Page 16 of Forcibly Sold to the Bratva (Zolotov Bratva #14)

I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Is Arina laughing? I shoot Katya a grateful look for joking around with her and helping her settle in. This whole night, I’ve been worried sick imagining how uncomfortable all this must be for Arina.

But now, while I’m no fool who thinks everything is fine, I do begin to feel hopeful. She’s laughing, and that means she’s letting her guard down.

Just then, Agafon leans forward from the other end of the table. “So, Arina,” he addresses her, and I feel her stiffen, finding myself throwing a nervous look in Agafon’s direction.

But, to my surprise, Agafon is smiling. “What did you do before you… met my brother?”

I wince at what he doesn’t say. Honestly, I feel grateful even. The word marriage is clearly a trigger point for all at this table now. There’s been enough talk of kidnappings today.

Arina sets down her fork and takes a sip of her wine, giving me a nervous glance before she turns to Agafon.

“I was a freelance PR writer,” she says.

This is a surprise to me, and once again, guilt rushes back like an old friend.

I never asked her about this, did I? About her life before.

I was so afraid of being reminded of her innocence and of the fact that I stole it from her that somewhere in my heart, I was too afraid to peek through the window of what her life used to look like.

“A PR writer? Really?” Rurik looks interested, his keen eyes watching her.

“Mm-hmm.” She smiles at him, a small one, but a smile nonetheless.

“So, you worked at a firm or something?” Rurik then throws me a glare, like I’m responsible for having gotten her fired or something.

“Well, no,” she laughs. “I wasn’t a fan of being a slave to the establishment. I worked as a freelancer, which allowed me to design my day how I wanted. I worked a couple of hours a day, and had the rest free.”

I note how she speaks in the past tense, like that were a life she no longer recalls. Like it belongs to someone else now, and I feel my chest tighten.

“Did you enjoy it?” Agafon inquires further.

“I did, actually. There was always a new product to launch, or an event to make public, and I learned something every day.” A small smile plays at her lips. “And I liked the variety—one day I’d be writing about artisanal cheeses, the next about a dating app.”

“And what did you do when you weren’t working?” Tatiana asks, leaning in with genuine curiosity.

Arina hesitates, then relaxes slightly. “Well, tons of things.

I used to love tennis. Played three times a week.

Then I used to do lots of Yoga. One day, a year back, I walked into a small pottery studio to buy something and saw they had classes.

The owner is such a sweet lady and convinced me to sign up.

God, how fun that used to be! Every Sunday, a group of us would get our hands dirty, and there was something so meditative about that.

“That sounds like a dream,” Nikandr says with a faraway look on his face, and I nearly choke on my wine. Nikandr, who once went on a two-week bender, is calling pottery ’a dream’?

“It was,” she admits.

“We should try that!” Katya exclaims, looking at Tatiana. “A pottery class!”

“Yes!” Tatiana claps her hands together. “The three of us. It would be so fun!”

“Oh,” Arina says, looking caught off guard. “I... I’d like that.”

The image of my sisters and Arina, laughing together over clay, forces its way into my mind. It’s so domestic, so ordinary, so far removed from our reality that it feels like a fairy tale.

Soon enough, everyone’s peppering her with questions, and she gets more comfortable around them. She talks about the books she reads, the trips she took, and her college degree in advertising and marketing.

It sounds so achingly normal. So painfully simple. But it isn’t. Because there’s still an unspoken tension simmering around her, the kind that ensures no one asks about her brothers and the kind where she doesn’t even bring them up.

And still, even though everyone in this room wants nothing more than to hear about the Sokolovs, the one thing that’s not mentioned, they cling to her every word.

Because what she describes is a life none of us has ever known. She’s like a breath of fresh air, showing us possibilities we never knew existed.

“Your life sounds... peaceful,” Agafon says at last.

“It was,” Arina agrees, and once again, the past tense hangs between us like an accusation. Because of me, that life is now in her past.

“Idyllic, even,” Bogdan adds, and his eyes flick to mine pointedly. “Seems like one without complications. An innocent life.”

The conversation shifts again to things other than Arina. I watch as she leans back in her seat and listens attentively, laughing and smiling. While my family finds her interesting, something tells me they’re starting to grow on her too.

It gives me hope, but also hurts. On one hand, this dinner, one with family and Arina, shows a pretty picture of what we can have.

But on the other hand, the fact that we can’t talk about her brothers without things getting awkward, of her heritage and family without tempers getting heated, paints a reality we can’t run from.

That, at the end of the day, what looks like this ideal situation has a time limit.

Three powerful families are hunting her brothers, mine included, and we’re bound to face off at some point.

And then, what will happen? She’ll never look at me and my family the same. I feel my heart close off in pain, pushing hope as far as it possibly can.

***

As dinner winds down and the staff cleans the plates, Arina speaks to a couple of my siblings. I overhear Agafon tell her that we should catch up soon, and she smiles and agrees.

