Page 51 of Innocent Plus-Size Bride of the Bratva
“I need to see him,” I reply, my voice as calm as I can make it.
He regards me for a long, silent moment. “You’re late. Years late.”
“I know.” The words taste like ash. “Where is he?”
He gestures me down the hall, past locked rooms and shuttered windows. “He was never meant to die. Your father’s men, they saw his words as the spark that would burn us all. They locked him away so no war would start. We kept it quiet. You buried it deeper.”
He says it without judgment, only a kind of tired resignation.
I stop outside a plain door, steel reinforced, unremarkable except for the heaviness of its lock. The old man knocks once. The door swings open.
Elijah Rivers stands inside, alive. A little older than his file photo. Thinner. Eyes sharper. He looks at me with a mix of suspicion and defiance. No surprise, given all he’s endured. I study him for a long moment. I can see the resemblance: the line of his jaw, the set of his shoulders, a stubbornness I’ve known too well in his sister.
“So you’re the infamous Sharov,” he says at last, voice hard but not cowed. “You finally come to finish what your father started?”
I don’t respond to his bait. I hate journalists—especially those who think they can dig up the Bratva’s secrets and walk away unscathed.
This isn’t about the Bratva, not anymore. This is about Talia. I remember the way she looked at me the night before: hurt, angry, still burning with the need for answers.
“I came because your sister deserves the truth,” I say. “So do you.”
He crosses his arms, sizing me up. “Truth? Or your version of it?”
I shrug. “You were never my enemy, Rivers, but you were a threat. Not to me. To all of this.” I gesture vaguely at the walls, the woods, the world of codes and loyalty that built my life.
His eyes narrow. “So you hid me away. Let her think I was dead.”
“It was never meant to be personal,” I say. It sounds weak, even to my own ears. “It was meant to keep the peace. Your writing—what you uncovered—could have started a war. I buried it to stop bloodshed.”
He looks away for a moment, jaw working, then back at me. “She suffered because of you.”
“She suffered because of all of us,” I answer, and that is the closest to an apology I can give.
He glances at the guard standing just outside the door, then back to me. “Are you going to take me back to the city? To her?”
“That’s her choice now,” I reply. “She deserves to know you’re alive. She deserves to make her own decisions.” I look at him hard, letting him see the warning there. “Know this, Rivers. If you put her in danger again—if you use her for another story, another crusade—I will not be as patient.”
He almost smiles. “You care for her.”
I don’t answer. There is no point.
We stand in silence for a moment, the old man watching us both. The world outside this room is changing. Old rules dying, new dangers rising. The past is heavy, but I know now there is no outrunning it. Only the choice of what to do next.
“Tell her I’m alive,” Elijah says quietly, finally. “Tell her I never gave up on her. Not once.”
I nod, something tight twisting in my chest. “I’ll bring you home myself, but she decides what comes next.”
For the first time, Elijah looks at me without suspicion. Only exhaustion, and a hope he’s trying hard not to show.
I turn to the old man, giving him a nod of respect. He’s done what was asked, kept the silence that held this world together. “Thank you,” I say. I don’t know if I mean it, but it feels necessary.
Outside, the wind stirs the pines. The world feels different now. Lighter, and yet more dangerous than ever.
I drive back through the forest, thinking of Talia—of everything I have to tell her, everything I must now let go. My loyalty to my father’s legacy, to the peace I tried to protect, feels cold and distant. The only thing that matters now is her. And the choice I must give her, whatever the cost.
It’s past midnight when I return to the house. I park in silence, kill the headlights, and let the car cool in the hush before the storm that I know is waiting for me inside.
The compound is quieter than usual—too many guards stationed outside, too few inside.
