Page 11 of The Bratva’s Innocent Sold Bride (Fokin Bratva #9)

It was impossible to know how I made it to my room, and once I was in, I leaned against the door, breathing hard.

It wasn’t the run up the stairs in the bulky wedding dress that had me panting; it was Mat’s kiss.

Worse than that. I was so flustered and confused, I wondered why I was up here all alone at all.

This was what I wanted. There wasn’t going to be a wedding night. So why was I confused at all? I should have been relieved, and I was, partly. But some other part was kicking me for running. And it wasn’t because I was pissed at myself for cowardice, either.

Damn it, I wanted the man. At least a little, at least when he looked at me with that dark blue intensity and kissed me like that. I could still feel his hands burning through my gown.

The thing must weigh half as much as I did, and I nearly dislocated my shoulder getting enough of the tiny buttons down the back undone so I could step out of it.

Objectively speaking, it was a beautiful dress, and I felt bad leaving it in a heap on the floor.

It just wasn’t what I would have chosen for my real wedding, which, as far as I was concerned, I didn’t have yet.

I purposely picked the opposite of everything I would have wanted, since I definitely didn’t want to be married to Mat Fokin.

At least I didn’t think I did before he swept me into his arms and once again stole my senses.

In the two weeks of wedding planning, some of my clothes had been delivered from my dad’s house, and I kicked aside the pile of satin and beads to put on some sweatpants. That morning, the closet was less than half full with my things, but now it was bursting with new clothes.

Dresses for day and evening, jeans, blouses, t-shirts, and sweaters, along with a couple of pantsuits.

One, two, three—I counted ten new pairs of shoes, and the drawers were filled with new lingerie and pajamas.

A wooden cabinet that hadn’t been there before was full of jewelry, everything from cute costume stuff to match the trendy dresses, to fine gold necklaces and diamond and gemstone earrings.

So now he meant to be nice to me? Was this what he meant by everything changing? As pretty as all of it was, I huffed with irritation. Did he think so little of me that he supposed a few outfits and trinkets would be a good substitute for my freedom? Or make up for what he did to my father?

No matter how angry I was at my dad, and I didn’t think I’d ever be able to forgive him for his utter lack of morals and spine, it hurt to see him the way he was at the wedding.

He’d lost at least ten pounds, his once thick hair seemed wispy, his wrinkles were more like deeply carved trenches now, and the dark circles under his eyes were alarming.

Now that I didn’t have to talk to him or hear his pathetic attempts at an apology, it hit me hard.

It was only going to get worse when the news came out about the collapse of Taurus Ingenuity.

I had a feeling that Mat was keeping it on life support somehow, to further toy with him.

Even though Dad no longer owned the controlling shares, that company was his first baby.

Sometimes I thought he loved it more than me.

He certainly spent more time with it. But thousands of jobs were on the line, too, and he had to feel somewhat responsible for those people.

I might have been one of them if none of this had happened, but at least I would have lost the job through no fault of my own, instead of having it stolen by a crazed Bratva king.

And just like that, all the remnants of Mat’s kisses were erased, and I was back to bubbling with anger.

It wasn’t the super soft new pajamas fault, though, so I pulled them on and got into bed, alone, determined to keep hounding him until he gave in or sent me back as a bad bargain.

Mat never gave me the chance, because he wasn’t around the next morning, or at all that day.

In fact, I didn’t see more than a glimpse of him hurrying out the door for the next three days.

Was this how it was going to be? A full household staff appeared the day after the wedding, so there was no more cleaning schedule for me, and there were no more kisses either.

One of his Russian cousins, Masha, whom I spoke about ten words at the wedding, arrived on the fourth day, loaded down with luggage. She was moving into the other wing for a while, to see if she liked this part of California better than LA.

She was pleasant, but reticent, and I couldn’t read her well.

She might have been related to these monsters, but she wasn’t madly in love with one, and as far as I knew, she was just a young woman visiting a foreign country for the first time.

Maybe she wasn’t yet tangled up in a life of crime. Maybe I could get her on my side.

I invited her to have drinks by the pool the first evening, and we were having a nice, somewhat awkward conversation when she was interrupted by a phone call.

“Sorry,” she said.

“No, go ahead,” I assured her.

She turned her back and spoke rapidly in Russian for a minute, then lowered her voice and spoke in English, thinking I couldn’t hear over the burble of the waterfall flowing into the pool.

“I’m telling you to get it done to Mat’s specifications or I will come there personally and oversee it.

” A brief silence. “No, no, you don’t want that.

” Another silence in which Masha sighed, then said.

“If he’s not giving you what you need, get rid of him and find someone who can.

And make sure nobody finds what’s left of him. ”

With that, she ended the call and turned around, smiling sweetly as she reached for the veggie platter. “Sorry,” she said. “It’s just this project…”

“Oh, sure, I get it,” I said, feeling cold to my toes.

She hadn’t exactly ordered someone to kill someone else if they couldn’t do their job, but her tone had said it all. She was just like Mat and the rest of her family. A younger, prettier, ruthless criminal, but still a ruthless criminal.

Even then, she wasn’t around much, and I barely saw her more than Mat.

It was getting lonely and dull wandering around the big, mostly empty mansion.

There were sixteen bedrooms to furnish, a theater, a couple of huge rooms that might have been libraries or game rooms. I imagined them in cool tones, with subtle art, maybe watercolors.

Then I’d switch gears and decide maybe I’d go all out with something less austere for once. Perhaps a modern cottage vibe?

It was fun for about five minutes, but when one of the staff asked me when I was going to get started decorating, I was put off. It seemed like Mat expected me to deal with the house. Was this his way of consigning me to what he considered women’s work? It was a lot less fun after that.

Every evening, I had been taking a walk around the grounds, heading way out to where a fence surrounded the perimeter.

It was beautiful out there, surrounded by hills, and Mat’s house was on a heck of a lot of land.

It took me a solid half an hour to get to the far fence, and by then the house was completely hidden behind a hill sparsely covered in pines.

No one followed me. I always told someone where I was going and how long I’d be out, so I wouldn’t look suspicious.

After I realized Masha wasn’t going to be an ally to me and that Mat was expecting his new little wife to decorate his house, I started paying attention to how the staff acted around me.

Did any of them know I was there under duress?

Did any of them care? There was security at the front gate, but I had never seen anyone walking the perimeter, and I’d been out to the fence three times now.

When Mat didn’t show up for dinner for the fourth night in a row, I decided it was time to attempt an escape.