Page 23 of The Bratva's Forced Kidnapped Bride
Why work so hard? What did it matter if my family adored her, after all? I’d only asked her to be on her best behavior and not give away the fact that she was my captive as well as my wife. Was she doing it to avoid punishment, or to keep me from blowing up her family’s businesses?
That wasn’t the Masha I was beginning to know. I should have been shocked that she hadn’t already tried to turn my already divided family against me and been halfway home by now. It was something more, and it was something I understood all too well.
The need to always have to be better than anyone else, and still not quite feel like you stacked up. Could that be it? Could the relentless machine be human underneath it all?
There it was again, a brief blink that lasted a bit too long, the struggle to hold back a yawn.
Only because I needed her fresh for the big gathering, I stood up. “I’m sorry to break up this party early,” I said, never taking my eyes off Masha. “But we’ve got an early morning ahead of us. And we’ll see you all at the party,” I reminded them before they could argue. “Come along, Masha, it’s time we get going.”
I sent a quick text to my uncle, apologizing for breaking the promise to stop by his house afterward, and immediately took her home.
“What about that thing with your Uncle Miron?” she asked when she realized we were on our way back to the apartment. “I thought that was this evening? And I thought it was important.”
“It’s taken care of,” I said.
She nodded and sank back into her seat with a soft sigh of contentment. I was certain I was wrong about seeing a flash of gratitude in her eyes before she looked away. And just as certain that I didn’t care either way.
Chapter 17 - Masha
By the time we got back to the apartment on our third night in Russia, I didn’t even care that Anatoli locked me in the guest room again. I was just glad to be off my feet and not have to keep up with his myriad family members. We had been going nonstop, and there hadn’t been any new opportunity to keep up my seduction angle.
Not that Anatoli seemed receptive to it, based on being relegated to my own room under lock and key again. It was disconcerting. In fact, it bugged me more than I wanted to admit. What went wrong? Nothing. It had been so, so good. Better than good. There were moments when our eyes met, and even when he was scowling about something that had nothing to do with me, and he quickly glanced away, there was a flash. He was thinking about it, too; I would have bet the Fokin empire on it. So why shut me out?
I was grateful all I had to do to keep all those hidden bombs from going off was listen to his old aunt complain about her ex-husbands, or laugh at his cousins’ jokes, because getting caught up in one of those looks and remembering the way his mouth felt…
No. I wasn’t going to keep thinking about it, getting lost in daydreams about it. There was no way I was admitting how much it upset me. The man had bombs hidden all over my relatives’ properties, for God’s sake, why was I mooning over his kisses, no matter how expert they were? I was just confused about why he wasn’t begging for more, absolutely certain the passion between us was real. At least on his side.
He had just been busy and had to be as tired as I was. From listening in whenever I could, I was fairly certain thatmost of his elder relatives were giving him a hard time, with everyone wanting their own way and some of them scrambling for leadership. Thankfully, most of his cousins didn’t seem to want to overthrow him, but the constant infighting was wearing on him, even though he thought he wasn’t showing any stress.
I only saw through his tough guy act because I got it. I knew exactly what was keeping him from collapsing under the pressure. From the moment I knew I was destined to be part of the Bratva, truly a part of it, with all its intrigue, violence, and danger, I had to work twice as hard to earn half the respect of my male counterparts. Sometimes not even half.
Whenever I completed a mission, everyone still acted like it was some amazing thing—“Oh my God, a little female could pull that off?” Okay, maybe not that obvious, but just about. My family was proud of me, they bragged about me, and of course, they loved me. But I wanted them to accept I was damn good, and it was no big deal just because I was a woman.
Once, I made the mistake of mildly complaining to Mat’s younger brother, Dan, about it, and he stared at me like I was missing a part.
“Are you kidding?” he asked. “You’re upset because you’re being praised?” He shook his head, telling me I should count myself lucky, because the big thing he had just managed to pull off went completely without notice. “Because it’s my job,” he said, patting my cheek. “It’s like breathing. You don’t get a medal for breathing.”
“Apparently, I do,” I grumbled. I had also been irritated that he was patting me like I was a puppy, but that was only because I was so much younger than the rest of them due to my father being the youngest of the bunch, and he’d put off marriage for so long.
“Be grateful you don’t get knocked on the head for minor infractions,” he said, holding up his hand to keep me from sputtering about that. “So what if it is special treatment because you’re a woman? Youarea woman. There are things you can do that I can’t and vice versa, and for now, we still want to protect your little skull for some reason. Maybe your daughter or granddaughter will achieve true equality and get knocked on the head, but as for me, I truly hope not.”
I couldn’t make him understand, and he only made me feel like I had an unnecessary chip on my shoulder, one I couldn’t shake. And no, I didn’t want to get knocked on the head; he was right about that.
Were things similar for Anatoli, because he was the younger son? I’d seen firsthand how no one could shut the hell up about how his older brother used to run things, so it must be hard trying to blaze his own trail in such stubborn pastures.
Wait just a damn minute. Was I commiserating with my captor? The one who held my family’s lives in his hand and could end them with the touch of a button if I stepped out of line?
It had to be because I was so cut off from everyone I cared about. Even on the longest, loneliest stakeout, I still had backup. It had been more than a week since I had gone missing, and my family must have been out of their minds with worry, while here I was, switching back and forth between getting lost in fantasies or feeling sorry for Anatoli.
The day before, we’d stopped in a drugstore, and I managed to convince him to let me have a sketchbook and some pencils. He had somewhat jokingly told me that if I dared try to stab him with one of the pencils, I wouldn’t live long enough to see him pull it out. After a long, heaving sigh that wasn’t even an act, I admitted to wanting something to do in what little sparetime he allowed me. I wasn’t allowed a phone or a computer, and I swore up and down I’d never do something as foolish as stab him with a pencil.
“Now one of those nice steel pens in your office might be able to pierce your heart,” I muttered.
He bought me the notebook and pencils, but the next time I was in his office, I noticed the fine collection of sturdy pens was gone. It made me smile, just like the notebook made me smile now. I did do a little sketching in it, drawing the buildings around town from memory, though I wasn’t very artistically inclined.
The main reason I wanted it was to keep notes about everything I learned. I had been well-trained in ciphers, both creating and breaking them, and I developed a simple code that only someone who knew me well would be able to figure out.
I already put everything in there that I knew about the compound in the California desert, and I had descriptions and names of all the relatives I had met so far. Everything I learned in the meetings he made me attend went into the book, as well as the information I gathered about the Collective.
