Page 60 of The Bratva King's Auctioned Bride

“It’s over,” he said, reaching to make sure my ear wasn’t bleeding.

I whipped out of his grasp. “Like hell it is.” Tears burned behind my eyes, but fury wouldn’t let them fall. This was beyond my own feelings now, didn’t he see that? Crossing my arms, I stared at him with all the force of my anger. “I swear to God, Ivan. If you don’t call him back right now, I will never speak to you again. Talk about it being over? I won’t be your sister anymore. None of you.”

“Damn it, Mila,” he said, already about to dismiss me as not being serious.

Until I refused to back down. I didn’t blink as I let him know without another word that what I said was true. I’d leave and never contact any of them again if he didn’t fucking let me get on the phone with my husband.

Arkadi had called Ivan. Not stormed in with an army, guns blazing, and bombs getting tossed over the walls. That had to be a good sign, right? He went to the trouble of finding out where Ivan lived, and tried to have a conversation instead of going into attack mode.

My stubborn, hotheaded brother continued to stare me down, or try to. I wasn’t having it this time. I loved them too much to let them get into a war they might not win. Even ifthey did, the losses would be great. The loss to me might be everything.

The look in Ivan’s eyes slowly went from boiling rage to sadness, and his stiff shoulders rounded. Taking out his phone, he punched in the number that had just called him.

“Give me five minutes to alert the guards to let you pass,” he grunted, ending the call before I could start a new round of grabbing for it. He whirled on me, fresh fury all over his face. “You want to talk to him? Fine. Now, you can hear for yourself that your husband is still very much our enemy.Yourenemy, Mila. And it’s going to be the last thing he ever does.”

Oh God, what did I just do? Now Arkadi was about to walk into a trap. One that I set.

“Ivan, no. Give me the phone.” I heaved myself at him, ready to fight so I could stop Arkadi from walking through the front door.

I was no match for his strength and his determination. There was nothing I could say or do to make him see that things had changed. Ivan, like my other brothers, had had enough. Arkadi was always going to be their enemy, and he was just champing at the bit to put a bullet in him. All I could do was wait, not sure how to put a stop to it, but meaning to try.

At that point, it no longer mattered what Arkadi might have been planning behind my back. I still didn’t want him to die.

Why? Because I loved him. It might have been the stupidest mistake in my life, but I ended up falling in love with the infuriating man. No matter what else we’d been through, and everything he did, the terror that he might be gunned down within the next few minutes made me realize my true feelings.Now, the tears were streaming freely down my cheeks, from sorrow that it came too late.

I grabbed Ivan’s lapels, running my hands down his jacket to feel the gun he had strapped to his side underneath. “Put this away,” I begged.

He shook his head. “Not a chance,” he said, looking horrified when he saw my tears.

None of my brothers could stand to see me cry, which was why I tried never to do it around them. There was no stopping it now as I attempted to physically shake some sense into him.

“Please just listen to him first.” I was on the verge of screaming, but dialed it back to get it out before I dissolved in hysteria.

I had never been so scared in my life, not even on that stage in Moscow when the guard had ripped my clothes off. In order for Arkadi to make it into the house, the guards outside would pat him down first. He’d be defenseless on his enemy’s turf. All for me.

“Please,” I whispered when Ivan got word he was heading through.

“I told you I’d let him speak before I ended him.” It was all the promise I got from my brother, and it made my knees feel like they had turned to water.

When Ivan was led into the room a few moments later, there was silence as the two men stared at each other. I cared about both of them so much, was angry with both of them, and didn’t want either of them to be hurt. Arkadi was as unreadable as usual, but clearly on edge. Ivan glanced over at me, where I stood by his side and slightly behind him. It was finally my turn to speak.

“Did you plot against my brothers?” I asked. My voice was even and cold as ice, but he had to see the tear stains on my cheeks.

“Yes,” he said simply.

I was crushed. Now, he was going to die, and despite wanting to claw at him myself for the admission, I couldn’t bear the thought of losing him forever. My legs wavered, and Ivan reached for my arm. I shrugged him off, staring at Arkadi, who smiled gently before holding up his phone.

My explosives expert brother flinched, reaching for his gun, but Arkadi wasn’t trying to detonate a hidden device; he was trying to show me something. He nodded at Ivan to take it, turning it so it lay flat in his open palm.

“I called it off,” he said. “Look for yourself.”

“It would be stupid as hell not to now,” Ivan said, but took the phone.

I crowded in close as he scanned through the text messages from Arkadi to his men. Dozens of them, demanding in no uncertain terms that everything was off, and not just from a few hours ago when he would have found out I was with Ivan. No, from early that morning, right around the time I had stormed away from him in angry silence.

He had decided then, when I was treating him like crap, that he wasn’t going to hurt me or my family. I could breathe again, and my heart was back in one piece, beating soundly in my chest. I looked up from the phone to Arkadi.

“Why did you change your mind?” I asked, needing to hear it from his own mouth.

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