Page 1 of The Bratva's Hunted Bride
Chapter 1 - Timofey
Miami in the summer. There’s something about the unrelenting sunshine and warmth that wears on me, and I’d normally take off to someplace cooler for the worst of the season’s heat, but this year, I have no choice. I’m trapped here until my brother, Matvey, gets back from his honeymoon.
Someone has to keep the Abashin family running in his absence, and as second-in-command, that duty falls to me. Being responsible has its downsides. My shirt sticks to my back as I walk through Brickell, the water on one side of me gleaming like a coin and the skyscrapers of the financial district on the other, towering overhead. Despite their size, they leave only a narrow strip of shade at this time of day.
I pull my phone from my pocket to flip through my agenda for the day, and see that I have three notifications. One from Oleg, the brains in the family, responsible for overseeing the financial minutiae, and two from my sister, Valery, who manages one of the legitimate Abashin businesses.
Ducking beneath the awning of a cafe, I open Oleg’s message first.Look, I’ve been over the numbers again. There’s no way we can make this work without that loan.
Not what I want to hear. I’d been holding on to the hope that there was something he’d missed last time he went through our accounts, some forgotten investment or an inheritance from a long-lost aunt that would see us through these rough times. Rebuilding after our recent losses has meant sinking a lot of money upfront to secure contractors, and it’s money we’re not making back quickly enough.
Matvey might’ve secured us a tenuous alliance with the Shevchenko and Milov families, but our situation is still tenuous.Financial problems can just as easily ruin us as outright attacks from our rivals. That’s why I’m here in Brickell, meeting with one bank after another to find us a loan.
On top of that, I don’t trust this alliance with the Shevchenkos. A family like that doesn’t change overnight. They spent months choking out every other family in the city, trying to claim it as their own, and I know they’re just biding their time now for another opportunity. When it presents itself, they’ll turn on us. But I’ll be ready.
I swipe Oleg’s message away. Once I get a yes from a bank, I’ll respond with the good news. Valery’s messages are more frantic, one after the other, and a third pops up while I’m reading the first two.
BIG PROBLEM. The food truck never showed up, and I can’t get in touch with the supplier. Are they dodging my calls? Do we owe them money?
Hello? Should I call Matvey? Cook is threatening to quit. She’s been on the edge for weeks, think this is pushing her over.
And her third message:I’m freaking out over here.
Shit. She better not have called Matvey. He’s on his honeymoon, and he trusted me to manage the family while he was gone. Getting a frantic call from Valery in the middle of his vacation would spoil the mood, and the man deserves some uninterrupted time with his new wife. And I deserve a chance to prove myself.
I dial her number and start walking as it rings, heading for my next appointment.
“Finally, oh my god,” Valery says the moment she picks up. “What took you so long? I almost called Matvey.”
“Do not call Matvey.” I tuck my phone between my shoulder and my ear and unbutton the top two buttons of my shirt, desperate for some airflow. “I have one more meeting at the bank. Then I’ll be there.”
There’s a clatter of pots and pans from the other end of the line, and Valery raises her voice to be heard over the noise. “What if the cook quits before then? I’m not running the kitchen, Timofey, no one wants that.”
That was true. “Offer her a raise. Whatever it takes to keep her on for the next few days, while we start looking for a replacement.”
“And the food? We can’t cook if there’s nothing to cook,” Valery snapped.
“Keep calling. As far as I know, we don’t owe them anything, but give Oleg a call and he can check.” I pushed through a crowd of men in suits and waited at the edge of the street for the light to change. “Maybe the truck got lost.”
Hopefully, that’s all it was, and not some other family trying to make trouble for us. In an ideal world, a late supply truck wouldn’t be a huge deal, but the restaurant was our most stable business, and if that crumbled, we were screwed. Muscles tightened between my shoulder blades.
The red hand of the crosswalk signal flipped to a walking person, and I joined the stream crossing the road, pulling the phone from my ear to check the time. Five minutes until my appointment.
Valery let out a frustrated groan, and I could picture her tugging at the end of her ponytail like she always did when she was upset. “Okay, fine. I’ll call Oleg, and I guess I’ll just hold down the fort until you get here. Which is soon, right?”
“Right,” I promised. “I have to go, but whatever happens, do not call Matvey. I don’t care if the entire restaurant is on fire—do not call Matvey. Call me. Call Oleg. Call the fucking president, but do not call our brother. Got it?”
“Alright, alright, jeez,” she says, “don’t bite my head off about it.”
I end the call, standing beneath the gleaming bank building.
“Third time’s a charm,” I say to myself, and even though it’s the last thing I want to do in this heat, I pull my suit jacket back on.
Given the number of times I’ve heard “no” today and the bad news from both Oleg and Valery, I’m fully expecting another big, fat no from this appointment. I brace myself when the banker, a slim young woman who must be barely out of college, reviews my accounts. The building is air conditioned to the point of frigid, thank God, and I stare out the window as the minutes tick by, watching a boat navigate the harbor.
She surprises me with a yes. I make her repeat it just to be certain of what I’ve heard, feeling a weight slough off my shoulders as we stand and shake hands on the deal.Finally, something’s gone right.It’s a small step in the right direction, which is all I can ask for right now.
I walk back to my car and drop the files onto the seat beside me, taking a minute to lean my head back against the seat and soak in the feeling of success. My phone buzzes with another message from Valery. Right. The day isn’t over and there’s a lot more shit to get done.
