Page 103 of The Bratva Enforcer and His Virgin Bride

“I’m not sitting,” I say, my voice trembling slightly before I force it to steady. I look him dead in the eye, the heartbreak inside me sharpening into steel. “Lukyan, please start talking.”

Chapter 18 – Lukyan

“I’m not sitting. Lukyan, please start talking.”

The silence stretching between us is absolute, heavy with the weight of the ruin I’ve created. Looking at Sofia—seeing the raw, bleeding heartbreak in her eyes slowly hardening into a cold, impenetrable wall—I understand completely that there is no way out of this.

There’s no clever deflection I can use, no tactical lie that will save me, and no way to delay the inevitable. We’ve reached the exact point of no return. Withholding the truth from her right now will only deepen the damage, severing ties I’m suddenly terrified of losing.

I take a deep, grounding breath and look at her. I don’t move closer, respecting the invisible boundary she’s drawn between us.

Then, I tell her everything.

“Your father, Andrei Morozov, wasn’t just a scholar who got caught up in something dark,” I begin, my voice flat, stripping away any room for misinterpretation. “He was the architect of a highly sophisticated, multi-billion-dollar financial network. When he was killed, a vast empire of our accounts was left completely frozen. Nobody could touch them. Nobody even knew where to look. We’re talking billions of dollars left in a void somewhere.”

Sofia doesn’t flinch, but her fingers grip the fabric of her skirt tightly.

“I spent years hunting for the access protocols,” I continue, presenting the facts with the same brutal, analytical clarity I apply to every operations report on my desk, even though all I want is to cross the room and hold her. But she’s looking at me like she’s never seen me before.

“We only knew him as Creed, and nothing about his name or his family. I swear. And then I got approached by Karl Jonathan. He wanted me to marry you before he gave me any information on this code, and I was desperate, so I agreed.”

“Wow.” She laughs breathlessly, slowly shaking her head.

I feel my heart crack, but I keep going, eager to get it all out so there are no more secrets. “After the marriage, Karl disappeared. I’ve been looking for him to uphold his own end of the deal.”

“How’s Karl related to this? I don’t know who that man is,” Sofia said. “Does he know my father?”

“I don’t know,” I sigh. “He disappeared. But I know he knows something, and that’s why he put you in my path.”

“So how did you figure out my relationship to my father? How did you know the man you’re looking for is Andrei?”

“Sofia…”

“Tell me!”

I run a hand through my hair. “The other day, when I saw the patterns in which you arranged your books, I just kind of figured it out. I made Ben do extensive research on you just to be sure. The results came in, and I found out your father was Creed. Andrei had left the encryption master key in your possession, woven into something you wouldn’t think twice about handling.”

The words cut through the room like a blade, but I don’t stop. I don’t attempt to soften the reality. I don’t try to shift the blame to Creed, or to the syndicate, or to the brutal world I was born into. I lay my sins bare at her feet.

“Everything you heard through that door is true,” I say, meeting her gaze head-on, forcing myself to endure the agony of watching her face pale. “I didn’t marry you to keep you safe. At least, not initially. I married you because I wanted more information. But that’s no longer the case, Sofia. I—”

Sofia holds up a hand to shut me up. The gesture is small, but it carries enough weight to slice right through my words.

“When did you find out exactly?” she asks, her voice dangerously quiet.

“Sofia, we don’t have to do this right now,” I try to say, reaching toward her, desperately trying to de-escalate the fire consuming the room.

She shakes her head to stop me again, her expression hardening into something entirely unyielding. “Tell me, Lukyan. When did you find out exactly that I was Creed’s daughter? Was it before the magical date you organized? I bet it was.”

The air leaves my lungs. I look at her, wishing more than anything I could lie, wishing I could rewrite the past. But there is no hiding anymore. I hang my head, the weight of my own deception crushing down on my neck.

“Yes,” I say quietly.

Sofia lets out a sharp laugh, but it’s completely hollow, dripping with a pure, agonizing bitterness that cuts me to the quick.

“No wonder,” she says, her voice trembling as the tears she’s fighting finally begin to glaze over her eyes. “I knew that date was too good to be true. You just wanted to soften me up so you could prepare me to give you everything I know. And the sex afterward… that was just a bonus for you, wasn’t it?”

The words go straight to my heart and completely shatter it.