Page 1 of Beautiful Enemy

Chapter One

Nadia

It’s my wedding day.

Unlike a lot of women in the Bratva, I don’t feel nervous. I’m ready to do my duty. To marry Viktor Smirnov.

It’s not that I love him. In fact, I barely know him. We’ve spoken a few times over the past couple of years but he’s still a stranger in so many ways. He’s also a lot older than me at thirty-five years old to my twenty-one years.

And yet, I’m not nervous. Viktor has never shown that he’ll hurt me. I know what pain is. My father did that to me and my sister, Anya, enough over the years, especially after we lost our mother when we were children. Because I know pain, I know how much of a relief it is not to experience it.

I sit before my vanity mirror and comb my hair. In just a few hours, I’ll be married. No longer Nadia Belov. Instead, I’ll be Nadia Smirnov. It will take some getting used to but I’ve had a few years to think about it.

When I was seventeen and Anya first married her husband, Erik Koslov, he and my father made a deal with Viktor to betroth us until I turned eighteen. Viktor had no desire to marry a minor. In the Bratva, some men marry incredibly young women and no one bats an eye. Viktor, fortunately, didn’t want me that young. But now that I’m twenty-one, he’s come for me.

I’m not even sure he likes me. I think he’s only marrying me for political gain with Erik. My sister’s husband is one of the most powerful Bratva men in all of New York.

A knock on the door makes me gasp. It’s my father’s fault that I startle easily. “Yes?”

“It’s Anya. Can I come in?”

I set my hairbrush down. The brown strands left behind in it look so messy. Not befitting of a bride.

Anya comes into the room, looking radiant in her loungewear. She’s always been effortlessly beautiful with her striking red hair and blue eyes, whereas I’ve always blended into the shadows. Not many people pay attention to shy girls with brown hair. We barely look like sisters sometimes.

It’s one of the reasons I think our father hurt us so much: he thought our mother stepped out on him. He never did a paternity test that I’m aware of but he still punished us for it, even without proof.

“Shall we get you ready?” Anya asks, squeezing my shoulder.

“Yes.”

“You know, we could still make a run for it. You don’t have to marry Viktor today.”

“Anya, you can’t always save me. Besides, Erik is so close to securing his deal with Viktor. If I ran, I would ruin everything and I can’t do that to him.”

In the past two years since I’ve lived with Anya and Erik, I’ve gotten to know my brother-in-law. While he’s a little cold around the edges, he’s really shown a kindness towards me and Anya. He saved us both from our father. I can’t hurt Erik; he’s like family to me now.

“I’m just not sure if I’m ready to lose you yet,” Anya admits. She’s been taking care of me ever since our mother died when she was ten and I was seven.

“It’s not like we won’t talk. I doubt Viktor will keep me from you. I haven’t gotten that sense from him.”

She sighs deeply. “I know. It’s just tough for me. You’re my baby sister. I fought so hard to save you and now you’re going to marry a Bratva man. You know how they can be.”

I know very well. I don’t have any physical scars to prove it but I have scars buried within me from how our father treated me. Anya has some physical scars though. She took the brunt force of our father’s fury before she married Erik.

“I think Viktor will be kind. Kind enough,” I amend. “I have to believe it. Because the other alternative is too much to even think about.”

“I get it. When I married Erik, I was so scared. I thought he was going to beat me every day like Father. But he never did. And overtime, he changed. He became softer. Nicer. Warmer. I love him now. I know it’s possible. I hope the same for you. That you can find love with Viktor some day. I don’t want you to be in constant fear.”

I grip her hand on my shoulder. “I don’t want that either. But because I’ve seen you and Erik over the past two years, I know it’s possible to find love even through an arranged marriage. I have hope.”

“I still can’t get you to change your mind?”

“No. This is my fate, Anya. It was always going to happen.”

She nods, resigned. Women in the Bratva usually serve two purposes: marriage and kids. Anya has completed the first one. I know her and Erik are working on the second one.

I might be a mom someday. Unlike Anya, who raised me and has a lot of motherly instincts, I can’t imagine myself as a mother. Not yet anyway. I feel too young. Too inexperienced. I feel like the world might swallow me whole.

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