Page 37 of The Bratva King's Kidnapped Bride

“I see your point.” But he enjoyed having the upper hand, telling me to wait and see what it was like to be a mother.

“Talk about having to rein you in,” he laughed. “You’ll be teaching me how to spoil a child.”

We kept teasing each other, making up outlandish scenarios about how we’d act as parents. My wish that this could last forever welled up in my chest, almost making it hard to breathe. The idea of having Aleks’s baby was something I longed to do now that I had accepted how much I truly loved him. It would have been everything I wished for. The perfect life.

Too bad it was all just a dream.

Chapter 20 - Aleksandr

I rubbed my swollen jaw with a bloody hand. The meeting we’d set up in a neutral location with the head of the Armenian organization had gone to hell fast. He'd started issuing orders no sooner than the brash young man arrived with his henchmen in tow. Assuming we were there to concede and not keep him, his friends, and his family from a world of hurt.

I decided to hear him out before shutting down his dreams of glory, but Lev laughed before he had his list of demands halfway out. That made one of his guards move his hand in such a way to reveal he was strapped, even though we’d agreed to be unarmed in the meeting room.

Then, our younger brother Ivan, who was always itching for a fight and had never stood by my demands of further diplomacy, saw this and took offense. He charged him, disarming him and putting him on the floor with a boot on his chest and the toppled man’s own gun pointed at his head. This amused Lev to no end, bragging that Ivan could have been the sheriff of any wild western town; he was so fast on the draw.

How could it get better from there?

Now we had the three of them subdued, but were all of us the worse for wear. Since we were in a place that neither of us owned, any sound of gunfire would have had the place swarming with cops. It was up to our fists, a few chairs we’d have to pay for, and whatever kicks we could get in.

Ivan paced angrily as we waited for a cleanup crew to come and dump our hostages back on their own turf and take care of any damages to the hotel for the mess we made. He had blood streaming from a gash on his forehead but was too amped up to notice or care. His knuckles were as scraped and bruised as Lev’s and mine, and he punched his palm as he stalked back and forth.

“We need to finish this,” he said.

I rolled my eyes at Lev, but he looked like he agreed with Ivan. Was I going soft because of Katie? I’d managed to keep my hands clean since the wedding, and now all I could think about was how troubled she was going to be to see me so battered. Would it be better to simply make this problem disappear?

It wasn’t like I didn’t already have a reputation for ruthlessness. The youthful Armenian leader was trying to remain calm in his half-conscious state, but he was clearly about to piss his pants, thinking he was heading for the middle of the Pacific with bricks tied to his ankles instead of home.

But maybe I didn’t want to go home to my wife with three men’s deaths on my conscience. It was bad enough I’d have to lie to her about the battle wounds.

“Not today,” I said in a tone that brooked no argument. I had the final word in everything, and whether they agreed with me or not didn’t matter in the end. I relented when Ivan looked like steam would come out of his ears. They had betrayed us by showing up armed, and they’d started this war they had no chance of finishing. Perhaps it was right to make things a bit more clear. “Choose the one who gets to set an example. We’ll inform the crew when they arrive.”

At this, the Armenian leader perked up and started thrashing against the zip ties we always had in our pockets for emergencies. Tears streamed down his barely recognizable face, and he let loose with a stream of words I didn’t understand. They were most certainly curses in his own language, and I turned away from him to add insult to injury. Ivan ran over and got him to shut up by knocking him out.

I leaned against the meeting room door, pulling my expensive pocket square out to dab at a cut over my eye.

“How am I going to explain this to Katie?” I muttered, checking my watch. Where was the cleanup crew? All I wanted to do was get home, no matter what reaction I’d get when she saw the state I was in.

Lev’s eyes widened. “Are you saying you still haven’t told her what we do?”

“Not yet,” I said, wishing I’d never admitted to my brothers that I was keeping the fact we were Bratva from her.

It was the only way to keep them quiet if they should happen to meet her, another thing I was struggling with. Katie was family-oriented and didn’t understand why the only sibling she’d spent any time with was Mila. Even Mila might accidentally let something slip if she got too comfortable. The secrets were eating at me, and I reconsidered ending this today.

Just dumping the leader into the sea seemed like an easy option, but the rest of his people simply rolling over because he was gone wasn’t a given. They were scrappy and tenacious, I had to give them that. It was just as likely they’d redouble their efforts to avenge him. It was better they came to see reason and give in gracefully.

I barely noticed Lev telling me how stupid it was trying to keep the fact I was a mafia kingpin from my new bride. I finally scowled at him, and he listed some possible excuses I could give instead.

I balked at saying I was mugged. First of all, who would dare? And I’d have to pretend to file a police report. A car accident was out of the question, as she might want to see the damage to the car. I sighed and asked if my face really looked that bad.

Both my brothers laughed and asked how they looked.

“Like shit,” I said, realizing I must look similarly beat up.

“I’ve been telling you to join my gym,” Lev said, flexing his biceps out of habit whenever he talked up the boxing gym he bought over a year ago. “It’s a great workout and the perfect excuse for having a split lip.”

“Or bruised ribs,” Ivan said, rubbing his side with a wince.

“Fine. Sign me up. I’ll tell her I had my first sparring lesson today.”

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