Page 24 of Arranged Marriage to the Brutal Bratva King
I move through Manhattan on foot, letting the city’s rhythm replace the club’s chaos. Even at midnight, the streets pulse with life—taxis honking, vendors closing up carts, people stumbling out of restaurants and bars. Anonymous. Relentless.
Four years ago, Janice stood in my penthouse and looked at me like I was worth knowing. Like the man underneath the empire mattered more than what I’d built on top of it.
Four years ago, I let her go because keeping her would have destroyed her.
Four years ago, I convinced myself it was mercy.
I still don’t know if I was right.
I reach my building, nod to the doorman, take the elevator to the penthouse that’s remained exactly as empty as it was the morning I left her sleeping in my bed.
The city glitters below my windows, millions of lights representing millions of people who don’t know my name and wouldn’t care if they did. Somewhere out there, Janice is living whatever life she built after leaving New York. Maybe she went back to school. Maybe she found another internship, a real career, someone who could give her the future I couldn’t.
Maybe she thinks about me sometimes, the way I think about her.
Or maybe I was exactly as forgettable as I claimed she was.
I pour a drink and don’t finish it. Stand at the window and replay the moment in the club—the sharp spike of hope, the crushing disappointment when I realized my mistake.
My phone buzzes. Felix.
You left your jacket at the club. Oleg is sulking, and you need to stop doing this to yourself.
I don’t respond. Felix is right—I do need to stop. Need to let go of whatever ghost I’ve been carrying, need to accept that some decisions can’t be undone and some people don’t get second chances.
I know all of this. Knowing doesn’t make it easier.
I finish the drink this time, then another, standing at the window until the sky starts to lighten and the city shifts from night chaos to morning routine. Somewhere in those hours, I make a decision.
The exposé investigation continues. Whoever orchestrated it will be found eventually—Felix’s people are too thorough, too patient. When we have proof, there will be consequences. Severe ones.
If it was Janice, she’ll pay for what she did. If it was someone else, then maybe I can finally stop searching for her ghost in every woman who shares her silhouette.
Either way, the past needs to stay buried.
I’ve built too much to let it resurface now.
Chapter Seven - Janice
My life looks nothing like the one I planned at nineteen.
Journalism died the day I published that exposé. Not literally—ProPublica still exists, investigative reporting still happens—but my faith in it as a viable career evaporated somewhere between my phone blowing up with threats and realizing that powerful men don’t face real consequences. They just weather storms until public attention moves on.
Dimitri Rudenko’s empire took a hit. Federal investigations launched, projects stalled, his name became synonymous with gentrification and corruption for about six months.
Then the news cycle moved on. Memories are short. Money is long.
Within a year, everything was back to normal. Maybe better than normal.
I watched it happen from a safe distance, finishing my degree in a small college town where no one knew my name or cared about New York real estate drama. I told myself I’d made a difference. That exposing the truth mattered even if nothing fundamentally changed.
I was lying to myself then too.
Marketing and strategy came later, after I accepted that idealism doesn’t pay rent. The work is safer, quieter, controlled. I help companies craft narratives that make them look good while hiding everything that doesn’t. It’s cynical. It pays well. It doesn’t keep me up at night the way journalism did.
Most nights, anyway.
I’ve been back in New York for eight months now. Long enough to remember why I left, short enough that the citystill feels like borrowed time. My apartment is bigger than the shoebox I had during my internship, my wardrobe actually fits the rooms I walk into, and my bank account doesn’t give me anxiety every time I check it.
