Page 39 of Captive Vows (The Dubinin Bratva #1)

GAbrIELLA

O ne month later…

Four weeks should have felt like a long time, but they blurred by so quickly. One minute, I was being discharged from the hospital with Luka and our son, Andre, and the next, I was trying to adjust to being the supposed woman of the house.

“I’m not joking,” Luka said as he rocked Andre.

I sighed, putting my hands on my hips. “It’s too many changes to handle at once.”

I was blessed to have such a smooth post-partum experience.

Despite the dangerous situation where I’d given birth, too early and among violence, I was doing fine.

My years of dancing had likely set me up for having a good birthing experience—physically.

In just a couple of weeks, I would go back for one final checkup.

I couldn’t tell if I was more excited for it or Luka was.

Having the all-clear to have sex again was something we were both anticipating.

We were so stubborn for so long, keeping our distance all through my pregnancy, that we agreed we had so much lost time to make up for now.

Recovering from having a baby was one part of it all. Adjusting to being a new mother was something else.

And per the massive ring on my finger that Luka had given me in the hospital before we left, when he proposed with such a romantic speech, I was expected to embrace the role of a bride-to-be.

“I’ll help,” Emil said, getting up to take over holding his half-brother. He was still an arrogant, cocky man, but it was too sweet to see him hands-on with this new Dubinin in the family.

“You’ll help her pick out new house staff?” Luka asked, huffing with a dry laugh.

“Sure.” Emil grinned, looking up from Andre to wink at me.

“That means he’ll chose the ones he’d want to fuck,” Luka said.

I shook my head, rolling my eyes.

When we brought Andre home, Luka ordered Allen to round up all the members of the house staff. They were subjected to a loyalty test, questioned and interrogated. I suspected they were tortured to talk. And I really couldn’t feel guilty about that.

Because of someone in the house, Miguel was informed about my appointment at the medical facility. I was getting more on board with the idea of killing anyone who threatened me or my son.

But it was a lot of work. In the end, Luka decided to fire them all unless they were old loyalists who’d been working for the family since before he was even in power.

“I don’t have a clue how to hire maids or cooks,” I said.

“You just pick whoever seems best,” Emil replied.

I sighed. “Sure. That makes sense.”

Luka approached me with a smug smile. “You trust your judgment.”

“I have no judgment.”

“You do. You have sharp instincts to survive. If it comes down to choosing people you’d trust in our home and near our son, you’ll choose according to that survivalist instinct.”

That was a macabre take on it, but I supposed he was right.

“Still, it’s a lot to handle right now,” I protested. I leaned against him, setting my hands on his chest to better reach up and kiss him. “On our wedding day.”

He smiled, kissing me deeper. “Then wait until tomorrow.”

We had enough staff to get by. Yet, I wanted to start my life as an officially married woman not having to deal with anything that felt like work.

Right then, Andre cried to be fed, and I laughed to myself.

Who am I kidding?

I most definitely had a job now. I was working to be the best mother possible, learning my way as I went. It was undoubtedly the most important job I’d ever have, and I relished the freedom to experience it with Luka. With all these Dubinin men who’d protect us.

After tonight, I’d also work to be the best wife to the one and only Dubinin boss, too.

It might have seemed cruel to say he was a job, but it was true.

Every relationship required work. With how we’d fought before and stayed apart in the house for so long, I now knew that being together meant compromising and setting aside pride. We’d both work on it.

Later that evening, despite having cleared out most of the staff in the mansion, Luka and I prepared to get married.

Because of the drama and danger that seemed to cling to me whenever I dared to set foot outside the house, I didn’t want to go big.

I didn’t want to deal with a ceremony at all, actually.

The smaller, the better. The more intimate, the better.

I wasn’t in the mood for some huge wedding.

Andre was only a month old and with him entering the throes of cluster feeding as he grew so quickly, I wasn’t in any state of mind to leave him with a nanny.

Breastfeeding had come naturally to me, and for him, so it wasn’t like I’d have any milk to leave with a sitter.

Luka was insistent that we marry sooner than later, though. It saddened me that even like this, it was a legal matter or a transaction. To marry me so the whole world would know not to mess with me. As Mrs. Dubinin, I would be granted the utmost security.

But I already was. I was safe in his home, behind his doors and with his men around us.

I understood the image of it, the symbolism, and for that reason, I was fine with hurrying to marry.

In a dream world, we could’ve spent time to plan and make it more of a celebration than covering the bases for a technicality.

He was my dream, though. I’d wanted for so long to count on someone to support me and love me, and he handled both of those tasks expertly.

Andre was my dream too. Having a child was a blessing I would never take for granted.

Every morning—or, truly, all through the night when he woke me—I got up with the gratitude that I was lucky enough to be able to call him my son.

