Page 58 of The Bratva King's Auctioned Bride

“Not likely,” he scoffed.

“I can stop it all.” I grabbed his arm and squeezed, making water slosh out of his glass.

He put it down on the counter with an incredulous look. How could little Mila ever stop a war? I shook him, but he was immovable. A stubborn, scornful rock.

“You know I’m good at negotiating,” I said. “Let me talk to someone in charge on that side.”

“Jesus, Mila, are you the one who’s fucking kidding now? Not when Arkadi’s probably in town.”

“He won’t hurt me,” I said, too quickly. No matter what else I believed, I would bet everything that was true. But how to make Ivan understand without spilling the beans that I’d been with him all this time and he hadn’t harmed a hair on my head.

On the contrary, he rescued me twice and showed me some of the best times of my life in the interim. Yeah, there was no way I could tell Ivan any of that, not when he was glaring at me like he was about to lock me up in one of his torture sheds.

“Can you please listen to me for once,” I said in my most reasonable voice. “I can put a stop to the attacks if you let me go and talk—”

“Enough,” he interrupted harshly. “Just enough. Even if I thought it was a good idea, which I don’t, Aleks would never agree to it. Stay out of it and let the grown-ups do their thing.”

He turned away, leaving the kitchen. He got on his phone like I wasn’t even there. A guard slid into place in the doorway, and I knew the grounds well enough to know I wouldn’t make it past the swimming pool before I was dragged back inside.

Once again, I was a prisoner, but that wasn’t what had my blood boiling in my veins. He had dismissed me, cut me off, and refused to even entertain the idea that I might be able to do what I said I could.

It was a stark contrast to how Arkadi treated me. How he had treated me since the beginning of our bizarre relationship. Oh, he was a tyrant at times. Yes, he was bossy and controlling alot, but he believed I was capable. Of that, I had no doubt. There were too many instances where he had proved it.

Maybe if I hadn’t gotten so mad and gone silent last night, I could have made him see reason and prevented all of this. Instead, I went behind his back, and now I was being pushed to the side. By the same token, I couldn’t exactly expect Ivan to take me seriously when I was hiding so much pertinent information from him.

I was stuck anyway, so I decided to spill the beans. Everything. I gave the guard a look and ducked under his outstretched arm, running after Ivan.

“We’re married,” I blurted. He gave me a blank look. Of course, he couldn’t comprehend who I was talking about. No one in my family would put Arkadi Mikhailov as their first guess. “Arkadi and I are married.”

His face went pale, and he put his hand over his mouth. To keep from screaming? Or throwing up? “That’s not funny,” he said from behind his hand.

“It’s not a joke. It’s true,” I continued. “And he hasn’t been horrible. I’m fine. You can see he hasn’t hurt me. Let me go and meet up with him. I can get it all figured out.”

“You’ve got Stockholm syndrome,” he snapped, turning away from me and going back to his phone call.

It was probably Aleks on the line, so I tried to talk into it. “Tell him to let me go so I can fix this.”

Ivan made a big show of ending the call as he pushed me into the library and pointed toward a chair. “Make yourself comfortable. You’re not going anywhere. And Arkadi’s not getting within a hundred yards of you ever again.”

“You can’t end our marriage,” I snapped. I was still pissed as hell at Arkadi, but willing to hear him out, unlike Ivan.

“Like hell, I can’t.” He turned and started toward the door

“He’ll never allow a divorce,” I said, on the verge of tears but too angry to let them flow.

“Then you’ll end up a widow.” The door slammed behind him, leaving me alone.

I slumped into the nearest armchair. No matter what I said, no matter how hard I tried, my brothers refused to believe I could stop another war. I swiped away the useless tears, not even sure why I was crying. So many emotions assailed me that I couldn’t settle on one, but it all boiled down to regret.

Regret so strong it left a bitter taste in my mouth. I wished with all my being that I had never called Ivan, but then I would have been inadvertently complicit in the upcoming attacks. The knowledge of those attacks drilled painfully into my heart, settling like a sharp burr I couldn’t dislodge.

There was no way Arkadi had been plotting all that behind my back. He had proven in so many ways that he cared for me. Even when I was little more than a prisoner, fighting him at every turn, he still figured out the perfect date. Most men would have laughed their asses off if I was the one suggesting going to a designer showroom to do some shopping, but Arkadi arranged it and even asked for a tour. All I ever wanted was to be understood, listened to, and he did both.

He made me believe that he wanted the kind of marriage that I wanted. No, demanded.

He could have already had his damn empire back if he used me for ransom the moment he first snatched me away from that auction, so why was he going to so much trouble to tear it alldown now? Why make me believe something that wasn’t true? If he wasn’t being honest, then we had nothing. Maybe we never had anything to begin with, and it was all a silly dream.

I heard Ivan crashing back and forth outside the door, making plans for a counterattack. Another war that would surely end lives, maybe even his own. Maybe even Arkadi’s.

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