Page 56 of Bratva Bride
“Dammit, Nadya,” I mutter, frustration simmering just beneath my skin as I climb into my car and head back toward the city, my mind spinning with anger and worry in equal measure.
When I finally get back to the apartment, everything feels off—the lights are too dim, the air too still. My footsteps echo on the tile as I walk through empty rooms, checking each doorway.
“Nadya?” I call out, but my voice bounces off walls, unanswered. “Mila?”
Mila’s backpack is missing from its usual spot by the door. Nadya’s jacket, the one she always grabs on her way out, isn’t hanging on the hook. My heart sinks, realization hitting me with brutal force.
They’re gone.
I slam my fist into the wall, pain blooming through my knuckles, but it’s nothing compared to the helpless ache spreading through my chest. My family—my whole world—vanished in a single night.
And this time, I don’t even know where to begin looking.
17
NADYA
Boxes scrapeover the worn hardwood as I slide them against the far wall. The safe house feels like a half-finished thought—bare mattress in one corner, a couch that has seen better decades, and a kitchen little more than a sink and a hot plate. Still, it’s ours for tonight, and that has to be enough.
Pyotr rubs the bruise on his ribs and winces. “Your husband is going to kill me for helping you run.”
“He has other things to worry about,” I say, folding Mila’s small sweaters into the single dresser drawer. My hands keep moving, because if they stop, I might think too long about Konstantin standing alone in that hallway, eyes full of something I can’t face.
Pyotr watches me for a moment, then clears his throat. “And what about the fact that you and your husband were supposed to present a united front? You were the future king and queen of the Bratva, weren’t you?”
I smooth the last sweater flat, but my throat tightens. “So they keep telling us.”
He sits on the edge of the couch, fingers laced. “United fronts aren’t built on secrets, Nadya. Not the ones you hide from him, or the ones he hides from you.”
I shut the drawer quietly. Mila hums to herself from the corner, coloring in a battered notebook we found in the kitchen drawer. She’s safe, for now, and that has to be enough.
I turn to my father. “If we waited until every secret was aired, we’d never move at all. Nikolai doesn’t have that luxury.”
He looks at me like he wants to say more, but he nods. “What’s the next step?”
I glance at my phone—the tracker still pinned to Konstantin’s dot, far from here. “We keep our distance until I know where Nikolai is. Then I decide how much of the truth I can afford.”
Silence settles between us, heavy but honest. In the corner, Mila changes crayon colors, her tongue poking out in concentration. I walk over and kiss the top of her head, breathing in the scent of cheap wax and shampoo.
“What really happened?” Pyotr pushes. “You don’t love him anymore?”
On the contrary—I love him too much. That’s why I couldn’t stand to see him with that woman. I close my eyes and see the way he grabbed her, and my heart breaks once again.
“It doesn’t matter anymore, I’m a mother first. I need to put Nikolai first.”
“But it was supposed to be you and him against the world. That’s what you told me.”
I’m silent. I think about the last few months. How everything changed the moment I agreed to the auction, the moment he stepped into my life. Finally I speak, quiet but unmoving. “Plans change.”
He waits for more, but I have no more to give. The silence thickens, filled with everything I can’t say—that the sight of Konstantin with another woman still claws at me, that I slipped an AirTag in his pocket like a thief because I no longer trust the space between us, that every hour my son stays missing feels like my heart is being sanded down to dust.
Pyotr’s shoulders sink. He opens his mouth—maybe to comfort, maybe to argue—but he closes it again, turning toward the hallway. “I’ll keep watch outside.”
I nod without looking up, folding the last of Mila’s clothes into the drawer. When the door clicks shut, I press both palms to the dresser and let my eyes close.
I remind myself why we’re here. Safety, distance, leverage. I remind myself that believing in Konstantin won’t bring Nikolai back, but believing in myself just might.
Still, the emptiness in my chest feels wider than any room, big enough to swallow every plan I’ve ever had for us.
