Bratva Ruin (The Volkov Trilogy #3)

Chapter 1 Sienna

Sienna

I keep telling myself this is what freedom feels like.

The quiet.

The slow mornings.

The way the air smells like toasted bread, laundry detergent, and the faint lemon cleaner they use in every senior apartment down this hall. Not gunpowder. Not cigar smoke.

It should feel good.

Normal.

Instead, it just feels… weird.

The coffee pot gurgles behind me while my grandmother hums an off-key Sinatra tune, tapping her slipper against the tile floor. The TV murmurs faintly in the living room—an old black-and-white show with the volume too low to understand, just enough for background noise.

Her hair’s a little messy this morning, and her silver curls are pinned half up and half down.

She looks peaceful, untouched by the chaos I left behind.

I wish I could say the same.

“Did you sleep at all?” She slides me a cup of coffee without even turning around. She’s been doing that since I was sixteen—handing me caffeine and questions before I can ask for either.

“Some,” I lie.

The truth is that I stared at the ceiling most of the night, listening to the fridge hum and waiting for something that didn’t happen.

A knock.

A text.

A call.

Something.

“Some.” She doesn’t believe me, but isn’t going to push yet. “Eat something. You’re starting to look like your father when he skipped meals.”

That gets me moving.

I grab a slice of toast and spread butter across it to keep my hands busy. The knife scrapes softly, and I watch the melted yellow spread until I can pretend that I’m not thinking about anything.

She settles into her chair—the old wooden one that creaks under her—and studies me over the rim of her mug. “How’s work, honey?”

“It’s… good.” I stare down at my plate. “Busy, actually.”

That part’s true.

The bakery’s doing fine.

I’m making a million deliveries a day, covering shifts, and still working on the bakery Benedikt gave me at night.

Every time I walk in, I feel guilty that I’m still in that building with his name quietly tied to it.

Guilty that I’m baking in the same ovens he bought for me.

Guilty that I didn’t walk away from everything.

Nikolai called it “getting my life back.” He said I could finally be free—no debts, no guards, and no one watching over my shoulder. That I deserved normalcy.

But the way he said it sounded rehearsed.

I agreed anyway.

I told myself it was the right choice.

That I couldn’t keep living in a house that didn’t feel like mine, waiting for Benedikt to decide what version of me he wanted that day.

Still, it’s strange being back in my old apartment. Most of my clothes are here again, but the rest—shoes, a few boxes, the sweater he once draped over my shoulders when I was cold—are still at his place. I can’t bring myself to go back for them.

Nikolai offered to have someone pack everything up, but I told him no.

I don’t want any more of their help.

I want every thread that connects me to that family cut clean.

“Busy’s good.” My grandmother nods like she knows what I’m not saying. “But don’t let being busy become a distraction. You hear me?”

I give her a faint smile. She means don’t use work to avoid thinking. Which is exactly what I’ve been doing.

I laugh under my breath, breaking off a corner of toast and popping it in my mouth. “You really missed your calling as a therapist.”

She sips her coffee, eyes sharp and soft all at once. “Therapists don’t get to threaten people with wooden spoons.”

“Fair.”

For a while, we just sit there in the calm of our little bubble. The sound of morning TV drifts in from the living room. Birds chatter outside the window. Somewhere down the hall, someone’s oxygen machine hums. Everything feels so domestic and safe that it almost doesn’t fit.

Until my phone buzzes on the counter.

I grab it automatically, my heart jumping before my brain catches up.

Just a spam email.

Of course.

“Expecting someone?”

“No,” I say too quickly, chastising myself because there’s no way he’d reach out to me.

He’s exiled.

He probably had his phone taken away.

I can see him irate in my head. The tight set of his jaw. The way his hand curls into a fist when he’s trying not to lose it.

Benedikt doesn’t handle disobedience well, and I did more than disobey him.

I agreed with his father.

I agreed that he should go.

The thought makes my chest feel heavy. I can almost see him pacing, fuming that I let him be taken. That I didn’t fight for him.

That I chose a quiet life over him.

And if I know Benedikt, he’s not done with me.

I blink hard, pushing the thought aside.

My grandmother watches me over the rim of her teacup, patient and curious in the quiet way she has—like she’s been waiting for me to talk since I walked in.

I give her a small smile that doesn’t quite reach my eyes. “Sorry. Work stuff.”

She hums, unconvinced. “You’ve been somewhere else all morning, baby girl.”

I reach for my cup, my fingers brushing the warm porcelain. “Just tired. Long week.”

It’s half true.

The other half is sitting somewhere an ocean away, furious, and probably planning just how he’ll undo the choice I made.

She’s not convinced. “You’ve been on edge, Sienna. I know you. I raised you. Something’s not right.”

“I’m fine,” I say, because that’s easier. “Just tired.”

Her silence is heavy in the way only grandmothers can make it—quiet judgment and love rolled into one.

“You don’t get to ‘I’m fine’ me, you know. I invented that line.”

“Then consider it borrowed,” I mutter.

She chuckles, but the sound fades fast. “You can tell me if you’re in trouble.”

The toast turns to glue in my throat. “I’m not.”

She studies me, her sharp gaze still cutting even after all these years. “You’ve got that look.”

“What look?”

“The one that says you left part of yourself somewhere you shouldn’t have.”

I freeze for a second too long.

Then I busy myself with cleaning up plates that don’t really need cleaning.

“You’re reading too much into it, Grandma. I swear… I’m fine.”

She doesn’t respond, which makes it worse.

Because she’s right.

Of course, she is.

I left something behind.

Someone.

And even though I keep trying to convince myself I did the right thing—walked away before he could destroy me—it still feels like I left a door open.

Like he could walk through it any second.

I don’t know what I’d do if he did.

“Hey,” Nana says softly, bringing me back. “You’re thinking too hard again.” She reaches across the table, patting my hand. “Whatever it is, you’ll figure it out. You always do.”

I nod, because that’s what she’s waiting for. Then I grab my keys from the counter and force a smile. “I’ve got to head to the bakery before Lucy burns the place down.”

“Tell that girl I still think her hair looks like a cotton candy machine exploded.”

I laugh, genuinely this time. “I’ll pass it along.”

As I head out, I glance once more at the phone still sitting on the counter—quiet, blank, and harmless.

And for the first time all morning, I almost wish it wasn’t.