Page 38 of The Bratva's Innocent Sold Bride
“If Mat isn’t telling you something, it’s only because he doesn’t think it’s safe for you to know,” she said, all of a sudden, the picture of loyalty to her cousin.
“Yes, yes, my safety, blah blah blah.”
She rolled over to look at me, frowning. “You’re speaking like you think he doesn’t care.”
That really made me laugh. “Oh, you don’t know half of it.”
“I know how he feels.”
Now I rolled over to face her, desperate to wring information out of her. “Has he said something to you?”
“No, but he married you.”
“I’m the sole heiress to one of the biggest companies in America.”
She shook her head. “I know as well as you that the company is under Mat’s control now and is also on the verge of collapse. There’s nothing in this world that would have made him get married for anything but love.”
That should have had me cracking up all over again, but it only made me sad for some reason. I would have liked to get married for love, but it definitely wasn’t important to Mat. She acted like she knew him so well, but she couldn’t have been more wrong.
“What about revenge?”
“What about it?” Her eyes lowered, and her head rolled back, so she stared blankly at the ceiling.
“Would he get married for revenge against an enemy?”
She snorted. “No. He’d start by removing unnecessary body parts.”
“All body parts are necessary, Masha,” I said, horrified but fascinated.
“You might be surprised how many parts someone can lose and still remain alive. Even conscious.”
I shuddered, but got back to the point. “So are you saying that Mat—”
A huge snore interrupted me. Masha was out cold.
Could it be true, even a little bit? Could I possibly mean more to Mat than just payment for a debt and revenge against the man who wronged him? I looked over at the second bottle of wine, still half full. Mat’s hardass cousin was passed out after about four glasses of chardonnay, so there was no way she even knew what she was saying. She had to be wrong.
What was more unnerving was how badly I wanted to believe it. Why was that? Had I finally given up and accepted my fate as his wife? It wasn’t like I could leave since my father’s life was on the line. No, it couldn’t be true, and I was just a bit drunk myself, wanting to believe in fantasies. I reached for the bottle, needing more to keep me from getting lost in that line of thinking.
For all her toughness, Masha was just seeing what she wanted to see, which was for her beloved family member to be happily married and in love. And that wasn’t anywhere close to the case for Mat and me.
Chapter 24 - Mat
The unsatisfactory encounter with Anatoli was relegated to the back of my mind by the time I got home, eager to get back to the mood on the dance floor with CJ, and hopeful that she was still awake at that late hour.
The only one to greet me as I walked in the door was the dog, wagging his tail so hard his backside swayed from side to side. He led me to the living room where CJ sat alone, two bottles of wine beside her. She grinned blearily at me.
“Are you drunk?” I asked.
“Only a little.”
“You knocked back two bottles all by yourself? You should be hammered unless this is some secret talent of yours.”
She shook her head, rising, then thinking better of it, plopped back down, still with that silly, sappy grin that warmed my heart. “I wasn’t alone.” Looking around, she shrugged. “Masha was here a little bit ago, fast asleep. Maybe she wandered off and I didn’t notice.”
“She’s good at that. But why was she here at all?” I was mildly annoyed at my cousin since she was supposed to be keeping an eye on the storage area. We were receiving another shipment of weapons that I didn’t mean to lose this time.
CJ tried to give me a scowl, and with an eyeroll, I ran to the kitchen to get her a bottle of water. She’d thank me for it in the morning when her head wasn’t pounding so hard. She chugged it and told me Masha was sick of being on stakeouts.
