Page 82 of Forced Plus-Size Bride of the Bratva

Jackson glances at me from behind the wheel, his face lit briefly by the passing headlights of a lone truck headed the opposite direction. His smile is calm. Reassuring. Too easy.

“You’ll be there soon,” he says softly. “We’re almost there.”

I nod stiffly, but the relief I expect doesn’t come. Instead, a sharp, cold prickle runs up my spine.

Jackson’s voice stays low, almost coaxing, like he’s talking to a skittish animal. “He’s safe. Everything’s been arranged. No one can touch you now, Alina.” Another smile. Another easy, practiced line. “You’ll be free soon.”

I stare straight ahead, swallowing against the lump forming in my throat.

I want to believe him.

God, I need to believe him.

That there’s a way out of all this. That my father is waiting for me, arms open, ready to explain everything, ready to fix it all. That all I have to do is endure a little longer, stay quiet, and everything will make sense again.

Doubt still scratches at the back of my mind, relentless.

I shift slightly in my seat, feeling the tension in my muscles wound tight like a spring.

“How is he?” I ask, forcing casualness into my voice. “I didn’t even know he got free; Andrei didn’t tell me a damn thing. Has he… said anything about me?”

Jackson nods without hesitation, hands steady on the wheel.

“He’s been worried sick,” he says smoothly. “As soon as he found out where you were, he started making arrangements. You’ll be with him by morning. Everything’s already in place.”

I nod again, slower this time, feeling the words settle over me like heavy, ill-fitting armor.

Everything Jackson says sounds polished. Rehearsed. Like he’s practiced the story a hundred times in his head.

I press my hands harder into my lap, grounding myself with the sharp bite of my nails.

Outside, the road narrows even further.

The forest thickens on either side, looming close, crowding out the last slivers of the world behind us. Shadows reach long fingers across the pavement, swallowing the weak pools of the headlights.

The deeper we go, the less I can shake the feeling clawing up my spine.

The feeling that we’re not driving toward salvation at all.

The car rolls to a slow stop, tires crunching over gravel, and for a moment, neither of us moves.

I stare through the fogged windshield at the house in front of us, my heart hammering painfully against my ribs.

No lights glow in the windows. No warm welcome waits inside. The house squats low against the landscape, hunched and crooked like it’s been forgotten by the world. Weathered siding peels back in long strips. The porch lists to one side, boards warped and cracked. A broken fence runs halfheartedly around the yard, the gate hanging loose on a single rusted hinge.

Nothing about it says safe.

Every instinct inside me screams to stay in the car, to bolt, to run anywhere but toward that house.

Jackson is already getting out, casual as ever. He slams the door behind him and circles to my side without a word.

I force my body to move, fumbling with the latch, stepping out into the misty night air. The cold hits me like a slap, shocking my legs into motion even as dread sinks heavy into my gut.

Jackson doesn’t say anything. He just grabs my elbow, firm but not rough, guiding me up the cracked steps of the porch.

The boards groan under our weight, the sound far too loud in the suffocating silence.

Inside, the house is worse.

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