Page 45 of Forced By the Bratva

Her makeup was light and neutral, matching her skin tone. Her hair was styled into a neat bun, with strands framing her face.

She looked disconnected through most of the ceremony, standing where she was told to stand. Her eyes stayed distant, somewhere past my shoulder, the whole time, her expression unreadable.

I could almost hear her heart racing like a galloping horse as she struggled to stay composed. She might hate me for this, but it was the only way to keep the Bratva from demanding her head.

A handful of witnesses attended. Boris. Yuri. A few of the older captains who needed to see it happen with their own eyes before they’d accept it as fact.

Ivan sat near the back, legs crossed, watching the entire ceremony with the same flat calm he brought to everything. Grigori was present as well, seated beside his brother with something that resembled a smile.

Yevgeni and Markov were absent because they weren’t invited. To be fair, they wouldn’t have come even if they were. I didn’t need too much of a crowd. Just a few important witnesses.

Iris signed the documents mechanically, pen moving across paper without hesitation, without looking at what she was signing.

She wasn’t doing this because she wanted to. She was doing this because the alternative was worse.

I told myself the same thing: that the only reason this union was happening was to keep her safe. I told myself that it was strategic and necessary. A solution, nothing more.

However, deep down, I knew there was more to that. Perhaps she wasn’t entirely wrong when she accused me of marrying her only because I wanted to claim her as mine.

Even if there was another way to fix this that wouldn’t involve her being bound to me in holy matrimony, I wouldn’t take it. Not after I’d been inside her and tasted her juice.

Sure, she wasn’t the first woman I’d been intimate with, but something about the sex we had was different. I couldn’t explain what it was.

Since it happened, I hadn’t been the same. Whatever feeling I had for me before the sex tripled after it. I felt like something in me had been missing this whole time, and I found it in her.

I knew in my heart that she was the woman for me and I was the man for her. So, no, I never would’ve agreed to opt for another way to fix this if it existed.

I slid the ring onto her finger, and something possessive settled in place inside me. She didn’t pull back. She didn’t flinch. She just let it happen, her hand cold in mine despite the warmth of the room.

She met my gaze but didn’t speak, and in her eyes, I saw it—the painful realization that she was now forever bound to the man who had kidnapped her.

Iris Hart stopped existing by the end of the ceremony. Legally, officially, the name was gone, replaced by mine. Tarasov.

She was mine, and this wasn’t in the way I’d told myself before, in passing thoughts. No, she was actually mine. In real life. She was mine on paper, in blood, and in every way the family recognized.

Stage one, complete.

It was one thing to legally marry her and an entirely different thing altogether to make her enjoy the marriage. That was a bridge I’d have to cross at the right time. Not today.

We left together afterward, security vehicles trailing behind us the whole drive back to the estate.

Strapped in the back seat of the car, neither of us spoke. She sat at the other end, staring out the window, hinting that she didn’t want to even look at me. She crossed her arms, wrapped around herself despite the warmth in the car.

I expected anger. Honestly, I was prepared for it. Not prepared to argue with her, though. Just prepared to absorb whatever she was going to hurl at me.

However, she hadn’t said anything at all. Not a single word. And somehow, her silence was even worse.

I didn’t know what to do or say to start a conversation right now. Being the man I was, I’d always known the right things to say, when to say them, and how to say them.

All of a sudden, I seemed to have lost my mojo. Why did everything have to be so difficult with her?

A man who’d fought wars and sent hundreds of men to their graves couldn’t even start a simple conversation with his new bride. How disappointing.

Ask how she’s feeling. Start from there, I said to myself. Yet I couldn’t summon the courage.

I was still contemplating whether to speak or just keep my mouth shut when I heard her sobbing.

My head turned toward her, something strange rising in my chest.