Chapter Ten #2
The photos and short videos had shocked him.
Not because Elona and Kristo were doing anything inappropriate.
No, because she looked happy. She was smiling.
Grinning. Her eyes were a little glossy from the alcohol, and her cheeks were flushed from laughing.
She was a completely different person with Kristo—and it infuriated him.
She only looks at me with disgust or fear or anger.
Not that he could blame her. He hadn’t done anything to show her another side of him.
“Luka.” Marley dared to touch his hand. Once she had his attention, she drew it back slowly. “You know it’s okay to change your mind about this wedding.”
“Even if I wanted to, it’s too late.” He wouldn’t admit that he’d been thinking about it. That he’d been staying awake all night, thinking about this wedding and Dafina and the money and the promises and the pressure.
“You’ve waited this long to marry her. What’s another year? Or two?”
“You don’t know.” All this time, he had assumed Besian had told her everything. Maybe his uncle still kept some family secrets from his wife.
“Know what?”
“We were supposed to get married three years ago. It was in the original contract. I agreed to the extension, and Dafina’s family agreed to pay the penalty.”
“Because she was in college?”
He nodded. “It seemed a fair ask at the time.”
“But, once you’re married, the money is released and it’s all done, right?”
Luka wished it was that simple. Shaking his head, he somberly clarified, “We get part of the money when the marriage is completed. Half of it comes as soon as the vows are said and the return of our trade routes comes the next morning.”
“And the rest?”
“It’s released when we have our first baby.”
Marley reacted in silent horror. She opened her mouth and closed it. She seemed to be choosing her words carefully. Finally, she said, “The marriage for peace and money is bad enough. But a baby? Forcing the two of you to bring a baby into this mess?”
He bristled with indignation. “You don’t understand.”
She rolled her eyes. “Right. I don’t understand. Besa and in blood and loyalty and honor. It’s all bullshit, Luka. You know that right? It worked four hundred years ago, but this is now. Today. Modern times.”
“You think I don’t know that? You think I want to live this way? To be bound by promises made by other men?”
“Then why aren’t you doing anything? You’re the boss now. You. Not Besian. Not Zec. Not your dead old uncles or your dad or your grandfather. You.”
“You haven’t been paying attention to this family if you think it’s that easy.”
“Oh, spare me.” She clicked her teeth, reminding him of his sister. “You seem to forget the family I grew up in! An outlaw motorcycle club. Cartels. The Russian mafia. My dad in and out of prison. I promise my childhood was a thousand times worse than yours.”
“I don’t see how.”
“I grew up in rundown trailers with missing floors, leaking roofs and toilets that wouldn’t flush.
I had the police breakdown my front door more than once, toss my room, make me stand outside in my faded pajamas, barefoot in the cold while they searched for drugs and guns.
I was threatened regularly by people my dad had crossed. I was kidnapped and almost shot.”
Luka had known that her childhood was hard, but he hadn’t ever really thought about what that meant. He’d grown up here, in a mansion, with staff and security. He’d known danger, but he’d never known privation.
“Luka, you and I have a chance to break the cycles that have ruined our families.” Marley brought her hands to the front of her oversized shirt and placed them on her belly. “I’m determined to give this baby a life I never had. Besian is determined to give this baby a life different from his.”
Luka grinned, feeling actual happiness for the first time in weeks. “I thought you might be pregnant.”
“Thirteen weeks,” she confirmed. “We didn’t want to say anything before the wedding. I don’t want to steal Dafina’s thunder.”
“I don’t think she would mind. She might even welcome having the spotlight off her.”
Marley didn’t comment on that. Instead, she said, “Having a baby is a serious decision, Luka. You shouldn’t let some ridiculous contract signed under duress make that choice for you. In fact, I don’t even know how that can possibly be legal and hold up in court.”
“It probably wouldn’t hold up in a real courtroom,” he agreed.
“But we aren’t talking about the usual justice system.
We’re talking about something older, something secret.
If I break the contract, I put everyone at risk.
Not just me and Rina and my household, but you and Besian and that baby you’re carrying. ”
Marley’s gaze softened. “I know it’s a huge responsibility you carry.”
That was putting it mildly.
“Does Dafina want to have a baby?” she asked carefully.
“It’s just that I kind of got the impression that she wasn’t exactly in that phase of life yet.
She’s starting her career. She’s finally making real moves there.
I’ve seen her at work. You know how Besian loves going to watch basketball games.
She’s always there, hustling her ass off in the private boxes and moving between the VIP areas. She seems to really enjoy it.”
“You love your work and your research, but that hasn’t stopped you from having a baby.”
“I’ve always wanted to have kids, though. Even before I met Besian and fell in love with him, I knew I wanted to be a mom someday. The timing works for me now, but we also considered waiting four or five years.”
He couldn’t imagine his uncle actually agreeing to that, not with their age gap. Then again, Besian loved Marley so much he’d taken a bullet for her. What was delaying their first child after a bullet to the chest?
“Also, let’s be real, Luka. I love Besian. I want to have kids with him.” She hesitated. “Dafina doesn’t love you, and I’m pretty sure you don’t love her. You two barely seem to like each other. Actually making a baby together?” She winced. “I don’t see that working.”
“You’re not saying anything I haven’t been thinking.” He exhaled roughly. “I’m sure she’s thinking about it, too. But—we have a duty. Both of our families need that money that’s in the trust.”
“Okay, and what if one of you is infertile?” Marley lobbed another verbal grenade. “What then? Because, like, making a baby isn’t as easy as everyone thinks it will be.”
“Was it hard for you?” His uncle and Marley had been married two years now. Had they been trying from the beginning?
“No,” she admitted. “It was actually shockingly simple for us. Considering all the stuff we went through just to admit we loved each other and get married, we expected our conception journey to be a long one. We managed it on the first cycle.”
“Of course you did,” he said with a dark laugh. As if he needed another reminder of Besian’s powerful persona, of his virility, of his manhood.
“You’re young. She’s young. I’m sure it will be okay.
” She didn’t sound sure. She sounded anxious that she might have overstepped and created more anxiety for him.
Obviously desperate to change the subject, she said, “I hoped to spend some time with Kristo. I missed out on meeting him when I was here the last time.”
Luka inwardly cringed at the memories of the last time she was here in this house. He’d thrown her out like trash, left her to fend for herself in a strange country without a passport or money.
“The last time you were here, Kristo was still in prison.”
“Besian is still salty about Kristo being left in prison in Abu Dhabi,” she said carefully.
“Technically, it wasn’t prison,” Luka pointed out, parroting one of Zec’s defenses. “It was more like a county jail.”
“I’ve been in an Albanian jail,” she reminded him.
“They treated me well, and I got out quickly. But, Luka, all those hours I was in there, not speaking the language, confused, were traumatizing! When they moved me from one jail to another, I almost had a panic attack. I would have done anything to get out of there. That was one night! Kristo was there for almost two years!”
“He knew what he was risking when he decided to break the law there.”
“And what has he risked for you by breaking laws here?”
He cast a baleful glance her way. “You know I’m not going to answer that.”
She shrugged. “No harm in trying.”
“There could be if you ask the wrong question to the wrong person.”
She scoffed at his warning. “Scarier men than you have tried to warn me away from asking questions.”
He didn’t doubt that. He’d only met Spider, her stepfather, twice, and both times he’d come away certain he’d met a stone-cold killer. He suspected Spider had put more men in the ground than even Zec.
The puppy started to howl and bark at a bird in a tree. He frowned at the noisy little beast, but Marley smiled and hopped up to chase after him. She turned back after a few steps and said, “Luka, you’re the boss of this family. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”
How he wished that was true.