Page 44 of Stolen Temptation (Irish Kings #3)

Even though I’m falling to pieces all over the floor, I’m somehow still standing upright.

His bride?

Leo didn’t sell me as a painter…

He sold my hand in marriage?

How? Why? Who would want that?

“I understand why you kept the girl a secret.” Maksim Petrov’s voice is an accented, deep, gravelly purr. He licks me up and down with his eyes. “She is indeed stunning.”

I can’t stop the shudder that washes over me.

“Our father was overprotective.” The word our comes out of Leo’s mouth easily, as though he’s always considered me his sister and not an insect on the bottom of his designer shoes.

As though we aren’t related by rape.

As though our relationship has been anything other than hostile for the duration of my life.

Just when I thought I was too numb to be shocked.

I want to spit in Leo’s face. The thought of being with anyone besides Rory sickens me, but Rory might be…

No. I refuse to complete that sentence or linger on the vision of his unmoving, bloodstained body. Too much blood.

“She is too thin, but that can be fixed.” The woman eyes me with a similar intensity as Maksim. “She will do for my son, I suppose.”

“I look forward to joining our two families.” Leo keeps his eyes trained on me as he speaks.

“As do I.” Maksim drifts in my direction, like I’m a steak he can’t wait to tear into with his teeth.

Every cell in my body aches to run at his approach.

This man is clearly a predator in every sense of the word.

But what would running accomplish?

There’s nowhere I can go that Leo won’t find me.

I know I need to fight. To come up with another escape plan. If Rory were here, he’d be yelling at me to get my shit together and not give up.

But that’s the problem. Rory isn’t here. He may never be here again.

My shoulders twitch from the strain of holding in my sobs.

I can only stand here, a horrified, quivering statue, as Maksim prowls closer.

The Russian invades my personal space until I’m completely in his shadow, totally hidden by the mass of his body. Then he lifts one coarse hand to my face and rubs his giant, nubby thumb over my trembling lips.

“Come, darling.” His hot breath touches my skin like the forked tongue of a venomous snake. “We’ll dine together.”

I’m barely breathing.

The last thing on my mind is food.

We all take our seats at this enormous dining table covered with culinary delights, though I doubt I’ll be able to eat a single bite.

No one waits for me to pick up a fork before they dig in.

Leo sits at the head of the table, like the king he believes himself to be.

Maksim sits across from me. His brother…

Nikolai Petrov, I think he said, reclines in the chair to his left while their mother sits on his right.

The lackey they brought along doesn’t take a seat, positioning himself instead against the wall behind the Petrov family. A bodyguard on duty.

What can I do but sit there in silence, listening as Leo and Maksim discuss the details of bridging our two crime families together.

The mother speaks, too, praising her son and cooly asking Leo for clarifications.

The small part of my mind that isn’t spinning wildly wonders if she’s got some influence in the mob, like the twins.

I’m so out of it, so turned around by disbelief, anguish, and fear, that I only catch a handful of the conversation around me.

An alliance… Weapons shipments…

Obliterating their enemies…

Slowly, my eyes drift to Maksim, who’s talking loudly with half-eaten food in his mouth.

Doesn’t take a psychoanalyst to see he’s a self-centered, egotistical man. He and Leo seem to get along great, despite sharing some of the same nasty personality traits.

It kind of sounds like Maksim is convinced that once he and I are married, he’ll be able to single-handedly rule New York City. I don’t know what Leo has promised him, but he almost certainly lied. That’s my bet.

Leo can’t offer that kind of power to anyone.

How could he? Our family hasn’t been anywhere near the top of the food chain in the past decade, possibly longer.

Many years ago, my mother told me how the family had fallen since she joined them. The turmoil between Matteo and Enzo destabilized things a lot, and after Matteo’s murder, the entire family business almost folded.

Matteo was the family genius. Without him, people were lost.

Enzo was a pale shadow.

And Leo?

He’s a joke.

If he’s promising Maksim that he can rule New York City if he marries me, then he’s essentially promising that the Petrov bratva will have no problem overpowering the Irish Kings. How in the world could he promise that?

“Once we combine our families, there will be a new order in the city. One where we are on top,” Maksim decrees with a bright smile, like the anticipation of violence excites him.

It probably does.

“Do you really think so?” The question tumbles from my lips before I can stop myself. Every eye at the table falls on me. “Do you really think we’ll be able to topple the Gallagher empire so easily?”

There’s not a hint of mocking in my voice.

I’m entirely sincere.

Maksim’s idealistic view on how our future will play out…sounds delusional to me, though, to be fair, my whole life feels like a delusion right now.

I just want to know whether I have a shred of sanity left inside me.

My intended’s buoyant grin flattens into a straight line. Then, he slams one of his mammoth mitts across my face before I ever see his arm move.

The force of his slap nearly knocks me off my chair.

Pain blossoms in sharp, blinding color from my jaw all the way up to my forehead. Stinging, blistering heat. My cheek starts to swell, throbbing to its own rhythm.

Tears burn my eyes, but screw him. I’d rather he slap me again than let him see me cry.

Several moments pass before the blurriness subsides and reveals Maksim’s cold glare.

“We are to be married soon, so it’s best you learn now.” Maksim’s sharp words are like shattered glass. “You are never to talk back and never to question me.”

Maksim pushes up from the table and strides to the door, his security man following close behind him.

His brother, Nikolai, offers me an apologetic glance before turning his full attention to Leo. “I am sorry for my brother’s abruptness.” He rises from the table as well. “He’s anxious for the wedding.”

“As is Kiara.” Leo’s lips curl into a smile. “And don’t worry. She’ll behave herself going forward. Put her in her place if she doesn’t.”

Nikolai excuses himself, leaving his mother as the last remaining Russian in the room.

I glance at her, hoping—foolishly—that I might detect some sympathy in her dark eyes. But she simply arches a thin brow at me while dabbing at the corner of her mouth with a cloth napkin.

“Pull yourself together, child.” She smooths a hand over her perfectly coiffed dark hair and looks down her nose at me.

“Our family doesn’t have room for a sniveling, whining brat.

No tears. And you’d better start putting on some weight, or else carrying Maksim’s child will be burdensome. No one likes a dead mommy.”

With my head in disarray and my stinging face still burning from Maksim’s attack, I can only nod.

My life is over. I’ve been sold, body and soul.