Page 82 of Bratva Bride
Not a person. Not someone's wife. Not even property with feelings to consider. Just flesh to be discussed, evaluated, inspected for proper use. The old men around the table debated my virginity like it was a trade route dispute, voices rising and falling in familiar patterns of negotiation while I sat frozen, hands folded in my lap like the good girl my father had trained me to be.
"Medical examination is standard in contested marriages," Kozlov's lieutenant argued, his gold teeth catching the light when he smiled. "Three minutes with a qualified physician, question resolved. Why refuse if there's nothing to hide?"
"Because it's 2025, not 1925," Dmitry snarled, and Alexei's hand on his shoulder was the only thing keeping him in his seat. "We don't inspect women like horses anymore."
"The Code doesn't specify modern sensibilities," someone from the Sokolov contingent observed, voice carefully neutral. "It specifies verification methods. Medical examination is listed as acceptable proof."
They went in circles. Traditional authority versus modern dignity. The letter of law versus the spirit of it. Whether a woman's body belonged to her family, her husband, or herself. Nobody asked me. Nobody even looked at me except Viktor, whose pale eyes tracked my every breath with the satisfaction of a chess player watching his opponent run out of moves.
I cataloged their words the way I used to catalog my father's crimes, filing them away in the part of my brain that processed trauma through analysis. The Kozlov captain who said "proper breeding" like I was livestock. The Sokolov elder who wondered aloud if I was "intact" before the marriage. Mikhail Besharov's pained expression as he tried to find compromise in laws that offered none.
Somewhere in the second hour, Viktor reached into his briefcase—leather, monogrammed, the one he'd carried to my mother's funeral—and withdrew another document. The way he held it, letting the overhead light catch the gold seal, told me this was his killing blow.
"Perhaps," he said, voice cutting through the debate like a blade through silk, "we're approaching this incorrectly."
The room went still. Even the smoke seemed to pause in its rise.
"I invoke Article Seven, Subsection Five."
Mikhail Besharov's face went pale. His wife actually gasped—small sound, quickly suppressed, but I heard it. Whatever Article Seven was, it was worse than medical examination. Worse than anything we'd prepared for.
Viktor continued, reading from his document with the measured pace of an executioner reading last rites: "When a blood marriage fails to prevent violence between families, the bride's father may reclaim his daughter pending full investigation of the union's legitimacy. This is ancient law, written to protect families from fraudulent treaties."
Ancient law. The words tasted like dust and dried blood. Laws written when women were currency and daughters were investments to be protected until properly spent.
"The bombing proves the marriage has failed its primary purpose," Viktor explained to the room like teaching slow children. "Peace. Stability. Instead, we have federalinvestigators, dead workers, and millions in destroyed property. Under such circumstances, I have not just the right but the obligation to protect my daughter from a clearly dangerous situation."
Protect. The word was obscene coming from him. Twenty-six years of isolation wasn't protection—it was preservation, keeping me fresh for later use.
Besharov was already consulting the Code, his fingers tracing lines of text that had probably been written in blood originally, now reduced to fading ink on aged paper. His expression told me everything before he spoke.
"The law exists," he admitted, voice heavy with reluctance. "It hasn't been invoked in seventy years, but the precedent stands."
Seventy years. Someone else's daughter reclaimed, returned to her father's house, probably never seen again. History repeating itself in this basement that had seen too much history already.
"This is bullshit," Dmitry exploded, finally breaking free of Alexei's restraining hand. "Everyone knows the Kozlovs planted that bomb. We have leads—"
"What leads?" Sergei Kozlov asked, voice dripping false innocence. "Please, share with the Council what evidence you have of our involvement."
They had nothing. We all knew it. The bluff hung there for three seconds before Dmitry sat back down, jaw clenched hard enough to crack teeth.
Alexei tried next, his voice steady despite the fury I could see in his rigid posture. "The bombing was external aggression, not a failure of the marriage treaty. Someone—" his eyes flicked to Kozlov "—wanted to destabilize our alliance. Punishing the marriage for that sabotage is exactly what they want."
"Perhaps," Viktor conceded with a shrug that said he didn't care about perhaps. "But the law doesn't distinguish between internal and external threats. It simply states that if violenceoccurs between the families, the father may reclaim his daughter during investigation."
Investigation. The word was another lie. Investigations could take years. Decades. Forever, if the investigator had reason to delay.
"There's no evidence that Anya specifically is in danger," Alexei continued, but his voice had taken on the quality of a man arguing with the tide. "She's been safe in our home. Protected. Cared for."
"Safe?" Viktor's eyebrows rose with performed surprise. "My sources say she was found at three in the morning last week, researching escape routes and bratva law. Classic signs of distress, possibly coercion. My security consultants report severe anxiety symptoms, signs of what might be Stockholm syndrome. She requires extensive management—clearly more than your household can provide."
Management. Like I was a condition to be controlled rather than a person to be loved.
The words were perfectly chosen. Turn my midnight anxiety—caused by him—into evidence of Volkov failure. Transform my healing into sickness. Make my growing trust look like psychological damage.
Ivan finally spoke, his voice so controlled it sounded mechanical. "My wife is safe in our home. She's happy. She's healing from years of isolation under her father's control. Taking her back doesn't protect her—it re-traumatizes her."
The truth, laid bare. But truth had no currency in this room where laws written by dead men governed living women.
