Page 37 of Secret Baby for the Bratva Boss

I get dressed and clean up, brushing my hair and teeth. But I don’t even bother with makeup. My face is an absolute mess. I look like a monster.No. I just look like I got my ass handed to me.The fact that it was by three men, two of whom where three times my size, seems of very little consequence in the cold light of day.

Downstairs, I stop in the hall. They’re in the kitchen, the three of them, and speaking in fragmented Russian, English words falling in here and there. I hesitate. Should I just go in and make my presence known? Go in and demand answers? I don’t know why, but something keeps me there in the hall, my heart beating, my face throbbing.

“You’re an idiot,” says the woman suddenly, in English. Her accent is heavy, and she punctuates the sentence by slapping a hand down hard on my kitchen table. “You are a fucking idiot, Aleks, with a clear death wish. You might have bought yourself time—or, you might have boughthertime—but what about in the long run, hm? Your operation will pay for this. If not in cash, then in connections, in contacts, in loyalty—”

“Enough,” says Aleks coolly. Despite the woman’s clear show of hysteria, he seems unfazed. “Everything will resolve itself eventually. I know why you are really angry, Marya.”

“It isn’t personal,” she bites out, “that I wanted to marry you. I don’t give a damn about you, you know that. It’s political.”

“It would have been political,” Aleks corrects her. “But it will never be, now. It’s done. And it can’t be undone.”

What the hell is he talking about?But even without the answers or the details, my spine is tingling—because I think I know. I think I know exactly what he is saying. If he can’t marry Marya, it’s because he’s already married.

To me…?

But, no—that can’t be. That’s not how these things work. We have to go to a courthouse, right? And file paperwork, and have witnesses sign it, and we have to sayI do—

“Everything is in place,” Aleks continues. “She will be under my protection as my wife, and her son as my son. It may be political only, but it will work, for now. It will keep reinforcements from coming to Konstantin. And if any of his men are wise, they will desert him if he continues on this course. To come after a wife of a bratva leader now—it’s an invitation to war, and I’ve already sent them a very bloody message. If they know what’s good for them, they will leave, one by one or in droves; and if Konstantin insists on this course, he will insist on it alone.”

“Still,” says Yuri, “he is a dangerous man, even alone.”

So that’s what this is? Aleks is trying to strip away Konstantin’s allies? And it sounds like my status has completely changed—suddenly, I sound very valuable. And to very powerful people, including him.

But it isn’tpossible. We’re not married. I didn’t agree to this.He did say he would make it happen by force, though, didn’t he—even if I didn’t agree?I swallow, but my mouth is dry, andmy throat feels tight. None of this feels real. I need to sit down. My head is throbbing, and suddenly I’m starving, and so thirsty, and—if I’m honest…I’m scared, too.

Of him.

“Annul it,” says Marya, practically biting out the words. “There is still time to reverse this, Aleks. This is the kind of move that could undermine your entire career. Your entire organization.Why?Why do it for her, hm? She’s just some backwoods girl.”

I flush, both embarrassed and a little pleased. She’s right. I am just some backwoods girl. And yet…I’m being used as a tool of most value against Aleks by his enemy. I mean something to him. Somehow, without my even knowing—I always have.

“I’m not concerned about political fallout. What will be, will be. I have built my name and my loyalties. When this is over, and Konstantin is dead and his men are eradicated—then I will consider the fallout. But not yet.”

“You’re a fool,” says Marya. Her voice says that she is realizing she’s bested, that she’s already lost this. Aleks’ will is stone. His word is law. And he has already made up his mind. “I won’t let this happen like this. Mark my words, Aleks, you are making a mistake. And I won’t let you simply throw me away, do you understand?”

I shift, so I can see around the corner and into the kitchen. Yuri stands before the kitchen window, armed, his face cold and impassive. Aleks stands beside the kitchen table, his arms crossed over his chest. And Marya, with an elegant silhouette and long, dark red hair, stands across from him, both palms planted hard on the kitchen table.

But as I watch, she rounds the table to get to him. As I watch, she grabs the front of his jacket, leans in, and kisses him.

Heat floods up the back of my neck. I take a step back in astonishment. It’s shame or embarrassment or jealousy thatroots me to the spot, or all three, because Aleks doesn’t pull away. He doesn’t kiss her back, either, but what difference does that make, anyway? He’s in my kitchen, talking about marrying me…all while letting some old Russian flame kiss him? Yuri, to his credit, looks away.

Marya draws back. “I was chosen by your family,” she says, glaring up at Aleks. He looks at her with such indifference she might as well be the kitchen table herself. “I was chosen bymyfamily. We were meant to be. And I waited. I knew that eventually you would come around. Either you would fall in love with me, or you would at least come to see the value of a marriage alliance between our families. I came here for you. Knowing full well you were here for some other girl, I left Russia for you.”

Aleks watches her, still with a disimpassioned glint in his eye. As though she’s talking about weather in a far-off city, or a sale for an item he doesn’t want or need. Finally, he says, simply, “It’s over, Marya. Let it be.”

“No. I won’t. You’ll see. Your eyes will be opened. The illusions will fall apart. And you’ll realize, tomorrow, or in a year or in five or ten, that marrying some nobody out of some pathetic, egotistical sense of guilt was a terrible mistake. The biggest of your life.” Her face is white, her hands clenched in fists where she still holds Aleks by the collar of his jacket. “You could have everything, Aleks. You could have money, and connection, and family, and a future andme. All you would have to do is burn this contract, before anyone else knows about it. Burn it, Aleks. Don’t choose her.”

I feel like I’m watching a film, or a Shakespearean play—because none of it feels real. She can’t really be talking about me. This girl, who might be obnoxious, but is so clearly tailored for Alek’s life—she can’t be begging him to take her overme. She’s right. I’m nobody.

“Go back to Russia, Marya,” Aleks says simply, into the following silence. And then he says something in Russian, something that makes her eyes widen. She shoves him, hard, though he barely budges an inch.

She’s hissing under her breath in Russian, maybe cursing, as she grabs her purse off the kitchen table and goes storming out of the kitchen. I’m so out of it, so paralyzed by this whole wild thing, that I don’t even think to move out of the way in time. Marya smacks straight into me.

“What the hell?” Her eyes flash and she recoils from me, like I’m a rat that’s run across her shoe in the subway. Up close, I see that she’s very, very pretty—beautiful, even, with lustrous porcelain skin and the kind of bone structure that can only be achieved with luck and very good breeding. “You,” she says then, the word alone enough condemnation to pierce me like a knife. “You?” Her laugh is cold and cruel. She says something in Russian, shaking her head as though in wonder.

Then she shoves past me, and storms out my front door, letting it slam shut behind her.

“Kat,” says Aleks. He has the decency to look surprised to see me. “I didn’t hear you come down.” He doesn’t say:Have you been there long?He doesn’t ask:How much of that did you hear?Instead, he beckons for me to come into the kitchen—mykitchen—and says, “Come, there’s coffee.”

---