Page 27 of The Bratva's Arranged Virgin Bride
Chapter 15 - Kolya
After the club incident, several days went by, and everything was remarkably normal. If the Fokins had figured out where we were living, they wouldn’t have sent helicopters or an army of men to storm the beach. As far as I could tell, we weren’t under surveillance, either. It seemed like Nat’s family had accepted the arrangement, not that there was anything they could do about it otherwise.
It was much easier having them on my side. I wasn’t deluding myself into believing that they didn’t have an ulterior motive, but so did I. More than one. My brother, one of the main reasons I was doing this, still wasn’t talking to me, but according to my intel, it didn’t seem like he had any contact with the Fokins, either. If the wives were speaking with Mila at all, they might have been ordered not to mention the alliance, or they might have severed ties altogether as long as they believed Arkadi was part of my plan.
I didn’t relish being the source of conflict when my main goal was to unite the families, and, therefore, our power. My power. And riches beyond anything even I could imagine. Even though I was going to ultimately take over, I preferred peace over war. There was so much more time for fun when no one was tearing each other apart.
It rankled me that Arkadi wasn’t reaching out to me, though, after all the messages I left informing him I had big news. I was beginning to feel a bit ignored. Something I was used to growing up, but those were different times, far in the past. Sooner or later, my brother would have to accept that I was his blood and worthy of the Mikhailov name.
A few days earlier, I casually asked Nat if she wanted to invite Mila over to the beach house to show off her new home, thinking Arkadi would feel the need to join her. I thought she would have been delighted, since they were so close, but Nat gave me a look of disdain instead of joy.
“I’m not going to be your pawn,” she said, shutting my suggestion right down.
“I only suggested you invite a friend over,” I said, surprised she saw through me so easily.
“The friend who happens to be married to your brother.” Her shoulders rounded as she turned away. “Anyway, I don’t want anything to do with my aunt at the moment,” she admitted.
That was interesting and troublesome, but it was clear she was done discussing it. I tried to ask why, but she remained silent, just as I suspected. She was nothing if not consistent. It wasn’t important enough to goad her into a bad mood since we’d been getting along pretty well, and she was settling in as if she owned the place.
The morning after her cousin and uncles tried to swing their dicks around in my club, her things started showing up by the carload. Not just clothes, but boxes full of books and art supplies as well. Roughed-up easels with years of paint spatter accumulated on the wooden frames, dozens of canvases in all sizes, jars full of brushes as well as the chemicals to clean them, scraping tools and palette knives, and, of course, paint. Hundreds of little bottles of bright acrylics, several watercolor sets, tubs of gesso, and tubes of oil paints.
Nat chose the room with the best light and started setting up her own little studio in what would have been a small formal sitting area on one side of the kitchen. It was now flooded withmorning light reflected from the sands of the beach and littered with half-started canvases.
I stood in the doorway, not really wanting to leave her, but I’d been sticking close for too long, and work-related things were starting to back up. Ever since the heated moment we shared in the kitchen that I had foolishly walked away from, we hadn’t rekindled anything close to a honeymoon.
Watching Nat slide a paint-soaked brush across a fresh canvas to leave behind a blue sweep of sky was much more interesting than meeting with my new gallery manager, but maybe putting a little distance between us would get her to miss me.
Ha.
“Why don’t you finish one of those?” I asked, stepping in and pointing to the stack of discarded canvases. I flipped through them, seeing potential in each. One was the start of a cityscape in moonlight, another was a still life of the pile of books on a nearby end table. “This one looks like it could really be something,” I said, holding up the incredibly detailed beginnings of a pair of hands.
She turned and scowled. “It wasn’t what I was going for.”
How was she so good at so many different styles? The small painting I held could have been straight out of the Italian Renaissance era, with its shadows and golden hues.
“If you finish it, I’ll hang it in my office,” I said. Really, it was good enough to hang, even if it was only half done.
“Hm, well, I’m working on something else now,” she said, turning back to her patch of blue sky and ignoring me.
I took the hint and left to get some work done.
The first thing I needed to do was head to the gallery, which was and would remain a secret from Nat. I had to whip the place into shape for the first show, which was coming up on me fast. This time around, I was a silent partner, having struck a deal with the former owner after I bought the place from her.
Darla was early middle age and was eager to make some money off her love of art for a change so she and her husband could take an early retirement in Mexico and live the good life somewhere less hectic.
After I saw something in her that told me she’d be more than amenable to my favorite scheme, she made a stringent deal that she’d do six shows. Six shows, and she was out, and I could continue on without her after that if I wanted. It was the perfect amount of time to swindle the greedy rich people of LA out of some of their wealth, and then I’d close up shop when Darla left. No one would ever be the wiser who was behind it all, if anyone even figured out that the paintings they bought from me were slapped together in a warehouse by hungry college kids, eager to make a fast buck.
When I arrived at the shopping center in an affluent and up-and-coming neighborhood, I took a moment to inspect the exterior of the gallery. The big plate glass windows were draped with thick white fabric so no one could see what we were planning, and the new sign hadn’t been put up yet. There was already a buzz, though, that the place was going to be something amazing. I was good at working up a buzz.
Going in through the back entrance, I couldn’t help a disheartened sigh at what we’d accomplished so far. Inside, everything was wrong. Just bad. Darla was knowledgeable and fairly well respected, slogging along for almost two years in this same location without much success. Most of her renown was setting up sittings for custom portraits. Old men who wanted tobelieve they were leaving behind a legacy, vain young women who wanted to surprise their rich husbands with a tasteful nude. A bit tacky, but it was how she kept her head above water in a bad economy.
She had a good eye for fine work, but she didn’t have a knack for setting up perfect displays. No flare, nothing to either make the eye rest on a particular piece, or keep it moving with excitement to the next.
Before she arrived, I moved a few small sculptures, grouping them together in front of a similarly themed painting. Better, but still not great. Not magical, like what Nat had achieved time after time in Milan. Talk about a natural. It was one of the things that initially drew me to her, knowing we could achieve great things together.
No amount of buzz was going to get people to buy anything in this amateur mess. Stressed out, I unlocked my private office and stood in front of the big painting I hung across from my desk. Instant calm enveloped me as I took in the one painting I didn’t unload to the highest bidder after cleaning out Nat’s gallery and disappearing from her life.
Just looking at it transported me out of the bad mood that hung around my shoulders. It was a stunning seaside scene, not quite as tempestuous as the Pacific, but no calm turquoise seas, either. Just perfect, dark water rolling toward the shore with dashes of white-capped waves. The surprise of the piece was that instead of the waves crashing onto sand, there was a field of wildflowers, each one meticulously painted in soothing pastels with splashes of wild red or shocking yellow here and there. It was a realistic fantasy scene straight out of a dream.
Yes, I might have been a con man, but I truly loved good art, and this was one of the best pieces I’d ever seen, despite thefact that it hadn’t been for sale. That never stopped me before, and now it was mine.
Just like Nat was mine.
I was sick of waiting for the gallery manager. We’d only end up bickering about how to set up the new batch of paintings, and no matter what we did, it wouldn’t be perfect. Not the way it had been before, and the way it needed to be to turn the wild profit I expected. Normally, I would have stayed until it met my exacting specifications. But now…
I wanted to get back home to my wife. After sending Darla some instructions, I locked up and hurried home, wondering when anything other than bringing in more money had become so important to me.
