Page 49 of Bratva Queen

I heard him stumble up to the door and practically fall into the room. I was barely able to hear the conversation, but I could hear Isabel tell him something along the lines of still being pissed about the honeymoon and maybe he should stay in another room for the night. I heard him speak in a low tone at first, and my back straightened. He wasn’t trying to comfort her; he was still so rushed on his power trip that any kind of disobedience wasn’t going to be let down easily.

I approached the door and listened more closely.

“I told you this already, you’re mine now. There’s no going back. And you’ll do everything I say, like a good little wife.”

“Stepan, this isn’t you!”

“This is me,meelaya!” He laughed devilishly. “You just didn’t know it until now.”

“Please, just give me some space. I’m allowed to be angry about you throwing away our honeymoon!”

“Allowed?” he raged, and I heard him approach her.

“Stepan,” she said with a wobble of fear in her voice. “Stepan, the baby, you can’t—”

“Can’t do what, Isabel? Touch my wife?”

I heard a bit of a struggle and banged my fist against the door. “Stepan.”

“Fuck off!”

Fuck that.

I swung the door open and saw him with his fists balled into her sweater, holding her against the wall with her feet dangling at his shins.

I couldn’t help my own body’s movements and stepped up to him, closing my hand around his neck and pushing back until he stumbled and had to let her go. She dropped down and cried in fear, then quickly ran out and slammed the door. There was the faint sound of another door closing—so it looked like she was the one sleeping in a guest room tonight.

Meanwhile, Stepan’s enraged eyes were pinned on me. I let go of his throat but held my chest out and my head high. I wasn’t going to cower to this prick right now. Chances were, he wouldn’t even remember it in the morning.

“Stepan,” I growled out angrily, “this is no way to treat your pregnant wife. Your papa would be fucking ashamed of you right now. You back the fuck off, you respect her, and you never,ever, touch her like that again.”

I didn’t even need to raise my voice, it was so full of fury it shook with every word.

Stepan’s eyes narrowed, followed by an angry smile fueled with amusement. “The fuck did you just say to me? Is this even you, Alek? Papa’s favorite guard? The quiet man who always did what he was told?”

“Yeah. The quiet man who’s always done what my first boss told me to do—keep you out of trouble. Your papa loved you, but he knew you; he knew you would do shit like this, let your power get to your head so much that you come home and attack your pregnant wife. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

I could see that got to him. At least, to his drunken mind. It was a shock not only to hear me speak like this, but to hear that it came straight from his father’s mouth.

“Get out of here, Aleksei… Leave me the fuck alone.”

He was suddenly tired. I saw emotion and anger tangle within his eyes as they drooped. He turned for the bed, crashing onto it face down.

* * *

The next morning,I was called into Stepan’s home office.

I stood at his desk with my shoulders back and my hands clasped loosely in front of me while he sat back, swinging slowly from side to side in his chair. His eyes weren’t angry. They were calm, as though he had some kind of plan.

Yebat’... What was he going to do now?

“Aleksei… I’ve been thinking about this for a while now. And, uh, recent events have helped me make up my mind.”

I watched him without answering.

“I want you to go and run our Koslov expansion in Saint Petersburg.”

“What?”

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