Page 23 of Sold to the Russian
Maeve was a ball of fury. She wasn’t thinking as she reached for the plate in front of her, her hands shaking as she lifted it. Then, without warning, he flung it straight at him.
Fedya dodged as easily as breathing, and the plate shattered to the floor behind him, chicken and potatoes splattered onto the floor.
“Fuck you,” she cursed, turned, and stormed out of the dining room.
Her heart trembled because she could hear him following right after her, not breaking stride even once. For a second, she imagined if he would reach out and wring her neck from behind. Then she walked faster, ignoring him as he called out her name. She opened the door to the room and rushed in before slamming the door in his face.
“Maeve,” he called, but he sounded like he was smiling. He gave it a gentle nudge from behind just as she twisted the lock.
“Open the door, Maeve.”
“Go to hell.”
“I live there.”
“You can eat the rest of the fucking meal by yourself,” she shouted from inside. “Better yet, choke on it.”
Maeve’s breath was shaky as she pressed her ear against the door and listened to his low chuckle of dark amusement. She waited for another minute, her hands tight around the doorknob even though the door was already locked. And then she was only able to breathe after she heard his retreating footsteps.
The room turned suffocating after he left. Minutes ticked endlessly, but she couldn’t stop pacing. She had walked around the room sixty-five times, marking every corner, every spot. Each step echoed her frustration and disbelief.
She sat on the bed, the mattress unbelievably plush and comfortable. For a moment, she imagined actually sharing the room with him. This bed with the hunk of muscle that he was. There wasn’t enough space on the bed to distinctively let each of them have their own spaces. It was inevitable that their bodies would touch. And for a very conflicting moment, she thought of her body tangled on the bed with him, of their limbs twisted together like a pretzel, of his strong arms around her. And she violently shook her head, resisting the urge to slap her own cheek.
It was disgusting—this tiny, little, insignificant attraction she felt towards him. Any human with working eyes could see that he was gorgeous. He was hauntingly beautiful, handsome in a way she hadn’t seen before in a man.
It was dreadful to think that she foundhimattractive.
However, the thought of what would happen if her father knew the truth about his so-called American arms dealer filled her with a different kind of dread. Is there a chance he would have known? A chance he sold her off to him, knowing the truth of Fedya’s identity?
Maeve couldn’t rule it out, but then again, her father wasn’t one to tread lightly with deceit. There was a higher chance he’d have killed Fedya if he knew than marrying her off to him.
Cormac had been collaborating with Aleksander to dismantle the Nikolai Bratva, manipulating narratives to his advantage. He was in on it, as well as her uncle, as well as everyone she knew in the Irish mob. And when things spiraled out of their control, when Ilya Nikolai sought retribution for the kidnapping of those innocent women—a crime orchestrated not only by her uncle—her father, had twisted the truth, sacrificing his own twin brother to save his head, blaming him for forming a rogue faction to gain favor with Aleksander. Maeve was aware the Irish had been lying low since then, and even though her father deliberately kept her at an arm’s length when it came to the mob, she wasn’t naïve. She had Margot, and she’d been piecing together fragments of information that uncovered the depth of her father’s deceit.
Maeve thought Fedya probably knew this. Maybe that was why he was doing this all on his own, to gather little attention to the Nikolai family, even while investigations were being made underground.
She was certain she was a complication he didn’t see coming.
Yet, whether or not her father knew about Fedya’s real identity, she was nothing but a pawn in his games. She resented him more than ever for using Margot to force her into this marriage, and she didn’t think she owed him her loyalty anymore. She didn’t think he had a right to know who Jonathan Riley really was. That, of course, was if he didn’t know already.
She was still thinking about it, about the mess of the whole thing, when she felt a sudden vibration in her clothes.Seeing her father’s name flash on the screen sent boiling hot anger spreading through her flesh. But she couldn’t answer it here. She’d been smart enough to take a quick look around when she first walked in, and she’d spotted the blinking security camera at the far end of the room
She stood up as naturally as possible and walked into the bathroom instead. Like she expected, there were no cameras there.
“Maeve.” Her father’s voice was too calm for her liking. Too composed. Then again, he was always composed.
Her voice was low, her nostrils flared, but the bite in her words could not be hidden. “What exactly do you want?”
“I trust you’re settling in,” he began, ignoring her disrespectful tone. The familiarity of his voice grated on her. “How’s married life?”
“You married me off to a stranger.”
“Not a stranger,A stor. You just didn’t ask the right questions.”
Maeve clutched the phone tighter to her ear, her heart racing in her chest. “What does that mean?”
“Your husband isn’t who you think he is, but you should already know that by now,” he said, his tone leaving no room for argument. He said it like he was sure she knew the truth.
“Did you know?” she asked, her voice silent, heavy. Of course, he knew. Of course, Cormac O’Rourke knew when he was being deceived. Fedya might have underestimated him. “All this time? Before you married me off? Did you know who he was?”
