Page 33 of Arranged Bratva Virgin

Stef. Mm. That’s the first time she did not use my full name. I kind of like how it sounds on her lips.

“Well, Darya, if you take a break and eat something with me, then I will.”

“I can’t, I just need to—"

“No. You don’t need to anything except for take a break with your husband.”

She rolls her eyes, but I grab her hand, fetch an extra burger, and pull her towards the corner of the warehouse, where we sit on a wooden crate.

I open her burger box for her. “Do you want the sauce?”

“The mayo, not the ketchup,” she smiles.

“You don’t like ketchup?” I say with fake horror.

She laughs, and her voice sounds like music to my ears.

“I just like the mayo better,” Darya shrugs.

I hand her the opened burger with mayo splashed across the fries and then throw some ketchup onto my own.

We sit quietly, looking over the warehouse—or, more accurately, she is looking over the warehouse, and I am just watching her.

She looks tired but determined. There is this look in her eye that is full of focus.

“Thank you, Darya,” I say.

“You don’t have to thank me, Stef. Of course, I want to help wherever I can.”

“I know; I just honestly didn’t expect you to be so good at it. You are full of surprises. Not very many people can impress me, but you seem to do it often.”

“I do?” she asks, sounding curiously surprised.

“Of course, you do. You are a beautiful, strong, talented woman with the most amazing heart. I’m just saying—I got lucky.”

She giggles nervously but tries to hide it by covering her mouth with her hand.

She takes another bite of her burger and chews thoughtfully.

After a moment, she turns towards me.

“What happened, Stef? Do you know who did this and why?”

I sigh. My first instinct is to tell her not to worry about all of that again, but she already knows, and she is here helping. She has proven that she wants to be here with me.

I swallow what I was chewing. “I found out the other day that my stepfather made a dirty deal with a big name in the mafia. He owed him some money, and of course the guy has carried that debt over to me. He’s not up for reasoning about it and is coming in pretty hot insisting I pay it.”

“So this whole thing was him?”

“Marco Colombo. Maybe, no, I don’t have any evidence to prove it. I get a lot of threatening phone calls, but I do assume it’s him. He’s been the most prominent pain in my side lately. He was, uh, the one who shot at us the other night.”

“Then you know who it is? I know of him, my brothers would make quick work of this situation.”

“I know who it is, but I don’t need help, and I am sorting it out myself.”

She throws her head to the side, as if to say are you, though?

“I am sorting it out. I have already told him I'll pay, which is why I'm surprised, if this is him. Perhaps he thought I would have paid already. I am not happy about having to pay anything linked to my father’s debts, though. He caused me enough shit in my life to not still be causing me shit after he's dead,” I huff, annoyed all over again.

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