Page 35 of Stolen By the Bratva

He didn’t speak at all throughout the entire afternoon as he handled the mess. I almost figured he’d call one of his brothers to take care of it for him, but Alek wasn’t the kind of man to give others his dirty work. He dealt with it all, quietly and efficiently.

Once he finished and showered, too, I started to slip out of the numbed shell-shocked status I’d fallen into. As he returned from the bathroom, cranking out the kinks in his neck as he approached the bed, my head filled with all the thoughts and questions I’d suppressed so far.

I didn’t want to dwell on my father wishing me dead. I knew I was a pawn, but it hurt deep down to know I was that expendable.

“What happens now?” I asked Alek as he drank from a glass of water as he stood next to the bed. He seemed calm yet pensive, and it felt like a risk to speak up.

He stared at me as he swallowed.

“What do you mean?” He set the glass down and walked closer. As he sat on the bed, I held my breath. He seemed so calm, so sure of how this would go, that it bothered me. Being kept in the dark was the way my life was supposed to go. But after hearing that I had a hit placed on me by my own father, yeah, I was eager for him to say something.

“What’s going to happen?” I asked.

He arched one brow. “Are you asking me to predict the fucking future?”

“With my father.” I struggled to swallow past the anxiety lodged in my chest at the news of how I was to be killed off. “All of it.”

“The next thing that will happen is exactly what that soldier predicted.”

Huh? I furrowed my brow, not following at all. What is he saying?

“You’ll marry and sleep with the head of the Valkov Bratva.”

I gaped at him, unable to inhale. “What?” With…Pavel?

“And your children will represent the power of the Valkovs, not the Kastavas,” he declared.

He made no sense. Why would he want to see my father’s goals met? And how? I scrunched my nose, staring at him and searching his face for a clue about what he meant. “By marrying Andrey after all?”

He narrowed his eyes. “I told you. You need a strong man, Mila.”

Okay, not Andrey.

“How?” I shook my head, wishing something would click. “How am I going to marry the head of your Family? Who would I marry and?—”

He isn’t suggesting… I tried to wrap my head around what he was scheming.

His lips remained straight in a firm line as he looked me over. Then the start of a cocky smile crossed his face. “Me.”

15

ALEK

Mila blinked once. Then again. Her beautiful blue eyes remained clouded with suspicion and confusion as she gazed at me. For a moment, I worried that she’d taken too many shocks in one night. Hearing that her father wanted her dead had to hurt. If the news didn’t wound her, then it should’ve alarmed her.

But she didn’t look overwhelmed or consumed with a barrage of heavy emotions. She seemed… stuck in disbelief as she gawked at me.

“You?” she asked, lifting her brows as she shifted to get comfortable on the bed.

Not for the first time, I wondered if I could risk untying her. I wanted to. After seeing Yusef break in here and aim a gun at her, I regretted keeping her confined. At that moment, she had been vulnerable and pinned in place, an easy target for anyone with a weapon. I would have rather let her protect herself, not be stuck and exposed, but a nagging voice in the back of my mind told me to reconsider.

Mila was too stubborn, too much of a fighter for me to know that she wouldn’t try to run.

Yusef—or any other enemy—shouldn’t have been able to get up here at all. When I disposed of his body in the dumpster, I took faith in the fact that he’d ruined the fire escape leading toward my floor. Unless someone rappelled down to my window from the rooftop, which was highly inaccessible with its severe slope, no one else would be coming here.

I’d almost wondered when it could happen. I’d been careful not to be tailed, but shit happened. Cameras were everywhere. People talked. The door was reinforced against being busted in, but that window was the only weak spot.

Not anymore. I frowned at Mila as she lay on the bed, stupefied by my plans.

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