Page 24 of Bought & Bred By the Bratva

I lean in to the silence like a blade being drawn.

“You’ll watch her walk down that aisle. You’ll watch her baby brother in a tux. You’ll watch your daughter become untouchable. Loved. Worshipped. Protected.”

I let that land.

“You’ll come,” I finish, voice like steel, “and you’ll sit and watch. See what your children’s life looks like now.”

Click.

I toss the phone on the table.

And walk upstairs to kiss my girl like I didn’t just make her parents beg to breathe in her presence.

Chapter 15

SIERRA

“I look like a frosted cupcake,” I mutter, squinting at myself in the floor-length mirror.

“You look like a virgin sacrifice,” Tisha says from her perch on the chaise lounge. “And I mean that in the highest compliment.”

“It’s a little much, right?”

“You’re marrying a Bratva king, babe. There’s no such thing as too much.”

She’s right.

The dress is… everything. Fitted through the waist with soft silk that hugs every curve, a subtle slit up one thigh, delicate beading over the chest, and a sheer veil that trails behind me like a bridal fever dream.

It’s feminine. Regal.

And suddenly very real.

I’m getting married.

To Aleksander Maksimov.

The man who bought me. Broke me. Claimed me.

And built a world around me just to keep me safe inside it.

I reach for the dressing robe when I hear it.

The door opens.

Footsteps—heavy, slow, deliberate.

Tisha yelps, scrambling to stand. “Oh. Uh. Mr. Maksimov. Sir. This is… technically the no-peek zone—”

Then I see him.

Aleksander.

Standing there in a black coat, hands in his pockets, and eyes locked on me.

And he’s not breathing.

—-

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