Page 36 of The Bratva's Arranged Bride

“All right. I’ll wait on that for now, but in the meantime, I think this one is the best contender,” I said with a note of finality, ready to wrap up for the day.

Andrey’s acknowledgment was more subdued than I anticipated, but I didn’t say anything else about it. If he was having problems elsewhere, then I was going to leave that up to him.

There was no point putting my nose in his business.

With the ball rolling and the prospective location in my mind, Andrey dropped me off at our main warehouse before I got in my own vehicle and headed home.

Regardless of her father’s out-of-character behavior, I found myself looking forward to seeing Tia.

Maybe that was the wishful thinking in me, given how she wasn’t exactly in a place to be anticipating me coming home yet, but it didn’t matter.

She could still be as distant as she wanted to be, but she was my wife, and I was more interested in her than I cared to admit out loud.

It had been a long day, and I just wanted to be near her.

Pulling up to the house, the sun was steadily lowering for the approaching night, and I went straight for the door.

I let out a relieved breath upon stepping inside and being surrounded by my belongings. It was always good to get back and recharge.

Even if Tia ended up being prickly with me, it wouldn’t matter—I was just glad to be back.

Just as I dropped my keys in the foyer, a soft padding sound caught my attention.

Brows furrowing, confusion stitched into my features the moment a small, scruffy dog ran out of the kitchen and headed straight for me.

I froze, feeling completely thrown off by the sight of it.

“Who are you?”

The white and brown dog came up to me and gave a small wag of its tail before sniffing my pant legs.

Then, a stifled laugh followed, and I found him standing there.

Yuri.

I should’ve known.

Narrowing my eyes at him, I pulled in a breath to try and keep myself together. “Yuri…what the hell is this? Why is there a dog in my house?”

The grin on Yuri’s face was far too triumphant for his own good, clearly giving away just how much joy he was finding at my steadily increasing irritation.

“Oh, that’s just a little friend we found earlier today…don’t worry, we made sure to wash it before the thing decided to roll around in your bed,” he mused before continuing, “Don’t tell me you don’t like dogs now, Val.”

My eye nearly twitched at that, but I reminded myself to hold it in…he wanted a reaction out of me, as usual.

“Dogs are fine, but I’m not keen on having strays in my house,” I muttered, struggling to completely hold back. “And what do you mean by ‘we’?”

Yuri chuckled and bent down to scratch the scraggly dog between the ears. At the very least, it did smell faintly of shampoo. “Come on, now, this isn’t a stray. Not anymore, at least.”

My eyes narrowed further. “You’ve got to be shitting me.”

Standing to his full height again, Yuri crossed his arms over his chest with that shit-eating grin. “Not at all. Tia seems pretty attached to it already.”

“Like hell,” I mumbled, shaking my head. “No dogs…not in my house. Do something about…this.”

At my vague gesture to the dog, my brother laughed to himself, not threatened one bit by my words.

“Oh no, I’m not about to be the bad guy. Not after we already got supplies for it.”

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