In the midst of the flurry of activity where everyone’s grabbing their coats and checking for their wallets and keys, I see Arina helping them out.

“You forgot your purse!” she tells Katya and grabs it from the couch, handing it to her.

“You really are a gem, you know that?” Katya envelops her in a hug.

I find my heart blooms at the thought. They’re treating her like family, accepting her as one of our own. It’s almost as though they don’t remember she’s a Sokolov.

“We should get going,” Agafon tells me. “It’s getting late.”

I nod and show Agafon out.

“How’s Lilibeth, by the way?” I ask about my sister-in-law, sorry that we missed her today.

“She’s doing well. She sends her love, but she had a charity event tonight.”

I nod and send her my regards.

After I show Agafon into his car, I find Bogdan walking up to me.

“Can I have a word?” He motions to the corner of the driveway, where others can’t overhear.

“Sure, what’s up?” I ask out of curiosity, following him to a quiet corner.

Bogdan turns to face me and levels such a look of disappointment that I try not to melt under his glare.

“What were you thinking, Ilariy?” he asks. “You kidnapped an innocent woman?”

“I didn’t know she was innocent, okay?” I sound defensive, but it’s the truth.

“You really fucked up, you know that? Arina has no idea what she’s caught up in. She thinks her brothers run restaurants, for God’s sake!”

“I know that.”

“What was your intention? What did you think would happen?”

“I wasn’t thinking straight, alright?” I wince. “I thought she’d know things about her brothers, and we could use that information to get to them. But clearly, she knows nothing.”

“So why are you still keeping her around? She doesn’t deserve this, Ilariy. You’re keeping an innocent woman prisoner.”

“She’s not a prisoner, okay?” I argue back.

“Really?” Bogdan cocks an eyebrow in my direction. “What are you saying? That she can just walk out?”

I don’t answer that question, and Bogdan sighs. He presses a hand into my shoulder and gives me a compassionate look, like he knows what he’s asking of me. “Please, Ilary, let her go.”

The thought of Arina leaving, walking out of my life, creates a hollow feeling in my chest that I don’t entirely like. “I can’t do that,” I say mechanically.

“Jesus,” Bogdan pulls his hand back. “Why?”

I level a glare at my brother now, angry at what he asks.

I can’t tell him why. That’ll only make him angrier.

He’ll say I compromise myself with the feelings I’m beginning to harbor.

So, I tell the next best truth. “Because she’s still leverage.

Her brothers will want her back, and then we find them. ”

There’s a tense silence, and Bogdan speaks after a while. “This could really hurt her. You'd better know what you’re doing.”

“I know what I’m doing,” I say without thinking. Though the truth is, I sure as hell don’t.

“Do you?” He sighs. “Just... be careful. This can’t end well, and you know it.”

“We’ll free her when the time is right,” I say firmly.

The truth I don’t speak aloud is simpler and more selfish: I’m not ready to let her go. Not yet. Maybe not ever. And that terrifies me more than anything else.

“If you say so,” Bogdan says, and slowly, we make our way back to the porch. The cars arrive, and all our siblings get in. Arina stands by my side the entire time, waving her goodbyes with a smile on her face that makes me feel like the worst man alive.

When the last of the cars leaves, I find myself alone with her. She wraps her arms around herself, like she’s cold, but remains standing by my side. I don’t say a word. Something tells me she has something on her mind, but I don’t want to push.

I know she’s still livid with me for lying about who I was.

“Your family, they’re not what I expected,” she says softly at last.

“What did you expect?” I ask gently, knowing I won’t judge what she says.

“I don’t know. Something out of The Godfather, I guess,” she giggles, and I smile at the image she paints.

“They’re a bunch of cartoons,” I tell her. “And they liked you.”

“Even though I’m a Sokolov?”

“Despite that,” I say, taking a step closer, testing the waters. When she doesn’t back away, I finish what I have to say. “They know you don’t deserve to be caught in the middle of this mess.”

She looks up at me. The silence stretches between us, and I have every urge to tell her how sorry I am, but everything has already been said, and I do as she asks—give her time to process.

And then she smiles. Actually smiles, like the ice of pain around her heart has somehow started to thaw. “I should get to bed,” she says, and I nod.

“Good night, Arina.” I smile down at her.

“Good night, Ilariy. Thank you for inviting me to join. I liked your siblings,” she says kindly. I don’t deserve her kindness, but I hold on to it with all my might. “And your sisters. They were lovely!”

“Be careful. They’re tyrants and they’ll drag you to that pottery class if you let them,” I warn, trying an attempt at humor.

She laughs and gives me a wink, like everything is normal. “It’s they who need to watch out. Once I’m in a pottery studio, I’m the tyrant.”

I laugh too, imagining her like that, and she turns away with a final smile and nod and heads indoors.

I watch as she walks in, up the stairs. For just a second, I count my blessings. Despite how the evening started, it ended better than I could ever have hoped for.