Page 5 of Unwilling Bratva Bride

Very interesting.

I knocked back the shot. I knew Adley would be calling. She truly did not have many options, and I was content enough to wait for her. Still…breaking that news to the boys was going to be a thing. Abram would never let me hear the end of it, and speech or not, Vlad would come up with quite a few choice phrases on his phone.

I sighed. Duty was calling, and I still had an Irishman to trail, so I paid the tab and headed for my car. As the music played, I pulled up the map on my phone. I had quite the drive before I got to the meeting location, and I had a feeling I’d be spending it digging up all the dirt I could on one Adley MacCormack.

Chapter 3 - Adley

I tried not to let the door slam as I walked into the bodega, using my key to unlock the door. We were closed today since I hadn’t been there to help, and the catch twenty-two of that situation was not lost on me.Can’t make money whether I’m here or not, I guess.

The place was quiet, and I roamed my eyes over the dozens of shelves lined up evenly throughout the open space. Cereal, canned goods, dishes, pots and pans, imported items from Ireland that you couldn’t get anywhere else—they were all there, silently waiting for someone to buy them.

As I walked to the back, I debated whether I wanted to go up the stairs. It was late in the afternoon, so it wasn’t like I was going to wake anyone. But I’d still see them, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted that right now.

“Ugh,” I sighed. “All day. For nothing.”

Instead of gracing my folks with my less-than-stellar presence, I went to the little area at the back of the store where my mom liked to do tea leaf readings for the poor customers she goaded into it. Mom would talk about how the fairies would help her find the answer in the leaves and deliver their messages to the person about love, life, and money.

A small laugh melted out of me as I sat down in the chair, looking at the tea set that was set up for tomorrow.

“What are we going to do, Mom?”

As I hung my head in my hands, I noticed the thin envelope on the table. It was already cut open, and when I turned it over to see who it was from, I saw the familiar name of the medical center Mom went to for her steroid injections.

“Dammit.” I pulled out the bill for her latest treatment. “Past due. Of course.”

The letter spoke about sending the bill to collections like the two before it, and it took everything in me not to crush the damn thing in my grip. Mom’s fibromyalgia was getting worse and worse. She could barely stand, and those injections were the only thing keeping her from being completely immobile in her right hand—and she still couldn’t use it properly even with them.

I got up. Mom kept a store of alcohol that not even Dad knew about in the bottom section of the sideboard against the wall. I pulled out the small bottle of whiskey and brought it back to the table, pouring it into the teacup.

Filling it to the brim, I set the bottle down before knocking back the drink. I coughed hard at the sharp taste.

“Jesus, Mom, what is this?”

I snatched the bottle again and looked at the label a bit closer. Some nothing brand with a percentage high enough to clean rust. She didn’t need to worry about Dad drinking it, that was for sure. He had a particular taste when it came to whiskey, and that wasnotit.

Still…

Downing the rest of the alcohol, I winced. “Waste not.”

The warmth of the shitty whiskey burned the whole way down, and I reached for my braid, going for the hair tie at the end and unwinding it from around the bottom. When it was off, I began to loosen my hair from the French braid, shaking my head as the tension from the style disappeared.

It had started all neat and orderly, but like most things in my life, it didn’t stay that way. The comforting feeling of my hair tumbling around my shoulders eased some of the stress,and I fanned out the waves around me. Mom had always been so impressed with how fast my hair grew, and I’d learned to love it—the length, the color—because she loved it.

They’re really getting older, and I’m supposed to be taking care of them—not the other way around.

My eyes stung, and I knew I was going to have to go back upstairs at some point. I tortured myself with another quick shot of whiskey before standing up and making my way up the creaky old staircase to the rooms on the second floor.

Mom was peeling potatoes at the little kitchen table, and the twins were washing and drying the dishes in the sink. When the little bottle of rice jingled on the doorknob, they all looked up.

“Hey, honey. You were gone for a while. Get over here. I need your help with dinner.”

I smiled, kissing Mom on the head as I sat down with her at the table and started helping her peel.

Molly looked over at me with her hands draped in a towel as she dried a plate. “Any luck?”

I shook my head. Our mother was unaware of what I’d been doing, under the impression that I was looking at places for the twins to work over the summer.

“No, sorry. But it’s fine. You’re both starting school in the fall, so it was only going to be for a few months anyway.”

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