Page 26 of Forced Virgin Bride of the Bratva
I hate the part of me that wonders if he’s right.
The city slides by outside the window, blurred lights and flashes of movement I can’t bring myself to care about. My head tips back against the seat.
I close my eyes. I’m not ready to surrender, but I’m not strong enough to fight forever.
Chapter Eight - Maxim
The house is full when I arrive. Voices buzz low, just under the music, too calculated to be casual. Men crowd into corners with crystal glasses in hand, their suits wrinkled from long hours and ambition.
The scent of cigars hangs thick in the air, layered over aged leather and the sharp sting of expensive cologne, as if everyone’s tried too hard to smell like power.
This is tradition.
A gathering of old families and older grudges. Where alliances are reinforced with handshakes that mean something, and betrayals are toasted with vintage scotch before knives come out months later. Everything tonight will be recorded in memory, filed away for use when needed.
I step through the threshold and feel the shift almost immediately. Heads turn.
The weight of attention finds me without fanfare. My name doesn’t need to be spoken. I carry it in my presence—Sharov, youngest of the remaining line, soon to be bound in blood to a family we once bled.
The upcoming marriage is tonight’s currency.
Men nod, smile with teeth. They greet me with hard claps on the shoulder, sly remarks about legacy and empire. Someone raises a glass. “To the groom,” he says, grinning like we’re brothers.
I give them what they expect.
A nod here. A quiet, measuredspasibothere. My smiles are brief, my words carefully chosen. Nothing real. Nothing they can pull apart later and use. I learned young that silence is more valuable than charm.
I move through the room like I belong in it, because I do. This is the world I was raised to rule.
My thoughts are elsewhere—on Kiera.
I haven’t seen her since the club. One last night to do as she pleased, and it was soured because of some idiot, and my own jealousy.
Oh, well. I’m sure she’ll forgive me in time. If not, I’ll hardly lose sleep over it.
This isn’t her world—yet. She wouldn’t last long in a room like this, where every smile hides calculation, every toast hides a blade. They’d smell her discomfort. Use it. Feed on it.
If I could have her by my side twenty-four seven, I would. That’s impossible, of course. Still, her absence pulls at me more than it should.
I pour a drink from the sideboard: something dark, aged, chosen more for show than taste. I don’t sip it. I hold the glass like armor, something to occupy my hands while the rest of me feigns interest in the noise around me.
I pretend not to care. It’s almost convincing.
The door swings open. A gust of cold air slides through the room, brushing against necks, tugging at cigarette smoke. Voices falter. Glasses lower. All at once, the conversation quiets.
Then silence.
Darya Sharov stands in the doorway.
Tall, still, framed in shadow and soft gold light. Her silver hair is pinned back in an immaculate twist, each strand secured with militant precision. She wears black—not mourning, not modesty, but power made fabric. Her coat hangs open at the collar, the lining silk, the heels understated but lethal.
There’s no announcement. No warning.
Whispers had her in Zurich. Some clinic. Some specialist. Treatment, recovery, rest. Words people say when they’re too afraid to speak the truth: that the iron-willed matriarch of the Sharov line had been fading, but here she is.
Moving on her own. Pale, yes, but upright. Eyes sharp. Purpose stitched into every step.
The men part instinctively. Men who kill for power, who rule cities and smuggle blood by the crate—these same men step aside without being told.
