Page 106 of The Bratva Betrayal

Rian has called twice, which means Rian is more worried. He only calls when something has gotten past the point where a text would do.

I’ve sent them to voicemail and followed up with messages about being busy, promising to call soon. I don’t know what to tell them.

I don’t know what Artem has done or is doing or plans to do, and until I do, sending my brothers after Misha feels like lighting a match in a room I haven’t finished mapping.

So I’ve stayed quiet, shown up where I’m supposed to, stood on pedestals in dresses I hate, and waited.

“It’s beautiful.” Sophie’s voice carries the careful neutrality of a woman who has learned to read rooms.

“It’s fine.”

She unzips me because she already knows that I do not want to get married.

The second dress is a champagne color with a low back and a skirt that moves when I walk. I stand on the pedestal again, stare at my reflection, and think about the fact that I am shopping for a wedding dress to marry a man I’ve already told I don’t want to marry, for a wedding I don’t want to have, arranged by a father who has never asked what I want.

The champagne makes my complexion look sallow.

“Next,” I say without more explanation.

The third dress is the one that almost breaks me.

It’s simpler than the others, ivory again but a softer shade, draping off my shoulders with delicate lace that traces the neckline and sleeves.

It doesn’t try too hard, and I can imagine a different version of this day where it felt like a choice instead of a sentence.

I step up, and Sophie adjusts the train and steps back with quiet satisfaction.

“This is the one,” she says softly, and I can hear that she means it.

I look at my reflection. The dress would be perfect under different circumstances. When I look up, Artem is standing behind me in the mirror.

I didn’t hear the door with the tiny bell. I didn’t hear him cross the shop.

Black jeans, white tee, and no jacket. Nothing that should make a person’s breath catch, and yet my reflection tells on me before I can stop it.

His eyes move over the mirror slowly, from the lace at my shoulders down the line of the silhouette and back up again.

Then, his gaze moves over me in a way that makes my knees weak.

Sophie turns from the mirror and clocks him, her professional warmth kicking in. “Oh, hello. I don’t think we’ve met⁠—“

Artem gives her one long, flat look that communicates everything it needs to.

He wants her gone.

Sophie glances between us, nods, and reaches smoothly for her phone.

“I’ll just… step outside and make a quick call,” she says brightly, and she’s out the door.

The shop goes still as our eyes meet in the mirror.

“Take off the dress,” he orders out of the blue, and it’s low enough that it doesn’t carry past the two of us.

I’m surprised I can find my voice. “No one has told me the wedding is off,” I say to the mirror, because I can’t look at his actual face right now. “And there’s⁠—”

He crosses the shop floor and stops behind me on the pedestal.

I am acutely aware of how much of him there is and how the lace at my shoulders suddenly feels like it was put there specifically to be removed.