Page 83 of Forced Virgin Bride of the Bratva
Not a single light left on, no murmurs from the staff, no scent of her drifting through the halls like it used to after a shower or sleep. The warmth has bled out of the walls. It’s still beautiful, still opulent, but it’s hollow now—expensive bones without flesh.
I shrug off my coat and hand it to the silent housekeeper by the door. She nods once, eyes dropping quickly like the atmosphere in the room tells her enough. I don’t speak to anyone else. There’s nothing I want to hear.
I walk the length of the main hall, past the paintings she used to glance at but never comment on. Past the corner she once sat in reading, legs curled beneath her, mouth curved in concentration. Past the stairs where she once paused before saying good night, her voice unsure, her eyes even more so.
She’s in everything. Her absence screams from every corner.
I pour a drink in the study, though I don’t want it. I sit in the chair she touched. I stare at the desk she once used to rest her elbows on while pretending to be bored. I grip the glass until my knuckles ache, but I don’t lift it to my lips.
Instead, I sit there, letting the silence mock me.
This isn’t about the betrayal. Not entirely. I could deal with that. Hell, I expected it eventually. Everyone I’ve ever trusted has tried to kill me or sell me out. Loyalty isn’t real—it’s currency. Yet, with her, I thought… I don’t even know whatI thought. That she was too young to be that cruel? That she wanted something more than power?
That she wanted me?
Still, none of that explains why it feels like something’s been ripped out of my chest and left to rot on the floor.
I sleep like a corpse. Dreamless. Cold.
The next morning, I wake to the faintest slant of sunlight creeping through the curtains. My room smells stale, untouched. The bed feels larger than it should. I dress in silence, buttoning my cuffs like I’ve done a thousand times, but slower now. Less certain.
Then I see it. A flicker of movement near the doorway—too light to be a shadow, too quick to be a servant.
I freeze. A woman’s silhouette, disappearing around the corner of the hall.
My breath stalls in my throat. It’s not possible.
I move fast, out of the bedroom and down the corridor. I round the corner—
Nothing, empty air. A trick of the light, maybe. Or the fucking guilt crawling inside my brain like rot.
I curse under my breath and turn back… and she’s there. Standing right behind me.
Kiera.
Hair tangled, face pale, mouth set in a line I’ve seen before—when she’s already decided what she’s going to do and nothing I say will matter.
For a second, I can’t speak. My eyes rake over her: low heels on her feet, no visible weapons, loose clothes wrinkled like she threw them on fast. She looks exhausted. She looks like hell.
She looks perfect.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I ask, low and sharp, but it’s not anger that chokes me. It’s disbelief.
She doesn’t answer immediately. She just meets my gaze, steady and unflinching.
No apology. No fear. Her shoulders square like she expects me to hit her or pull a gun or shout, but she’s daring me to do it. Daring me to react.
She came back. Back into the house she fled. Back to the man she betrayed, and she looks like she means every second of it.
“I thought I was hallucinating,” I mutter, almost to myself. “Thought maybe I’d finally lost it.”
“You might have,” she replies, her voice rough with exhaustion but still threaded with that same fire. “Or maybe you never had it to begin with.”
My eyes narrow. “This isn’t a game, Kiera.”
“No,” she says. “It never was.”
The air tightens between us. Her presence is a fuse, and I’m already burning. There’s blood between us now, betrayal thick in the air. She stabbed me, ran from me, plotted against me. Yet here she is, standing in slippers like she’s come home from the store.
