Page 48 of Secret Baby for the Bratva Boss

Aleks is lying to me. And I fully intend on finding out what wool he’s trying to pull over my eyes.

***

So. This is how it’s going to be.He’s playing the part of the respectful captor, with boundaries; taking submissions. He’s pretending like he’ll let me ask to fight, and that he’s going to take me with him to battle.

Fine. So be it. Two can play at that. Maybe I was naïve to be so honest with him with what I wanted.

The afternoon slugs by. I’m pacing in my room, plotting, when I hear it—a female voice. And a reflexive bolt of jealousy rushes through me. I know before I’ve even opened my bedroom door that it’s Marya—who else?This goddamn woman can’t take a hint.I don’t want to fight with her. And I’m not sure I could fight, despite all of that big talk earlier. The truth is that I’m beat, fatigued down to the bones, and running on a cocktail of adrenaline and outrage that has a really short fuse.

Still. I can’t resist the temptation.

I slip open my bedroom door and creep into the hallway. Sure enough—it’s her voice. She’s speaking in curt but glossy Russian, and as I slowly make my way down the stairs, it softens. By degrees. After a moment of her speaking, I hear Aleks.

Asshole.I bristle, but maybe I have no right to be angry. After all, I know nothing is going on between them. Even if she did kiss him, it’s not like he kissed her back.

He didn’t stop her, either. Did he?

My skin goes cold. They’re not in the kitchen this time, but in the den, which is a colder, darker room set off the far side of the living room. It’s stacked full of old furniture, mostly stuff that was left in here when I bought the place. There are sheets cast over everything, and I usually keep the shutters in there closed to keep in the heat; but right now, it lends the room an unusually spooky glare.

Marya wears a leather jacket and jeans that fit her flawlessly. Her dark red hair is pinned in a neat bun at the nape of her neck, her center part sharp as a razor. Her boots have elegant little heels on them, enough to give her height and her already-long legs length, but not enough to make them impractical. I noticed a neat, sporty black motorcycle out front just a few minutes ago, parked among the fleet of SUVs. Is it hers?

So, she’s beautiful, Russian, and rides a motorcycle?Not to mention, she’s apparently known Aleks forever. So long that the two of them were justexpectedto end up together.

New heat floods my face. I feel small, and meek, and plain, not to mention petty and jealous as I watch the two of them from the shadows of the hallway. It occurs to me that this is my house, despite how these little mafia boys are treating it—I do have every right to kick her out. But then…how much power do I really have?Maybe it’s time to find out.

“Please,” says Marya suddenly, in English, jarring me. She paces away from Aleks, who is leaning against a wall, and to my surprise, smoking a cigarette. When he inhales, a gold halo casts ominously on his face, glinting in both eyes. “This is such fucking bullshit, Aleks. You are playing at this like a child in a game—it is not a game.”

He replies in Russian, his voice low and mild, but almost a growl, nonetheless.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she bites out. “It’s not a real marriage.”

“Real as anything,” he says.

“Comehome,” she pleads, pacing over to him. I see now that she’s carrying a bike helmet in one leather-gloved hand, confirming my suspicion. She shoves it onto a stack of chairs as she reaches Aleks, roughly taking his face in both hands. He doesn’t budge, doesn’t even blink.The history these two have,I think in hurt, bitter awe.The rhythm. The familiarity.Mystomach lurches. “Come home, and let Konstantin follow. Here, you are powerful. There, you are unstoppable.”

Her voice has softened, faded to a deep velvet. She runs her thumb over his bottom lip. Eyes hooded, Aleks simply brings the cigarette back to his mouth and takes a draw, releasing smoke through both nostrils.

“She is nothing but a distraction,” says Marya. “She and her little brat—this is their world. You don’t belong in it, no matter how many times she lets you fuck her in that sad, dusty old farmhouse. You will always be a dark knight to her, you see that, don’t you? All sweet girls want a rake to fuck. Until they get bored of him, or scared, and they don’t want that little thrill anymore. She will throw you away for a soft-spoken American, one who can keep her safe just by not bringing threats to her doorstep.”

Something changes in Aleks’s face then, and he straightens. I can’t tell—because he’s sunk in shadow—but it almost looks like that got to him. It almost looks like that struck a nerve.

“Your marriage is a sham,” Marya presses. “Come home. Come back to real life. This grudge does not have to die. Bring it home, where you can kill it properly.”

“To do that,” Aleks finally replies, bending to tap ash off the back of his boot, “I would have to let him kill her.”

She grabs his jaw as he stands back upright, her eyes wild as she forces him to look at her. “Konstantin wants her,” she whispers, and I finally hear something from Marya that I haven’t yet: real fear. “She is already dead, Aleksander.” She says something in Russian that makes him grimace, but she grips his face harder, forcing him to look at her again. “Please,” she whispers, and everything about her melts: her voice, her eyes, her body. She folds into him, and when she speaks again, her voice is pure silk: “I am still alive.”

And she kisses him again. I flinch, staggering back a step. It hurts this time, so, so much worse than it did before. The first was quick, and Aleks’s face then was completely impassive; and anyway, it was in my kitchen, in the broad light of day, and Yuri was there. But this? This is different. They’re in the dark, in the shadows—inmyhouse. And they don’t know that I’m there to see them.

And this woman…she is telling him to forsake me. She is telling him that I’m already as good as dead.

Well…fuck. Am I? Is she right?And more importantly…does he realize this already, is that why he’s been fucking with me? Is that why he has agreed to take me with them, tonight, when they go with Toma’s intelligence to kill Konstantin once and for all?

No. I won’t believe it.I won’t believe that Aleks is that cold, that callous. I won’t believe that he’s that good of a liar. In the first place, he didn’t have to do any of this. He didn’t have to come back here, or find me, or marry me, or…

My mind stales, hardening at the edges, going thin; the thoughts are all twisting together, bits of this conversation and snags of that one. Words heard at wrong angles, now shifting painfully, prophetically into place. The marriage is to absolve him of taking another one back home, one dictated by his controlling, mafia-related family. It has nothing to do with me.

None of this has anything to do with me, does it? Him coming here to kill Konstantin was the perfect excuse for him to make me his little American wife; safely stowed away overseas where I could never be a bother to him, but where I could serve as a shield to those who might want to gain control by manipulating a woman in front of him. He’s solidified his own independence, and solidified me as a pawn.

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