Page 66 of The Bratva King's Auctioned Bride

Even though Mila was eager to get started on her new venture and dig into opening her boutique, I convinced her to stay in Rio with me for nearly a month. It was a brilliant honeymoon, full of smiles, but we were both ready to dive into real life.

Her idiot brothers still refused to have anything to do with me, and due to her loyalty, Mila flatly refused to have anything to do with them, despite my telling her she was free to speak with them or see them without me. She swore that until they accepted me as family, they were the ones making the choice not to have her around.

As much as she tried to hide it, there were moments when I could tell she missed the untrained apes, but their wives were working on them, and we both hoped they’d come around before Christmas rolled around. And I promised to stop calling them names, out loud, anyway.

In the jet, I could see her already switching gears from vacation mode, and all the plans she had been making in our stolen downtime in Rio were about to come to fruition. She still managed the quarry, which her brothers miraculously hadn’t snatched away from her as some sort of punishment for loving me. Not that I would have let them, because due to Mila’s idea to expand into custom statues, we were raking in money hand over fist.

Moscow was running smoothly, and with my trusted second in command taking over, the operations there were more lucrative than they’d ever been under Eldar’s management. We hoped to visit Moscow again within the next few months so I could meet her parents. The only thing keeping us away was thefact that her father was as furious as her brothers, and her mom was disappointed enough not to want to intervene on my behalf yet.

Mila was far more confident about them than her brothers, so maybe we were looking at a cold Christmas instead of a sunny, LA holiday season. Either way, for the moment, I was glad when the wheels touched down and we were back in the traffic and smog.

At the airport, I whisked her into my arms and kissed her soundly, laughing when she asked what it was for.

“Just glad to be home, my love,” I told her, enjoying her blush. “It’s really going to be home now, isn’t it?”

She nodded, her joyous smile all I needed to know that it was the right decision to give her free range over whatever she wanted to do, wherever she wanted to go. She was mine, and I was hers. We’d continue to be together no matter what got thrown at us.

I only hoped nothing would, not for a while anyway. The vacation was supposed to be relaxing, but we’d barely stopped the whole time we were away. I just loved seeing my wife enjoy herself too much to stay cooped up in the villa for long.

We weren’t home for ten minutes when her phone rang. I had barely put our suitcases in the bedroom and was about to suggest we rechristen the bed we’d been away from for a month, when the buzzing made us both groan.

“Ignore it,” I implored. “Pretend we’re not home yet.”

She scowled at the screen. “I would if it were business, but it’s Nat. I’ll just let her know we made it back okay and hang up.”

But as soon as she answered, her face screwed up in confusion, and she tapped on the screen. “She wants me to put it on speaker so she can get your advice.”

“Sure,” I said, calling out a greeting to Mila’s best friend and niece.

Mila was thrilled she was one of the only ones who’d stuck by her side, even before the wives came around and offered their help. She was probably going to be the one to crack through her father’s anger and get Aleks to smack some sense into the others. If she needed my help, I was happy to offer it.

“What’s going on?” Mila asked, plopping down on the edge of the bed. I sat beside her and slung my arm over her shoulder, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek.

“Please pay attention,” Nat said. “This is important. I need to know how to get some revenge.”

“Oh no,” Mila said, smothering a laugh behind her hand. She had warned me that her niece had a fiery temperament and was quick to anger, but just as quick to forgive when it was someone she loved. “Did some douchebag stand you up again?”

Nat huffed. “I wish, but you know I gave up dating ages ago, after that stupid professor—anyway—this isn’t about slashing a tire or cutting up someone’s clothes.”

I raised a brow at Mila. “You really want to put someone in the ground?” I asked, getting a swat. I’d also been informed that Aleks’s older daughter wasn’t allowed anywhere near anything to do with violence or the Bratva.

“So far into the ground, this asshole will never see daylight again,” she said with gusto. “I thought he might have given me the slip, but you know I don’t forget, so I never gaveup, and then he showed up in Milan again. Like nothing ever happened.”

“What the heck are you talking about?” Mila asked, snuggling closer to me and giving me an apologetic look. It turned to one of horror at what Nat said next.

“That art swindler who was supposed to be my partner but totally screwed me over and made off with half a million euros of my money.”

I gulped. There was no way she wasn’t referring to my brother. Mila knew it too and asked his name with faux innocence.

“Oh, you remember him. Kolya Cheslov. I thought I could trust him because he was Russian. Ha.” She made a spitting noise, and I eased off the bed and backed away.

I didn’t want any part of this, especially since she had no idea he was my brother. Since we rarely spoke, I had no problem leaving him in my past. He had been completely off the radar for well over a month, so I figured it just wouldn’t come up again. If Nat found out, it might shatter the one solid relationship with her family that Mila had left.

“If you said he’s in Milan, why not just contact the authorities? You know Aleks would never believe you were part of the scam, to begin with, and he’ll bury him for you.”

She gasped as if she’d been asked to jump off the top of the leaning tower. “Are you crazy? And anyway, he left Milan yesterday, and now I can’t locate him again. I need Arkadi’s trackers to find him so I can make him sorry that he ever smooth-talked me.”

Mila took pity on me and told Nat we had just arrived back home. “Give us until tomorrow at least,” she said, beggingfor a reprieve. A day wasn’t going to be enough. “We’ll figure something out, don’t worry.”

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