Page 95 of Forced Plus-Size Bride of the Bratva

He stops a few feet away, face pale, jaw tight, eyes locked on the man he buried ten years ago.

Ten years.

And Maxim’s alive.

“How?” Andrei asks, voice hoarse. Raw. The word catches in his throat like he hasn’t used it in years.

Maxim turns to face him.

There’s no smile. No warmth. Only the faintest flicker—an echo—of who he used to be.

I feel like I shouldn’t be here, like this is a moment I don’t deserve to witness.

He doesn’t answer at first, only holds his brother’s gaze.

Finally, he says, “The sea spit me back.”

It’s not an explanation. Not really, but it’s the only one he gives.

Andrei stands there, caught somewhere between disbelief and the kind of grief that comes too late to matter. His grip on the pistol tightens, but not in aggression—just as if he needs something solid to hold on to.

He nods once, and that’s it.

Beside them, I exhale for the first time in what feels like forever. My legs tremble, and my throat is raw from holding in the scream that nearly tore free when Matías raised his gun.

Maxim glances at me briefly. There’s no recognition in his eyes, but there’s understanding. He sees what I am—what I’ve become in this war—and gives me the smallest nod.

Respect.

Then he looks away, already turning toward the door.

Smoke coils in through a broken window. Rain drums softly on the crumbling roof. Outside, the world goes on.

Inside this room, something has shifted. Something old has cracked open. Something that died ten years ago just stood up and shot a man in the chest.

No one here will ever forget it.

Chapter Twenty-Six - Andrei

The air still reeks of smoke and blood.

The walls of the ruined room seem to breathe with it—each crack in the plaster exhaling soot, every shattered beam bearing silent witness to the violence just unleashed. The floor is slick in places, dark where it shouldn’t be. The bodies that lie cooling on the concrete aren’t moving. Won’t move again. And yet none of us are looking at them.

All eyes are on the living ghost standing across from me.

Maxim. My brother.

He stands calm, his weapon lowered now, but not out of reach. The fire that burned through him moments ago when he put a bullet through Matías is gone, banked. What remains is something quieter. Tired. Worn down by time, but resolute.

His voice cuts through the silence like a knife dragged slow across stone.

“I should be dead,” he says. “I was shot. I was thrown into the water.”

The room holds its breath.

Even Dima—who’s never rattled, who’s seen more than most men should—goes completely still beside me. Alina’s eyes are wide, her mouth slightly open, chest rising and falling in shallow, stunned breaths.

I say nothing.

---