Bred By the BRATVA Ghost

Iris

The man has a weak chin.

I tilt my phone another fifteen degrees, as if changing the angle will somehow improve the situation.

It doesn't. He's still standing on a dock somewhere, holding a fish he did or didn't catch, grinning like he's just conquered the Atlantic.

His name is Brad. His bio says he's "fluent in sarcasm.

" His chin is retreating toward his neck like it owes money. "Nope."

Grace glances up from the cutting board where she's slicing strawberries for Mila. "Another one?"

"Brad. Thirty-two. Sales executive. Enjoys hiking, craft beer, and lying about catching fish." I swipe left with the conviction of a woman performing a public service.

Katya leans against the counter, holding baby Nikolai in her arms. He's milk drunk and asleep and so utterly gorgeous I could snatch him up and eat him.

"The last three were also nopes," she says, while yawning. She was like this with Sasha too, in the early days. Present, but exhausted. Her and Killian taking it in shifts to deal with baby related stuff, only now they have two and it’s become a juggling act of epic proportions.

"That’s because the last three were also terrible.

" I shift on the sofa, hooking one knee over the back so I'm fully upside down now, my hair pooling on the floor beneath me.

Blood rushes to my head. Everything looks better upside down.

"One of them had a photo with a sedated tiger. A sedated tiger, Katya. That man looked into the soulless eyes of a drugged apex predator and thought, yes, this is the image that will make women want me." I’d shudder if my body weren’t confused about gravity right now.

Tanya laughs from the table where she's sorting through fabric swatches. At seven months pregnant with her first, I feel like they’ve left the nursery decisions to quite late in the game. "What about the one with the guitar?"

"Shirtless. Shirtless with an acoustic guitar.

In his bathroom mirror. With visible toothpaste smeared on the counter.

" I grimace at the thought of whatever poor woman who ends up with him essentially having just one more person to clean up after.

"I deserve better than a man who doesn’t clean up after himself and thinks he is a god because he knows how to play the guitar... "

"You deserve better than all of them," Nadia says quietly from the window seat opposite me. Her two-year-old daughter, Eva, is sprawled over her chest napping with fists full of Nadia’s hair clutched in each hand.

Something warm and complicated moves through my chest. I ignore it the way I always do and swipe to the next profile. "This one's name is Chad. Chad. His parents looked at a newborn baby and said, you know what this child needs? The name of every man who's ever been kicked out of a bar."

The kitchen fills with laughter.

“I don’t know,” Grace says. “I mean, Chad sounds good on Chad Michael Murray.” She swoons a little and flutters her hand near her face, causing Mila to bang her chubby hands on her high chair.

“Don’t let Liam hear you say that,” Tanya points out, lifting another swatch of pale gingham to the light as Katya tells her she’d be better off doing that in the actual nursery because the light would be different.

The Orlov kitchen is never empty. It's the center of everything. On any given afternoon you'll find at least three of us here. Today it's Grace, Katya, Tanya, Nadia and me, three of the kids, and the smell of Ma's bread still lingering from this morning.

Ma's in town picking up something for dinner that apparently cannot be trusted to anyone else. The lamb, probably. She has a relationship with her butcher that I'm fairly certain qualifies as an emotional affair.

Liam drifts through at some point, pausing to drop a kiss on Grace's temple without breaking his phone conversation.

He's talking about shipments. He's always talking about shipments.

Grace watches him leave with that expression she gets sometimes, the one that's equal parts adoration and mild concern, and then she goes back to the strawberries which are now a pink, pulpy mess in Mila’s chubby hands.

“How’s Lorcan finding Pre-K?” I ask as Grace wipes the strawberry gunk from Mila’s hands with an expression that can only be described as cartoonish.

“He screamed at first,” Grace says. “But settled as soon as he saw the ride-on-tractor in the sand pit.”

