Page 5 of The Bratva’s Innocent Sold Bride (Fokin Bratva #9)

I went upstairs to my room, bristling with embarrassment. Sent to my room like a child, not that I wanted anything to do with that angry man at the door. Speaking to me like that, thinking I was the maid. Honestly, if he had spoken to our maid that way, I would have let him have it.

Once I closed the door behind me, I meant to get right to work on all the information I was given about Taurus Ingenuity.

Even though I should have known everything about it, since it would one day fall to me to run it, my father wasn’t the sort to take his daughter to work.

He was always too busy to explain things to me, and when I was little, I was a bit resentful of the company that put food on the table.

By the time I got to college, I was too busy. Now I was about to join the team.

Until the encounter at the door, I was excited to start reading.

Sinking down into the chair at my desk, I stared at the big monitor with the picture of the snowy slopes of Tahoe from several winters ago.

It had been a long time since I had a vacation, even last Christmas was a quick dinner with Dad, a video chat with my mom, and then back to the grind.

The few friends I managed to keep up with didn’t even know I had this job yet, and I took a few minutes to message them, catching up with the big news in their lives and promising we’d get together soon. Then I sat back and huffed.

Why couldn’t I concentrate? Every time I looked down at the company manual, images of flashing blue eyes crowded into my mind. Even my room, my sanctuary of calm, felt stifling.

As much as I loved pretty clothes and nice things, I had to have my room austere.

My father always teased me that I was a monk in another life, with my simple cream bedspread, distinct lack of frou-frou pillows, and only a few photos that I took myself on the walls.

My desk was always perfectly tidy, with all my pens, cords, and gadgets hidden in the drawer when they weren’t in use.

My dad’s office made me crazy, but if I dared move a single protractor an inch, he’d snap at me to knock it off he had his system.

The closet, on the other hand, looked like a tornado had gone through it, since I had been trying to put together interview outfits that didn’t scream either college kid or heiress.

All the designer stuff was in a pile, all my Stanford sweats and workout clothes were in another pile, and the few suitable outfits that remained were hanging on the rack.

Even cleaning my closet didn’t get my mind off that guy.

What were they talking about for so long, and why did he look so mad?

It hit me that he might have been the source of my father’s stress all day, and I was about to get Rinda back on the phone so I could describe him to her.

If she didn’t know what it was about, then I’d really have cause to worry.

I didn’t have a chance to send the message because Dad called me from the foot of the stairs, something he never does.

It’s unseemly or something like that. He’d either send Jackson to get me, send me a text, or just come up and tap on my door.

His voice was different from how I’d ever heard it, and I’d heard him shouting on the rooftops when something wasn’t put together right.

He sounded… scared. Except I wasn’t sure, because I never saw my father scared of anything.

After I entered his office, I gasped at the sight of him. He had a cut on the side of his face, a welt blooming on his chin, his hair was sticking out in every direction like it had been pulled, and worst of all, his face was streaked with tears.

I whipped around to glare at the man—that big blue-eyed man I had mistakenly thought was gorgeous—and instantly looked away. Those eyes were terrifying now. He had done this to my father, but why? And why was I getting involved in it?

“Where’s security?” I asked, heading for the panic button under his desk.

“Don’t,” Dad said harshly.

“It wouldn’t matter if she did,” the man said.

“Just leave it, CJ, and sit down.” My father sank into one of his leather chairs, and I skated past the man to sit on the couch. “This is Matvey Fokin.”

“You can call me Mat,” he said, with a grin that chilled my blood.

“I don’t think I will, thank you.”

He took a step closer, and my father shrank back as if he was going to be struck. “Why don’t you tell your daughter what’s about to happen to her?”

I gasped. My father sobbed and told me a story I was sure had to be fiction.

This was a joke. He owed this Mat Fokin money, and now I was the payment?

No, this had to be a joke. My father didn’t usually play practical jokes, but there was no way this was real.

I laughed, not so much because I thought it was funny, but because he’d gone to so much trouble.

Mat didn’t join in, and my father looked sick, leaning over and holding his stomach as he continued to cry. “I’m so sorry, CJ, I’m so sorry.”

“I hope you know how to cook and clean, little one, because I’m firing all my servants. You’ll be my one and only.”

