Page 13 of The Bratva's Innocent Sold Bride
“CJ,” I said. Her mouth opened wider, her tongue meeting mine as she pulled herself closer. “CJ, you will be happy.”
With a gasp, she broke free, her eyes wild. As she shoved away, the bouquet fell to the floor, petals fluttering and sticking to her gown. She swore under her breath and scooted away from me.
“Is that an order?” she asked, then laughed bitterly. “I told you I hate you.”
Wrapping my hand around the hair that flowed down her back, I tilted her head until our eyes locked and I kissed her again before letting her go and turning away.
“Did you hate that?” I asked, storming toward the door. “I’ll be counting the moments until I can kiss you again,” I called as I left. “As my wife.”
Chapter 9 - CJ
My bridesmaids tried to come back in while I was still reeling. “Give me a minute,” I said.
Surprisingly, my voice sounded light, and when I turned to the mirror, I didn’t look half-crazy like I felt. I was becoming an expert at tricking everyone into believing I wanted this.
Deception clung to me the way I had been clinging to Mat. Like I wanted him. Sinking down into the padded chair in the church dressing room, I shook the flower petals off my skirts and swore at the squished bouquet lying in tatters on the floor.
There was no saving it, so I let the pretty peach blooms fall from my hands, hands that still trembled from clutching at Mat’s shoulders. How did I go from absolute volcanic anger to something else that was equally heated in a matter of seconds? Just one touch of his lips and I was already forgetting everything except the way his chest felt, so hard and firm, his shoulders so broad.
It wasn’t because he was handsome, which was already an understatement. There was something magnetic about him, something purely chemical that reacted deep within me. The way he looked at me with such… I couldn’t even find a word. Adulation? The way his rough voice softened as he complimented me with wholehearted fervor.
Like he was actually about to marry the woman he loved instead of twisting the knife in my father’s heart and ruining my life in the bargain.
Okay, that was better. The anger was returning. I’d have to kiss him again in probably twenty minutes, but I could steel myself for it during the vows, maybe even swerve him so he only got my cheek. He wouldn’t like that, but I didn’t like any of this.
Mila stuck her head in, starting to teasingly ask if I had cold feet, then she spotted the flowers.
“Oh, no,” she gasped, dropping beside what was left of the bouquet like any captain on a battlefield when one of her men was shot down.
“You can thank your cousin for that,” I said, my cheeks reddening as I remembered it was I who crushed the flowers between us as I pulled myself closer to his hard body.
She took the blush as something else and grinned. “Oh, I know all about that. Don’t worry, I can fix it somehow.”
I watched her fingers fly, plucking out the best roses and rearranging them into a smaller bundle with the greenery and rewrapping them with the white ribbon. Once she believed I was head over heels for Mat, it was easy to make her believe I knew everything about him. Everything means the kinds of business that involved taking a woman as payment for an enemy’s debt.
Turned out the whole family was involved in organized crime, and even had a Russian word for it. The Bratva. Brotherhood. But really, it was the mafia. And the Fokins pretty much ruled all of California. Mat was new to the country but not the way of life, and he was determined to become as powerful here as he was in Moscow, where apparently, he still ran his organization.
Since Mila was so chatty and outgoing, all I had to do was pretend to be down with everything she said, and pretty soon, I got more information about my father by letting her believe we were just gossiping about things I already knew.
My dad, whom I’d put on a pedestal, was worse than I thought. It wasn’t just accepting loans from shady people when he was too untried to get one from a bank. He was swindling money, using our charities to launder money, and was probablyeven funneling illicit funds through Taurus Ingenuity. He was definitely manipulating the stock market somehow.
No wonder he didn’t want me anywhere near the company. He was afraid I’d find everything out. All my life, I believed his sterling reputation really meant something to him, but it was just a front.
With the bouquet repaired and looking as good as new, just a bit smaller, Mila dragged me to my feet and out into the hall. My two oldest friends hugged me, not caring about the dress or my makeup. They were as busy as I was, and we hadn’t exactly been meeting up every week since we all graduated, but despite being shocked by how sudden this was, they were honestly thrilled for me.
I was even able to trick my best friends. The other three girls were acquaintances whom I knew from prep school and someone I hung out with at Stanford, but I had to dredge up more people since Mat had so many groomsmen.
His family was immense, and pretty much all of them were there. I’d barely had time to meet them when they started to arrive the night before. His two brothers were pretty easy to distinguish. Other than being fair where Mat was dark, Daniil and Rurik looked very much like him. The rest of the men were all cousins, imposing and huge and blending together in my mind. Their wives were all beautiful and doting, clearly not pretending to be wildly in love.
There were three girls, besides Mila, who were related to Mat by blood rather than marriage. Nat was somebody’s grown daughter and married to a mobster of her own, just like Mila was. There’d be no help from either of them in the future. Masha and Lilia were cousins from another uncle—it was impossible tokeep up, and their faces were a blur as I drudged down the aisle, my father’s hand on my arm as stiff as a corpse.
He tried to speak to me before the music started, but I stared straight ahead, already pulling ahead of him. There was no getting out of this unless I was prepared to make the mother of all scenes and risk watching my father get gunned down in the midst of this Bratva convention.
As mad as I was at him, I wasn’t prepared for that.
When the priest asked who gave this woman to be wed, I nearly gagged. Sold would have been a better word for it. I slid away as my father tried to kiss my cheek, leaving him with only air. Then the vows.
And then I was married. The papers had been signed the night before, and now it was all official, witnessed by everyone. My side of the church was filled with people I had known since birth, beaming at me with happiness. None of them could help me.
