Page 26 of The Bratva's Hostage Bride

He stares at me blankly, and I frown. “You’re joking.”

“They came to love each other in the end,” he shrugs. “I’m not saying that will happen with us, but if we can pretend to be husband and wife, just for a little while, then I can sort out the threat once and for all, and you can go back to your quiet boring little life.”

“And you’ll leave me alone forever?” I ask.

He has a pained look in his eyes. “Yes,” he reluctantly answers after a long pause.

I finish my food and push the tray onto the bed. “I have to finish uploading this podcast, or I’m gonna lose my listeners.”

“A podcast about serial killers?” he smiles. “I searched your name on the Internet. It's an interesting combination of vocations.”

“What, no website for Luka Milov, the underworld boss?” I joke casually.

He looks at me seriously—a first. “Kervyn, my brother, is the head of the family. No one supersedes him, and no one goes against what he says. You need to promise me you’ll keep to that rule.”

He scares me. Cold fear jets through my veins, and suddenly, the room is icy. I give a small nod and motion to my laptop.

“I should get back to it then.” My voice is quieter now.

Luka looks at the laptop. “Your podcast? Oh sorry. I’m totally interrupting you.” He stands up and takes the tray.

“It’s okay. Thank you for making me eat something.” I put the laptop back on my lap.

“Look me up on Instagram. Luka_Drags_Milov is my tag. I’ll share your podcast around to get it some more views. My friends would find shit like that fascinating.”

I feel slightly elated. “Really? That’s very kind of you.”

“Well, you are my wife.” He leaves the room, and I shudder.

His wife.

As long as he doesn’t believe we have actual feelings for each other. I don’t even know anything about him. I kind of want to research him, but first, I need to get my podcast up and out.

I finished the little bit of editing I had to do and pressed upload.

I create a little image, blur out Ted Bundy, and write a post on my Instagram.

Sorry for the radio silence. Crazy things are happening in my life right now. I’ve hit upload for the podcast, so anywhere between half an hour to twenty-four hours, and it will be up. Can you guess who we’re doing a special on today #serialKillerLife #serialKillerPodcast #whathappened

Link to my podcast in my bio.

I tag Luka in the post, and I send it.

Well, let’s see if he can get me some listeners when he shares it, though I doubt his friends would listen to something like this.

I sit back and watch for notifications.

While I wait, I follow Luka and scroll through his Instagram. He clearly is a charmer. There are tons of photos of him with women of all kinds, women much prettier than me. Why is he so determined to have me around?

I get a couple of notifications, and they’re comments on my post showing people excited about the new podcast. I smile softly to myself. That’s what I want—a following that gets excited when I upload.

Another notification pops up, and it shows Luka shared my post. It starts slowly at first, but then I start losing track of all the new people liking my page and commenting on my podcast posts. I sit up straight.

Surely, all these notifications aren’t from Luka’s one share.

I get a notification from Spotify that my podcast episode is live, and my phone explodes like never before. It just keeps going off and off with notifications from new people who are either busy listening to my podcast, old and new episodes, or who are planning to listen because they love the idea. Some congratulate me on my marriage and I go look at Luka’s post.

He’s added across the picture. Proud of the wife.

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