Page 53 of Married to My Sis’s Bratva Fiancé

"Maybe he is busy," I said, brushing it off.

"So busy he ditched his wife all night the second Isabella came back?" Olga pulled out a chair and sat beside me. Her tone was not aimed at me, but her palm came down hard on the table. "Not coming home, fine. But he could have called. You are his wife."

"He probably has a reason."

Olga sighed, her eyes softening. She nudged a glass of milk toward me and patted my shoulder.

"Eat something first. Stop torturing yourself over that little bastard," she said. "When he gets back, you ask him straight. I am here. He doesn't get to wave it off with 'busy.'"

I picked up the toast. My fingers felt useless. My stomach was empty enough to ache, but the smell of food only turned it.

Then the phone on the table buzzed.

My heart slammed. Kiryan?

I snatched it up, hope rising in me—shameless, desperate. I thought, Finally. He was going to explain. Maybe it had all been some stupid accident. Maybe he hadn't forgotten what he had promised me—being an actual husband.

But the name on the screen was Isabella.

She had sent a photo.

I opened it.

Kiryan had lain on a bed, eyes closed, his shirt collar open, dark brown hair slightly mussed. Isabella had curled against his chest, her bare shoulder marked with red.

Morning light had spilled over them, making them look intimate—like they had never been apart.

Pain ripped through my chest so hard I almost dropped the phone.

Isabella hadn't typed a single word. Of course she hadn't. She didn't have to. Nobody could have misunderstood what that photo said.

Last night, Kiryan had said he would handle everything. I had been stupid enough to believe that once he cleaned up the past, he would come back to me. But she cried once, and he stayed. She reached out, and he forgot I was waiting.

"Elena?"

Olga's voice yanked me out of the picture. I killed the screen and flipped the phone face-down.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"That was my question." She watched me. "You look like a ghost. What happened?"

"Nothing." My throat caught. "The gallery messaged. There is a problem with a painting I sold."

The lie scraped its way out and left bitterness behind. I didn't want Olga seeing that photo. She would have exploded. She would have gone after Kiryan. She would have worried about what that meant for this marriage.

Olga stared at me for a few seconds, clearly not buying it. She had been in this house her whole life. She had taken care of Kiryan longer than I had even been alive. My lies didn't fool her. She glanced at my phone, suspicious, but she didn't push.

I breathed again.

Kiryan had told me from the start: it was an alliance. No love. Still tied together. I had been the one shoved into an empty spot after my sister left. I had accepted that.

Then he had given me a studio. He had praised my work. He had apologized for the misunderstanding. He had pulled me into the bedroom and said, Why was a wife running from her husband's bed?

Those things had made me believe he might actually be falling for me. Made me believe the feelings I had buried for years had finally been seen—not as Isabella's little sister, not as a stand-in to patch a broken engagement, but as Elena.

I had even thought, Give him time. He would love me the way I loved him.

I had been a fucking idiot. Everything he did had been second-best. And I had been like a kid who had never gotten candy—one taste of sweet, and I had called it love.