Page 30 of BRATVA'S Avenging Bride
"And the girl?"
"Becomes my wife. Becomes untouchable by Bratva law."
"The Yestin’s won't like it. If they find out, they'll see it as you choosing a murderer over their alliance."
"They won’t find out, and if they do, let them see it that way. Let them object. Let them challenge me." I lean forward."Because I will bury anyone who tries to hurt her. Family, allies, enemies. It doesn't matter. She's mine now."
My father studies me for a long moment. Then he does something I don't expect. He smiles. It's not a kind smile. It's the smile of a man who's just realized his son has finally grown teeth.
"She's already made you reckless. Emotional. Weak."
"No. She's made me human. There's a difference."
He lowers himself into his chair, his eyes never leaving mine. "When your mother was alive, she used to say that love would be your weakness. That you felt too much, cared too deeply, and one day a woman would exploit that."
I don't respond. My mother's been dead for fifteen years. Bringing her up now feels like a manipulation.
"I told her she was wrong. That I'd beaten the softness out of you. That you'd learned to control your emotions, to put family first, to see women as tools rather than distractions." He takes a sip of vodka. "Apparently, I was the one who was wrong."
I open my mouth to bite out a remark, but he holds up a hand.
"Let me finish. You want to marry this girl. This woman who murdered our men and destroyed our property. You want to bring her into our family despite the political nightmare it will create." He leans back in his chair. "Why?"
"Because she walked into a building that held nothing but horrors for her and burned it down. She saved the girls and left the monsters to choke. And I know with a clarity I cannot put into words, that she was made for me."
My father shakes his head from side to side and then sighs, his shoulders dropping in what is the first expression of defeat I’ve ever seen from him.
“Fine,” he says. “But there will be conditions.”
Katherine
When I wake, the room is bathed in a golden light that tells me it’s dangerously close to midday. The penthouse is empty. I can tell by the kind of quietness that surrounds me.
I stretch, my hand landing on my chest as I yawn and I immediately know what the sticky substance on my breasts is. A laugh escapes me. This whole week has been unbelievable. Crazy. Different beyond my wildest imagination.
I pad through to the shower and quickly wash in the scalding water while wondering where Matvey has gone. Wrapping myself in a robe I head through the penthouse doing my habitual check of doors and windows, and that’s when it happens.
I skim my fingers over the touch pad beside the elevator, expecting the same thing as every day. Nothing.
Only this time, the elevator door opens.
I jump back, expecting someone or something to leap from it. Then I just stand, staring at it for what feels like an eternity. There’s no one in there. It opened just for me, to take me out of this place.
I’m finally free.
I begin to walk towards it, my pace increasing when I come to a sudden stop.
After a few more minutes, the door closes and the quiet whirr of it going down it the only thing left to prove it was ever up here.
That’s when it hits me. The stark realization that I don’t want to leave.
Conflicting thoughts collide in my mind. Just days ago I wanted to leave, was desperate to, in fact. Sex doesn’t change that. Doesn’t change that I burned down Matvey’s club, killed his men, and have been trying to escape this world every minute since.
But it’s not the sex. As mind blowing and earth shattering as it is.
It’s everything else.
The food. The peace. The determination in making me feel safe. The vulnerability we’ve shared. The fact that this is the closest I’ve ever felt to belonging somewhere, to someone, since my mom died.
