Page 50 of The Cold Bratva King and His Forced Curvy Bride

He lifts the glass to his lips, takes a slow sip. Vodka, probably.

I don’t leave. I should, but my feet are concrete. Instead I walk to the railing, stopping a few feet away. The drop is dizzying. Five floors of concrete and air.

“Couldn’t sleep?” he asks.

“Too many thoughts.”

“They tend to multiply at night.”

Silence stretches between us. It’s not the heavy, suffocating silence of earlier. It’s… quieter. The kind of silence that exists when two people run out of things to say but don’t want to leave.

I watch the red taillights of a taxi snaking through the streets below.

“Did he suffer?” The question hangs in the freezing air before I even realize I’ve voiced it.

Nikita goes still. The movement of the glass stops midair.

“Ayaan,” I clarify, though I know I don’t have to. “When you… transferred him. Was he scared?”

He turns slowly. The wind whips a lock of hair across his forehead, but he doesn’t brush it away.

“He was a soldier,” Nikita says. “Soldiers know the risks.”

“He wasn’t a soldier. He was a kid who needed money.”

“There is no difference in my world.”

The dismissal stings, but it lacks the bite from earlier. It sounds… tired.

“I remember the day he left,” I say, keeping my eyes on the traffic. I don’t want to look at him. If I look at him, I might see the monster again. Or worse, I might see the man who held me while I cried last night. “He bought me ice cream. Vanilla twist. He made this joke about how he was going to come back rich and buy us a house with a pool.”

I swallow hard. My throat feels tight.

“Did he…” I have to force the words out. “Did he ask about me, at the end?”

Nikita shifts his weight. The leather of his jacket creaks softly. “He talked about you constantly,” he says. “It was annoying.”

I huff out a breath that’s almost a laugh. “He was annoying.”

“He was obsessed with keeping you safe.” He pauses, staring out at the skyline. “It was his greatest strength, and his greatest weakness.”

“He sold himself for me.”

“He made a transaction. A bad one.”

I finally turn to look at him. The wind is whipping my hair into my face, but I don’t care.

“Is that how you see it, just numbers on a page?”

“I see it clearly,” he says, meeting my gaze. His eyes are dark, reflecting the city lights. “You see it through a lens of grief. You want him to be a martyr. A hero. I’m telling you, he was just a man who made a mistake and paid for it.”

“And you?” I challenge, stepping closer. “What are you?”

“The man who collected the debt.”

The admission lands between us, but it doesn’t scare me away. It should. This is the man who signed the order. The man who sent my brother into the void.

Yet, here I stand. Shivering in my pajamas, searching for comfort in the presence of my brother’s jailer.