Page 29 of The Bratva King's Kidnapped Bride

Lev was irritated I wasn’t immediately getting back to work, and part of me understood since we needed to continue strategizing what to do about our new foes. But I was a newlywed, and as fast as it happened and as odd as the circumstances might have been, I wanted to savor at least a couple days alone with my new bride.

Not thinking about what was going to happen next in our budding war, or arguing with my brothers. Not cracking skulls or issuing threats. Just being with Katie.

“Shall we fly to Sonoma for a mini honeymoon?” I asked, already envisioning us poking around among the grape vines, tasting the fine wines, and lazily enjoying the sunsets, hand in hand.

What had Katie done to me in the short time I’d known her? I was coming unhinged.

She bit her lip, and her brow furrowed as she gathered all her curls into a ponytail. “I kind of wanted to get back to my deliveries,” she said, glancing at me nervously. “If I’m away too long, I might lose a lot of my customers.”

I snorted. “So much for loyalty.”

“Well, it’s not like they can skip lunch forever while waiting, can they?” she said reasonably.

“I’ve lined up the man who’ll be doing your deliveries,” I told her. “And Olga can go to the market for you tomorrow morning. How about we have a day just for us. What would you like to do?”

Sonoma Valley disappeared from my imagination, but in truth, I was a bit relieved to stay close. Lev wasn’t wrong to be in such a dire mood about the Armenian gang encroaching on our territory. They’d been keeping all of us on our toes with their scattered and random attacks on our businesses.

My main worry regarding them right now was keeping Katie out of their line of sight. They would stop at nothing to attain it if they knew they had that sort of hold over me. If they touched Katie, or even breathed in her direction, it would be war. An all-out bloodbath. Those were messy, caused too many casualties on our side, and always got the attention of law enforcement.

It was better to keep her a secret for now, hence the low-key wedding ceremony. All my siblings had been sworn to keep their mouths shut, and we’d agreed to even keep it from our father for now. It would make a better surprise to spring it on him when Katie was pregnant, anyway.

I nudged her arm, urging her to tell me what she really wanted to do today.

“Do you think we could go get some of my stuff from my house?” she asked, wrinkling up her nose.

I groaned. “Is that the only thing you can think of?”

“I can think of a lot of things we can do later,” she told me with a wicked smile. “But I do need some of my special utensils, like my lucky wooden spoons that my aunt gave me, and this cheese grater that I bought on the same day I met Jamie Oliver at the Beverly Center. He said it was a good one. Oh, he’s a famous chef,” she finished, out of breath, but taking a new one. “And family pictures and some of my clothes. I’m really grateful for the outfits you bought me, but… you know…”

I sighed, but I had already had some people at her old place, and most of the big items should have been boxed up by now. If we went there today, it would be off her mind, and she would be done with it. And I had told her to pick anything she wanted to do.

I instructed the driver to head that way, and she beamed, snuggling up to me.

“You’ve got to learn to dream bigger,” I teased. “Especially when I offer you anything.”

She looked up at me and shrugged. “But I feel like I already have everything I want.”

It was clear she was deadly serious. There was nothing coy about her, no artifice to make me think she was better than she was. My heart squeezed, and I wrapped my arm around her, pulling her close for a more robust kiss than what we’d shared at the courthouse.

After we pulled into the gravel driveway of her modest house, she scampered to the door, overturning a flower pot and pulling out a spare key. The lack of security made me shudder.

“What’s all this?” she said, shocked to see all the stacked boxes inside.

“We can move all this to our place, or put it in storage. But the lease was up at the end of next month so it had to go somewhere.”

“Yeah,” she said slowly. “But we always renew the lease.”

“Not this time,” I said.

“What?” She leaned against the closest stack, her eyes skating over the bare walls. “How could you just make a decision like that without talking to me?”

I gathered up my patience in the face of her distress. “Is this place that special to you?” I asked. “You live with me now. Why is it so important to keep paying rent on it?”

Did she want me to buy it outright? It was too crowded of an area to make a good safehouse. I raised my eyebrows and waited for her answer, which she seemed to be struggling to find.

“Well, Jenna comes home for school holidays,” she stammered.

I laughed. “We live in a house with sixteen bedrooms. Or she can stay at the beach house, or the apartment in the city.”

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