Page 14 of The Bratva's Hunted Bride
Over the past few days, she’s gone from frightened to obstinate, testing the doors and the locks and my patience every chance she gets, like she thinks her best chance of freedom might be through wearing me down. Unfortunately for her, I find it endearing. There was never any reason for her to be afraid of me.
“Don’t talk about my family like that.”
I cock my head to the side and study her. “You’d defend them even though they smother you?”
She blanches at that, reeling back a little. “What? What are you talking about? I never said that they smother me.”
“You did, actually,” I reply. “In your sleep.”
“And you were watching me sleep because you’re a creep,” she fires back.
I sigh. “It was when you fainted, and I was trying to make sure there wasn’t something wrong with you. Now I’m a creep because I care about your health?”
“No,” she scoffs, “you’re a creep because you kidnapped me and now you’re holding me captive for some nefarious purpose.”
Here we go. There’s a shift in her tone, a hard edge that wasn’t there before, and she plants her hands on her hips. I fight back a smile.
“Nefarious purpose? You watch too many movies.”
“Then why won’t you tell me why you’re doing this?” She jabs her finger into my chest. I stare down at it because it’s the first time she’s willingly touched me since our first night together. Progress. “Just tell me. Am I part of some mafia plot? Are you holding me for ransom? Is this about the gallery?”
Since discovering Talia’s name, I’ve made it my mission to learn everything I can about the Popov family. Our knowledge was rudimentary, pertaining almost entirely to their limited interactions with us, and my attempts to uncover more illuminated the reason for that sparse information.
The Popovs are secretive. Unlike many families that flaunt their power to deter rivals, the Popovs play their cards extremely close to the chest. The shadowy organization primarily deals with the art world, an area I know next to nothing about.
It would be easier to let her believe that this is nothing more than a mafia machination. That’s something she can understand, something that would make sense. But I don’t want to lie to her. I don’t want that lie at the root of our relationship, festering and poisoning what it could be.
“I got you something,” I say instead, drawing a frustrated growl out of her, and I swear she almost stomps her foot. “Come with me.”
Without waiting for a response, I turn and walk to the living room. Her curiosity gets the better of her, and I hear her footsteps behind me.
“What’s all this?” she asks, stopping short when I open up the closet to reveal a pile of shopping bags.
I pull one out and hand it to her, but she keeps her arms crossed over her chest, looking at the bag like it might be full of explosives. Sighing, I reach in and dig through the tissue paper to pull out a tank top.
“Clothes. I figured you wouldn’t want to spend every day wearing gym shorts and one of my t-shirts, so I did some shopping for you.”
Tentatively, she takes the tank top and unfolds it, holding it up to inspect it. “It’s… not awful.”
“You don’t have to sound so surprised about that,” I say, sliding the rest of the bags out in her direction. “I did some research.”
“Research,” she replies, flatly. “On clothes?”
Flustered, I stammer a response. “Well, yes. I didn’t want to go in blind, so I consulted the internet.”
“Consulted the internet,” she repeats, fanning through the bags before glancing up at me. “And what exactly did you search for?”
Now I know she’s teasing me. Her brow arches as she waits for my response. “Since you like to surf and you live here in Miami and you’re young, I did a combined search for those things plus clothing, if you absolutely have to know. Is that soridiculous? I was trying to do something nice, and I didn’t want you to end up with a wardrobe of clothes you’d never wear.”
She pulls out a set of white linen shorts with what I now know is called an eyelet detail on the bottom and makes a noise in her throat. “It is kind of funny imagining a guy like you scouring the internet for women’s fashion, yeah.”
I grunt and close the closet door with more force than necessary, but something wriggles its way through my chest at her mocking. It’s not entirely unpleasant. I’ve never tolerated someone making fun of me before, but when she does it? Shit, I kind of like it. And I really like the way she’s almost smiling right now, I could watch that all day.
Until she frowns and tacks on, “Something nice though? That’s a stretch considering you only have to buy me clothes because you’re, you know, holding me hostage. I have a full closet of clothes back at my apartment, actually. If you’d like, you can let me go right now. You can probably still get a full refund on all of this.”
My phone rings before I can respond. I’m tempted to ignore it, but it’s Valery. I can’t talk shit about how her brothers protect their sister and then blow off my own.
“Timofey, you need to get over here right now.” Her voice is thin, on the edge of panic.
