Page 25 of The Bratva's Forced Innocent Bride

What would I do? Let her choose to leave me? Out of the question.

It wasn’t something I had to think too hard about because I knew Luca well enough by now that it would be a long time before that asshole shook off his fixation, or replaced it with another woman.

The fact that there might be another woman out there that could compare to Brooke had me laughing again.

Fuck, I was in deep.

I needed a distraction to keep me from going back upstairs. I’d put on a big show to prove I could walk away from her, and I needed to stick to it. For now. After grabbing a snack that didn’t interest me one bit, I snapped open my laptop to continue some research I’d started before the hurricane that was Brooke blew into my life.

Setting up new businesses for my family always came with headaches. My brothers and I were all hardheaded and thought we knew what was best, so trying to get us to agree on anything took weeks, even months, and then opportunities might have passed us by.

After being faced with a few prospects that wouldn’t make it past a first meeting, I stared past my screen and out the window at the small lights illuminating the garden path. What I needed was a few more laps in the pool. What I wanted to do wasgo to bed. My bed. But if I did that, I would wake up Brooke for a second round, and she needed rest after all she’d been through in the last forty-eight hours.

In fact, I was going to have our family doctor come in the morning to check her over and take a blood sample, to make sure whatever that creep had dosed her with was completely out of her system and hadn’t done any harm.

As much as I needed to know she was okay, calling in our private physician was a surefire way for my family to find out about Brooke’s and my little situation. Dr. Andreyev couldn’t keep his mouth shut no matter what oath he took or who threatened him. I meant for this marriage to be forever, which meant getting Brooke fully on board so she’d stop trying to scale the walls. That might take some time based on her current mood, and if word got back to Katie, it was going to get back to Jenna, who’d throw a fit to Lev, and that would be game over.

As much as I loved my family, they were a giant pain in the ass sometimes. Okay, most of the time, especially if they got so much as a whiff of one of us keeping secrets. It was a minor miracle that Lev and Jenna, and even Katie and Aleks, had managed to keep their marriages from the rest of us so long.

I needed a little bit of distance, along with time, and I began to think about a plan to advance our territory down south that my younger brother Dimitry and I had discussed recently. I wasn’t too keen on the idea since the diner was raking in the money, and I already had a full plate with whatever Aleks assigned to me. But Dima was champing at the bit and wanting to break free to forge his own path.

We’d done a bit of research and made a few visits and there were a lot of opportunities down there. The San Diego area was ripe for expansion. So many places were crying outfor protection from the scattered leadership of the half-assed organizations that weren’t very organized at all. The more I thought about it, the more I decided Dima was right. It could be incredibly lucrative to branch out right about now.

And the gorgeous beaches would make for a lovely honeymoon spot, too. Nice and private and out of the way of prying eyes. My younger brother Dima could be trusted if he happened upon our little secret, or his arm could be twisted to keep his mouth shut if it came to it. I was okay with either, it was totally up to him.

Turning my focus back to my laptop, I began to check out the real estate options down there. Pleased with this new plan, I fell asleep on the couch in my office with my laptop resting on my chest and a smile on my face.

Chapter 16 - Brooke

The next morning, after a solitary breakfast and no sight of Max anywhere, a chatty doctor came to check on me. As he poked and prodded, the kindly old man spoke a fast mix of English and Russian and didn’t seem to mind that I was off in another world. I barely answered the questions I did understand and let him go about his exam, as if I had any choice in the matter.

Staring at the age spots on the balding head in front of me as the doctor wrapped a blood pressure cuff around my arm, I continued to stew about last night. My mind was a mess, alternating between drifting off into daydreams about how amazing everything had been, then swinging abruptly to wallowing in shame for giving in the way I did.

Not just giving in, but practically begging Max to continue. That was the worst part, needing his touch so badly it felt like I couldn’t breathe if he had stopped. But he’d been fully ready to walk away. In fact, he had walked away!

On our honeymoon night, which wasn’t supposed to even happen, but in books and movies, didn’t the couple go all night? It certainly didn’t seem normal that the new husband would so casually stroll away.

Or for the wife to try to flee, like I’d done. Not just my failed attempt to get over the wall, but I’d also tried to storm my way back to the guest room, as if that would have made up for all the gasping and groveling and loving every damn second of what we’d done. But, oh no, he was the one to leave, that—

“Your blood pressure is quite high,” the doctor said, interrupting my mental tirade. I huffed, trying to settle down. “Just take it easy for a while, nothing too strenuous.”

Oh God, had Max told him I tried to jump from a tree last night? Just like a monkey, but not really, or I’d be somewhere else by now.

“I don’t think it’s from exertion,” I said through gritted teeth.

No, I knew exactly why my blood pressure was up, and it was the big, handsome jerk who was holding me hostage. There was no possible way this marriage was legally binding, no matter what happened last night. As soon as I could find a phone, I was out of here, by any means necessary. Even if it meant bringing a SWAT team down on Max, and, by extension, my best friend’s new family.

Surely, Jenna wouldn’t stand for this if she knew what was actually going on. But thanks to Max, she thought I was back in San Francisco, living normally. Max was going to keep texting her to keep up the ruse.

After he pronounced, nothing was wrong with me, and as he packed up his supplies, I asked the doctor if I could borrow his phone.

“Mine got cracked beyond repair when I was…” I trailed off, looking worn down and pathetic.

Either he wasn’t as kindly as he seemed, or he’d been briefed by Max, because he barely refrained from rolling his eyes at me and refused. Once he left, I wandered around looking for Max, but he didn’t seem to be anywhere in the house. To keep from being too curious and getting worked up again, I decided it was the perfect time to search the place.

There had to be a phone somewhere. There were so many bedrooms, each one decorated to perfection with beautiful paintings or stunning photographs that were probably actual works of art and not just reproductions, but none of them hadphones. Same with an extensive library lined with shelves of books from floor to ceiling, a couple of rooms that looked like offices for the staff, sitting rooms, the massive kitchen, a formal dining room that could have fit four of my apartment inside, and an entertainment center.

But not a single, damn phone in sight. There were jacks in the wall that signified that house phones had been there at one point, and chargers and cords were left in the offices. That had to mean some of the staff were carrying their phones with them, but if the doctor had been given orders, so had they. Short of tackling them and hijacking their phone, I didn’t dare try to ask anyone else. I wasn’t quite up to being completely humiliated again by trying to go the mugging route.

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