Page 56 of The Bratva's Innocent Sold Bride
I only ended my tirade because I ran out of breath. To my surprise, all he did was calmly start the engine and start driving back toward the hotel, a smug grin on his face.
“What?” I snapped, still on edge from what I’d seen. And done.
“It’s funny,” he said, still smiling. “I was beginning to think you might be happier as a widow.”
I had no answer for that. He just reached for my hand and laughed.
Chapter 34 - Mat
I woke up the next morning a bit stiff, with a residual headache from the hit to the head with a board, but nothing could have dimmed my good mood. Still smug and happy from the evidence that CJ cared about my well-being, I was secretly proud of her, too. It was as if she were meant to be a Bratva wife. Even my fury that Daria had put her in harm’s way was receding after CJ assured me plenty of ways that she was fine.
She wasn’t in bed with me now, and the light streaming through the window showed it must be late. She wasn’t in the suite, but Artem was missing too, so I figured she took him for his morning walk and stopped to get a coffee. The hotel was owned by my cousin, so I knew the security was top-notch. After my lecture last night, she swore she wouldn’t leave the grounds without me.
The discreet guard at the door to our suite told me she’d only just left a few minutes ago, so I hurried to get dressed and go find her. The boutique hotel was ultra high-end, with a small shopping area full of goodies she might like, and I thought I’d take a detour at the jewelry shop before looking for her in the restaurant or the enclosed outdoor area.
As I headed toward the elevator, I got a message from Masha and breathed a sigh of relief. By some miracle, almost as if he wanted to be found, Anatoli popped up on our radar again. He’d shown up at a gallery opening under the guise of Terrence Hendricks, as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
The bad news was that he’d also taken out my newly acquired storage area shortly after that. Masha let me know the place was emptied out, two of my men were dead, and one was in the hospital, too injured to tell what happened. As pissed off asthat made me, I was just glad we had a location for him, and for the moment, he was far away from CJ.
I spotted her ducking down a hallway, but when I caught up with her, ready to surprise her, I hung back when I saw she wasn’t alone. Zipping out of sight before the dog spotted me and gave me away, I leaned against the wall to listen.
She was with her father. The shock of seeing Gordon in LA, when I’d told no one besides Masha where we’d be going, was like a blow. Had she arranged this? I crept closer to try to overhear what they were saying.
“Damn it, Dad, I told you this was a bad idea,” she hissed.
“Come with me, CJ,” he said, his voice breaking.
I wished I could see her face, her reaction. Was she as shocked to find him there as I was? And what was a bad idea?
“Are you kidding me?” she asked him, then sighed. “Look at you, you’re a mess. When was the last time you ate a proper meal?”
“How can I eat after what I did? I got you into this, let me get you out.”
He was trying to rescue her? That most certainly was a bad idea. It remained to be seen if she’d relent and go with him. A tightness gripped my chest as I waited for her to stop fussing over his health.
“Just go home, Dad,” she said. “Now.”
I heard her take a few steps and retreat further down the hall, ducking around another corner.
“Fine,” her father said morosely. “For now.”
She had no answer to that, and as she rounded the corner, I made it seem like I was just getting off the elevator, forcing alook of surprise onto my face. She jumped a half a foot in the air, her head whipping around to make sure her father really was gone before calming down enough to greet me.
“Hey, just in time to get some breakfast. I’ll put Artem back in his room and meet you,” she said, edging past me to get to the elevators.
“I’ll go with you,” I said. “How about room service? I’m in no mood for a crowd.”
She readily agreed, still jumpy, but by the time we got back to our room and had a spread of scrambled eggs, bacon, and fresh fruit laid out on the table, I never would have known she’d met secretly with her father if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.
Was she really planning to try to leave with him at another time? She’d told him forcefully to leave, and her tone had been angry and upset, but was it just a timing issue? I wanted to believe she was finally coming around, caring when I was hurt, enjoying my family, and deciding she actually wanted to be my wife. Was she still only staying with me to keep her father alive?
Chapter 35 - CJ
My idiot father nearly gave me a heart attack when he popped out of the hotel restaurant and tried to get me to leave with him. Had he actually gone off the deep end due to guilt over giving me to a mafia kingpin as payment for his debt? I was in no way ready to forgive him, even if living with Mat wasn’t the torture he first made me believe it would be. That didn’t mean I was going to risk his life on a stupid plan to run away.
I was so stressed that Mat might see him in the hotel if he didn’t listen to me and was still hanging around, that when we finished breakfast, I asked if we could just go home.
Leaning across the table, I lightly touched the bruised area around the cut near his hairline. It wasn’t as bad as it initially looked, but we’d heard that Ivan had a broken ankle, Dima had a concussion, and his arm had been grazed by a bullet, and Max had cracked ribs. Mat’s shrug that they’d been through worse wasn’t reassuring. I had been part of an actual firefight, and while there was a certain exhilaration buzzing in my veins, I kept thinking of all the things that could have gone wrong. It wasn’t just my father who had me wanting to go home.
