Page 40 of Stolen By the Bratva

Alek was a hard man, but I saw now that he could be soft inside too. He hadn’t dismissed me and left me bloody, cold, and thirsty on the bed after he took me. He’d come back and tried to make me as comfortable as possible.

“You realize that?”

I sniffled, not wanting to give in and nod.

“He would’ve been the one to fuck you, not me. Right?”

I looked down, but he tipped my face up so I would have to maintain eye contact.

“He would have abused you. Passed you around like a fucking trophy to share.”

My blood turned to ice. Just like Rosamund’s fate. The idea of being given to multiple strangers in a gang bang… God, no. I couldn’t help how quickly I shuddered, repulsed by the possibility of such a horror.

“You knew this. You knew going into that wedding that he would have taken you however he saw fit.”

I frowned at him, wishing I could retort that he’d done the same thing. As the thought rushed through my mind, I refused to believe it. Alek had been rough, but he hadn’t been cruel. I couldn’t hold that against him, and in a sick, stupid way, I knew that this man was the lesser of two evils of what I could have accepted as my fate.

“Don’t try to tell me you’re outraged. You said it yourself. You’ve always understood your purpose. To serve your bratva men. To be in an arranged marriage.”

“I know. But?—”

“But nothing.” He released my jaw with a firm jerk, almost angry with my attitude.

As he lay back on the bed, no longer facing me, he stared at the ceiling. “You ask what’s next, but I can’t understand how you can act so clueless.”

“Clueless?”

“Yes, clueless. What the fuck do you think will happen?” He rolled his head on the pillow to smirk at me. “I’m not taking you back to your father. He wants you dead, remember? He’s put a fucking hit on your head.”

The stark reminder cut at my heart. It was such an ugly, dark truth to hear, no better news this time than it was when Yusef revealed it.

“If you’d married Andrey, he would have fucked you up. Abused you. Mutilated you.”

I swallowed hard, knowing he wasn’t talking out of his ass. I’d heard the horror stories.

“He would have shared you and discarded you like a fuck toy.”

But you haven’t. No one else was here to share me with, but I doubted it would have entered Alek’s mind. He looked at me with such a possessive intensity. He’d covered my breasts when Yusef burst in. I didn’t get the impression that Alek shared, not his women, not anything.

At the same time, I was too guarded to assume his actions and attitude could mean that he cared. I wouldn’t let him dupe me into thinking he held me in some kind of high esteem to care about me that much.

“As far as I’m concerned, you’re mine now, Mila.”

I scoffed, shaking my head. “Yeah, as your whore.” A used-up virgin. It stung to know I would still be a thing.

“No.” He didn’t face me as he argued. “No. I’ll marry you.”

He’d tossed out that ridiculous claim before he fucked me, and in the heat of the moment, I’d been quick to dismiss it as him talking big.

I watched him look at me, dead in the eyes. “I’m going to marry you, Mila.”

Shock rippled through me as the realization dawned. He actually meant it. He intended to make me his bride, his wife.

He truly planned to make me his wife. From the altar of my arrangement to be connected with another man to this dingy apartment where I remained tied up, my marital status had changed drastically.

Marry Alek? I stared at him, waiting for him to admit it was crazy talk.

He didn’t. He gazed right back at me, cool, calm, and confident about his plan.

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