Page 22 of Prince of Control (Bratva Heirs #1)

Chapter Fifteen

Baron

Anya has the music popping, and the dance floor is packed with sweaty, moving bodies.

Everyone’s trying to work me from every angle, but I am the no-man tonight.

I press through the bodies, looking for my gorgeous wife.

“Boss,” Phoenix speaks through the comms. He’s working the door collecting the twenty dollar cover charge because he is my money man.

He handles the accounting for our enterprises.

Alex works with him as security. Feliks acts as bouncer inside, at the base of the stairs to keep non-house members from trying to go up them.

“Baron, Melinda Tracy is at the door. She says you told her she could come in.”

I groan. I told her two parties a year, and she had to pick tonight? I shouldn’t have made that concession for her.

“Tell her it’s a waste of her time because the dungeon is closed tonight.”

A moment later, Phoenix’s voice returns. “She says she still wants in.”

Christ, why? Well, whatever.

“Then let her in. I told her she could come to two parties a year so keep track. This is her first entry. She only gets one more. Remind her of that.”

Phoenix returns one more time. “She’s in.”

I note Anders, who is presently playing host and will alternate jobs with Leo during the night, moving toward the front of the house. I imagine he’s going to personally welcome Melinda.

I hope she finally notices his interest now that I’m not a distraction.

“Who has eyes on Lara?”

My wife has been hard to keep track of. After that kiss she gave me, I wanted nothing more than to cancel the whole party and take her upstairs to ravish her.

“I do,” Zoe says. “She’s helping me at the mocktail bar.”

The mocktail bar is one of the ways we ease the wrath of the underage students denied alcohol.

We serve them in the same-sized clear plastic cups that we serve alcoholic drinks.

The only difference is the color of the straw.

Then we pretend we don’t know that they fill them with their own supply of alcohol.

It makes sense that Lara would end up with Zoe–it’s not like she has any friends to hang out or dance with here.

I should’ve foreseen her feeling out of place and assigned her a job.

Except I don’t want to be in the position of telling my wife what to do.

She’s already pissed off enough about marrying me.

Although that seems to be softening a bit, praise all the powers that be.

A tiny smile curves my lips as I head toward the back door of the kitchen where they are stationed. Leo’s stationed at the main kitchen door serving alcohol drinks to party-goers wearing a wrist band. The kitchen itself is closed off to everyone else.

“Soda and lime?” Zoe asks, spotting me behind the line of people waiting to be served.

I nod. “And my wife .”

Everyone in the line turns to look at me then looks back toward Anya. I hear their murmurs:

Did he say wife?

He’s married?

“That’s me–I’m his wife,” Lara announces loudly in Russian, throwing her arms in the air.

My brilliant bride understood the assignment. The entire line of party-goers stare at her then at me as I push through and extend my hand to her.

“Come, malyshka .”

Everyone gawks when she comes out from behind the makeshift bar (a rolling butcher block cart) and takes my hand as Zoe hands me the drink.

Did you hear that? Baron Baraonov has a wife, someone says as we move away.

“Would you like to dance?”

Lara shakes her head. ”My feet hurt already. I might go up and change my shoes.”

“I’ll go with you.” I press through the throng of bodies toward the stairs, but the impact of a body hurtling to the floor to my right makes me thrust Lara behind me and charge forward in that direction.

“Stop!” A young woman screams.

It’s Lili.

Oh fuck.

Blood washes over my vision. My brain flips into warrior mode. I have to protect Lili, my little sister. Can’t let her die in a pool of blood like Valentina, our nanny.

I’m a machine, ready to battle and kill. I’ve trained every day since I was ten years old for this fight. I've combated the nightmares with strategy. I’ve become an excellent marksman, learned MMA fighting, and kept myself in perfect physical condition for any fight.

I will not stand by helplessly while someone else I love dies in a pool of their own blood.

Leo hauls the guy on the floor to his feet with lethal intent. I barrel forward to help.

“Stop, Leo!”

It’s Lili again. Why is she telling Leo to stop? I sweep in beside Leo, and the two of us drag the guy into the nearest bedroom—Phoenix’s—using my thumbprint to open the lock.

“He tried to roofie Lili,” Leo growls. We throw the guy onto the floor, and he scrambles to his feet. “I watched him put something in her cup when she walked away.”

“I didn’t! It was alcohol!” The guy yelps.

Leo shuts the door behind Lara and Lili. The five of us crowd in the small bedroom. I make a vague mental note to send the women out before we torture and kill him.

“I asked him to!” Lili exclaims. The fear in her voice makes me need to kill this guy soon.

She turns to Lara. “Help me stop Ben—please.”

Stop Ben ? That doesn’t compute for me. Is the guy’s name Ben?

Lili tugs my biceps. “He offered to spike my drink when I complained that Leo wouldn’t give me alcohol. He did not roofie me.”

I hear her, but the words have no meaning. I’m honed in on the guy, considering how I will hurt him. Problem-solving how I will get rid of the body.

Lili blocks my view of him, stepping right in front of me. Lara stands beside her, touching my arm.

“I’m fine .” Lili waves her hand in front of my face. “Look at me, Ben. We’re not back there. That’s over.”

Lara presses her body against mine. I’m still focused on the guy, trying to see around her, so I don’t register her presence at first, but something about the softness of her body feels at odds with the hard contraction of my muscles preparing to fight.

“Are you listening, Baron?” Her voice sounds far away. She repeats the words. Instead of raising her voice, she speaks softly. Seductively, like the words are only for me.

