Page 8 of Cruel Russian Monster
“W-what are you doing here?” she asked shakily, stepping back.
“We have some unresolved business to discuss, don’t you think?” I asked, closing the distance.
She retreated further until her back hit the wall. I followed, standing mere inches from her. Her eyes were wide with fear.
As they should be, after everything she put me through.
“I don't understand. We don’t have unresolved issues,” her voice cracked. “Our relationship ended three years ago. I didn’t ghost you. I ended the relationship, and that’s that.”
My jaw ticked and my eyes narrowed.
“Then let’s discuss how you going MIA cost my family alliances, gained us enemies, and left our faction weaker.”
Just like that, her fear morphed into anger, like a switch had been flipped.
“I didn’t cause anything!” she snapped, her voice rising. “I was at the church on the day of the damn wedding! Lev was already married by then. So maybe you should stop blaming me and put the blame where it actually belongs.”
She continued, “Maybe if he hadn’t been so hasty, if he hadn’t betrayed Artyom by marrying someone else, the alliance would’ve held. And this rivalry didn’t have to explode the way it did.”
The fuck?
Her defiance hit harder than it should’ve. Not because she raised her voice, but because of the way she held her ground. Hereyes were locked on mine stubbornly, like she wasn’t afraid of who I was or what I could do.
She wasn’t always like this.
She used to be timid. Shy smiles and nervous laughter, always fearful of her brother, who would smack her and her siblings around.
Now I knew it had been Artyom all along. I hated that son of a bitch even more for putting his filthy hands on her.
But the woman standing in front of me wasn’t the girl I held in my arms. I had wanted nothing more than to hide her away from the cruel world around her in the six months we were together.
This woman broke rules, snuck into clinics, and put on disguises to storm the Bratva office of her enemies to build a relationship with her long-lost sister. She didn’t need a fucking shield anymore; she’d become her own.
And fuck me if the feelings that I had buried didn't try to surge to the surface like a fucking geyser under pressure.
She'd become everything I knew she would. Fierce. Confident. Unyielding.
And that glow up? It might just be the death of me.
But I couldn’t let her see how deeply she was affecting me.
I let out a dry, bitter laugh, the sound ricocheting off the walls like a warning shot.
“You’re right,” I said, voice flat and venom-laced. “It didn’t have to blow up the way it did.”
I stepped closer, our lips just a breath apart, and snarled. “But it did. Because you ran. You disappeared and left Levhanging days before an arranged marriage. You forced his hand. Forced him to go looking for you, but instead he found Katya.”
I clenched my jaw so tightly that it hurt.
“I’m glad he didn’t end up with a woman like you, unreliable and disloyal. You couldn’t even follow through on something that would’ve united two families and kept blood off the streets.”
Vera laughed dryly. “I wasn't the one who backed out of the annulment, was I? So again, place the blame where it's due.”
My eyes bored into hers as she looked at me, smirking.
Was she…mocking me? I'd do anything to wipe that look off her face.
“You were selfish then, and you’re selfish now. And you”—I took a breath, letting the words twist like a blade in her flesh—“you don’t deserve to be called a Bratva princess. They understand their duty to their factions, their role in this world. Your parents would turn in their graves if they saw the coward standing in front of me.”
