Page 2 of Bratva Bride
“I’ll tell you what happened. Our friends and family—unarmed, dressed for celebration—were cut down before they could even stand. The woman who raised me bled out on my lawn, and nobody here lifted a finger to help her. My husband’s closest friend died protecting us while all we could do was run. You all talk about loyalty, about honor, about the code. Where were you when the shooting started? Hiding? Or waiting to see who would crawl out alive, so you could choose sides?”
The discomfort in the room is suddenly thick enough to choke on. Some shift in their seats, others look away, and one or two men—men I thought might have hearts left—have the decency to look ashamed.
I keep going, because if I stop now, I will never forgive myself.
“Don’t lecture me about tradition or respect. I’ve lost enough. I’m not here for your approval or your permission. I’m here to make sure no one ever forgets what was done to us, or who let it happen.”
The old man says nothing. No one else dares to speak.
For a long moment, all I can hear is the ticking of the chandelier, the distant clatter of glasses as someone’s hand shakes, and themeasured sound of my own breath, reminding me that I am still here, and so is Konstantin.
And for the first time, the balance in the room shifts. They can’t look away. They can’t pretend.
They can only listen.
The silence doesn’t last. It never does in rooms like this—someone always feels the need to claw back control, to poke at the wound until it bleeds. From my left, a heavyset man with expensive cuff links and restless eyes clears his throat, forcing confidence into his words.
“What about Alexei?” he asks, making sure everyone can hear. “He hasn’t been seen since that night. For all we know, you buried him along with the rest. How can we trust anything you say, Konstantin? How can we trust you at all?”
His accusation floats above the table, sour and bold, stirring the embers of suspicion. I watch the heads turn, men waiting for the show, some hungry for blood, others desperate for reassurance. It’s not really a question—it’s a challenge, a line drawn in the dust.
Konstantin leans forward, elbows on the table. When he speaks, his words are quiet enough to force everyone to lean in, but they hit with the force of a threat that can’t be mistaken.
“You want to know where Alexei is?” he says, his voice flat, cold, the edge of violence clear in every syllable. “Get off your ass and go looking for him yourself. Unless you’d rather sit here and whine.”
He pauses, letting the silence sharpen around him, the insult deliberate. “Trust? You talk to me about trust when you’re theones who locked the doors that night. When you hid behind your guards and waited to see who’d crawl out from under the bodies. If you think I buried Alexei, you’re welcome to start digging. But if I’d wanted him dead, you’d have found a corpse with a bullet between the eyes and my name carved into his fucking skin.”
The room goes still, breath held, no one daring to break the tension. Even the men who hate him most look away. The challenger, for all his bravado, can’t hold Konstantin’s gaze.
I can feel the entire room recalibrating, no one quite willing to meet Konstantin’s eyes now that he’s made it clear how little patience he has left for their games. For a moment, the tension breaks on the surface—men shifting in their chairs, someone coughing into a napkin, another pouring himself vodka with hands that aren’t as steady as they pretend.
Even as the old patterns resume—talk of alliances, territories, debts still unpaid—I know the power has shifted, at least for now. It’s not just Konstantin’s words that hold them, it’s the simple, unyielding way he sits at the head of the table, refusing to bend to any of their whispered doubts. There’s a cold certainty to him that’s more dangerous than any weapon, a promise that he’s survived the fire and come out the other side with nothing left to lose.
As the discussion turns, as voices regain their practiced confidence and the vodka begins to flow again, I stand behind Konstantin, refusing to sit, refusing to disappear, my presence as much a statement as his.
He doesn’t look back, doesn’t break stride in his argument about business or vengeance or whatever comes next, but suddenly his hand reaches back, finds mine. His fingers close around mine in a grip that’s firm, possessive, and just a little too tight. Tothe men watching, it must look like an act of solidarity, the king and his queen, untouchable together. I see it reflected in the hungry eyes around the table—the image we give them, the story they need to believe. In this world, power is never singular, never solitary; you need someone who will stand at your back, someone who will not flinch.
But the truth, the one they can’t see, is that we’re crumbling. His touch is desperate, almost painful, like a man clinging to the edge of a cliff. For a week now, we’ve been living in a house haunted by absence—by Mila’s silence, by Nikolai’s empty bed, by the memory of blood we can’t wash away. We don’t sleep. We barely speak, except to argue or make plans or remind each other to keep breathing. Some nights, I hear him pacing the hallway until dawn, cane tapping out a quiet, frantic rhythm on the floorboards; other nights, it’s me who can’t close my eyes, replaying the sound of gunfire, of Mila’s screams, of doors that won’t open.
His hand squeezes mine, harder now, and I squeeze back, forcing myself to stay upright, to give them what they want—a united front, a reason to believe in something indestructible. The only thing holding us together is the fact that everything else has already fallen apart.
Konstantin’s grip on my hand tightens for a moment, then he lets go, knuckles white as he leans forward and fixes the table with a stare that could freeze blood.
“I lost my son,” he says, his voice stripped of all pretense, the pain barely contained. “I lost everything. I’m not going to sit here and give you explanations for rumors you create to entertain yourselves. If I had to kill any of you, I already would have. We wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
The words drop like iron weights, dragging the air down with them. There’s no threat, no bluster—just the simple, brutal truth that makes more than one man avert his gaze. Even Malenkov has the sense to shut up.
But then, halfway down the table, a man I’ve barely noticed until now leans back, all easy arrogance and slow amusement, like he’s been waiting for this moment. He’s older, well-dressed in a suit that fits better than most, silver hair combed back from a weathered face, eyes sharp but never still. There’s something about him that tugs at the edge of my memory, a familiarity I can’t place, but I file it away for later.
He raises his glass in a gesture that’s too casual to be real. “We didn’t mean to anger you, Konstantin. None of us did.” His smirk is almost friendly, but there’s a chill under it, something calculating. “It’s just—these are dangerous times. Men get nervous. Questions get asked.”
The others seem to relax a little, reassured by his calm, as if he’s smoothing over a mess only he can see. But I notice how he doesn’t quite meet my eyes, and how the corner of his mouth never really stops twitching, like he’s holding back a joke only he understands.
Konstantin doesn’t answer right away. He sits back, one hand on the table, the other falling to his cane, his expression unreadable. I watch the older man, trying to match his face to a name, to a rumor, to anything I might have missed in the chaos of the last week. He’s too confident for someone with no stake in the outcome, but he’s clever enough not to push further, at least not tonight.
For now, the moment passes. Someone refills a glass. Another man mutters about the price of loyalty, or the weather, or somedistant skirmish that has nothing to do with the hole at the center of our lives. The meeting grinds on, but I keep my eyes on the older man, just long enough for him to notice.
He smiles, polite as poison, then looks away. And I know, with a certainty that tightens my chest, that our problems are only just beginning.
