Page 9 of Beautiful Beast

“Because you can have my daughter.”

I perked up. “Interesting.”

“In marriage, of course. I won’t debase her to be your mistress. If you marry my daughter, you’ll know you can trust me.”

“You must obviously care about her.”

His lips somehow thinned even more. “Obviously.”

“I don’t even know this daughter of yours.”

“Her name is Anya. She’s twenty. Perfectly good age for marrying. She’s young and beautiful. She can give you children. If you marry her, we can form an alliance. I know I’ll be able to trust you, and you’ll be able to trust me.”

“You would give your daughter away just like that?” I snapped my fingers.

“A woman’s place in our world is to marry well, and who better than you? It would give our family even more prestige. What do you say?”

“I say I haven’t seen what she looks like.”

Sighing, Sergei pulled out his phone and showed me a picture of the most beautiful redhead I’d ever seen.

Porcelain skin with a smattering of freckles. Piercing blue eyes. A face I would never tire of looking at.

“So?” Sergei put his phone away. “What do you think?”

“She really looks like that? All the time?”

“I mean, I don’t watch her when she’s asleep, but yes, when she’s awake, she looks like that. So, Erik, do we have a deal?”

Listen, I wasn’t one for settling down when it came to women. I’d had my fair share. Between my looks and my power, women tended to throw themselves at me.

I didn’t have any love for Anya. But if she could get me more power and look fucking beautiful on top of it, why not? It wasn’t a bad trade.

I held my hand out. “Deal.”

Sergei shook on it, and that was that.

I leave the warehouse, whistling to myself. In less than a week, I’ll be married. I’ll have more power than any other man in this entire city. And I’ll have a beautiful woman at my side.

I just have to hope Anya isn’t some harpy. Sergei insisted I wait until the wedding day to meet her. Most Bratva fathers are paranoid about their daughter’s reputation. He probably wants to make sure Anya is as pure as she can be on our wedding day. If we met before, rumors could circulate among our people.

And I don’t want anyone talking bad about my wife. That would be a direct reflection on me.

As I reach my car, a man steps out of the shadows. “Please tell me that’s jam and not what I think it is.”

I don’t startle as I turn to face the man. “Ah, Dante. Making your annoying presence known, I see.”

Dante Moretti smiles back at me. It’s not a kind smile. It’s a “fuck you” smile. “Just wanted to come and talk to you.”

“About what?”

“About how you’re not going to win, Erik. How I’m going to become the most powerful man in this city.” He’s around my age, which just puts us even more at odds with each other.

“Too bad you’re not already there.”

Dante Moretti is part of the Italian Mafia. Well, in fact, he’s in charge of a lot of it, making him fairly equal in power to me.

But equal isn’t what either of us wants.

---