Page 29 of Forced Plus-Size Bride of the Bratva

Something in her expression roots me to the floor, keeps my hands at my sides, keeps my attention locked on the tremble in her jaw, the way her spine stays straight despite how desperately her body wants to curl away from me.

She hasn’t eaten. Not even looked at the tray. She doesn’t trust it.

Her eyes are locked on mine now, and there’s an anger burning in her gaze that makes me shiver.

“What are you going to do with me?”

The words are barely a whisper. Thin and brittle, like she’s afraid of the answer. She asks anyway. Brave little thing.

I don’t answer immediately. I study her instead—closely, deliberately—watching the way her fingers tighten in the blanket, how her chest lifts slightly with each shallow breath, how the muscle in her throat works as she swallows the rising panic she can’t quite hide. She’s bracing for pain. For chains. For something violent.

That’s what makes the truth so satisfying.

I move closer, letting the weight of my silence press against her like a storm on the horizon. I want her to feel it before I speak. To feel the pause stretching too long, to feel her pulse spike, her mind race through all the worst possibilities. Pain. Violation. Death. These are the truths women like her have been taught to expect from men like me.

She doesn’t expect what I say next. “You will be my bride.”

She goes utterly still. No breath. No blink. As if the words themselves struck her like a slap.

I wait.

Her lips part slowly, her body visibly caught between disbelief and horror. There’s no scream, no rejection—just a stunned silence, thick as blood, stretching between us like a blade.

Her breath catches. Then comes in a slow, uneven draw. Her hands drop from the blanket like she’s forgotten how to hold on to anything at all.

I could laugh.

She wasn’t expecting that. Good. She was ready for cruelty. For captivity. For punishment. But this? Not so much.

She doesn’t understand it yet. What it means. What I mean.

“Is this some kind of joke?” she says eventually, voice hoarse. “You kidnap me, terrorize me, and now you want to—marry me?”

“Want is the wrong word,” I say, calm as ever. “This isn’t about want. It’s about what must be done.”

“Why?” she demands, louder now. The fear is still there, but it’s laced with something else—anger, maybe. That stubborn, proud streak that keeps her fire burning even as everything she knows crumbles around her. “Why would you do that? Why would you want me as your—” She practically chokes on the word. “—bride?”

I move slowly, deliberately. My hand finds the back of the chair again. I grip it lightly, leaning forward just enough that my presence crowds her, my shadow draping across her like a second skin.

“It’s what your father would never allow. What he cannot stop now. It’s the one thing he never gave you—freedom wrapped in a collar. My collar.”

Her face twists. “You think this is freedom?”

“No,” I say. “I think it’s what you need to see him for what he really is.”

She’s shaking her head before I finish, breath quickening, panic bleeding back in. “This is insane. You can’t—you can’t just force someone—”

“Can’t I?” My voice is quiet, but sharp. “You’re already here. Wearing my clothes. Sleeping under my roof. Every moveyou make, every breath you take, is under my rule. Why not seal it with vows?”

Her silence is telling. She knows I’m right.

This is already a prison; all I’m doing is giving it a name.

“I won’t do it,” she says, but even that sounds weaker now. Not because she’s giving in. Not yet. Some part of her knows there’s no door left to slam, no lock she can break, no guard she can outrun. Her father sold her off with his sins, and I collected the debt.

“You don’t have a choice,” I murmur.

Her eyes flash. “I always have a choice.”

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