Page 36 of Bears Not Included

“What responsibilities?” Callen asks as if he’s really interested in knowing about my boring life.

“I have school…” I mean, I don’t, but I will make my father see that I need to go back despite the fact that I’ll be married. What am I going to do with my life otherwise? “I have two jobs, and I’m marrying someone else.”

I take a tentative step back when they start to close in on me, blanketing the air around me with a dark warning.

“You mean Kirill Yenin?” Callen asks, but there’s a hardness on his perfectly symmetrical face that makes my heart beat faster and goosebumps rise from my skin.

“Yes. That was my life before this. That is still my life, and you had no right to derail it. I apologize again for stepping onto your property. It was an innocent mistake.

“Before my mom died, she believed in fairytales, and I wanted to prove she was right. I’ve said this so many times to you; please believe me. She was a descendant of the servant who worked for Bernard, Barrett, and Bruin Ursid.”

“We know all about your mom, Livia,” Mason says softly, and for the first time, I see a flicker of emotion in his eyes. It catches me off guard before I remember who these men are and exactly how dangerous they can be. It also amazes me that they know who my mom was and her connection to their family.

On any other day, I would have been fascinated to talk to them about it, but the circumstances are just too weird now.

“Then you can see my reasons for being there were innocent. But what you did to me was unthinkable. It’s still unthinkable because I shouldn’t be here. I don’t belong here—”

I immediately remember them accusing me of wanting to steal a painting and claiming that I was working for my father and my future husband.

“You have to believe me. I wasn’t there to steal any paintings of yours. I know nothing about a painting. I don’t work for my father or Kirill Yenin. My father is a lawyer. He owns a small law firm that is struggling right now, putting him in a huge financial mess, and Kirill, the man I’m supposed to marry, is going to be his partner. That’s all.”

“You really don’t know anything, do you?” Mason asks.

“I don’t. That’s what I’ve been telling you this whole time.”

“Kirill Yenin is the head of the Yenin Bratva, a small but over-zealous outfit, and your father works for his organization,” Callen offers.

My father is a lot of things, but to be involved with the mafia is so far out that it can only be untrue.”

“What?”

Still, it’s too much information to take in. No, they’re wrong. They must be wrong about my father. But my mind starts to swirl in a million different directions. Black spots explode from under my closed eyes. I might pass out, but I force myself to get a grip, and suddenly, my thoughts become clearer.

Given who they are, according to Celine—heads of the Ursid Syndicate, an organized crime family—it’s possible what they’re saying about Kirill Yenin might be true. But that doesn’t mean my father is working for him. I still want to hold onto the hope that he won’t do something like that. He wouldn’t sell me out for marriage to a man he knows is a criminal.

But my father’s innocence is a separate issue from the one I’m facing right now.

If they believed that Kirill Yenin was out to steal an obviously very valuable painting of theirs, it means they’re enemies. Oh, dear god. I’ve been caught up in a war between two crime families.

“Please, just listen to me. If you married me out of vengeance or retaliation against Kirill Yenin because he’s your enemy—"

I can’t believe those words are coming out of my mouth. Everything is just too unreal.

“Yenin is so inconsequential he doesn’t make it onto our list of enemies,” Deacon says, annoyance lining his voice.

“I don’t understand. Why did you have to marry me then?”

“Because we like owning pretty things,” Mason says.

“That’s not an answer. You don’t get to take human beings just because… you like pretty things.”

“We can,” Callen adds.

“You belonged to us the minute you set foot on our land.” I watch Deacon’s lips move, and my pussy starts to throb as I remember his mouth there, his tongue. A blazing sheet of red-hot embarrassment covers me when I also remember I came in his mouth while Callen and Mason sucked my breasts.

No, I wasn’t supposed to remember all that.

“You know the real fairytale about The Three Bears, Livia. You were either going to die or we were going to make you our bride.”

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