Page 111 of Married to My Sis’s Bratva Fiancé

My heartbeat punched up into my throat.

I tried to read my body. No cramping. No warm rush down my legs. No fresh agony besides my shoulder and wrists.

I didn't dare relax. I only twisted my wrists. My hands had been bound behind the chair back—I couldn't even touch my stomach.

Black stilettos stopped in front of me.

I lifted my head, slow.

Isabella looked down at me.

She wore a clean-cut black dress. Her hazel eyes held none of that party softness, none of the perfect smile she had used on Father, none of the sweetened voice she had put on for Kiryan. There was only hate—thick, ugly, endless.

I jerked against the ropes.

The chair legs screeched across concrete.

"Mmm—"

The tape swallowed my question.

Isabella smiled.

"Finally figured out it was me?"

She grabbed my hair and forced my face up higher. My scalp screamed like it was tearing, and I stared back without flinching.

She had loved hurting me like this since we were kids—at the long dining table, in Father's study, at every suffocating party where even my breathing had to look polite. Every time I stepped back, she stepped forward.

I used to back down.

Not anymore.

She saw it in my eyes. Her fingers tightened.

"Don't look at me like that."

The second slap landed.

Harder.

My teeth cut the inside of my cheek. Blood flooded my mouth. My face swelled, and tears sprang up at the corners of my eyes from the pain.

Isabella looked like she finally felt better.

"It was you," she said low. "Every time. Always you."

I made a garbled sound, trying to get her to rip the tape off.

She understood. She just dragged a fingernail along the edge of it instead, slow and cruel.

"What do you want to say? That you are innocent again?"

She leaned in. Her perfume crushed the warehouse stench of rust and mold. It was the scent she had always loved—expensive, controlled, never slipping before the last guest left. But her face had twisted into something vicious.

"You are good at it," she said. "Hunch your shoulders. Get those watery eyes. Look like anyone could kick you and you'd thank them for it. Father yelled at you, you stayed quiet. Kiryan misunderstood you, you stayed quiet. Everyone thought you were sweet. They thought I was the bitch."

Her mouth curved.