Page 6 of Sold to the Russian (Nikolai Bratva Brides #6)

Tires screeched dangerously against the wet asphalt as Fedya took a hard turn, barely avoiding the car in the opposite lane. Lights from opposite sides of the road blurred past him, the wet roads reflecting the neon glow of the signs overhead.

In the passenger seat, Luca was a few minutes away from death.

Fedya didn’t even need to look to know. He could feel the life draining out of him―the weakening breaths that sounded slower with every passing second, the way Luca’s body had begun to go limp despite the fabric he’d tied around Luca’s torso to control the bleeding.

“You’d better fucking stay with me, Luca,” Fedya growled, one hand gripping the steering wheel while the other pressed against Luca’s chest, trying to keep pressure on the wound.

Luca barely made a sound, except for a quiet wheezing that rasped in his chest. A dark, wet stain soaked through the cloth, pooling beneath him, and each bump in the road made him grunt in pain.

Fuck , Fedya was running on fumes. He wished there were a way he could fly the vehicle to the hospital.

He knew he was playing a dangerous game when he went for that shot, but he had no other choice.

There was nothing else he could do at that moment except succumb to Cormac’s wishes, and now Luca was suffering for it.

Fedya slammed his foot on the brakes, breezing through the streets like a madman.

Fedya squinted a bit, and he could see the hospital up ahead. It was a small, private facility that the Nikolais used when things got a little too messy. It was one of the few places where questions weren’t asked, and cash made sure nobody saw too much.

As he skidded to a stop in front of the white entrance of the building, he threw his door open and raced for Luca’s, yanking him out of the car, carrying most of his weight as he half-dragged him towards the glass doors.

The second they burst open, the nurses and doctors froze.

Right. Fuck, he was still wearing his disguise.

A young nurse with wide, dark eyes took one look at the blood, at Fedya’s expression, and at the limp body in his arms, and immediately called for a stretcher. Within seconds, hospital staff surrounded them, lifting Luca’s unresponsive body onto a gurney.

Fedya’s hands flew to his face as he ripped the bald cap from his head and tugged the fake beard away.

His hands and the disguises he held were coated in crimson blood.

His own pulse hammered in his skull as one of the nurses, who managed to recognize him even with the brown contacts still in, rushed forward, throwing a barrage of questions at him.

“Save him,” was all Fedya said to him. On the outside, he appeared calm, but if Luca died, he wouldn’t be able to forgive himself.

The nurse hesitated. “Sir, we need―”

Fedya growled as he grabbed him by the front of his scrubs, forcing him forward so their faces were only inches apart. He couldn't care less that the blood on his hands was tainting the nurse’s sky-blue scrubs.

“You do everything you can to save him,” he hissed in his face. His American accent was gone, replaced by his original Russian tongue. “Or I swear to God, this whole place will be in ruins by morning.” He tugged him closer, curling his fists around his scrubs. “You understand me, Nurse?”

The nurse paled but nodded frantically.

Fedya released him, watching as they wheeled Luca towards the emergency room. He tore his eyes away and slumped down on one of the chairs in the waiting room.

He sank his head between his knees and buried his hands deep in his hair, tugging desperately at the roots. Everything had gone wrong tonight, complications he could never have seen coming, piling one on top of the other.

By the time Cormac arrived, he was seriously doubting he’d survive this mission. He was sure he was one leg deep in hot water.

Somehow, a simple act of infiltration caused him to walk out of that bar with a woman he’d wed in three days.

A woman.

Fedya screwed his eyes shut tighter as he remembered her .

Cormac’s daughter.

Red hair that tumbled down her back in ringlets, pale green eyes she shared with her father, pale red lips that were slightly parted as she stared at her shoes, struggling to draw in breaths, as if every attempt hurt her lungs.

There wasn’t much he could see about her body since she was donned in a black hoodie that was twice her size. But she was tall, taller than most females, and from her fingers and cheeks, he could tell she was slim as well.

Her face was angled at the right corners. High cheekbones. A slim nose splattered with a dusting of freckles that touched the top of her cheeks.

She was easily the most beautiful creature Fedya had ever seen.

It was almost impossible to think that a demon like Cormac could produce a woman as flawless as… Fuck, Fedya didn’t even know her name. Cormac hadn’t even had the decency to properly introduce her.