“I need you,” she says in Russian. “I need you to look at me.”

My gaze leaves the target of my violence without my brain’s permission, finding Lara’s big, lovely eyes fixed on my face.

There’s a moment of disorientation, like when disparate elements from your life mix in a dream. Why is she here?

Why is she looking at me?

My arm bands around Lara’s back. I fucking love the way she fits against me. Like she’s necessary to my survival.

“What did you say?”

Lara

There’s something wrong with my husband. Something that turns him into a killer. And the switch has definitely flipped.

The proper response from me should be fear.

Instead, all I feel is an ocean of compassion. Something happened to him. To both of the Baranov siblings.

We’re not back there. That’s over.

Whatever it was must explain why he’s so aggressively protective of the people he cares about. It explains the nightmares. Did he lose someone who meant something to him?

He looks at me now, withdrawing his gaze for the first time from the guy Lili is trying to save. The dead look in his eyes disappears. He blinks a few times, searching my face like he’s confused about who I am and why I’m here.

For a moment, I’m not sure he knows who I am. I’m just grateful he heard me ask him to look at me.

His arm loops around me almost as if on instinct. Something hard in his expression softens. “What did you say?”

“Did you hear Lili? She wasn’t roofied. You need to let this guy go.”

I have mad respect for Baron, who shows nothing on his face as he looks from me to Lili’s would-be suitor, then to Lili and Leo. I can practically see the wheels turning in his brain. Like he’s trying to catch up without showing that he lost his grip on reality for a moment.

He releases me. “You put liquor in her drink.” Baron says it like a statement, but he’s watching the guy.

Sweat gathers at the poor man’s hairline. A bruise blooms on his jaw where Leo must’ve punched him. “Yes. I asked if she wanted a shot of vodka, and she handed her cup to me and said she’d be right back.”

He produces a metal flask from his back pocket. “I brought my own supply since I’m not twenty-one.”

Leo snatches it from his hand, uncaps it and sniffs, then takes a swig and swishes it in his mouth. He passes it wordlessly to Baron, who does the same thing.

Baron puts a hand on Lili’s shoulder. “This is Lili Baranov, my little sister. There’s no member of this house who’s going to let you pour something in her drink without trying to kill you for it.”

The guy holds up his hands. “I-I get it. I was just–” he shakes his head. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Baron says. “It was a misunderstanding.”

Lili’s body relaxes like she’d been holding her breath.

Baron holds up the flask. “I’m gonna keep this because I don’t allow outside liquor at our events, but you can go back to the party if you want.”

The guy bolts for the door, ignoring Lili like he never wants to see her again in his life.

As soon as he’s gone, Lili gives Baron a shove. “Jesus, Baron.” She sends Leo an equally irate glare. “You guys are the worst.”

“He could have roofied you, Lili!” Leo explodes. “You actually handed your drink to a guy you just met and gave him permission to pour something in it? Are you out of your mind?”

Lili blushes a deep red, turns, and stomps out of the room without another word.

Leo stares after her with a deep frown, like she’s his problem, not Baron’s. “Fuck. I left the bar unattended.” He spins on his heel and follows Lili out the door.

Baron scrubs his face. He’s looking in my direction, but his gaze is far away. I slide both my arms around his waist and lay my cheek on his chest. “Are you okay?”

His hand lifts to the back of my head, and he strokes me like a kitten. He doesn’t answer.

“What happened to you?”

“What?” Baron sounds startled, like his mind was elsewhere, and now he can’t figure out what we’re talking about.

“What made you like this? Something happened.”

A small puff of air leaves Baron’s chest, and he steps back like I knocked him off balance.

I reach for his face, catching it between my hands. “Tell me,” I murmur.

Baron’s eyes cloud. For one heart-expanding moment, I think he’s going to open up and tell me something, but then a voice crackles in the comms in his ear.

“I’ll be right there,” he barks in reply.

Disappointment ricochets around my chest. I’m grateful that he doesn’t move yet. He brushes a lock of hair that’s fallen down from my face. “I’m sorry if I scared you.”

“I’ve been scared of you since I arrived,” I tell him.

That impenetrable mask slides over his expression.

I shrug. “It’s no worse now.”

“I have to go talk to campus security at the front door. You’re going upstairs to change your shoes?”

I nod.

“Meet me on the dance floor?”

I nod. Disappointment over him shutting me out wars with pleasure that he wants to dance with me. Of course, it might just be to raise the mystique of his reputation over having a new Russian mafiya wife.

But no. He genuinely wants to be with me–I can tell. We are starting to connect on an emotional level. Or at least I thought we were going to. If he shared something with me–anything–I might feel like it was safe to be with him.

Except that I’m still essentially his prisoner. I’m still not sure why I’m here. He still hasn’t told me why we had to suddenly get married.

I catch his hand as he turns away and tug him back. “Baron?”

“ Malyshka .”

I ask the real question–the one I need answered even more than what made him into the tortured man he is.

“Why am I here?” I lift my face to him, pleading with my gaze. Unexpectedly, my vision swims with tears. Vulnerability buries me. I need to know why I’m a pawn in this game and what is the game? What use I serve? What do they plan to do with me?

A line appears between his brows. Regret washes over his expression.

“Lara.” He cradles my cheek with one large palm. “You’re here for me to keep safe. And I’ll never let anyone hurt you–I promise.”

I pull away from him, frustrated.

Damn him for not giving it to me straight. Damn his father–and mine.

Damn them all for using me as a pawn.

I toss my hair as I precede him out of the bedroom.

They can all go to Hell as far as I’m concerned.