Married & Bred by the BRATVA (Bred By The BRATVA #9)

Katya

I stand in front of the mirror and study the woman looking back at me.

Hair pinned tight. Skin pale beneath careful makeup.

Posture immaculate, shoulders back, chin level, spine like a rod of iron because that's how he trained me to stand.

Straight and silent and perfectly composed, the way a Lazovski woman should present herself to the world.

"I'm ready," I say.

I don't look at the mirror again. There's nothing left to adjust. Nothing left to feel.

The hallway is dim, curtains drawn against the afternoon light the way they've been drawn since the night Gennady Petrov walked into our home and everything shattered.

My father stands at the top of the stairs in a charcoal suit, freshly shaved, looking every inch the composed patriarch.

Only his eyes betray him, hollowed out and hard, the bitterness calcified into something permanent.

He lost a son. He lost a daughter. And instead of grieving, he schemed.

It took him eleven months to arrange this marriage. Eleven months of phone calls and meetings and negotiations I wasn't privy to but could hear through walls, his voice low and urgent, trading what little influence the Lazovski name still carries for an alliance that might restore it.

Killian Orlov.

I know almost nothing about the man I'm marrying. My father shared only what he considered relevant: Orlov. Shipping empire. Eastern operations. Brother to Liam Orlov, who runs the family. Quiet. Controlled. Unmarried.

That last detail was delivered like a sales pitch. As if the fact that no other woman had been shackled to him yet was supposed to comfort me.

"You look acceptable," my father says, his eyes moving over me with the flat efficiency of a man inspecting merchandise.

"Thank you."

The words are automatic. Reflex, not gratitude. I've been producing the right words at the right times for so long that they come without thought, shaped and smoothed by years of practice until they carried no weight at all.

He turns and walks down the stairs. I follow.

My mother is waiting by the door, dressed in dark blue, clutching a small handbag like it's the only thing keeping her upright. She looks at me and her chin trembles, just once, before she schools her expression into the same blank composure we all wear like armor.

"You look beautiful, darling," she whispers.

I nod. I don't say thank you this time, because my mother's compliments have always come laced with apology, and I stopped accepting apologies that never lead to change.

The car is black and anonymous. My father holds the door open, not out of courtesy but control, positioning me, directing me, making sure I enter the vehicle in the correct order so that when I arrive at the Orlov estate, I'll exit on the right side, facing the right direction, presenting the right image.

Every detail curated. Every movement choreographed.

I slide onto the leather seat and fold my hands in my lap. The dress pools around my knees, heavy and stiff with fabric that hasn't been worn or washed or softened. Brand new. Pristine. Untouched.

Like me.

That's the point, of course. The whole point of this arrangement, the dress, the timing, the contract my father negotiated with the Orlov family's representatives. A Lazovski bride, pure and compliant, delivered to a powerful man in exchange for an alliance that will drag our name out of disgrace.

The contract was specific. I know because I found it in my father's study three days ago, tucked inside a leather folder he forgot to lock away. Marriage, consummation with verification, heirs to follow.

Verification.

I'd read that word and felt nothing. Just a quiet click of confirmation, like the last piece of a puzzle I'd already assembled in my mind.

This is what I'm for. This is what I've always been for. A correction. A clean-up. The dutiful daughter sent to repair what the rebellious one destroyed.

Matilda broke the family. I have to fix it.

The car moves through the city, my father in the front seat speaking quietly into his phone, my mother beside me radiating anxiety in small, contained waves.

I watch the streets pass and think about what I know of Killian Orlov.

Deliberately not much. My father doesn't believe women need information. He believes we need instructions. But I've always been better at listening than he gives me credit for. Fragments gathered from overheard conversations, from the careful way other Bratva men speak his name.

He's the second son. Not the face of the family, that's Liam, the eldest, the one who married the political consultant and made headlines. Killian operates in the margins, the eastern routes, the quieter territories where deals are made in back rooms and handshakes mean more than signatures.

I’d filed this information away the way I file everything, neatly, dispassionately, without expectation.

I'm marrying him because my father told me to, and because the alternative, remaining in the Lazovski house, bearing the weight of my brother’s murder and my sister's sins indefinitely, watching my father's resentment curdle into something even uglier, is no longer survivable.

At least this cage will be new.

The estate appears through the car window like something from a different century. Stone and iron, immaculately maintained, the kind of wealth that doesn't need to announce itself. Gates open without a word as we approach, and I feel my mother stiffen beside me.

"Remember what we discussed," my father says from the front seat without turning around. “Be grateful.”

Grateful.

The word settles in my chest like a stone.

I am being given to a stranger to breed, and I am expected to be grateful.

"Of course, Father," I say.

The car stops. My father exits first, buttons his jacket, offers a hand to my mother. I open my own door before anyone can open it for me, a small rebellion, barely noticeable, the only kind I allow myself.

The air outside is cold and sharp, carrying the scent of turned earth and something green. The estate stretches in every direction, gardens and stone walls and a house that looks less like a home and more like a fortress built by men who expected to be attacked.

There are people waiting on the steps. A woman I recognize as Saoirse Orlov, the matriarch, elegant and unreadable. Beside her, a younger woman with auburn hair and a warm expression. Perhaps Saoirse’s daughter.

And standing slightly apart from both of them, at the top of the steps, is a man.

Tall. Still. Dark hair cut short and precise, a charcoal suit that fits like it was sewn onto his frame. His hands are at his sides, relaxed but not loose, the posture of someone who is always aware of exactly where he is.

His eyes find mine the moment I step out of the car.

I feel the impact of his gaze like a physical thing. It’s steady. Almost assessing in its unhurried way. He doesn't smile. Doesn't move. Just watches me cross the gravel with a quiet intensity I feel like I should have been warned about.

Killian Orlov looks at me like he's reading a document. Carefully. Thoroughly. Missing nothing.

I meet his gaze and hold it, because that's what I was trained to do. Show no weakness. Reveal nothing.

His expression doesn't change, but something shifts in his eyes. A flicker of recognition, as if he's found something he wasn't expecting.

My father steps forward, hand extended, voice carrying the oily warmth of a man who has practiced sincerity until it sounds almost real. "Killian. A pleasure to finally meet in person."

Killian's eyes leave mine slowly, like he's choosing to look away rather than being drawn away, and he takes my father's hand.

"Mr Lazovski." His voice is lower than I expected. Calm and level, with a quality I can't quite name.

He shakes my father's hand once, then releases it and turns back to me.

"Katya," he says.

Just my name. No pleasure to meet you, no you look lovely, no empty social currency. Just my name, spoken quietly, like he's confirming something to himself.

"Killian," I reply, matching his tone.

For a moment, we simply stand there. Two people about to be bound together by vows and obligation, studying each other across three feet of gravel and a silence that feels heavier than it should.

Then his mother steps forward and the moment fractures into pleasantries and ushered movement and the choreography of a wedding that has nothing to do with love.

I follow where I'm directed. I stand where I'm placed. I say the words I'm given and sign the documents I'm handed and accept the ring that slides onto my finger cold and foreign and permanent.

Throughout all of it, he never takes his eyes off me.