Chapter 109

Author's POV. The moment Sofia and her husbands left- fuck, he hated that word. Husbands. It left a bitter taste in his mouth, and it wasn't fair to him. He wanted to be the man for her. He desereved that title, but she chose them, not him, he reminded himself - silence settled over the room like a thick fog, suffocating and heavy. Arsen exhaled sharply, running a hand down his face before gripping the edge of the table. The tension in his shoulders had coiled so tight he thought he might snap. He should have expected this. From the second he locked eyes with those five men in the café, he knew this moment would come. The past had never been the kind to stay buried, not for people like them. Not for men who lived in the shadows of power and blood. Sofia was different now. He had seen it in the steel of her gaze, the way she held herself—not just as a mother, not just as the girl he used to know, but as something else entirely. A woman carved by war and loss, by survival. The Bratva’s q