Page 48 of Married to My Sis’s Bratva Fiancé

Kiryan didn't push her away.

My world went silent, like someone had hit a mute button. I knew what came next. I couldn't watch it.

I stumbled away, running.

When I got back to the ballroom, the band played on. Guests still laughed and talked with drinks in their hands, like the storm that could ruin me hadn't just torn through the building.

My fist was clenched so tight it hurt. I was scared I'd collapse at any second.

"Keep squeezing like that, and you won't be able to hold a paintbrush tomorrow." Yegor sat beside me and slid a glass of water in front of me. "That bastard still isn't back?"

"Kiryan just needs time to clear the past with her." I needed that to be true. I needed it like oxygen.

Yegor's jaw flexed like he swallowed something sharper.

"Maybe. But whatever he has to handle, he shouldn't leave you standing here alone, playing hostess, pretending nothing happened." He exhaled. "If you want to leave early, I can take you back. Nobody gets the right to blame you."

"Thanks, but I can't go."

"I knew you'd say that." His gaze held on my face a moment, his voice dropping. "Then don't carry it alone."

I started to answer—then a shadow fell across us.

Kiryan came back by himself. Isabella wasn't at his side. The selfish part of me felt relieved anyway. At least he'd returned to me.

His eyes went to the water in front of me, then to Yegor.

"Yegor."

"Happy birthday." Yegor looked up. "Your wife was sitting here alone. I was talking with her."

"Thanks for looking after my wife." Kiryan's hand settled on my waist.

Those words hit my already-frozen chest and somehow sparked a pathetic little thread of hope anyway.

Yegor's mouth curved with a faint, cutting edge. "Sure. But when you walked out earlier, you looked like you forgot you had a wife."

"I had something to handle."

"Then handle it fast. Elena shouldn't have to clean up your past." Yegor nodded to me and walked away.

Kiryan watched him go, then silently shrugged off his jacket and draped it over my shoulders. The familiar cedar scent wrapped around me, giving me a thin scrap of safety.

"Where is Isabella?" I asked anyway. I couldn't stop myself.

"I had her leave the party. She came back too suddenly."

I understood why Kiryan wavered. Isabella had been his chosen fiancée. He'd searched for her for so long. She came back out of nowhere, crying, saying she still loved him—anyone would need time to figure out what the hell was going on.

But he might never want to believe Isabella had staged all of it.

After the party ended, Kiryan didn't plan on coming back with me.

"I'm going to find Isabella and talk," he said.

I wanted to be selfish just once. I wanted to tell him not to go. To ask him who he actually loved—me or Isabella.

But I stayed where I was, and I watched him leave again.