Page 60 of The Bratva's Arranged Virgin Bride
“Not true,” I spat, having no idea why I was defending Kolya. “He cares about his brother.”
“No, Nataliye, he cares about you. Very deeply, or he never would have wasted his time defending your family. Not when his whole original plan was to bring them to their knees.”
He was lying. He had to be. But what was more shocking to me? The fact that Kolya cared about me or that he’d been plotting against my family, just like they thought? I shook my head, making Vissarion laugh some more.
“You’ll never convince me he’s not wildly in love with his little arranged bride. That’s what makes you so valuable to me.”
I kept shaking my head, refusing to let him see what his words did to me, how they were tearing me apart. I was starting to see what he wanted, and it wasn’t going to end well for me. Or Kolya.
“Just make one phone call. To my cousin, Matvey. He’s currently in charge, and he’ll get you whatever you want. I’ll swear you didn’t hurt me, and they’ll let you live.”
I didn’t tell him that Mat or my uncles wouldn’t care and would hunt him down wherever he went. He looked positively crazed now, and he hadn’t been a bastion of sanity since he knocked me out and brought me here. Moving in close, he gotright in my face, his evil sneer making me recoil. The chair almost tipped over, but he reached behind me and slammed its legs back down onto the floor.
“I don’t know why you don’t get it,” he said. “What I want has nothing to do with the Fokins.”
“What, then?” I whispered, unable to hide behind false bravery anymore. I was scared out of my wits.
“I want to watch Kolya suffer,” he said, spit flying in my face. He rose and stepped back, pacing maniacally. “I had so many different plans, running off with the gallery earnings, getting him tangled up with the law… Using you to help me bring him down would have been a nice added humiliation when I still believed your arrangement was just business.”
“It is,” I insisted. “We have no feelings for each other.”
He leaned in close again, snorting in my face. “You’re not a good liar. Stop doing it.”
“I’m on your side,” I insisted feebly. “I was setting up the accounts last night to make it easier to funnel the earnings.” This was partly true, when I was still fumbling with my revenge plan. “Do you know how much money we can take from him?”
Vissarion shook his head, still much too close to me. “Money isn’t the most important thing to him anymore,” he said, that evil smile coming back to make me start to shake. “It’s you, his beautiful bride. Making you suffer will be the one thing that finally destroys him.”
