Page 21 of The Bratva's Innocent Sold Bride
I tasted it and was shocked that itwasgood. He asked me if I had gone anywhere, and while I told him no, I let him know I was grateful for the opportunity.
He scowled. “No need for thanks. Just enjoy yourself.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to say I’d enjoy having my job, but I wanted to keep the peace. When I asked where Masha was, since I rarely saw her even though she lived with us, he laughed.
“Off being Masha,” he said.
“You don’t worry about her?” I asked. He knew what I meant. He was extremely overprotective, especially of the females in his life. You didn’t have to observe him for five minutes before noticing it.
“Of course I do, but she’s well trained and very… I don’t know the word. Savvy?”
I shrugged. “She can kill a man ten ways,” I said.
He didn’t get that I was joking. “Surely more than that.”
Then I had to laugh. Seeing that I found his bizarre life amusing, he regaled me with stories of his youth. He would say, ‘When I was your age…’ like he was so much older than me. I guess he was. Certainly closer to my dad’s age than mine. But I didn’t see him that way. People always told me I had an old soul when they were being kind. When they were being bitchy, they said I was as intractable as a crotchety old lady.
Maybe that’s why I had that strange attraction to him. He was certainly intractable.
“I can’t keep track of them,” I interrupted as he was telling me about a summer visit from his American cousins. “Who is Aleks again?”
He described one of the men at the wedding, the eldest of the American crew. I remembered the sweet little girl they had with them and smiled, telling him that most of my friends were also only children, or at most, had one sibling.
“What about cousins?” he asked. “No aunts or uncles?”
I shook my head. I never felt the absence until he made growing up surrounded by so many loved ones sound so magical. Even with the side quests of torture and assassinations, he skated over.
“Not a single cousin. It’s just me.”
“It’s a crime,” he said. “I would hate for a child of mine to grow up alone.”
My mouth dropped open, and I let that one lie there, not about to touch it with a ten-foot pole. Have Mat’s children? It was too much to think about.
I urged him to tell me more about the Bratva. “What’s the worst you’ve ever seen?”
He paled, then tried to cover it with a forced laugh. “Is my wife suddenly bloodthirsty?” Reaching over, he squeezed my hand. “It’s not for you to know or worry about. I’ll keep that part of my life far away from you.”
It was sweet and annoying at the same time. It felt like he didn’t think I was capable of handling whatever he did, shielding me when I didn’t need to be shielded.
His phone rang, and he said it was Masha, jumping up to answer it out of my earshot. So much for him not being worried about her. When he ended the call, he didn’t return to the table, but looked at me with a dark gleam in his eyes.
“I have to take care of something,” he said.
I slumped with disappointment, having worked so hard with the cook to create a cream-filled Russian dessert for him. Now it looked like the evening I was enjoying so much was about to be over.
“If you’re so interested in what I do, why not come with me?” he asked.
It was one thing listening to harrowing tales, like scary stories at a slumber party when you’re perfectly safe. Did I really want to see firsthand what he did?
I had already gotten a pretty good look at how ruthless he could be when he dealt with my father, and I hadn’t been in the room for the worst of it. He held out his hand, an inscrutable look in his eyes.
I reached for it and let him pull me out of my chair, not sure I wanted in on the dangerous secrets of his life, but not sure I could say no.
Chapter 14 - Mat
CJ’s eyes were round with barely concealed worry as we headed out. There was absolutely no danger, or I never would have taken her. While Masha was out doing her undercover work, she’d found out about a ring of scumbags who had been stealing dogs from shelters for fighting. Since she had most of my men twisted around her little finger, it was nothing for her to get a few of them to go with her and deal with the lowlifes.
All I was going to do was meet her at the place where they were keeping the dogs and help steal them back. I’d let Masha deal with punishing the culprits however she saw fit. I was in a playful mood, enjoying spending time with CJ that didn’t involve fighting, chasing her through the night, or working myself up into a frenzy of desire that was getting more and more difficult to contain. But she had to be the one to speak the words, tell me she couldn’t bear it any longer.
