Page 61 of Married to the Don (Kornilov Bratva Duet 1)

Viktor

Three days out on the streets and Fedor is already causing chaos.

It’s almost commendable how thoroughly he can fuck everything up in a matter of days. I want to ask him if he’s trying to make my life miserable, but I don’t want to give him any ideas.

“He ordered another soldier to be killed,” Petr reports, reading from a list as long as my arm. “I stopped it from going through, and I think he was drunk, so I’m sure he won’t even remember by the time he sobers up.”

“If he sobers up,” I say, running a hand down my face. “Why did he want this one dead?”

“He refused to kill another soldier Fedor wanted killed.” Petr shrugs.

I lean back in my chair and stare up at the ceiling. I prefer my home office. The familiar smells and warm afternoon light that comes through the window. And until a couple days ago, the soft padding of Theo’s feet up and down the hallway.

Molly has kept him away, however. It’s hard to entirely separate us—my apartment is large but not palatial by any means—but she does her best. Theo has found me in a few quiet moments after a nap and before bed, but I haven’t spoken to Molly since she left my office in a rage after our conversation.

After my threats.

I can’t shake the feeling that I crossed a line. But every time I feel that, I remind myself that I draw the fucking lines. I define the rules. What Molly and I have is nothing more or less than what I say it is. What exactly that is, though… I’m still not sure. Is it a relationship? A partnership? Something more, different? I don’t know. I don’t fucking know.

What I do know is this: anyone who defies me is my enemy.

Molly and I are in a kind of war now, one that I intend to win.

“We are trying to keep an eye on him, but it’s difficult,” Petr admits. “Fedor moves fast. He doesn’t keep a normal schedule. He’s up at all hours of the night, and he can cause as much damage with his cell phone as he can walking the streets. He shot at a rival drug dealer last night. The soldiers with him pulled him away before anything could escalate, but it’s getting bad. The only real solution is to lock him up.”

“And we all know how well that worked out.”

Petr is the only person I can be honest with. He understands my relationship with Fedor better than anyone else. He understands how complicated things are, and he has been there for some of Fedor’s more epic meltdowns. The rest of the Bratva know he is unreliable and reckless, but they don’t know the depths of his illness. They don’t understand how unhinged he can become. I hope they never find out.

“There is talk that he’s a liability. That you are to blame for—”

“Everything,” I finish for him. “It was my fault that he was locked up and now it’s my fault that he’s free.”

“That’s the burden of being the leader.”

I glower at Petr, and he wilts slightly, but shrugs as if to say, What can you do?

That’s the question indeed.

What can I do?

* * *

Mario Mazzeo keepsan eye on Fedor and reports any interesting movements, but that ends the moment Fedor decides to touch Mario’s daughter, Maria.

Maria is a beautiful woman. I would have been happy to bed her back when I was a single man. She trots around town in leather and low-cut tops without a single care in the world. She gives herself freely to men and is open about her sexual appetite. It drives her dad and brother crazy, but it drives a lot of men wild, too.

Now, however, my appetites have shifted.

“Your brother is dead,” Rio says now over the phone. “Fucking dead.”

For a second, I take him literally.

“He dropped Maria off at home last night,” Rio says. “They stopped off at his place first, though. Maria told me nothing happened, but I know she’s lying.”

It was rumored for a while that the Mazzeos and Kornilovs were to form an alliance: Maria wed to a Kornilov son. But it was me who was to be married, not Fedor. Is this a cheap shot to get back at me? Fedor always wanted Maria, but Father forbade him from going after her. If any of his sons were to claim her, it was to be me. So now Fedor is laying claim to someone off-limits, just as he’d tried to do with Molly. Petty. Childish. Fucking reckless. It makes me even more desperate to keep Molly away from him.

“Our deal is over,” Rio growls.

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