Page 4 of Captivated By the Bratva

My father did. Gregory Petrov was known to “own” a convenience mart in Trenton, New Jersey, but that was just a mask to slip over his real occupation.

Same as Lev Avilov did. He, or his workers, could mail me messages on fancy paper with the letterhead ofDunvinov LLC, but that freak was just a bigger person in the Mafia.

“And now,” Zoe said as she rubbed her hand over her face, “we’ll need to fill out more forms for forwarding mail again.” She grinned at me, clearly excited about the future. “Can you believe it? We’re going to be grads in, like, a month!”

I forced a smile while shoving the letters into my bag. Looking at them wouldn’t change a thing. Like a reminder of the futureI refused to consider, they weighed heavily on me. “It is hard to believe.”

She sighed, noticing my lack of enthusiasm. “Still can’t make up your mind, huh?”

I’d been honest with her about not knowing what I wanted to do next. She interpreted that as my not knowing what I desired to do with my academics. Unlike her, already accepted into a graduate program in New York, I wanted to maintain distance from that area of the world. No corner seemed far enough away, but whatever I decided, I wouldnotput myself within reach of Lev or my father.

“Well, the program in Dublin sounds interesting…” I admitted.Even though I’m not sure I want to work with old lit forever.“But switching to creative writing holds my interest more.”

She scrunched her nose. “Like, changing your majors?” She huffed a laugh. “A little late for that now.”

“No. Just to redirect where I’d go from here.”

“Creative writing?” She furrowed her brow more.

I shrugged. “Yeah. Editing and whatnot.”

“Eh.” She waved a hand at me. “AI will replace the majority of all those jobs soon enough.”

I couldn’t argue her opinion there. It hardly mattered what I decided to focus on. My priority remained the same—staying away from Lev.

Zoe sat up, noticing the time, and hurried to get her bag strap back over her shoulder. “Shit. I gotta go. Exam prep, and I can’t be late. Again.”

Once she hustled away, I drummed my fingers on the table and debated putting more energy into the graduate programs I’d considered so far.

What’s the point, though?With these letters showing up—late—I couldn’t escape the nagging pressure to fall in line.

My father owed Lev in the stupidest, sickest way possible. Lev Avilov expected my father to hand me over to him as his bride, and marrying that old dude was thelastthing I wanted to consider for my future.

Cringing as I thought about it all over again, I zoned out at the wall ahead of me. I stared unseeing, tuned in to only the dreadful thoughts that consumed me day and night.

Since my birth, I was arranged in a marriage. I’d been “engaged” prior to the day I entered the world, and all my life, I’d dreamed and planned to avoid it.

“Fuck that,” I muttered, turning to my laptop and running a search on the Mafia lord who thought he’d own me.

Lev Avilov was over forty years my senior. The first few pictures of the oligarch showed a trim, fit man on yachts and at fancy galas. Just looking at his pictures showed evidence of his wealth. He wasn’t ugly, per se, balding but not hideous. But he was too damn old.

I’d just turned twenty-one, and the gap to his sixty-four was a heinous equation. Age differences aside, I did not want to be stuck with him.

A sadistic Mafia mobster? Someone known to torture and kill people?

Hard pass.

Besides the fact that I. Don’t. Want. Him.

My father expected me to marry this weirdo all becausehehad made a promise with the guy. Not me. Nothing of my doing. And that was the hardest pill to swallow, knowing my life and happiness would be forfeit for my father’s actions.

He thought he could hide in Jersey. He assumed for most of his life that he’d never have to actually repay Lev Avilov and own up to his debts. But usingmeas a payment for his past issues was bullshit.

If I were to ever marry anyone, I’d want it to be someone of my choosing, a man I desired and thought worthy of my time.

Forced into a union with an old dude like Lev…

“No.”

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