Page 6 of Bratva’s Stolen Bride (Obsessed Bratva Bosses #1)

FELIKS

The pain of hearing Payton mention Ivan—my biggest mistake and regret—is enough to make me want to request a dare instead of truth, and hope it’s to jump out of the plane.

“Do not ask questions you don’t want to know the answer to, Payton,” I reply, and I pray she takes my advice.

“Was it a mafia betrayal?” she insists. “He said something about Camden?”

I bark with laughter, though it’s not funny.

“No. I wish it were so simple.”

She curls her feet up into the large leather seat so she can look more easily across at me, but keeps her seat belt on. Such a good girl.

I’d love to corrupt her, starting with dragging her into my lap and fucking her right here.

Instead, I’m going to tell her the truth.

“Beckenham’s main business is in high-tech solutions for physical security—the sort of things that people don’t want us to be able to do—but I do dabble in online surveillance as well, since that’s often related.

And it was during a routine check that I discovered Ivan and his friends have tastes that even an immoral bastard like me doesn’t condone. ”

She looks confused, poor innocent.

“He likes to torture those who don’t want or deserve it.

” Which is something I could live with if it were confined to mafia business or consensual adults.

I’ve inflicted plenty of suffering in my time, for the sake of ensuring Beckenham is respected and feared.

But it wasn’t that. There were a lot of recordings, and they were clearly for my son’s sick entertainment. “People. And animals, too.”

The dawning horror on her face is grim. I wish I could save her from this, but at least she hasn’t seen the video footage that I have.

“It turns out Camden discovered before I did, and were blackmailing him. I think that’s why he was so keen to have you as a girlfriend.

You were a plausible cover that he had a pretty girlfriend, and so I wouldn’t look for any other interest he might have.

” It worked, for a while, and I’m torn as to be more angry that Ivan had Payton or that he duped me.

“And you were a reason he needed the money he was actually spending on trafficking his true interests, and paying Camden for their silence.”

Her mouth falls open in shock, then I can see every emotion flitting across her face as she lines up all the evidence in her mind. Disbelief, understanding, dismay. Hurt.

“He wanted a girlfriend that wasn’t really a girlfriend.” She says it like it makes horrible sense. “To cover his tracks.”

I nod grimly. “It seems Camden were raising the stakes and the cost week by week. But he couldn’t afford for me to find out.”

“Why not?”

My mouth sets in a harsh line. “My silence cannot be bought. Ivan knew he would pay in blood.”

“Oh.” Her eyes go wide. “His expenses kept on rising, so he was looking to cut costs. Not having a girlfriend anymore, clawing back some of the money, and maybe…”

Neither of us complete that thought. If he was paying so much to Camden that he needed her gifts returned, he might also have decided to hunt for victims closer to home. Payton would be an obvious person to take out his sadistic anger on.

She fidgets and looks away, picking up and putting down her half-finished orange juice that she asked for after the glass of Champagne.

“That’s enough high-drama,” I say. She’s safe, at least for now. “Your turn. Truth or dare?”

Payton’s eyes fill with worry, and she hesitates before replying, “Truth.”

Pity. I’d have liked to dare her to kiss me. That could have distracted us both very effectively.

“Tell me something that you love doing,”

She blinks, taken aback, then replies, “Swimming.”

I grin. She’s going to adore the beach house. “Where do you swim?”

“At an outdoor pool in Richmond.”

I nod slowly. “There’s one in Beckenham too, and a big park.”

I don’t mention the clear blue waters around the island I’m taking her to. I’d rather enjoy her surprise as she sees it for the first time.

“Is that it?” she asks when I don’t follow up.

“Da.” And I brace myself, because I sense that my respite will be short. “You can ask another question.”

“Where’s Ivan’s mother?” she says immediately.

My heart sinks. This whole conversation doesn’t cast me in a flattering light, and I’ve discovered that it matters very much what she thinks of me.

“And what happened that he ended up…” she trails off, unsure how to say the awkward thing.

A monster. My son is a monster, even amongst mafia bosses.

“He turned up on my doorstep, aged eighteen,” I reply. “His mother had told him my name, after years of keeping it a secret from him, and he came to find me.”

I’d stared into the face of my younger self that day. I hadn’t even asked for a paternity test. Ivan had insisted, so I’d bled onto the sample and sent it off. But the result was never in question.

