Page 50 of Stolen By the Bratva

Unbelievable. It was so fucking impossible that I struggled to convince myself of what she said, of what she wanted.

She wanted to run. I knew it. I saw it in her eyes. Those beautiful blue orbs had been so hesitant, torn with the urge to flee and abandon me while I was down.

But she hadn’t. She chose to stay here and still wanted to get married to me.

I glanced again at Andrey and considered why she’d be so eager to align herself with me. She’d just murdered a prominent man in a rival bratva. She’d be hunted. Targeted. Alone and without support, she’d never make it. Married to me, though, she’d have some protection.

Anyone who wanted to punish her for killing Andrey would have to go through me first. She knew it. But I suspected she wanted to stay for another reason.

As I sat up with her help, dizzy from the bullet that Andrey had aimed at her, I realized that this bold, sexy woman was made of much stronger stuff than I’d first thought. She may be young, naïve, and stubborn as fuck, but she was mature with an old soul. And she cared. I’d suspected that she was a maternal nurturer, and she’d more than proved it. She showed me how much compassion and courage she had to help me with my wound, then to see to my brother’s comfort. And the priest’s as well.

It should’ve been an oxymoron, calling her a compassionate, caring woman when she’d just murdered a man, but even in that, she’d been selfless. She’d shot him to spare my life.

“Careful,” she chided as I got to my feet shakily. Her small hands braced me as she offered physical support to stand.

You care. It was a monumental concept to understand, but I felt stupid to fight against it. She’d already shown how much she cared. Despite her sass and ease with arguing with me, she gravitated toward me with affection. Like when she’d woken up in the middle of the night, still half asleep and seeking my touch and warmth on the bed. Already, she craved my touch. It gave me all the fuel to look forward to what waited ahead of us. I wanted to think that this primal desire sizzling between us could be the starting point of something that would evolve and grow into love, a deep, lasting bond with respect and need. A partnership like what my grandparents had so long ago.

“I can,” the priest said as Maxim approached him and helped him to his feet. While Mila draped my arm around her shoulders and guided me toward the man Maxim had paid to be here to officiate the wedding, footsteps thundered down the hall. With Mila’s support, her shoulder wedged in my armpit to stabilize me, I grabbed my gun from her hand.

My injury protested. Fierce stabs of agony lanced down my arm as I held my gun up, but I was used to being pushed to my limits.

Just as the door flew open and one of Andrey’s closest confidants rushed in, I aimed my gun at his head.

He flung his hands up into the air as he skidded to a stop, breathing hard. “Aleksei?” He narrowed his eyes, looking at Mila with me, then Maxim and the priest. Last, he noticed Andrey dead next to the other Valkov soldier.

“What the fuck is going on?”

“You’re going to stand right there and bear witness to our wedding.” When he opened his mouth to shout back, snarling at what I’d said, I took one step closer with my gun trained on the spot between his eyes.

“This is bullshit! What the fuck are you trying to do, Aleksei?” He advanced, but Maxim lifted his gun to aim it at him as well.

He quieted, swearing and rubbing one hand over his face.

Under gunpoint, he’d behave. I glanced at the terrorized priest. “We need two witnesses?”

He gulped, his huge Adam’s apple wobbling as he nodded quickly. “Yes. Two.”

“Go on, then,” Mila said, glancing at this newcomer who fumed at us together.

“Do you take Aleksei Valkov to be your husband, now and forever?” the priest asked her.

“I do.” She glanced at me, then frowned at the man Maxim and I kept under gunpoint.

“Do you take…” The priest faltered, volleying a nervous look at Maxim, then Mila. He raised his brows, sheepish.

“Mila Kastava,” she supplied, rolling her eyes. “Quickly.”

“Do you take Mila Kastava to be your wife, now and forever?” he asked me.

“I do.” I slammed my lips to hers without taking my eyes off the soldier near the door.

The priest dropped his jaw, blinking in shock from the fast pace of the vows. Maxim had to have warned him to keep this short and simple. As the elderly man winced in pain and pressed the cloth to his wound, I knew he’d appreciate this hasty ceremony.

“Rings?” I asked my brother.

He handed them over, and as we both kept an eye on the soldier getting angrier and angrier at the door, Mila and I slipped the simple bands onto each other’s fingers. Dmitri had texted that he was still looking for our mother’s ring, somewhere at the mansion my father had once shared with Pavel, but he hadn’t been able to locate it yet.

Later. I’d give my wife anything she fucking wanted, all the jewels and gems in the world. Everything she coveted, I’d deliver.

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