Page 5 of Prince of Control (Bratva Heirs #1)

Chapter Two

Baron

After stopping at the courthouse to get our marriage license, I take my bride to Baranov House, or the Gulag as it’s known on campus. Lara gave me the cold shoulder for most of the trip, and I didn’t try to warm her up.

I’m not the charming guy–that’s Anders or Leo.

I’m the one who strategizes and keeps his mouth shut. The guy who stays five steps ahead of everyone else, so I can control the outcomes around me. My mom calls it PTSD. I call it being a leader.

Right now, I have a lot of mental plans to reconfigure. I need to figure out how to protect an unwilling bride. I’ll have to control her to keep her safe, but I have a feeling she’ll fight me tooth and nail.

My brain flashes to installing her permanently in the house dungeon.

Yes, we have a dungeon downstairs. It’s why Baranov House is known on campus as the Gulag. Rumors about it are wild, and I encourage all of them. Some say it’s a bratva torture chamber–the place we bring our enemies to exact revenge.

Others know–it’s a sex club.

We almost never allow outsiders to enter it, which raises the mystique of the house to epic levels.

Nearly every partygoer here spends the entire time trying to get invited downstairs.

That’s what enables me to charge exorbitant amounts of money to people on the nights we decide to allow invite-only entry.

Those who are invited sign NDAs and then are sworn to secrecy with veiled threats.

I find people’s imaginations work far better to control behavior than any threat or promise I could make.

I imagine stripping Lara out of her clothes and fastening her wrists and ankles to the St. Andrew’s cross. Teasing her with the perfect application of intermittent pleasure until she goes mad and begs me for a release.

Or even better, a genuine relationship.

But I’d settle for her orgasm.

It’s a delectable thought.

But of course, locking her up against her will won’t work. I’ll have to tempt Lara into the dungeon the same way I do the rest of the world–by denying her entry.

In the meantime, I’ll keep her close, so I can watch over her. My original plan was to bring a contractor in to divide my large bedroom in two. But I’m glad I didn’t have time to make the call.

My bride isn’t sleeping anywhere but in my bed.

If her father thinks she’s in so much danger he sent her here within days of my agreement, I need to take her protection seriously. That means keeping her close.

Making the marriage appear real to anyone who observes us.

I don’t examine the more personal reasons I have for wanting her in my bed.

I park in the driveway next to Leo. “This is our place.”

She sends a wary look at the house, as if it might suddenly animate and attack her. “ Our place?”

“Not just for us. There are twenty members of the house. Twenty-one now, with you. Come in. I’ll introduce you.”

I take two of her suitcases and carry them to the front door, using my thumbprint to open the lock.

Half of the house members loiter in the living room. This is my version of the communal brotherhood my father cultivated in the Chicago high-rise where many of us grew up.

We’re the bratva heirs. The generation born into my father’s kingdom.

A band of brothers and sisters with our own set of rules: Stay sharp.

Protect each other and what is ours at all costs.

Defend the weak from bullies. Wrest power from the campus autocrats.

Leech money from the trust fund babies to pay for our enterprise.

They all stare as we come in, taking in the suitcases. The way my hand lightly rests on Lara’s back. My subtle declaration that she belongs to me. She’s under my protection, and they will accept her in, like they accept anyone I bring into our fold.

Zoe sits cross-legged on the couch next to Phoenix and her twin, Anya, who sprawls across the “L” of the couch with a laptop in her lap.

Their father, Dima, is a hacker for my dad’s cell.

There’s no firewall he can’t get through, and last year, when she moved into Baranov House, Anya honed her skills not only in hacking but in complex money laundering.

It is one of the many services we offer for an enormous fee. Along with several other illegal ventures.

My dad tried to keep me out of the bratva–even going so far as sending me to boarding school when I got obsessed with joining, but he allowed me to observe.

After I had blood on my hands at too young an age, he let me train in every form of self-defense–from mixed martial arts to sharp shooting.

I absorbed the lifestyle in every way I could.

You could say the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.

“Hey, everyone.” It occurs to me I should’ve given them a heads-up about the whole arranged marriage thing before I brought Lara in. I guess I was in denial about the massive effect her presence will have on our house dynamics and activities.