Killian appears, grunts a greeting at the room, steals a piece of bread from the table, and drops a kiss on Katya’s head as she lifts Nikolai to her breast for another feed.

“Have you eaten?” he asks her, like she ever stopped eating since she fell pregnant to begin with. Having babies is hungry work, according to Katya, at least.

“Yes,” she says, ensuring Nikolai is latched properly before raising her eyes to Killian’s. The smile that breaks out on her face is one of contentment and pure, exhausted, happiness.

“Sasha?” she asks.

“Down for his nap. It only took four full read-throughs of Jumping Beans Save the Day.” Killian makes a mocking kill-me-now gesture with his fingers, and Katya laughs.

“Any news on Anya?” Nadia asks and I lift myself up to look over at Killian properly. It’s the question on all of our minds. Anya is currently in hospital having her second baby… and even though we’ve been through this several times now, it never gets easier.

“Not yet. Connor said the contractions are getting closer and Anya is doing great, but no signs of baby, yet.”

I flop back down on the sofa. This is my life. This warm, loud, chaotic, beautiful life. I love it. I do.

I swipe left on a man named Derek who describes himself as "a simple guy who loves to laugh." As opposed to, presumably, a complex guy who hates laughing.

The thing is, I'm happy. I am genuinely, completely, ridiculously happy for every single person in this kitchen. I was there when Liam brought Grace home after the masquerade ball. I watched Killian burn down half his carefully constructed walls for Katya. I held Nadia’s hand after she had been kidnapped and helped clean up her cuts and bruises, because that’s what family does. Family is there for one another.

I'll always be there.

That's the thing about being the sister, the youngest, the only girl in a family of five older brothers.

You learn early how to read the room. How to hand someone the exact right thing at the exact right moment without being asked.

How to fill a silence before it becomes uncomfortable, how to turn grief into laughter, how to make a stranger feel like family in under sixty seconds.

I'm good at it. I'm the best at it. And I love it. I love every minute of it.

Except for the minutes where I'm sprawled on the sofa scrolling through an endless parade of Brads and Chads and Dereks…wondering when it became so hard to find a man who could survive dinner with my family without visibly sweating.

"Iris." Tanya's voice cuts through my internal monologue. She's holding up two fabric swatches. "Sage or eucalyptus?"

I tilt my head. They look identical. "Those are the same color."

"They are not the same color. Sage has a gray undertone. Eucalyptus is warmer."

"Sage," I say, because sage sounds like something that knows what it's doing. "What's it for?"

"Nursery curtains,” she says, her attention going back to the pile of swatches she had already dismissed.

"I need more coffee,” I say. “Does anyone else need more coffee?"

Nobody says yes, but I pour four extra cups anyway because I know Grace takes hers black after two p.m., Katya has been running on decaf and fumes since Nikolai's birth, Tanya forgets to hydrate when she's working, and Nadia will accept anything warm that's placed near her without comment.

I deliver them. Nobody thanks me. Nobody needs to.

This is just what I do. The coffee. The dress that needs taking in.

The song when the room goes too quiet. The joke when someone's about to cry.

The arm around the shoulder. The garter produced from nowhere at exactly the right moment when getting ready for a wedding.

I'm the one who makes things easier. That's my whole thing.

Ma comes into the kitchen through the back door, her eyes immediately landing on Mila as she drops several bags of shopping onto the table.

Her face falls. “I don’t believe it,” she exclaims, walking to Mila in her high chair where Grace is still pulling soft chunks of strawberry from her fine hair.

“I forgot the lace!” She says animatedly.

“Your Mamma is forgetful in her old age,” she adds, gently booping Mila’s button nose with the tip of her finger.

Mila claps her hands in excitement and Ma’s face lights up. She scoops Mila from her highchair and peppers kisses all over her face. “My beautiful Mila smells like strawberries,” she coos before pulling her in for a tight hug, causing the six-month-old to let out a peal of giggles.