Each night, I fell asleep with the love and warmth of knowing I would always do my best by him.

No drive-by shooting would snatch my life and make him grow up without a mother.

No spineless, greedy person like Miguel would call himself a father and pawn him off.

Luka and I would always be there for Andre—and for any other children we could be so fortunate to have.

But tonight, it was about us . About me and him and our love.

“Ready?” Allen asked as he entered the room after a knock.

Emil stepped in with him, smiling as he looked at me in the bridal gown. “Damn.”

I was just happy it fit. Losing the baby weight was a weird process so far. Breastfeeding had me slimmer than I thought I’d be, from burning so many calories like that.

I smiled wryly. I couldn’t help but be amused that he and I were getting along this far. I trusted him. But still, the memory of how he’d helped to kidnap me lingered.

“Thanks,” I replied, knowing he was praising me. He would never be a man of many words, but I was fine with calling him my family now too.

“I’m still not going to call you my stepmom,” he said as he escorted me out of my room to meet Luka in the ballroom downstairs.

“I’m not calling you my stepson either,” I quipped.

“It wouldn’t make sense,” he added.

“No, it wouldn’t.” I was younger than him, so that alone made it weird.

“You sure you want to shackle yourself to my father, though?” he teased.

I rolled my eyes and smiled. The age gap between me and Luka was never an issue. If anything, I was glad to have an older, more experienced man to be my lover.

No. Not just a lover.

I smiled wider.

In an hour, Luka would be my husband.

He was already the father of my son. As we readied to be a true couple, I knew my misgivings and worries from the past would never matter again.

I wasn’t a thing.

I wasn’t a possession to lock up.

We would be partners. Equals. Spouses.

“He’s already shackled to me ,” I replied as Emil brought me to the ballroom.

At my request, decorations were minimal. I wanted no fuss, no frills.

I’d exchanged my dream of being on stage as a ballerina with being the wife of the sexy Mafia boss waiting for me at the end of the long red carpet someone had unfurled for me to walk down.

I couldn’t wait to reach him.

I couldn’t wait to make love to him again, too.

Two more weeks. Only two more weeks…

I sighed, ready to go as the music played. Only a dozen or so people were in here, the closest family members Luka wanted to witness this.

Emil hesitated, though, waiting to walk me down the aisle. It seemed like a silly full circle, that he’d been instrumental in taking me from my former apartment to be walking me down the aisle now.

“Do you regret that it’s like this?” he asked when I urged him to go already.

“Regret?” I smirked at him. “I have none.”

“Not even that I’m walking you to marry him?”

I sighed. “Look, I might forgive you someday, but?—”

“No. That I’m walking you. Not your dad.”

I pursed my lips. “No.” I didn’t want him in my thoughts at all right now.

“I have no dad.” Miguel was just a bastard determined to ruin my life. I ceased seeing him as a parent after what happened when Andre was born.

“You’re really sure about that? You’ve got no love for him at all?”

“None.” I frowned, glancing at him before whispering, “Why are you bringing this up now?”

“Because traditionally, a father walks his daughter down the aisle to be married.”

“Okay.” I shrugged one shoulder. “Nothing about me and Luka has been traditional. And I’m fine with that.” It took me a while, but I got over the sting of how we’d met and connected. I was only glad we had.

“Good.”

Still, I knew he was up to something. Emil didn’t talk much, but most of what seemed to go through his head was strategy.

“Why are you bringing him up?” I asked.

“Because he’s been demanding all of us to hunt him down.” He inclined his chin at Luka, who watched me approach with heat and love in his eyes.

“Good,” I repeated, meaning it.

If there were ever a sign that I was becoming a Mafia woman, this was it. I wouldn’t cry at the idea of my dad being killed.

He deserved it for ever endangering my life. Not necessarily for giving me to Luka. That ended up being my blessing in disguise. But it was all the crap of his trying to give me away. To sell me. To target my son.

I would breathe easier knowing Miguel Lopez was gone.

Right now, though, it was time to shove all those dark thoughts aside.

Luka arched a brow at me as Emil handed me over to him. “Serious chat you had there.”

I smiled. “No. Nothing as serious as my chaining you to my side forever.”

He growled, pulling me in for a hard kiss.

“Hey, that comes later, Boss,” a soldier said, one who was ordained to be the officiant.

“Later? How about right now?” Luka grinned, retreating and gesturing for the vows to begin.

I smiled, falling that much more in love with this rugged crime boss.

Now.

I still thought that junk about being present and living in the moment was lame, but as I spoke my vows and promised to love this man for the rest of our lives, I embraced the beauty of it anyway. This moment, and every one that would follow with Mr. Luka Dubinin, my husband.