Then again, if I’d given them a heads-up, one of them might say something about the marriage being a sham, which Lara can’t know.

“This is Lara Turgeneva, my fiancée.”

“Your…what now?” Phoenix puts down the game controller and stares from the sofa where he was playing with Zoe.

I tip my head toward the door. “There are two more suitcases in the trunk.”

He jumps to his feet. “On it.”

As he passes by Lara, he shakes her hand. “I’m Phoenix. It’s nice to meet you.” He sends me a what-the-fuck? look as he steps out.

Anders and Leo give me similar looks, but Anders goes to help Phoenix, stopping to shake Lara’s hand and introduce himself.

Phoenix was my roommate freshman year. A transgender student from North Carolina, he found some haters that first week of school until I straightened them out.

His safety was the impetus for me securing this house.

I needed a place I could build the sort of community I grew up in and protect my friends.

“You have a fiancée?” Anya asks, climbing to her feet.

“When did this happen?” Zoe demands, also standing. “I’m so confused.”

I glance at Lara, who stands stiffly beside me, refusing to look my way. I clear my throat. “Our parents arranged our marriage at birth.”

“ Your parents,” Anya repeats in disbelief.

“Yes.”

“Wow. Okay.” She and Zoe come over, and Zoe throws her arms around Lara. “Welcome to Thornecroft.”

Lara stiffens and doesn’t hug her back, but something in her softens. I send Zoe a grateful look when she pulls back.

“This is Anya and Zoya. But she goes by Zoe.” I introduce them in Russian, so Lara will know she’ll have friends here who speak it, not that her English isn’t perfect.

Of course, it would be. She lived her first few years here, plus she has an aunt and uncle and cousins in Los Angeles she probably visits.

“Nice to meet you,” Lara says.

“Leonid. Call me Leo.” Leo introduces himself in Russian and goes in for a cheek-kiss, which Lara accepts.

One part of me is grateful to Leo for his easy charm, but most of me wants to deck him for touching her.

“My parents had an arranged marriage,” Leo offers.

“Wait–what?” Zoe looks from Leo to Anya. “Aunt Sasha and Uncle Maxim had an arranged marriage?” Zoe is the house’s social media/publicity manager. She announces the parties we host and in exchange gets a cut of the door charge.

Leo nods. “My grandfather was on his deathbed, and my mom was about to inherit all the interest in his oil wells. He needed to keep her safe, and my dad was the only man he trusted.”

Anya turns her gaze on me. “Why was your marriage arranged?”

Damn her.

“That’s between my father and hers.” My tone says fuck off.

Anya lets it go. “ Pozdravleniya. ” She offers congratulations in Russian.

“Leo, you’ll need to code her thumbprint to the door.” I start handing out orders, as is my way. “Anya, hack into the registrar and see if they have a schedule for her yet.” Classes start tomorrow.

Anders and Phoenix appear with the other two suitcases. I switch to English because they don’t speak Russian. “My room,” I direct them. Anders picks up one suitcase I brought in and carries one in each hand up the stairs. Phoenix follows with the third.

“Are you hungry?” I ask Lara.

She shakes her head. She appears shellshocked. I get it. Baranov House and its occupants are a lot to take in, even to those who haven’t been abruptly uprooted and sent off to marry a stranger. “Let’s get you to bed–you’ve had a long day.”

Lara digs her heels in when I try to steer her toward the stairs and sends me a furious look.

I look back at her, keeping my expression mild.

Her mouth thins to a mutinous line, but she squares her shoulders toward the stairs and marches up them.

I pick up the final suitcases, drinking in the delectable sway of her ass as I ascend behind her.

Fume all you want, printsessa . You belong to me now.

Lara

I don’t know where I’m going, which makes my dramatic exit far less dramatic. All I know is that I don’t appreciate being controlled by the twenty-two year old gangster who has more swagger than half my dad’s men.

What… was all that?

My brain is having a hard time assimilating everything that’s going on around here.

At first glance, this seems like a normal college living situation with normal college students.

Of course, I’ve never been to an American college before, but I’ve seen movies.

Since we moved to Russia I’ve returned to visit the United States many times over the years.

My aunt Nadia and Uncle Flynn live in Los Angeles.