Page 9 of The Russian Pakhan's Forced Bride
Victoria Evans.
A resident of California.
No sign of her being a Nikolaev anywhere—almost like Viktoria Nikolaev doesn’t even exist.
As the weight of that apparent truth sits heavily on my shoulders, I can only stare at her ID and question how it all went wrong.
How despite the easy win, it was apparently a loss in the end.
I acted too quickly and without thinking…I rushed into a plan to tie this woman to me. One I don’t know, and one who isn’t at all the woman I was expecting.
Looking back at her, my heart sinks, and I can tell she’s telling the truth.
It’s too late…she knows too much.
Chapter 4 - Victoria
Roman Lukov…
The name started reverberating in my mind from the moment it was said to me, sinking in like icy fangs.
He’s the one who did this to me...the one who kidnapped me and forced me into marrying him on the spot…
As we remain there together, realization simmers within his features, slow yet unavoidable.
Before, his gaze had been sharp and unreadable, but now, confusion takes up that space and seems to reflect my own.
Mutually at a loss, we both remain there in that obscenely nice living room, unable to utter a word.
Suspended in that state of bewilderment, even while my heart races, I can’t find anything to say. My thoughts are loud and riddled with questions, but I can’t voice them yet.
As Roman puts my ID down, he keeps his eyes on me, his brows fixed into a tight furrow.
“…You truly don’t know what the Bratva is?”
“No, I don’t,” I mumble, still trying my hardest to keep my pulse steady despite how it pounds in my ears. My palms feel clammy while I shake faintly, trying to fight off the tunnel vision trying to take hold. “…I don’t know anything about what you’re talking about…You got the wrong person.”
His eyes remain on me, and his lips are slightly parted, allowing a quiet breath to escape. That silence lingers from him before something almost seems to shift in him. The faintest twitch of his jaw and the slip of his domineering gaze give away that understanding as it seems to flood his system.
Whether he wants to or not, he must believe me.
It seemed impossible before, but apparently, he can be convinced.
“My intel was wrong…” he says lowly, almost to himself, while he scrubs a hand down his face. “How…”
“I don’t know, but I was trying to tell you this from the start,” I manage, pulling in a breath that helps smooth me out to some degree.
If he believes me and knows he made a mistake, he can surely fix it. He may have forced this impromptu ceremony on me and completely upended my night, but it’s fixable. It can be done one way or another.
As Roman takes a step away while his posture deflates, some of that weight lifts from my chest, and I silently reassure myself that it will all be fine.
He knows, and he gets it. That means it’ll be over sooner rather than later.
Pulling in another deep breath to try and calm those anxious feelings, I focus on slowing my heart rate like I learned to several years ago.
Anxiety isn’t anything new to me given everything I experienced growing up, but after making so many changes for myself, I managed to get a grip on it. I made it more bearable; more than anything, I needed to regain that control again.
Sitting in a stranger’s mansion…and one who has more influence than I’d ever expect…certainly doesn’t help the situation.
