Page 56 of The Bratva King's Auctioned Bride

I whipped around to smack Ivan on the shoulder, but the dense idiot stared straight ahead, refusing to listen as he continued to drive.

Damn it, now I was being kidnapped by my own brother.

Chapter 39 - Arkadi

The wheels of my plane weren’t on the ground in San Francisco for a minute before I told the pilot to get them up again. I was ready to turn around and head home. It didn’t even take me half of the short flight to decide against the attack on the Fokin’s warehouses. It might have been a huge advantage, but I wasn’t going behind my wife’s back like that. I meant to get home as quickly as possible and apologize for the plans I had already given up.

We would find a way to work things out with her brothers, together. If I had to start again from scratch, I would. Nothing was more important to me than Mila’s faith and trust. I still had plenty of properties in LA that survived the war, I wasn’t hurting for money by any means, and my operation in Moscow was thriving after spending some time there and getting everyone in line.

Mila’s happiness was worth all of that and more. It was the most important thing to me. As I paced on the tarmac, waiting for the plane to refuel and the pilot to file a new flight plan, I almost laughed. For once, the Fokin brothers and I wanted the same thing, and it was absurd that I might have to actually fight them to make them see it. I would do it if I had to.

Once my plans to return to Los Angeles were underway, I called up my guy here in San Fran to tell him that the plan was unequivocally off. Didn’t matter what a good opportunity it was, we were done for now, and new ones would arise that wouldn’t hurt my wife’s family.

Before I could do that, one of the guards at the house called. And he wasn’t at the house.

“Mila gave me the slip, boss,” he said, sounding far more disgusted and less worried I would take his head off than he should.

“Say that again?” I asked, certain I didn’t hear him right. Turns out, I did.

“She’s gone,” he repeated.

“What in the fuck happened?”

He proceeded to tell me she wanted to go out for dinner. No red flags there, since I had already told her I wouldn’t be home. In an effort to keep her from feeling like the prisoner she thought she was, she was allowed to go out without me as long as one of my best guards was with her.

So, if my best guard was with her, what the hell happened?

“She thought she was doing a pretty good job of tricking me with some made-up issue, but I followed her when she went to the restroom. Then she just got in a car and—”

“Why would you just let anyone take her?” I bellowed, cutting him off. “And why aren’t you already going after her? You don’t need my damn permission for that. How much time have you wasted? She could be anywhere by now.”

There was a brief silence after my tirade, then a sigh. “It wasn’t just anyone,” he said, the fear creeping into his voice now. “And nobody took her. It was one of her brothers, and she went willingly.”

Well, fuck. “I’m still not comprehending why you stood there and did nothing.”

He cleared his throat. “Well, you did tell us in no uncertain terms that we weren’t to harm any of the Fokins. So I thought I needed guidance on how to proceed.”

He was right. I had practically beaten that into them as we made plans for the takeover. Don’t hurt anyone if at all possible, and absolutely no hurting any of the Fokins. I informed him I was heading back to LA and ended the call in a daze.

Well, double fuck. She left me. After one little disagreement, she left me without a backward glance. There was no anger, that would have been a welcome relief from what I did feel. That was a pain like no other. I was gutted. My heart felt like it had been scooped out and stomped on in front of me, making it hard to breathe. Making it really hard not to take it out on the pilot, who informed me we could leave in less than an hour.

Not good enough. But what was I going back to do? Unleash hell on her brothers when she had happily gone with them? Any other woman, and she would have been a distant memory before I ended the call, finding out she had left. But Mila wasn’t any other woman. She was my wife. Mine.

The only thing keeping me from ordering all the attacks I had canceled were back on was the fact that she was currently in no danger. This was a special kind of enemy I didn’t know how to fight, but it couldn’t be with vengeance and rage. I had already made that promise to her, whether she knew about it yet or not.

There was no doubt in my mind I’d get her back. That wasn’t the issue, tearing me to pieces from the inside.

Once I found her, would she be willing to go with me? Was there anything left between us to fight for?

Chapter 40 - Mila

“Are you kidding me? What do you think you’re doing?” I shouted.

Ivan only ignored me, speeding onto the highway and heading toward the hills. I was furious and kept trying to get him to stop and listen to me, or at least look at me, but my brother was furious too and refused to stop.

We were both red-faced when we pulled through the gates to his mansion. I was still hollering, and he was still as silent as a tomb. If I weren’t so riled up, I would have been scared that was where I was headed. I had seen all of my brothers mad before, many of those times had been directed at me for some foolishness, some of it even deserved. This was next level, and steam was practically coming out of his ears.

And why, exactly, when he’d understand everything was fine if he gave me two seconds to explain? Instead, he slammed the car into park and raced around to jerk my door open.

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