Page 2 of The Bratva King's Auctioned Bride

“I don’t know,” I said. “Are you having a special concert or something? Is someone going to come around and sing to me?”

Aleks huffed. “God forbid we did something nice for your birthday.”

He was right. I was being paranoid for nothing, and a buzz kill to boot. “Sorry,” I said. “You know I haven’t been in the mood for partying lately.”

“Exactly why this isn’t a party,” he said.

“Oh, just tell her before she explodes,” Nat urged, reaching to pour me another bellini from the pitcher in the middle of the table. “And don’t worry, you’ll like this surprise.”

Aleks reached down and pulled his tablet out of his briefcase, pulling up some documents. “I have a new job for you,” he said.

“Papa!” Nat squeaked, swatting him on the arm. “Tell her properly.”

Aleks rolled his eyes and handed me the tablet. “Okay, it’s not just a job, it’s an opportunity.”

“A perfect one,” Nat said.

I started to read through the documents, my head spinning. It looked like my overprotective and under-trusting brother was actually signing over a business to me.

“What is this?” I asked. “A marble quarry?”

Nat explained it in a breathless rush. Yes, a marble quarry in Italy that exported all over the world, along with a factory that made bathroom and kitchen fixtures, as well as floor tiles. According to the columns of numbers my eyes swept over, it was incredibly lucrative, if not exactly as glam as my adorable boutique.

“And there’s more,” Nat said, urging Aleks to explain what the best part was.

“This is one of the businesses we claimed from Arkadi Mikhailov,” he said. “It’s yours now.”

The whole notion that I was being entrusted to run something after my utter failure with the boutique was the best birthday present I ever could have received, but the fact that it had been wrested from our arch-rival? That was the icing on the cake. While Arkadi was dodging our efforts to find him and bring him home to justice, I’d be in charge of one of his businesses.

“That isn’t the best part,” Nat sputtered.

“What could be better than taking something back from that beast who stole so much from us?” I asked.

Once we realized Arkadi was in the wind, and couldn’t be located even with our best surveillance teams on the job, we stopped the destruction and began claiming everything he left behind. No one disputed my brothers—no one would dare. The only thing better than burning your enemies to the ground was to show them what they’d lost by taking what had once been theirs and making a profit off of it.

And now Aleks was actually entrusting me with something more than organizing clean-up crews or miles of endless accounting paperwork.

“You get to be in Milan with me!” Nat explained. “One of my professors has the cutest apartment she rents out, and it’s already waiting for you. It’s just a couple of blocks from me and only an hour or so from the quarry. Think of all the par—” she stopped abruptly, arranging her hands demurely in front of her.

Aleks gave her a look. “As if I don’t know exactly what you get up to over there,” he said.

She only smiled, letting me know she had figured out plenty of ways to keep him in the dark about some of the stuff she got up to. It was going to be a blast, and for the first time, the heavy mantle of sadness and self-doubt started to lift from my shoulders.

This was a huge deal, and one that Aleks would never have given to me if he didn’t think I could do it. Maybe he was finally seeing me as more than just his beloved baby sister. Someone capable of running an overseas business.

“When can I get started?” I asked.

Nat was beside herself with happiness that I accepted, as if I ever would have given up such a rare opportunity to redeem myself. Not just in my brothers’ eyes but my own.

“When can the jet be ready?” Nat asked.

Aleks shook his head. “Mila has a surprise birthday party this weekend,” he reminded her, raising a brow at me before grinning. “But we can have you both ready to go as soon as that’s over.”

Now, the prospect of a big party didn’t loom like vultures waiting to devour me. I felt alive again for the first time inmonths, excited to take on this new venture. This time, things would be different, with my brothers’ backing, but as an equal. At last.

Chapter 2 - Arkadi

While my enemies thought I was running scared, I was sitting pretty, overseeing my empire in Moscow. It was hysterical that I was back where I started, practically under the noses of the ones who hunted me.

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