Page 11 of Hating the Bratva

Alek

Meet me at my office in an hour.

I re-read the text message I got this morning from Gavril before sliding the phone back into my pocket. I’m a couple of minutes late, but he didn’t give me much warning. Mikhail is sitting in a lounge chair in the common area of the clubhouse. I slap hands with him.

“Need anything?” I ask. Working on the intelligence side of the business is usually a quieter job. Often, I sit at home, making phone calls to my Vory to get updates on how the product is moving along. I’m naturally more interested in the arms dealing business since that’s where I got my start. Other days, I’m going to meetings with distributors and members of other brotherhoods. That’s when I have to be on guard, and the reason I still hit the gym six days a week. I’m more of a manager than anything else, which is why it makes sense for me to step into the role of Pakhan. I have all the connections, and I’ve proven I can lead the brotherhood.

Mikhail shakes his head. “Nothing new going on here. I just had to stop by.”

“Alright. I’ll see you around.”

I walk past him to Gavril’s door and knock.

“You’re late,” he says. I open the door and step inside. His eyes watch me as I take a seat across from him.

“My apology.”

He scoffs. “Back in my day, if I were late to a meeting with my Pakhan, I’d have the shit beat out of me.”

“Well, I guess I’m lucky we’re not back in your day.”

“Guess so.” He lifts his coffee cup to his mouth and takes a sip.

“So what’s the news, old man?”

He sits the cup down and lets out a short laugh. “Watch it there. I can still drop your ass faster than you can blink.”

I roll my eyes.

He clears his throat, his eyes turning from playful to more serious. I sit up straighter in my chair.

“There’s some news that’s going to come out soon, and I wanted to tell you first so you aren’t taken by surprise.” He takes another sip of his coffee. “The Miami brotherhood is on our back, as you know.”

“Yeah, because of that idiot Ivan.”

He nods. “Exactly. So I came up with a solution.”

This should be good. I lean back in my chair.

“We’re marrying Ivan off.”

I scoff. “The Miami brotherhood isn’t going to give a fuck about him being a married man. He went down there and fucked someone’s wife. They have a right to kill—”

It dawns on me what he just said: marriage. Ivan is going to get married.

“To who?” I grit out between clenched teeth. Gavril narrows his eyes at me but doesn’t answer.

I slam my fists down on the desk, making everything on it shake.

“Who?” I seethe.

Gavril stands to his feet and puts both hands on the desk.

“You know who, Alek.”

I stand up so fast the chair I was sitting in flips over. There’s no fucking way. I pace back and forth as I try to process what the fuck he just told me. Delaney and Ivan. Delaney and Ivan. Delaney and fucking Ivan.

“Delaney is mine,” I growl to no one in particular. Everyone knows it. I’d become Pakhan, and she’d be my wife. That’s how this was supposed to pan out. But fucking Ivan. I don’t want her near that piece of shit, much less marrying him.

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