Page 90 of Forced Virgin Bride of the Bratva
I meet her at the back door, hand already reaching before she’s even close. She fits against me too easily. My arms remember her before my mind does.
“I missed you,” she says, pressing her face to my collarbone.
“You saw me three hours ago.”
She shrugs. “Still true.”
I grip her tighter. I don’t say it back, but she knows. She always knows.
We head inside, the house silent around us. She pulls me toward the kitchen, toward the mess she’s already made of my life. Of me.
And I let her, because somewhere between the gunshots and the gardens, the betrayals and the breakfasts, I realized something I never thought I’d understand.
I don’t want to be the man I was before her.
***
It’s late afternoon when I find her in the solarium, curled in one of the oversized chairs she dragged in months ago. Her legs are tucked beneath her, hair spilling over her shoulder in a loose braid, fingers moving as she scribbles in one of those notebooks she guards like it’s a vault.
I step into the light, and she looks up immediately. “You’re back early,” she says, not surprised—just observant, as always.
“Platon’s handling the rest,” I answer. “Didn’t feel like sitting through another hour of Vasily’s complaints about grain tariffs.”
She smirks. “He still thinks he’s an economic genius because he once bought vodka in bulk.”
“Exactly.”
I move closer and brush a kiss to her temple, breathing her in. She smells like citrus and sun, and it makes something settle in my chest that has no business feeling this calm. For a moment, we sit in the quiet, the only sound her pen scratching against the page.
“They still don’t like me,” she says suddenly. Not bitter. Not insecure. Just stating a fact.
I lean back against the frame of the chair, watching her. “They don’t have to.”
She glances at me, eyebrow lifted. “You saying that as my overprotective husband or as the man who commands their loyalty?”
“Both.”
She snorts, setting the notebook aside. “Come on, Maxim. You heard what that old prick said at the dinner last week.”
“Yakov’s a relic. If I wanted his opinion, I’d dig up a corpse and ask it.”
Kiera laughs, but her expression sobers quickly. “It’s not about one man. It’s all of them. The way they look at me like I don’t belong. Like I wormed my way into this seat beside you.”
I reach for her hand, threading our fingers together. “You didn’t worm your way into anything. You survived it. Fought for it.”
“That’s not how they see it.”
I tilt my head. “Yet, none of them could negotiate that Milan shipment half as cleanly as you did.”
She gives me a pointed look. “Are you trying to compliment me or remind me of how close that deal was to turning into a bloodbath?”
“Both,” I say again, and this time, she smiles for real.
She goes quiet then, eyes drifting to the garden outside. The tulips are coming in crooked—Darya’s influence, no doubt. That woman visits like she owns the place, always bringing pastries Kiera claims to hate but always eats three of. I’m not sure when they made peace, but I stopped questioning it after the third week of Darya calling hermoya devushkaand offering unsolicited advice about herbal teas.
“She’s mellowed,” I mutter, nodding toward the window.
Kiera follows my gaze. “She likes the garden.”
