Page 10 of BRATVA'S Poisoner Bride
She should watch.
Because I’m not done with her. Not even close.
And the next time she opens that door, she won’t be able to hide behind obedience or duty or the quiet little lies she tells herself to survive.
The truth is already between us. It started at the coffin. It deepened in the doorway. And now it’s pulling us both toward something inevitable.
Something that feels like fate tightening its grip.
Elizabeth
The house changes after he leaves.
It shouldn’t. Doors remain where they always have, windows still face the same overgrown gardens, the air still smells faintly of old wood and lemon from the cake cooling on the counter. But something in the atmosphere shifts, like the walls have leaned in closer to listen.
My father didn’t say where he was going. He didn’t say goodbye. Just grabbed his coat when the phone call came and muttered something about business in the city, voice slurred with exhaustion or dread, I couldn’t tell which. Maybe it was both.
Diomid will be next in line in the Agapov family. Does that make him my father’s boss now? None of it makes any sense to me. Before Piotr killed my mother, he and my father were partners. Only afterwards…something shifted in a way that benefitted Piotr and made my dad smaller, somehow.
Now the silence settles again. Heavy. Expectant.
I move through the hallway on silent feet, drawn to the only place that has ever offered me any comfort. My bedroom. My sanctuary.
The curtains sway in the draft from the cracked window, the fabric brushing over my arm like a warning. The suitcase tucked beneath my bed catches my eye. The same one I packedand unpacked after Piotr put that ring on my finger. Clothes folded tight. Money scraped together from years of gifts and careful saving. One photograph of my mother, edges worn from handling.
I crouch and pull the suitcase out. The wheels catch on the rug, jerky and resistant, as if the house itself is protesting. I rest my hand on the zipper, breath held so tightly in my chest it aches.
I could leave. Tonight. Disappear before my father or Diomid return. The world is wide. There are cities where women go to become nameless, where nobody cares who you once belonged to or who you plan to become.
But I don’t move.
Because I know exactly what happens to girls who run from the Bratva.
I stand slowly, the suitcase in my hands. My heart thuds once, hard enough to echo in my ribs.
I survived Piotr. I killed Piotr.
I will not spend the rest of my life running from the next man who thinks he owns my fate. My hand falls away. The suitcase thuds softly as I shove it back under the bed. Cowardice might have saved me before. But I’m not that scared child anymore. I’ll face anything that comes my way.
I cross to the mirror. My reflection looks unfamiliar in this light. My cheeks are flushed from the kitchen heat, my hair tumbles loose around my shoulders, apron strings twisted tight around my waist like restraints. There’s flour brushed across my jawline, a pale mark like war paint.
I swipe it away.
Maybe it’s adrenaline. Or maybe it’s the memory of what I felt when I opened the door and saw him standing there. That split-second instinct to draw closer when I should have slammed thedoor in his face. The way my stomach tightened in something too much like anticipation.
Attraction, I tell myself firmly, is just electricity. A body responding to novelty. I’ve never had a man look at me like that, not even Piotr. He looked at me like property. Diomid looks like he knows exactly how dangerous I am… and likes it.
Heat flushes low in my belly, and I curse myself for it. It’s just biology. Hormones. A stray match struck in a dark room. It means nothing.
Except it didn’t feel like nothing.
I reach for the hairbrush on my dresser, brushing through my dark waves, smoothing the tension out by force. The repetitive motion steadies me, threads the frayed edges of my thoughts back into something resembling clarity.
He suspects you, my mind whispers.He’s here because you killed his uncle.
Yes. Exactly. And that should be the only truth that matters.
I lean closer to the mirror, studying the shadows beneath my eyes, the faint line at the corner of my mouth. The face of a girl who has already done the unthinkable. Who would do it again if cornered. The woman my grandmother raised.
