Page 113 of Sinister Promise

Hope wasn't something a Russian mafia enforcer like me ever allowed myself.

It was a luxury I refused to afford.

Hope was a fleeting thing.

It was addictive, and I wasn't sure I'd survive the withdrawal.

CHAPTER 27

ALINA

"Everything is ready, and we are almost good to go. Alina, are you ready?" Samara's smile was bright and happy and everything I wished I was feeling.

This was not supposed to be how I felt on my wedding day.

It wasn't supposed to be happening like this.

"I–" I opened my suddenly parched mouth and tried to say something, anything.

The words wouldn't come.

Yelena peeked out of the wooden door into the sanctuary of the church.

I could hear people laughing, talking in a mix of English and Russian, but it all morphed together. It seemed to get louder and louder the longer she held the door open.

I was hidden away with Samara, Yelena, and my soon-to-be sisters-in-law in a side room where all the brides took a moment to gather themselves before walkingdown the aisle and pledging their life to the man they loved more than anything.

That was not why I was here.

I was here to pledge my life to a man that I didn't love, who didn't love me.

A man that I barely knew and who was holding me captive.

The same man who had come back to our hotel room last night with a long gash in his side that I had to stitch up before we sat in silence and ate, both of us thinking about the commitment we were to make today.

No, I pushed those thoughts away.

I had to do this.

This wasn't a choice.

My grandmother's life depended on it.

Pavel wasn't all bad.

Maybe if I could focus on the positive, I could calm down enough to take a full breath and get through this in one piece.

Just one full breath and I could compose myself and act like the bride everyone expected.

All I had to do was think of the good things Pavel had done.

He put my grandmother in a state-of-the-art facility that couldn't have been cheap. She adored it there and adored Pavel. He also used her life to keep me behaving.

He took care of my father's debt, but he also killed my father.

I wasn't sure if that went in the positive or negative column.

The sex was—nope. I couldn't go there.

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