Page 17 of Sold to the Russian
“Who,” she repeated slowly, “are you?”
“Fedya,” he responded, his eyes running from her head to her toes and back. His eyes were so scarily blue, so hypnotizingly blue. She was never interested in actually observing his features when he was Jonathan, but looking at him now made her realize just how much taller than her he was.
He towered over her easily, and as a tall woman herself, that was no small feat. He had to be at least six inches taller than her, and she was five feet eleven. He was strong too, even without the bulk of his overcoat. He wore a black dress shirt and black slacks, which clung to the muscles of his body like a second skin. And his hair?his hair was the thickest thing she’d ever seen, the darkest shade of hair she’d ever laid her eyes on. Hewas distractingly handsome?a sharp contrast to the bald man who had driven her here.
“Fedya Nikolai,” he continued, and her heart dropped at the mention of his last name.
Nikolai.
As disinterested as she was in her father’s business, in the bloodstained dealings of the mafia, Maeve wasn’t naïve. She knew the Nikolai Bratva. Everyone in the underworld did.
They were the apex predators of organized crime. Ruthless yet disciplined. Unmovable. Untouchable. They were a large family that didn’t need to announce themselves. Their power was always felt, whispered behind closed doors, in the vanishings, in the massacres no one claimed but everyone knew were theirs.
Maeve remembered the name well because her uncle had dared to cross them, and her father had done nothing to protect him. They found him two weeks later, floating in a river. No hands, no tongue, no eyes, and a message carved into his chest in Cyrillic:“We do not forget.”
That was the Nikolai Bratva.
And now, one of them hadmarriedher.
He stepped closer, and as much as Maeve wanted to look strong, her survival instincts backed her up, but he only stopped once they were an arm’s length apart.
“I’m also the man who will kill you if you tell Cormac who I really am.”
Chapter 5 - Fedya
Fedya found everything about this woman fascinating: her anger, her irritation, her impatience, and even the poorly disguised fear in her eyes. Her chin was lifted, her jaw locked, and her muscles were stiff as her back hit the wall.
She tried desperately to hide the unease she felt from his revelation of his identity, but he could feel it rolling off her in waves. He could see it in the tension in her shoulders, from the twitching of her fingers.
Her hair was all over her shoulders, wavy strands decorating the sides of her face and neck. Her dress was still immaculate and her cheek was still stained with the lipstick she’d smeared off after he kissed her earlier.
She was so goddamn beautiful it was messing with him.
Even now, even as she looked at him with so many emotions he didn’t think possible at the same time. Shock, fear, irritation, anger, uncertainty, betrayal, worry, anxiety—all rolled into the downward curl of her lips and the deep furrow nestled between her brows.
Then an unexpected laugh forced its way out of her throat. The sound pierced Fedya’s ears, caressed his eardrums, and touched the beating thing in his chest. His throat tightened with the desire to hear it again.
“Oh my god,” she said, clutching her head between her hands like it weighed a thousand bricks. “I think I’m losing it.”
“You are not losing it.”
Her gaze snapped to him, her eyes furious and wild, but the caution hiding behind those green irises couldn’t be denied. At least, Fedya could give that to her. She was smart enough tobe fearful of him, even though she was trying pretty damn hard to prove otherwise.
“No, I am,” she laughed again. It was derisive, bitter. “I have to be. Just three days ago, I watched a cold-blooded killer snuff the life out of another man with a smirk on his face. Only to be dragged and humiliated by my own father, who had now sold me to him forguns,” she said, spitting the last word with such acid he was surprised her tongue wasn’t burnt. “And now, I’ve had the sickening pleasure of realizing that my so-called husband isn’t even who I thought he was. I’m married to a Nikolai who has threatened to kill me, and you think I’m not losing it?”
Fedya raised a brow. “Don’t be ungrateful. Hundreds of women would kill to be in your shoes.”
Maeve bristled, and he loved it. He loved the way her hands curled into fists, the way her jaw throbbed as if she was trying not to slap him, and the way her eyes burned into him with a malice that thrummed in his own veins.
“You expect me to be grateful that I’m married to a monster?” She took a step towards him. “You disgust me.”
Fedya’s smile was dark. “Careful now. You shouldn’t talk to your husband with such disrespect.”
“You arenotmy husband.”
Fedya was growing bored of her incessant denial of reality. He closed the distance between them before she could say another word, and he took hold of her jaw, not painfully but firmly enough that she couldn’t escape his grasp. His fingers pressed against her skin, forcing her to look up at him. Her defiance didn’t waver; if anything, it intensified.
He admired it. Admire the way fury spilled across her eyes, burning into him with an intentional glare, even as she stood before a man who could crush her world with a single word.