Fedya had no intention of walking out of there, promised to a woman he didn’t know, much less the daughter of his enemy.

But the moment he laid his eyes on her, his obsession with her was instantaneous.

It wasn’t love. No. Fedya wasn’t a romantic, and the last thing he believed in was love at first sight.

It was something darker, something so sharp it possessed him the moment their eyes met. A pull so immediate and visceral that it felt almost unnatural. A carnal need to have her, no matter what.

All it took was one glance at her, one look into her eyes, to know she wasn’t like the women he was used to―the kinds he’d spent his life around. Scheming flirts who knew exactly what they were getting into when they entered his world.

She didn’t look like she was meant for this life, which was ironic considering she was The Butcher’s daughter. His first and only child. And yet, there she was, standing in front of him, thrown at his feet―a prize he never would have seen coming.

The moment Cormac offered his daughter in exchange for ammunition, Fedya knew he had to think of whatever way possible to get out of it.

It was a sticky situation―getting married to his enemy’s daughter without his family’s knowledge.

She should’ve been insignificant. Just another unfortunate girl trapped in a deal she had no say in.

But then she looked at him, and he felt that shift―the kind he couldn’t explain or put into words.

The kind he could still feel even as he thought of her right now.

She was wary, afraid of him, but at the same time, he saw the way her hands balled into fists, the way an addictive kind of defiance pushed through the wariness in her eyes as she held his gaze, the way she sunk her teeth into her bottom lip like she was forcing herself not to say anything, the way her eyes burned into his.

She wasn’t cowering, despite her father’s callous exhibition of her like she was a zoo animal. She wasn’t trying to please him either.

She wanted to run .

And maybe that’s what did it for Fedya.

Maybe that was the instant she became his , the moment he realized― no, knew ―he was going to have her no matter what. Even if she hated him for it.

Now, he was stuck. Once again.

Because the thought of letting her go was now out of the discussion, so, he had no other choice but to marry her as planned.

Fedya’s thoughts shifted from Cormac’s daughter to Luca in the emergency room.

An eternity passed before the doctor finally emerged―a short, old man who had patched up more than a few of his men before. He sighed as he removed his gloves, tossing them into a nearby trash can.

“He’ll live,” Doctor Fen said, addressing Fedya with a curt nod.

Fedya sighed as he looked up at the man, clenching and unclenching his fists as if he was trying to shake off the tension that had accumulated in his muscles.

“But he’s weak. He suffered too many broken bones and ligaments,” Fen added with a concerned frown. “He lost a lot of blood, Fedya. If you’d been a second too late, he’d already be dead. He’s much stronger than he looks, but he’ll need a lot of time to recover.”

Fedya barely nodded as he ran a hand down his face, smearing Luca’s half-dried blood against his jaw. The most important thing was that he was going to live. That was all Fedya wanted to hear.

Then, he stood up and approached Fen.

“No one hears about this,” he said evenly, holding the doctor’s stare. “This will stay between you and me, Fen. It’s my mess .”

Fen hesitated for a moment, but Fedya wasn’t surprised. As much as his loyalties were tied to the Nikolai Bratva, he answered mainly to the Pakhan.

Fedya took another step forward, tilting his head as his voice dropped lower. “I mean it. Not a single call to any of my brothers. No whispers to my cousins either. This is mine, and I’ll tell them when I’m ready. You’d be doing more harm than good if this got out. Am I understood?”

Doctor Fen frowned a little before sighing.

“You have my word, Fedya.”

“Good.” He leaned back and cast a fleeting glance at the glass doors of the ER. “I’ll be back to see him as soon as I can. Put him in a private ward. No one sees him except me.”

“I understand.”

***

Fedya rarely made reckless decisions. He might have been the youngest of his brothers, but he was the most tactical of them all. Every move he made was calculated and premeditated. Everything he did was necessary.

But as he drove closer to the border where Cormac had informed him the exchange would officially take place, he was starting to think otherwise. Nothing about this was tactical or innately necessary.

If he’d sat down with himself like he had originally planned when Cormac laid out his idiotic offer, he would have come up with a suitable plan to get himself out of this marriage mess.

But Fedya didn’t.

All he needed was one glance at his daughter to go ahead with it.

It was the most reckless, dangerous, and impulsive thing Fedya had ever done.