He had my chin, and eyes, and all the arrogance I’d had when I was eighteen, but without any of the natural ability for mafia work. None of the instincts, and definitely zero skills.

The blood lust though. The cold, vicious streak. He had that, and I tried to tell myself at the time that it was normal.

“I didn’t know what to do with him,” I admit. “I insisted he go to university because I thought it would give him an opportunity to grow up. Mature. And maybe be useful to Beckenham afterwards.”

“He was studying computer science,” she says, evidently still processing all this, since I already know that.

I nod. “There isn’t a degree in mafia management, unfortunately.”

That makes her snort with laughter, but her smile dies quickly. “Did you not know about Ivan, then? If he just turned up, it was good of you to accept him.”

Such a sweet girl. She’s trying to make me less culpable.

“I paid the money due and never saw him. I regret that. I was a bad father.” Guilt grabs me by the throat. If I had kids now, I’d be in their lives.

I can’t help my gaze dragging over Payton’s body, imagining her pregnant with a baby we both desperately wanted, and would dote on.

“Why did you have a child at all?”

“I didn’t mean to. But no method of contraception is perfect, and by the time his mother told me, we were having a child whether we liked it or not.

And I didn’t like it.” I’d speculated about whether it had been accidental, especially because Ivan’s mother had informed me of the pregnancy at three months.

But eventually I’d decided that the answer was not to take any more risks, and I haven’t since.

My hand might not be as good as a cunt, but it can’t get into trouble.

“I was far too young, involved in building a territory in London. I had experienced losing my family when a small Russian Bratva killed them and took me in when I was sixteen. My father had been dealing drugs, and tried to double-cross the Pakhan—that’s the name of the head of a Bratva, it means eldest brother—and found to his cost that it is a bad idea. ”

I twist my mouth wryly. “I had only just destroyed that group from the inside out, like an apple rotting from the core. I wasn’t keen to experience any of that again.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.” There’s distress in her voice.

“Thank you,” I reply mechanically. “It was a long time ago.”

“So you’ve given up on family? I can’t imagine life without my sisters.” She stares at her hands in her lap, obviously thinking of them. “You don’t ever want children?”

“No, it’s…” I don’t know how to answer her, but that’s wrong.

She turns back, waiting for my answer as though it’s important to her. And it is to me too.

“The truth is so much more complicated. Twenty-year-old mafia bosses shouldn’t have children.

” I raise my eyebrows. “Ivan hasn’t had loss to make him realise the consequences of his actions.

” I’m known for having no heart, but I have limits.

Ivan could have been me, if I’d been coddled and indulged.

Just vicious impulses with no empathy. “His mother raised a savage dog with my genetics, and I have to put it down.”

“I understand.” She tilts her chin up.

“But if I had children now…” I let the thought linger, careful to keep my gaze on her face, however much I want it to drop to her breasts, her waist, her hips.

That place between her legs that after more than twenty years, I finally have an insatiable urge to taste.

She was born the same year as Ivan, and it’s as though I’ve been waiting all this time for her.

“I’m ready now,” I say softly, and it’s true. “I’m forty-four. A lot has changed in twenty-one years, and I like the idea of stopping thinking of myself and my own achievements, and caring for a family.” The itch of discontent and loneliness has been growing for a long time now.

“Perhaps it took that long to heal from your family being murdered,” she whispers back.

My throat clogs, and I dip my head. “Yes,” I manage to get out, a bit strangled. “I’m powerful now. I could protect those I love.”

The roar of the jet’s engines is loud, but the thud of my heart as I look at Payton is deafening.

“What else do you like to do, aside from swim?” I ask eventually.

And she accepts my change of subject gracefully, replying that she likes to read.

We don’t need to exchange truth questions after that, because she’s telling me about the fantasy romances she enjoys, and then the true crime podcasts.

She tells me her favourite unsolved cases, and my job is finally an advantage because I can explain how an “impossible” crime could have been carried out—and possibly was with one of my products—and we continue talking for hours, except to accept food and refreshment from the cabin crew.

It’s only when I check my watch and see we’re only half an hour from landing, and I notice her wince again, as though something hurts, and my heart lurches.

“What is it?” I demand.

“Pain,” she gasps, holding her fingers to her ears. Her face creases in discomfort, and panic, red and hot and sharp, floods my veins.