Page 91 of Bratva Bride
"That's not—" I started, but he held up one manicured finger.
"Dr. Petachkov has reviewed the footage. His preliminary assessment suggests severe PTSD with dissociative episodes and age regression syndrome. Dr. Marín concurs, adding that the rapid attachment to your 'husband' indicates traumatic bonding rather than genuine affection."
Each name was familiar—psychiatrists who worked with the bratva families, who could be bought for the right price, who'd say whatever Viktor needed them to say. But their credentials were real. Their testimony would carry weight.
"The marriage lasted less than a month before you required retrieval," Viktor continued, scrolling through documents on his phone. "During that time, you developed dependencies on toys, regressed to childlike behaviors, and showed clear signs of psychological manipulation. Any judge would see the obvious conclusion—you were not competent to consent."
"Ivan never manipulated—"
"Ivan Volkov is a documented sadist who engineered your psychological dependency." The lies rolled off his tongue with practiced ease. "He isolated you, encouraged your regression, made you believe this sickness was healing. Classic grooming behavior."
My stomach churned, bile rising. Viktor was rewriting reality again, turning love into pathology, healing into sickness. And with his resources, his connections, his carefully curated evidence, who would believe my version over his?
"Once the marriage is annulled," he continued with the casual tone of someone discussing weather, "we'll need to address your mental health properly. I've found an excellent facility in Switzerland. Very discrete. They specialize in dissociative disorders, regression therapy, deprogramming from traumatic bonds."
Switzerland. Some sterile facility where I'd disappear, maybe forever. Where they'd medication me into compliance, therapyme into forgetting Ivan existed, break down whatever remained of the person I'd started to become.
“And once you’re all better, you can tell me everything that you learned about the Volkovs.”
He’d used me. This whole time, he’d used me.
"It's for your own good, detka." Viktor's hand reached out like he might touch my face, and I flinched back involuntarily. "You're sick. The Volkovs made you sicker. But with proper treatment, in a controlled environment, you can recover. Become the daughter I raised again."
The daughter he raised. The decoder. The asset. The brilliant thing kept in a cage, useful but never quite human.
A knock interrupted—Elena with breakfast. She kept her eyes down as she set the tray on my nightstand, but I caught the tightness around her mouth, the way her hands trembled slightly. She'd heard everything. The entire household probably knew Viktor's plans by now.
"Eat," Viktor commanded, and Elena disappeared with a hurried curtsy.
I looked at the tray and felt my throat close entirely.
Star-shaped pancakes. Cut into perfect five-pointed stars just like Ivan used to make, down to the slight char on the edges where he'd get distracted talking to me. Strawberries, too.
How had Elena known?
"I have a meeting this afternoon," Viktor announced, not taking in the food. He stood with the fluid grace of a man who'd accomplished his morning's torture quota. "The Besharovs have requested mediation regarding the investigation. Something about new evidence." He shrugged, unconcerned. "It will take several hours, I imagine. All that posturing and negotiating over foregone conclusions."
He moved toward the door, then paused for his closing performance.
"By the way, I thought you should know—Ivan hasn't called once. Not one attempt to contact you, visit, or even inquire about your wellbeing through official channels." He let that sink in, watching my face. "Five days, and nothing. Your husband has already moved on, Anya. You were always just the treaty to him—a business arrangement to secure peace. Now that the treaty failed?" He shrugged again, elegant and dismissive. "You're worthless to him. Just like you've always been worthless to everyone except me."
The door closed with electronic finality—locks engaging, the camera continuing its steady surveillance. I stared at the star pancakes cooling on their plate, syrup pooling like blood around their edges.
Five days. Ivan hadn't tried to reach me at all.
Maybe Viktor was right. Maybe I'd imagined the love in Ivan's eyes, mistaken possession for affection, confused protection with genuine care. The marriage had been arranged for business. Why would he risk everything to retrieve damaged goods?
I curled back into the hollow of my childhood bed, thumb finding its way to my mouth despite the camera watching. Let it record. Let Viktor document my dissolution. What did it matter anymore?
Ivan wasn't coming. No one was coming. I'd tasted three weeks of freedom, of love, of being allowed to be broken and healing and whole all at once. Now I was back where I started, only worse—because now I knew what I was missing. Now I knew what safety felt like, what being cherished meant, what it was to be someone's "little one" instead of someone's asset.
The star pancakes grew cold on their plate. I couldn't eat them. Couldn't swallow past the grief lodged in my throat like shrapnel.
Somewhere beyond these walls, Ivan was moving on with his life. Probably relieved to be free of the anxious, damaged girl who needed stuffed animals and regression and constant reassurance. The treaty had failed. The marriage would be annulled. I'd disappear into some Swiss facility where they'd medicate away every part of me that had learned to love him.
This was my future—this room, these walls, this camera documenting my unraveling until Viktor decided I was broken enough for institutionalization.
I pressed my face into the flat pillow that smelled like prison and tried not to remember purple walls and Marina's soft fur and Ivan's voice calling me kotyonok. Tried not to remember being safe.
