Page 36 of Stolen By the Bratva

“Me, Mila. You’ll marry me.”

She huffed a snarky laugh and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right.”

“Are you arguing with me?”

“Oh, like my word even counts in an argument.” She shook her head, sticking with this raw disbelief. “There’s a couple of small issues with your grand plans.”

“Like what?”

“You’re not the head of your Family. Two others stand in your way.”

They won’t for very long.

Realization dawned on her expressive face, and she dropped her jaw again. I was becoming fond of this phenomenon. Shocking her was rewarding, because it was proof that she was sharp and quick-witted enough to form her own opinions and stand by them. This was no idiotic woman. She was intelligent.

More than that, though, it was all too easy to picture my dick slipping into that wide-open O of her plump lips. She’d wrap them around me and take me deep. I could just tell.

“You’re… going to take over your Family? You’re going to oust your uncle and cousin for power?” She spoke it carefully, like she didn’t trust saying those mighty and damning words aloud.

I nodded. “It’s the perfect time.”

She narrowed her eyes. “How so?”

“You heard what that man said.” I tipped my head toward the center of the room, indicating where Yusef had died. “He was there when my father died. He witnessed it.”

She struggled to sit up but couldn’t. Shaking her head, she fought to protest. “No. Alek. How can you… No. You can’t just take his word for that.”

I tapped my fist to my chest, right over where my heart lay. “I can. Because I already knew that to be the truth. Deep down, I think I’ve always known. Each time I looked at my fucking uncle, I suspected that he was behind my father’s death. I know it.”

“You’re sure?”

“My brothers will agree. We’ve always questioned how he’d been shot at the shop during a supposed turf war. I always wondered if he’d been set up, and I knew it had to be Pavel who'd arranged it. Because he wanted the power.”

As I sat there staring at her, memories trickled through my mind. When I was younger, when my father did all the heavy lifting and work for Pavel, there were too many episodes of disagreements. Of Pavel not liking my father’s influence. Of my father worrying that his brother didn’t know how to handle his position as Pakhan. It was no simple overnight incidence of loathing. Pavel had always despised my father—all the way until he’d eliminated him.

“I will avenge my father. And in doing so, I will fix my Family. We have suffered too long under the wrong leadership.”

She licked her lips, rapt in listening to my firm declarations.

“I’ll remove Pavel. And my cousin. And with you,” I said as I shifted more toward her, “I will see to a stronger generation in the future, one that will secure our influence and power that your father wants for himself.”

Yusef’s words had cut deep when he taunted about how my family’s name used to represent such prestige and invoke such fear. Under Pavel’s rule, we disintegrated into a laughingstock, sloppy and weak. As soon as I changed things up with this war, I would set us on the right path for success again.

She reacted, shaking her head slightly. “No. Alek, that can’t be the right solution to this.”

Are you afraid? I doubted it, and her protest amused me instead.

“This cannot be the right decision. There’s got to be another way.”

“This is the only solution,” I countered.

“But…” She furrowed her brow. “Why me?”

“Because you are his daughter. He tried to send you to us as a pawn, and I will show the world what happens when anyone attempts such a grave mistake like that.”

A long sigh left her lips. “But you can’t actually want to… You don’t want to use me like this.”

“I do.” Starting now. Having a soldier break in here was a hell of a way to ruin the mood. When Yusef interrupted, I’d been two seconds away from claiming Mila’s virginity.

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