of his own guilt. Not behind closed doors, but here—before them all. Every man in this room sees him now for what he truly is. Not a king. Not a legend. Just a man with nothing left.

I step forward, slow and precise. My voice drops until only he and Alina can hear it.

“You came here thinking your shame might save her,” I say. “All it’s done is make it permanent. This moment. This humiliation. This is what you gave her.”

I crouch, level with him, my tone razor-thin.

“You could’ve faced me like a man ten years ago, but you waited. Hid. Lied. So now your daughter will carry your punishment. Not just tonight. Every day. As my wife.”

His breath breaks on a sob.

The silence in the hall stretches—thick, smothering, electric. All eyes are on me.

I wait for Alina to cry. To shout. To turn to her father and plead on his behalf, or to me, begging for release. That’s how this moment is supposed to end. That’s the weight of vengeance—crushing, undeniable. Carter groveling at my feet. His daughter shattered beside him. A legacy razed in front of those who once feared it.

Alina surprises me.

She steps forward. Not toward her father, not away from me. Toward the center of the room, toward the watching crowd, toward the priest still holding the book with both hands as though it might shield him from the blood in the air.

Her face is calm.

No tears. No visible tremor in her hands.

Her back is straight, her chin lifted, her gaze sweeping the crowd like she belongs there.

Then, in a voice that is clear, steady, and impossible to ignore, she says, “I’m happy.”

The words hang in the air. Carter’s head jerks up.

This makes no sense.

She turns slightly to face the room—her audience—and repeats it. “I’m happy to marry him.”

Her voice doesn’t shake. Her hands don’t clench. She isn’t begging. She isn’t lying the way hostages do, with crackedvoices and teary eyes. She’s choosing this. Or pretending to, with enough conviction that even I struggle to tell the difference.

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