Page 79 of Married to the Don (Kornilov Bratva Duet 1)

The car slows down to a normal speed and Fedor waggles his finger like he’s ringing a bell. “Ding, ding, ding!”

“What do you want?” I glare at him, relieved in a way that I can loathe him openly now. “I’m not going to testify. I was never going to. I just want you to leave me alone.”

“This isn’t about you,” he says with a wicked laugh. “This is about Viktor.”

“I have nothing to do with Viktor. He doesn’t care about me. The marriage was just a scam to protect Theo. Viktor didn’t want you—”

“To know my own son,” Fedor finishes, his lip curling up in anger. “My brother wanted to keep my son from me. And more than that, he protected the whore who hid him from me.”

My anger flares at the insult. “You didn’t deserve to know Theo after what you did to me.”

Fedor looks over, his eyebrows dancing. “You don’t even remember what I did to you.”

My stomach flips, and I look away. I hate that I’ve let him win this round, but if I maintained eye contact, I might have thrown up. Or yanked the wheel and killed us both in a wreck. It would almost be worth it to wipe Fedor from the planet.

“I recognized you the second I walked into his apartment that day. Did you know that?”

I didn’t. Fedor acted the part perfectly. The memory of his hand on my waist, of the way he teased me and showed interest in me, pretending I was nothing more than a maid makes me feel dirty. He knew the entire time.

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because I wanted to see what my brother’s intentions were. I wanted to know why he had locked my witness and my child away. I wanted to know what he had planned for you.”

“Why would that change anything?”

Fedor flicks his tongue over his bottom lip. “Viktor has always looked out for me, protected me. When I saw you there, I thought maybe it was part of a plan he wasn’t telling me about. That maybe he was going to dispose of you and keep me in the dark to protect me.”

To protect him? The idea is laughable. What does Fedor need protecting from? Certainly not his feelings. I’m not sure he has any. Monsters usually don’t.

“But he wasn’t protecting me,” he says, shaking his head. For a moment, he’s quiet. Lost in thought. With a few fast blinks, he breaks out of it and sighs theatrically. “This is about more than you and Theo, though. This is about family and loyalty, two things my brother knows nothing about.”

“Your brother did all of this to protect Theo—his family,” I argue.

“I’m his family!” Fedor screams. “I’ve been his family for much longer, and he chose the two of you over me. But the final straw was him debating whether I was worth fighting for.”

Fedor rolls his shoulders and it doesn’t even seem like his attention is on me anymore. He is rambling, going on about choosing between family and a war, and he’s talking so fast I can barely keep up.

“My brother’s loyalty is flagging, so I’m going to show him what it means to turn on family. I’m going to show him what happens when you forget your blood.”

“What does that mean?” I fold my hands in my lap, trying to hide the shaking.

Fedor looks over at me, a sick kind of hunger in his eyes. “First, I’m going to do what my brother should have done with you.”

Kill me.That part of his plan is so obvious it doesn’t even scare me. I simply nod, accepting the inevitable.

“And then?”

“Then,” he says, pressing harder on the gas to make it through a yellow light and then swerving to change lanes and maneuver around a bus, “I’m going to claim the son who was stolen from me and raise him as my own. If my family can turn its back on me, I’ll make my own.”

The thought of my son being raised by this monster terrifies me far more than death. “Theo is innocent. He didn’t do anything. Leave him alone.”

Suddenly, Fedor reaches across the seat and strokes his rough hand across my cheek. I pull away but the car is too small to separate us, and he grips my chin roughly.

“I would never leave our son alone, Molly. He’ll always be cared for. By me and the Bratva.” He drops my face and grabs hold of the gun in his lap, driving with only one hand. “I’ll raise him to understand loyalty. Don’t you worry.”

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