Page 28 of Knocked-up Bratva Bride
Maintaining my composure and a dead-cold façade was never a task for me. After years of brutal training—dealing with danger, messing with blood and violence—it was second nature to switch off every emotion when necessary.
Somehow, Elena managed to turn off those defenses and penetrate. She’d done it on the two occasions we’d run into each other.
Piece of stupid shit.
What was I, a horny teenager? Of course, I was fucking not. A fucking grown man with a daughter and a faction to head, that was what I was.
Regardless, one glance at Elena sent a rush of excitement and intrigue through me. She stunned me—that strange young woman with fire in her hazel-green eyes and a strength I’d overlooked in her words.
The first night, she’d been sweet, acting like the pure naïve virgin she was. Then earlier tonight, she’d been pissed, and confident. I liked both versions, even wanted to unravel more.
How the hell did I get here?
Seeing her distorted my focus. Standing close to her blurred the real world we lived in. But I knew what she really was. Beyond the intense attraction, Elena was afuckingdistraction.
Angrily, I drank up the entire vodka from the glass, hissed when it burned down my throat, and aimlessly sent the glass flying across the kitchen. It smashed somewhere behind me, and I clutched the sink with a death grip.
The door opened, ushering in the heavy thuds of Fedor’s boots.
Recognizing the weight of his footsteps on the ground was one of the first things I learned when he started working for me.
No matter where we were, I could smell him coming from a mile away.
“I thought I heard a crash in here,” he said with uncertainty lingering in his voice.
I turned my back to the sink, leaning against it with my arms crossed over my chest. Fedor had his P-96 drawn, aiming toward the ground, with a frown on his face.
He lifted an eyebrow. “Burglar?”
“And I wouldn’t have killed him already with my bare hands?”
He glanced around the kitchen, looking even more curious when his gaze flicked from the broken shards of glass and spilled vodka back to me.
“Throwing tantrums? Gee, I wonder why.” He tucked the gun between his belt and took a stance that clearly meant he was waiting for some form of explanation.
With an eye roll, I pushed away from the sink and started for the porch. “Don’t I always throw tantrums?”
Fedor followed closely behind. “Glasses smashed against the wall?Spilled vodka? This type of tantrum shit hasn’t happened since you….”
He stopped talking, but I didn’t need him to finish before knowing it meant I hadn’t thrown a huge fit of rage since I walked away from my daughter almost twelve years ago.Since Irina died.
“You usually just take a gun to a man’s head or beat the shit out of many guys at once. But when you brood over your anger, then that’s some incoming third world war shit. What provoked you that much?” he piped up after we walked past the living room.
I gritted my teeth. “Firstly, get Winter or someone else to clean up that mess back there, and secondly….” I hesitated in the foyer, glancing over my shoulder with my hand on the door. “It’s a girl.”
Fedor bellowed his head off and shut the doors behind him. “Afuckinggirl?”
I snuck my hands into my pockets, ignoring the cackles of the soldier beside me, while embracing the cool wind that whisked my hair.
The wind bit harder than usual tonight, slicing through like a dull blade, numbing everything it touched. I liked it that way. Cold made people honest. Cold stripped everything down to what mattered.
We walked down the steps to the driveway, and I stayed there, observing the men grow rigid at the sight of me.
“You’ve got Winter mopping the floor because of agirl?”
“Technically, she’s a young woman. She’s about Katya’s age. Fuck. I’m practically old enough to be her father.”
“That’s your concern? I respect your reservations about younger girls, but twenty-two is legal enough to fuck without parental consent. Age is but a number,” Fedor said more quietly, but I heard the traces of humor lacing his words. “You might be old enough to be her father, but she’s got your blood raring to go. That means you like her.”
