Page 34 of Forced Bratva Bride

After some time in the car I realize we are driving around the city and toward the docks, which doesn’t make any sense.

I can’t imagine where we would be going on a date in this area.

Before I can ask, we turn onto a road leading directly towards a group of warehouses.

I glance over at him.

“Are you going to tell me?”

He chuckles. “Last night, you said you were interested in business, and I thought that you might enjoying seeing what I do and how I run things.”

“Your business? Isn’t it kind of secretive? Aren’t you supposed to hide—I mean—um.”

“You're my wife, Chiara. You can know everything about me. All you have to do is ask.”

For a brief moment, I'm confused. My brain was so focused on this being a date that the idea of it not being a date seems odd. But when I take a moment to think about it, this is a different kind of date. Because isn’t the whole point of going on a date with someone to get to know them better? And now he is inviting me to get to know a very protected and secretive side of his life.

I begin to feel excited.

My father never involved me in these things, always thinking it was better for Stefano to handle business instead of me. I know he would never say it to my face, but it's because I'm a girl, and he sees girls as being delicate creatures. Maxim does not treat me that way, clearly, and it makes me feel like he respects me.

We step into the warehouse and his employees greet him, eyeing me up and down. He introduces me to everyone as his wife, which again makes me smile.

Maxim doesn’t hold back when he shows me around.

He takes me through everything, including the raw product before it's packaged, the ways in which they hide it for smuggling, and how the shipments look when they are ready to leave his warehouse. He even tells me all of the code words that his staff uses when they speak to him that no one else would know—terms and keywords to keep things under the radar if anyone's trying to gather information about them.

Blue sky—to let people know that someone is not acting alone, and has accomplices nearby.

Red fire—to confirm that the person you are dealing with is dangerous or heavily armed.

Salted Earth—to confirm that there is a trap of some sort, and you need to be on high alert.

I am so fascinated by everything. His setup is immaculate, and when staff members approach him to ask questions, his commanding, authoritative presence captures my attention. He is competent in every regard, and I can see he takes a great deal of pride in his work and the way he's arranged things.

He rolls up the sleeves of his black shirt and helps one of his workers lift a crate on to the back of a wheeled carrier so that they can move it.

I watch as his muscles flex against the edge of his sleeve, the way the tendons and veins in his arms move. I want to run my hand over them.

He is sharp and aware of everything going on around him, and I can see that he is able to handle any number of things coming at him from different directions as he gets updates from everyone and dishes out commands.

Maxim takes me on a short tour of the workers' housing area near the back of the warehouses. They are neat, comfortable, and he's set it up so that they have everything they need and more. The workers who are on break, or have day off, still go out of their way to come over and great him warmly.

His employees clearly have a great deal of respect for him. Every single one of them is polite, friendly, and pays attention to his words in order to carry out his instructions properly.

Men don’t just get respect like that. They earn it, and he must have earned it with these people. On the rare occasions, I have seen Stefano dealing with his employees, all I see is a nasty, overbearing asshole who is chasing power that his workers despise giving to him.

Maxim is the total opposite of that.

“So, what do you think?” he asks as we walk toward his office in the center of the warehouse. I know I'm impressed with everything, surprised even, but for some reason I don’t want him to see that.

“It’s nice.”

“Nice?” he chuckles. “I thought you liked business?”

“I do.”

“Nice is not a word I would have expected you to use.”

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