Page 16 of The Bratva's Innocent Sold Bride
Because of that, my office was spare, but it had everything I needed to keep tabs on everything going on in Moscow as well as my new operations here. I hadn’t checked in since theday before, since my brothers and cousins insisted on a final celebration that involved drinking until three in the morning.
“This isn’t what I should be doing on my wedding night,” I grumbled, sitting down to bring up all the messages from my various teams.
Everything was quiet, which made me wonder if Anatoli Ovinko was monitoring me the same way I was trying to keep tabs on him. If he were, this would have been the perfect night to try something. Either he knew I would have accounted for that, or he knew more than I suspected and thought the relationship between CJ and me was only a business transaction.
That was ridiculous, because no one in my family knew anything about it. CJ had done a great job at playing the loving fiancée, so much so that I began to believe her myself. The only other person who knew this wedding took place because of a debt was Gordon, and there was no way he was stupid enough to talk about it to anyone. It only made him look worse than he was, if that was possible, and it was pure insanity to risk fucking with me more. I dismissed the thought that Gordon was talking to Anatoli, or that he even knew who he was.
How could he, when I didn’t?
At the reception, Lev had wanted to catch up quickly, but I had no new information to share. He hadn’t been hit yet, so it was as I suspected. Because I was the new Fokin in town, Anatoli considered me the weak link. I’d prove him wrong and, without involving my more established cousins, if I could help it.
After I took an ice-cold shower to keep myself from going crazy remembering the soft sighs CJ made when I nudged her mouth open with my tongue, I got a call from Lev. It was close to two in the morning, and if he wasn’t asleep by now, he shouldhave been out partying with his brothers before they returned to LA.
“There’s something going down at my warehouses,” he said as soon as I answered.
“I’m on my way,” I told him, heading for my closet instead of my bed.
“Absolutely not. Enjoy your wedding night. I only thought you should know, so you could get extra security at your places. We’ve got this.”
“It’s no problem,” I said. “Really.”
“If you show up, the rest of the guys will laugh at you for the rest of your days. Just keep your ass covered.” He snickered like a twelve-year-old. “Or not.”
I ended the call and paced. There was no wedding night, no beautiful bride enticing me back to bed. As soon as I started to call my second in command, Garik was already calling me.
“It’s not a big deal,” he said, but I heard a gunshot in the background. “We’ve got it covered. But I just thought you should know someone’s trying to break into the storage facility.”
This was the place where we stored the weapons from Russia and other items we weren’t eager to report to customs before selling them. It was a huge space, rapidly filling with contraband, all of it valuable, none of it anything I wanted to fall into the hands of my enemies. I swore viciously, pacing faster.
“You think it’s Anatoli?” I asked.
There was a grunt and another shot, but this time farther away, then a moment of silence as I waited, wondering if I should head over there. The bastard had attacked on my wedding night after all, just waited until he thought I’d be passedout drunk and sated. I was neither, just furious. Garik returned to the line.
“We’re about to find out if it was Anatoli,” he said, sounding triumphant. “We’ve got a prisoner.”
After a little arguing and insisting that he could take care of things, at least until morning, I hung up. If there was the worst wedding night ever in recorded history, I wondered if this would top it.
I got into bed alone, but thinking of ways to wring answers out of the hostage Garik caught didn’t invite sleep. Thoughts of CJ only made it worse, and I was in no mood for another cold shower.
How could I make my little bride smile? Her request to take that job at her father’s—no, my company—was ridiculous. It would be far too dangerous right now to even consider it, and putting CJ in harm’s way was out of the question. I was as certain of that as I was of the fact that my feisty wife wouldn’t let the subject drop.
The first rays of dawn arrived, and I was nowhere near sleep. The men would expect me to be exhausted anyway, so I headed out to get some long-awaited answers. I almost felt sorry for Anatoli’s possible underlying. It was only partly his fault that I was in such a bad mood, but he was going to get one hundred percent of the brunt of it when I started swinging.
Chapter 11 - CJ
It was impossible to know how I made it to my room, and once I was in, I leaned against the door, breathing hard. It wasn’t the run up the stairs in the bulky wedding dress that had me panting; it was Mat’s kiss. Worse than that. I was so flustered and confused, I wondered why I was up here all alone at all.
This was what I wanted. There wasn’t going to be a wedding night. So why was I confused at all? I should have been relieved, and I was, partly. But some other part was kicking me for running. And it wasn’t because I was pissed at myself for cowardice, either.
Damn it, I wanted the man. At least a little, at least when he looked at me with that dark blue intensity and kissed me like that. I could still feel his hands burning through my gown.
The thing must weigh half as much as I did, and I nearly dislocated my shoulder getting enough of the tiny buttons down the back undone so I could step out of it. Objectively speaking, it was a beautiful dress, and I felt bad leaving it in a heap on the floor. It just wasn’t what I would have chosen for my real wedding, which, as far as I was concerned, I didn’t have yet. I purposely picked the opposite of everything I would have wanted, since I definitely didn’t want to be married to Mat Fokin.
At least I didn’t think I did before he swept me into his arms and once again stole my senses.
In the two weeks of wedding planning, some of my clothes had been delivered from my dad’s house, and I kicked aside the pile of satin and beads to put on some sweatpants. That morning, the closet was less than half full with my things, but now it was bursting with new clothes.
Dresses for day and evening, jeans, blouses, t-shirts, and sweaters, along with a couple of pantsuits. One, two, three—I counted ten new pairs of shoes, and the drawers were filled with new lingerie and pajamas. A wooden cabinet that hadn’t been there before was full of jewelry, everything from cute costume stuff to match the trendy dresses, to fine gold necklaces and diamond and gemstone earrings.
