Page 62 of The Bratva's Forced Bride

I hand the card and keys to her, and she hugs me again. “Thank you. Be safe.”

“It's fine. I love you,” I say quietly.

“I love you too,” she says quietly.

I get back into my car and watch them go inside. Before I pull off, I take a minute to compose myself. My stomach is in knots, but my heart has slowed.

I take a breath and join the traffic, trying to think of a cover story about why I am late. I mean, I could just say I worked late.

I wasn’t speaking to him this morning, so I could definitely just pretend to ignore him and go straight to bed. I can’t let on that I’ve done anything wrong.

If he thinks I did, he will grill me.

It takes me an hour to get home, and when I check my phone, there are several texts from Danil, each one more panicked, asking me where I am.

I get out of the car and see him standing at the door of the house. My eyes meet his before he turns and walks inside. The walk to the front door has never felt longer. He’s visibly mad at me for not letting him know I was going to be late.

I walk in and stand just inside the door, holding my handbag in my hand to my side. My car keys are in my other hand, and I couldn’t feel more defeated.

“Where were you?” he asks with his back to me. “Why are you so late?”

“I didn’t want to come back here,” I answer. It’s somewhat close to the truth. At least, it was this morning. “Not after our fight.”

“But you weren’t at work, so where were you?” he asks, turning to me with a cold look on his face.

“My sister was here with a boyfriend who hurt her. I went to sort it out.” I’m stammering over my words, and I can feel a well of emotion building up inside of me.

“You were here this afternoon, though, weren’t you?” He knows. Oh God, he knows what I did. Or at least he suspects that I was part of it. I open my mouth to answer, but instead, I burst into sobs.

“I’m sorry, Danil. I didn’t have a choice. They kidnapped Piper. They bound her and gagged her, and oh,” I blubber, and the tears start streaming down my face as the floodgates open, “I’ve been doing a side hustle to raise the money to pay my debt to you so I can leave. I was called out to do a job today, and it turned out that these Italian guys wanted information about something you were doing, so they took Piper hostage. They told me I could only have her back if I got the information. I knew your login, so I got the information they wanted. Piper is safe now, and I’m so sorry if I ruined it for you. I’m sorry that I betrayed you. Please don’t hurt me.” I can’t stop the tears. They fall silently, dropping off my chin.

Danil looks at me. I don’t know what’s worse: the stoic silence I find us in interrupted by my soft sobs or the fact that I can see the hurt written all over his face. Hurting him is killing me.

“Please, if you must do something, you should do it to me. Not Piper. She didn’t go looking for this trouble.” I hang my head.

We stand there for the longest moment before Danil finally speaks and I look up at him. “Why didn’t you come to me when the Italians approached you? I would have saved Piper. You know what I’m capable of, Asher.” He shakes his head. “You fucked up a deal worth millions for us, but I understand your desperation. What I don’t understand is how you can make me believe you care about me these past weeks, and now you tell me you were planning to buy yourself out of our marriage?”

He shakes his head, and I swear I can see tears in his eyes. He turns around and starts walking toward the stairs.

“Danil,” I call out. “Please, you have to understand. I didn’t want to get married. You plucked me out of my life against my choosing.”

“And yet you have acted and responded like my wife since coming here,” he roars, whipping around to look at me. “Your body responds to my touches. You cook for us, and I cook for us. We laugh, we joke, and we cuddle. What is all that about? What is that about if you don’t want to be here? You may have been plucked out of your life, Asher, but you certainly don’t act like it. You act like you enjoyed being here.”

I feel the tears falling harder down my face as I step forward. “I didn’t want any of this. You made this problem. I just wanted to go back to my quiet life.”

“What quiet life?” he shouts. “You used the Milov name to get into every club in Vegas. Deny it! Deny you use our name to get into places you otherwise wouldn’t have access to whether Luka is with you or not.”

I step back slightly, taken aback. “That’s different.”

“What’s different is your name is now Milov. I made you one of us instead of having you throw around our name. You liked the power that came with the name, so don’t act like it’s a terrible thing being connected to my family.”

His voice cracks, and he looks away. “I’m going to sleep in the guest room. I’m done discussing this. I will speak to Kervyn about what I should do about this situation, and we’ll take it from there.” He turns and walks up the stairs. I sink to my knees and sob into my hands. The heartbreak he just showed feels like it broke something inside me. I shouldn’t care that he’s hurting, yet all I want to do is make this right. A part of me wants to run away back to my old house to stay with Piper, but Luka will definitely have questions then.

I breathe steadily until I get myself under control again. I lift myself off the ground and take myself upstairs. I stop at the guest room door and reach for the doorknob before I pull my hand back. I don’t want to see his face like that again. I doubt he would even speak to me right now.

I go to the bedroom and set my things down on the dressing table. I sit on the chair in front of it and look at my sorry self in the mirror. What have I done? I haven’t even told Danil about the baby. Do I want to? Do I want him to know because I want him to be a father or because I somehow think this would repair everything I’ve done? A ‘get out of jail free’ card, so to speak.

I rest my hand on my abdomen. I don’t think it’s a good idea. He’ll think I’m trying to manipulate the situation. He has no reason to trust me, and he shouldn’t. I stole from him. It cost the family so much. Kervyn is going to be so disappointed in me if he even spares my life. This isn’t some simple betrayal. I’ve fucked with the Bratva, whose protection I’ve abused since Penny fell into bed with Kervyn of her own accord.

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