Page 47 of The Brutal Arrangement

It wasn’t easy watching my father like this. He was a shell of the strong, confident, and smart man he once was. Being poisoned had altered him severely, and no matter what the doctors and specialists said, I had significant doubts that he’d ever return to something like he once was.

The confusion. The anger. The irrational assumptions. Some of the things he mumbled and muttered sounded like incoherent nonsense, and it pained me to see him reduced to this weak of a mental status.

Helping Maxim usher Father out of my apartment was a sobering process. Witnessing him like this was frustrating, but it further wounded me when I saw how bothered Grandmother was. Every frown that pulled on her face stressed me out. While I bet a lot of her anxiety about Father’s recovery was because she feared the family losing its leader, that wasn’t all of it. She loved her son, just as she loved us brothers, and she didn’t wantanyof us to be harmed or suffering.

“He’ll get better,” Maxim said in the elevator as we rode up with him.

Grandmother didn’t reply, furrowing her brow as she watched the guard with us support Father. He slumped, leaning down more against the assistance, as if wandering that long with just a cane and not his walker was too strenuous of an exercise to handle.

“I have my doubts,” she said quietly after we rode toward his floor. The sincerity of her remark tugged at my heartstrings.

“I do too, but I am confident he’ll get better,” my brother said resolutely.

“Because you’d rather not lead the family?” she asked, putting him on the spot.

He soured, but he didn’t lash out. “Iamleading the family. Don’t be harsh with me if I would like more time with my fiancée during her pregnancy.”

She sighed, looking away as the doors slid open. “I know. I know that, Maxim, but?—”

“I can take him,” the guard said.

As he escorted him off the elevator, we three watched until the doors slid shut again.

“I know you have a growing family of your own to embrace,” Grandmother said. “And that’s why this timing is inconvenient.”

“Inconvenient or not, he’ll get better.” Maxim smoothed his hand over his suit. “And if he doesn’t recover to the point that he could be in charge anymore, then so be it.” Giving her a wry look, he sighed. “You act as though I only now realized I’m the eldest brother and would be in charge one day. I’ve had my entire life to get used to it, Grandmother.”

I grunted a weak laugh, amused that he’d act like this. Saul, Nik, and I had a bet going when he’d ask one of us to take over because he wanted to be a husband and father before a boss.

But that wouldn’t be happening anytime soon. He’d do his duty. Just like I would mine.

“We will cross that bridge when we come to it,” he said, glancing at me as we rode back down to my floor. “Right now, we need to annul your marriage with the maid.”

I shook my head. “What the fuck would that do?”

He furrowed his brow.

“Damon.” Grandmother shook her head. “Be serious. This is a trick. A setup. Some kind of manipulation, and it won’t serve us well to let it go and keep that woman here.”

“But what the fuck would we accomplish by annulling the marriage?” When they didn’t reply right away, I raised my brows. “It’s not like I’ve got a long line of other women who’d marry me. It’s not as though any other family would allow some prestigious daughter to end up with me.”

My reputation as an enforcer preceded me. The tales of my torture had reached many in our circles, and I knew other family bosses and leaders wouldn’t want their women to end up with me. Maybe their ugliest, least valuable, and undesirable women could be sent to me as a punishment. The only women I got were whores who closed their eyes so they wouldn’t see me, and that suited me just fine. Unattached, emotionless fucks never hurt me any.

“What’s done is done,” I summed up with a shrug. “If you want me to have a wife and get heirs out of her…” I stared down mygrandmother. “Then this is how it’ll happen.” No other woman would willingly be with me.

“But it’s a setup of some kind,” Maxim argued.

“I know that.”

“What can Anton be trying, though?” Grandmother wondered.

I shrugged again, not really caring. “This maid can’t know anything. And under my supervision, she won’t contact anyone at all. She won’t be able to spy and report to anyone in the Kozlov family while she’s here and locked in as my wife.”

Maxim slowly nodded, but he seemed unsure about forgetting this annulment.

He had to have noticed how she’d hesitated. She clammed up. Of course, she was scared. That was plain to see, but I had to wonder what was in it for her.

“She seems certain that Katerina arranged to swap, not Anton,” Grandmother said.

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