It’s strange seeing Ma like this. I was the youngest so I never witnessed what she was like with babies.

I was the baby. But since my brother’s wives began having babies it’s opened my eyes.

It’s clear that ma was always supposed to be surrounded by children.

She is a true matriarch. Tender and loving, and when needed, terrifyingly fierce.

I unpack the bags of shopping while she spoils Mila with tickles.

“I’ll fetch the lace, Ma,” I say. “Where is it?”

Ma looks over at me, those eagle eyes scanning over me before she finally nods. “Antonelli’s. I ordered it last week for Mila’s summer dress.” She says the last part to Mila, her voice going high and playful.

"Cool. Anyone else need anything?" I ask the room.

"Sleep," Katya says.

"Patience," Grace adds.

"A husband who will admit he has interior design opinions," Tanya mutters.

"I'll see what I can do," I reply with a grin and a waggle of my eyebrows.

I gently stroke a hand over a sleeping Eva’s back as I pass Nadia. "Drive safe,” she says, quietly.

"I always drive safe," I retort, mock offended.

"You drive like someone who learned from your brothers."

"That's fair." I grab my jacket from the back of a chair. "Back in an hour."

I check my reflection briefly in the rearview mirror. Hair acceptable. Face acceptable. Smile automatic, easy, effortless. There she is. Iris Orlova. Ready for the world outside the Orlov fortress.

The car was a gift from my brothers when I passed my driving test, and even though it’s getting on in age and costs more to run than it’s worth, I still love it.

“Going somewhere special, Miss Orlova?” The security guy asks as I pull up to wait for the gate to open fully.

“Just picking up some fabric for my mom,” I say, smiling up at him. He is young-ish, I think to myself, wondering if I’d swipe left or right if I found him on a dating app.

The drive is twenty minutes of winding road through countryside that quickly changes to urban development. I roll the window down even though it's cool, because the air smells like cut grass and the possibility of rain.

Something loud and stupid that I can sing along to without thinking comes through the speakers and I turn the radio up.

I drum my fingers on the steering wheel and think about absolutely nothing, which is my favorite kind of thinking, the kind where the thoughts don't land anywhere, where they just float past like clouds.

Antonelli's is on a side street off the main road. It's the kind of shop that's been there for fifty years, run by a man who knows my mother by name and still hand-wraps everything in tissue paper.

The lace is beautiful. Pink and impossibly fine. I wonder if ma knows Mila is not the type of kid who is going to be able to keep pretty dresses clean. She has too much Orlov in her.

I thank Mr. Antonelli and promise not to be a stranger before stepping out into the warm afternoon with the tissue-wrapped parcel in my hands.

I'm thinking about coffee, about whether I have time to stop at the place on the corner, the one that does the almond croissants that are so good I always order two.

A van pulls up a little too suddenly near my car. A delivery for Mr Antonelli, probably, but I still frown at the driver for being so reckless.

He keeps the engine running. The side door slides open so hard it bounces in its brackets.

A chill moves through me. An old and instinctive alarm that lives in the back of the brain. The part that remembers what it means to be prey.

I stop walking.

A man jumps from the back of the van, his eyes on me.

My brothers have told me a thousand times what to do if something feels wrong. Don't freeze, Iris. Don't wait to understand. Just run.

But as I turn to run, his hands are already on me.

A cloth, chemical-sweet, is pressed over my mouth and nose. An arm like an iron bar clamps around my waist. My feet leave the ground before I can even think to scream. The tissue-wrapped lace falls to the pavement as I lift my hands to his, to try and pull the cloth away.

I can’t breathe.

I'm dragged backward, into the dark mouth of the van, and I fight. I kick and claw and bite and scream into the cloth, but the chemical is already in my lungs, already softening my muscles, already pulling me under.

The last thing I see is the blue sky through the van doors as they slam shut.

The last thing I think is: They'll come for me. My brothers will come for me.