Page 15 of Bratva Bride
Through it all, Viktor Morozov sat silent, his pale eyes calculating rapidly behind his reading glasses. I watched his micro-expressions catalog each tell. The slight widening of pupils—surprise at the proposal but also opportunity. The brief press of lips—running his own calculations. It was all an act—he’d decided hours ago on the phone to me, but he was pretending, making sure that the other pakhans didn’t realise we were deceiving them together.
"My daughter is a brilliant woman," he said carefully, each word selected for maximum impact. "Two PhDs by age twenty-four. Computational linguistics and mathematics. She speaks seven languages fluently—Russian, English, Ukrainian, German, French, Mandarin, Arabic. Her analytical capabilities are unmatched."
He was listing her features like a real estate agent showing a property. Square footage. Amenities. Recent upgrades. Everything except mentioning she was a human being who might have opinions about being traded like a commodity.
“Plus, I have kept her pure. Her maidenhood is intact.”
There were hushed discussions.
"She's worth more than a simple treaty arrangement." There it was. The opening bid. He wanted concessions. Wanted to extract maximum value from his asset before signing the papers.
Alexei leaned forward slightly. I recognized his negotiation posture—spine straight, hands flat on the table, the position thatsaid he was listening but not agreeing. "What are you asking for?"
"The Morozov territories remain intact." Viktor's voice carried the particular tone of a man who thought he held good cards. "No Volkov expansion into our port operations. The Brooklyn waterfront stays under Morozov control."
"Unacceptable," Dmitry growled. "You don't get to keep everything and gain an alliance. That's not how this works."
"It is when I'm providing something irreplaceable." Viktor's smile was thin, calculated. "My daughter's intelligence capabilities alone are worth more than a few shipping containers. Add in the symbolism—the Morozov heir married to a Volkov son. That kind of alliance changes the entire power structure of New York."
"You want more," I said. Not a question. I could see it in his micro-expressions—the slight forward lean that meant he wasn't done negotiating.
"A seat on the joint Council that will oversee both organizations during the peace." He let that sink in. "Equal representation. Three Volkovs, three Morozovs. Decisions made jointly."
The room erupted.
"That's not how blood marriages work," Pavel Sokolov objected. "The families don't merge. They ally. Separate operations, mutual defense, but not joint control."
"The Code says nothing about governance structure," Viktor countered. "Only that peace must be maintained through blood union. How that peace is administered is negotiable."
"You're trying to gain through marriage what you couldn't take through war," Sergei Kozlov laughed. "Fucking clever. Also fucking impossible. The Volkovs would never—"
"The Volkovs can speak for themselves," Alexei cut in, his voice dangerously quiet.
But Besharov raised one weathered hand, and silence fell like a hammer. The old man's eyes moved between Viktor and Alexei, calculating something none of us could see. Seven decades of managing bratva politics had taught him to read currents the rest of us were only beginning to feel.
"The girl," he said finally. "I want to see her. Verify she's acceptable for this arrangement."
The phrasing made my jaw clench. Acceptable. Like checking a horse's teeth before buying. Like examining produce for bruises. Like she was a thing to be evaluated rather than a person to be considered.
Viktor nodded, reaching for his phone with the casual motion of a man ordering coffee. "She's here. I brought her in case negotiations required . . . flexibility."
My heart pounded. I was about to see her. The woman who might be my bride.
Viktor typed something on his phone. A short message. Instructions to whoever was guarding her. Bring the asset. Display the merchandise. Present the sacrifice.
"She'll be here momentarily," he said, setting the phone aside with the same casual indifference he'd shown throughout the discussion. No concern for how she might feel being summoned. No acknowledgment that this might be traumatic for her. Just logistics. Just business.
"While we wait," Besharov said, "let's discuss timeline. Article Seven requires the marriage to occur within one lunar month of agreement. That gives us twenty-eight days maximum."
"Too long," Alexei said. "The federal investigation won't wait for lunar cycles. We need this settled within a week."
"A week?" Viktor's eyebrows rose slightly. "That's barely enough time to—"
"To what?" Dmitry interrupted. "Plan a wedding? We're not talking about some society event. This is blood marriage.Witnesses, vows, consummation. The Code doesn't require flowers and fucking cake."
The casual mention of consummation made something twist in my stomach. Another calculation I'd been avoiding. The marriage would have to be real in every legal and traditional sense. No annulment options. No backing out. Once the vows were spoken and the marriage was . . . completed . . . it was permanent.
I'd been focused on getting Anya out of her father's house. On giving her freedom from his control. But I'd be replacing one cage with another, wouldn't I? My cage might be bigger, might have better amenities, might come with more autonomy, but it was still a cage.
