Chapter 44

Not just Svetlana, but me too. He’ll kill us both if I make the wrong move. I understand what I have to do until I can find a way out of this mess. I have to go along with everything Misha says like it was my idea and I can’t wait to marry a stranger and start popping out his offspring.

“Then prove it to me,sestrenka.” Misha goes to the cupboard and gets another glass out, placing it alongside his. “Marry Andriani like I’ve asked you to do. Give him a kid or two. Women love to have children. It is only natural,da?”

He splashes an ample amount of vodka in each one before he sets the bottle back down and calmly screws on the lid while I bite my tongue to keep from arguing. I don’t know if Misha is being serious and believes the misogynistic shit he’s spewing, or if he’s goading me, playing with me and pushing me to see how far he can go before I’ll break.

Misha holds out the fresh glass he’s poured for me to take. “Here,sestrenka. For you.”

I don’t want the vodka any more than I want to marry Scorpion or have anything to do with my brothers or the Bratva or give up everything I’ve worked for my entire life to be a Mafia housewife. But I also don’t have a choice, so I accept it, the glass cold against my fingertips from the chilled vodka.

A new shiver goes down my spine. “Thank you.”

“I can count on you, can’t I, Katya?”

“I’ll do whatever you need me to do,” I force out.

Misha lifts his glass to me in cheers. “That’s what I like to hear.Za lyubov.”

To love.

I hold my glass up. “Za lyubov.”

Then I take a sip of the cold liquid, feeling it burn all the way down.

Chapter 10

SCORPION

If someone would have told me even a week ago that I’d be breaking bread with Mikhail Sidorov and the rest of his Bratva goons to celebrate my impending marriage to his sister, I would have laughed in his face. But the joke’s on me, because here I am, sitting in Topolina—a restaurant of ours that Sidorovdidn’tblow up with a bomb—trying not to chug my Macallan like it’s mother’s milk.

A rehearsal dinner.

Like we need to fucking rehearse. We’re having the wedding in Priest’s backyard at his place in the suburbs. This isn’t rocket science. I wait with the priest, and Ekaterina walks down the aisle. We say some shit, and then it’s over. We’re married, until death do us part. Or until we divorce, whichever comes first. And while I’m reasonably sure my bride-to-be is homicidal when it comes to me, I don’t believe she’d manage to actually kill me.

I’m pretty hard to kill.

A lot of motherfuckers have tried, and I’m still standing.

So divorce, it is. By contract, we have to stay married for a period of at least one year, and we need to have a child. After that, all bets are off. Way fucking off. For now, it’s just a show.Like this rehearsal dinner. Optics. We need to look like we’re doing this the right way, like there’s no bad blood between us, like everything about this wedding is aboveboard instead of forced.

Including having this damn rehearsal dinner.

The air in the restaurant is charged with energy. Andrianis and Revellos are on one side, Bratva on the other. My bride-to-be is seated at herstronzobrother’s right hand, and Dmitri, my contact in the Bratva and a man I considered a friend up until he went rogue on me, is seated to Sidorov’s left. Ekaterina is wearing an open-backed silk gown that’s demure in the front and exposes her entire back. It’s fiery orange, a color that would look terrible on most women, but on her, it’s electric. Not helping is that I can see her nipples from across the restaurant’s banquet hall.

I’ve been torn between wanting to throw my suit jacket over her and sneaking her off to a back room so I can see how hard her nipples are firsthand. Then there’s that slit in her floor-length gown that goes up to her thigh. My hand has been itching to follow that line and see where it leads me. My attraction to her is as strong as my resentment, and I’m annoying myself.

An elbow nudges me. I yank my attention away from the woman I’m being forced to marry and turn to see Lucky grinning at me.Cazzo.

“Still sulking?” he asks brightly.

My eyes narrow on him. “You’re enjoying this too much. Like I said, wait until your turn.”

“There’s not going to be anyone for them to marry me off to. Priest united the families, and now you’re marrying into the Bratva.” He dusts off his hands. “Sorted.”

“Keep telling yourself that if it helps you to sleep at night.”

His grin turns shit-eating. “I don’t like to waste my nights sleeping.”

“Keep that to yourself,stronzo,” I warn. “I don’t want to vomit my dinner and embarrass my bride.”