Mat’s deep rumbling voice sent a shiver through me, and the way he looked at me was worse than the proprietary glance at the door. Now he really believed he owned me. I shook my head, unable to find words. He nodded, his lips curling into a grin.

“Oh, and we’re getting married.”

My father found his spine and leapt from the chair. “What?” he shouted. “Are you insane?”

“I don’t think I am, no. CJ will be my wife. You don’t think your daughter’s life is worth what you owe me? You’ve already sold her to save your own.”

Full body tremors started from my hands that gripped the edge of the couch. I could hardly feel my feet. I shook my head again, only to keep from passing out. Whatever my father agreed to before, he was as shocked at the pronouncement that I’d be marrying this guy as I was.

Dad kept begging him to reconsider. “I already promised you the controlling shares in Taurus,” he said.

I whipped around, almost more astonished at that than the fact he was using me as payment for a debt. When Mat sneered that the stocks were worthless since the company was about to fold, I was stunned. Was it true? It seemed so, like the rest of the nightmare unfolding around me.

“Dad, what’s happening?” I whispered.

He turned to me, eyes bloodshot, snot running from his nose. My heart felt like it was being burned to ash, seeing him like that. I turned to Mat and stuck out my chin, rising on my wobbly legs.

“You can’t do this,” I told him. He took two long steps so that he was right in front of me, the heat of his body emanating from his immaculate suit jacket.

No, not quite immaculate, there were spatters of my father’s blood on the lapel.

I almost wilted, but I somehow stayed upright, staring straight into those eyes that meant to own me.

“You can’t do this,” I said more forcefully.

He barked a laugh, cutting his glance to my father. “Tell her, Gordon.”

Dad put his face in his hands. “He can, CJ. He can do whatever he wants.”

“Very good.” He turned back to me, his eyes raking over my body, making me want to sink back into the couch and disappear. “And what I want is a pretty maid to answer to my every whim and to drive what’s left of your company into the ground.”

My father wouldn’t look up, wouldn’t say another word, only cried behind his hands. Mat wrapped his big hand around my arm and tugged me out of the library. I was frozen with terror and grabbed onto the door frame. His grip tightened.

“It’s you or your father’s life,” he said. The same way I would order an iced tea with no sugar.

This was really happening. At that moment, my father made me sick with anger, tinged with pity he didn’t deserve.

I could barely pay attention as we drove toward the valley, though it seemed like I should know where he was taking me.

We finally went through a gate, more like a ranch than a neighborhood.

I knew people who lived up this way, and they all had large tracts of land with horses or home vineyards.

After about half a mile, we came to the mansion, wild and rambling behind a round driveway that veered off to what looked like a small plane landing strip behind rows of high shrubs.

An arched portico wrapped around one half of the front, the cool beige stone columns blending with the tan stucco.

High windows reached almost to the roof on the second story, and an oak tree waving in the slight breeze reflected in the glass.

No one greeted us, the place was as silent as a tomb inside, and almost as empty. Only a side table in the long entry hall, and the sound of his keys when he dropped them on it, sounded louder than it should have. Or maybe that was a side effect of heart-stopping terror.

I had to gather my strength, fight to the death if that’s what it took, but I didn’t want to die, just like my weak father didn’t want to die. I was in this man’s clutches, under his control, and it was difficult to breathe, let alone prepare to claw his eyes out at the first move he made on me.

He’d been silent the entire way to this place, my new home, and remained stony as he marched me upstairs.

At the end of one hall, he opened a door to reveal a bedroom.

A simple bed, albeit huge, side tables, an armchair, and two other doors, which I presumed led to a closet and a bathroom. Certainly not to freedom.

I balked at the door, but he shoved me in. This was it. Time to fight.

“You’ll sleep in here until after the wedding,” he said, voice ice cold. “I’ll give you your chore schedule in the morning.”

With that, he shut the door, and I heard him walking away. No need to fight. What was this? The beast who had taken me as payment was old-fashioned and traditional? I sank to the carpet, limp with relief that there would be a reprieve from whatever he had planned for me.

This meant I still had a chance. To do what, I had no idea, but I was so exhausted from the whole thing that I closed my eyes and fell asleep. Hopefully, I’d wake up in my own bed and this would all be a barely remembered nightmare.