Page 20 of Forced Virgin Bride of the Bratva
I sit in the curve of the booth, elbow resting along the backrest, glass loose between my fingers. My face doesn’t move.
Another girl approaches, lowering herself at my side. She angles her body, close enough to graze mine, her perfume sharp—sweet at first, but underneath it, something synthetic. Her smile is fixed, practiced, made for rooms like this.
I give her nothing.
My eyes track the room. Champagne spills into flutes, ice melts in untouched glasses, laughter spikes from the far end of the booth where two girls share a man’s lap. He pours vodka straight from the bottle into their open mouths. No one watches anyone else. They only perform.
The girl beside me reaches for my wrist. Her nails are perfect, her touch meant to tempt. I shift away before she connects, posture changing by degrees. My drink stays full.
They’re beautiful, in the way a showroom car is beautiful. Designed to be admired, not driven. Every curve is calculated. Every smile aimed to disarm, but there’s nothing behind their eyes. No hunger. No resistance. Nothing real.
I think of Kiera.
I picture her sitting across from me, back straight, hands folded in her lap. Her voice low, her expression unreadable. There was no defiance in her silence, but no submission either. She watched me the way a woman watches the edge of a blade.
I remember the line of her mouth when she said it:“I don’t like you.”
She meant it. It wasn’t bait, wasn’t defensive. It was honest.
My jaw tightens.
She hadn’t been performing. Her body didn’t ask to be seen. It simply existed. Full, curved, soft—but not fragile. She carried herself with restraint, not fear. Her strength was in what she withheld, not what she offered.
I taste something bitter at the back of my throat.
I set the glass down. The girl next to me still hasn’t moved. She glances up, confused by the shift in energy, but she doesn’t speak.
I rise. The sound of the chair sliding back draws a few eyes, though most of the room is still too drunk to notice. Someone near the bar calls out to me—probably Kion. The tone is teasing, good-natured, meant to keep the mood alive.
Platon watches from across the table. He says nothing, but I catch the subtle tilt of his head, the small flicker of understanding that passes between us.
I step through the crowd, past the noise, the heat, the rehearsed pleasure. There’s nothing here I want.
The night air bites at my skin the second I step outside. The noise behind me dulls, swallowed by the heavy door swinging shut. The chill is sharp, honest. A cleaner kind of discomfort than the heat inside, thick with cologne and lies.
I reach for a cigarette, light it with the match I strike against the base of my boot. The flare cuts the dark for a second, then fades, leaving only the ember and the steady pull of smoke through my lungs. I inhale deep, let the bitterness settle in my chest before exhaling slow.
This isn’t who I am.
The party, the spectacle, the women performing what they think men like me want—it’s all for show. A costume we all wear when we’re trying to forget we’re wolves.
I’ve never needed noise to distract me. I’ve never wanted softness built for someone else’s gaze. Control has always been the point. Control over the room. Over the moment. Over the outcome.
I lean against the side of the car, one foot braced against the tire. Smoke curls around my face. The silence out here is different. Less demanding.
Kiera’s voice cuts through it.“Maybe my brother doesn’t like me very much.”
She’d said it with that calm, flat honesty that always lands harder than anything shouted. She hadn’t asked for sympathy. She hadn’t asked for anything at all. She had said it like someone naming the weather: unchangeable, inevitable.
That line won’t leave me.
It creeps back in quiet moments, when the world is still and my guard is down. The way she looked when she said it—her mouth set, eyes steady, like she’d stopped expecting anyone to argue.
She hadn’t meant to provoke me. That’s what makes it worse.
I drag another breath from the cigarette and let it go. The smoke rises into the night, thin ribbons twisting above me, vanishing before they can settle.
I don’t know why I’m still thinking about her.
