Page 3 of The Bratva's Forced Kidnapped Bride
The problem with that was, I didn’t have any reason to feel guilty. I’d made my reasons for stepping outside the family fold clear in the beginning, warning them that Konstantin would bring down our respected family name. It was only luck thatthere was anything left of our father’s legacy to try to salvage, but the person salvaging it wasn’t going to be me.
“We’ve been tricked and swindled for years by this shipping company, it seems,” Leonid said.
“That should have never been allowed to happen,” I said, the same as I’d told Uncle Miron the day before.
I listened to him complain about a sudden defection of employees going off to a rival faction. Then, about some missing guns. I put the phone on speaker, set it down on my desk, and let him prattle on while I loaded up the latest iteration of my program to run some tests.
“And what about Ava?” Leonid said in a particularly loud voice, dragging me back to the fact that he was still on the line.
“Who’s Ava?” She wasn’t a cousin or an aunt.
“Konstantin’s widow,” he said. “As you know, your brother left no will, and she wants to liquidate everything and use the money to move back to her home in St. Petersburg.”
“Everything?” I laughed. “How are you even entertaining such a notion? Send her off with what their house was worth and keep her under surveillance in case she’s conspiring with any of the men who’ve already jumped ship.”
“This is why we need you here, Anatoli,” he said, voice earnest and plaintive. Almost making me stop rolling my eyes. “It’s time to come home.”
“My home is America now,” I said.
His wavering old man voice hardened to steel. “Ovinkos don’t sit around on the beach when their family needs them. It’s time to admit your little American experiment was a bust. It’s time to come home and make your father proud.”
The words cut, as they were meant to. “This has nothing to do with my father. It was an accident of birth that Konstantin was put in charge. You’ve never been able to admit it—”
“Enough. I won’t hear any of this,” he roared, ending the call.
“You won’t hear the truth,” I said anyway. Or maybe he’d convinced himself differently after all these years.
Like my brother, our father had made the mistake of not having a will in place when he died. A perfectly robust man in his early fifties dropping dead of a supposed heart attack, only a few days after he confided he was leaving me in charge instead of Konstantin, had never sat right with me, especially after he told me he’d also informed Leonid. It should have been many more years before we had to face the change in power, and ever since then, I couldn’t bring myself to fully trust that particular uncle.
Now he was on my back to return home and bail him out of a disaster of his own making.
That and the jab about my little American experiment going bust was too much. The vacation was over. I hated unfinished business and hated even more that my enemies believed I’d been hiding these past months. I’d help my uncles out as best I could, but long-distance. Things were not over in California, not by a long shot, and it was time to go back and let that be known. I would prove it to myself, even more than to my ancient uncles, that I could get my territory back, and more.
It was time to get the jet out of storage and head north, but not too far beyond the border. I wanted to have a little fun with the family that had been making my life hell, so I decided to start my return in Los Angeles, the main hub of the Fokin empire.
It didn’t take much to get myself set up in a flashy hotel, using the same alias I went by when I was building my domain in Silicon Valley. When tech genius Terrence Hendricks had disappeared three months ago, it was the talk of the town, so I knew as soon as someone recognized me, the news that I was back would spread like wildfire. I made sure someone would recognize my alter ego by showing up at a small event that was rife with the kind of technical people who’d be shocked by my appearance and pass it on.
It was only going to be a matter of time before the Fokins were after me, but I was only interested in one of them.
The dark-haired beauty who tortured me for a solid week was rarely far from my thoughts. Not even immersing myself in the code for my program could purge the memories of those intense brown eyes boring into me as she brought on the pain. The sound of her laughter, not humorous, but taunting, and almost musical, had me ready to lash out every time I recalled it.
Had she actually enjoyed it? Masha Fokin was ice cold and exacting, never wavering, never taking a break. I had been in some sticky situations before and had taken my licks, but had always managed to slip away fairly easily. There was always a weak link, but it wasn’t Masha, and the woman was ever present, never letting her guard down.
It took a major setup from the few men I had left on the outside after everything came crashing down in order to break out, but I did, and no matter how many margaritas I enjoyed on the beach or how much work I got done, I couldn’t get past her taunts. Or the look in her eyes when she inflicted almost unendurable pain.
Those few loyal men had been delighted to find out I was back, and were already on their way to LA, almost as ready as Iwas to exact revenge. I would be the one doing the taunting now, the one doling out the pain. As soon as she learned I was back and I allowed her to recapture me.
Chapter 3 - Masha
I was so eager to get going, I almost jumped into my car and headed straight for the freeway heading south. My eagerness to get to Anatoli first almost felt like panic; it was so strong. Never the most patient person, I wasn’t accustomed to unfinished business, and I found I didn’t like it one bit.
After I called the two guys I trusted most to have my back and not squeal to any of my cousins, they convinced me to start thinking straight. We cobbled together a plan that would keep anyone off our trail, and since I had a little time to burn, I headed to my apartment.
Believe it or not, my little two-bedroom with a balcony and access to a rooftop garden was the first place I’d ever lived on my own, even at twenty-three years old. My sister and I were as different as night and day, but we still got along and understood each other. We had always lived together, always under one of the elders’ roofs. It was easier, for one thing, since we were always so busy with our own endeavors. But mostly it was nice to always have someone to come home to.
When we decided to tag along with our older cousins for the big visit to California, we didn’t really expect to stay so long. There was just something intoxicating about the power our American cousins had, how they held such mighty, vibrant cities in their fists. We ran our branch of the family business in Moscow almost on autopilot. No one dared to question our power, and the little skirmishes we had were nothing compared to the wars that erupted here.
There was always something to do, and once Mat, Daniil, and Rurik vetted me, I was given plenty of exciting jobs to do that just weren’t an option back home. Of course, I had tostay and follow Mat up to Silicon Valley when our cousin Lev suggested it was ripe territory, and we’d been busy ever since. A little too much of it was stakeout duty, but we were slowly but surely adding to the Fokin empire.
