33. Chapter 33
33
Bella
I ’m pacing. Scratch that—I’m panic pacing. The kind where you wear an actual groove into the hardwood floors of your childhood home while your brain spins through increasingly apocalyptic scenarios.
“I slapped him,” I whisper to myself for the fortieth time in the last hour. “I slapped the head of the Russian mafia across the face in a restaurant full of people.”
I glance at the single Louis Vuitton suitcase standing by the door. One suitcase. That’s all I’m allowed to bring to start my new life as Mrs.Konstantin Belov.
“One suitcase,” I mutter, kicking it as I pass. “Twenty-nine years of life condensed into one overpriced piece of luggage.”
The suitcase had arrived this morning, hand-delivered by one of Konstantin’s stone-faced security guys.
“Mr. Belov requests that you pack only essentials,” he’d said, expressionless. “Everything else will be provided.”
When I’d asked what “essentials” meant, he’d handed me a typed list: underwear, toiletries, medications, and “any small personal items of sentimental value, within reason.”
“Within reason?” I’d repeated.
“No furniture,” he’d clarified, completely serious.
I’d wanted to scream that I wasn’t planning to stuff my bed into a suitcase, but I just nodded like this was all perfectly normal.
“What have I done?”
The empty house doesn’t answer. Julian and Lila’s absence feels like a physical weight pressing down on me. Their rooms—hastily packed up for their move to those fancy private schools—stand like museum exhibits of the life I’m systematically dismantling.
“You’re not dismantling it,” Angel-Conscience whispers in my ear. “You’re saving it. This is for them.”
“You’re literally marrying a crime boss tomorrow,” Devil-Conscience counters. “How is that ‘or them’?”
“Shut up, both of you,” I mutter, pressing my palms to my temples. “I need to think.”
I hurry to the window for the millionth time and peek through the blinds. The black SUV is still parked across the street—has been since I got home from the restaurant. Two men in suits, sitting patiently, watching my house.
My prison guards, courtesy of Konstantin Belov, Bratva Pakhan and my future husband.
Oh God.
“Think, Bella, think,” I hiss, resuming my pacing. The hardwood floors creak under my feet in a house too empty, too quiet.
Julian had barely looked at me when I told him about the “scholarship opportunity.” Just silently packed his things, his shoulders tight with suspicion.
“This is about that guy, isn’t it?” he’d asked. “The one who bailed us out.” When I didn’t answer fast enough, he just nodded, like I’d confirmed everything. “Whatever, Bells. Do what you gotta do.”
Lila, on the other hand, had not been quiet. Not at all.
“You’re shipping us off like unwanted pets!” she’d screamed, mascara streaking down her face. “This is supposed to be our home! Together!”
Her words echo in the empty space. Our home. Together.
I stop in front of Lila’s room, with its half-empty closet and the constellation of glow-in-the-dark stars still stuck to her ceiling. On her desk sits the framed photo of all of us—me, Julian, Lila, Mom, and Dad—at the beach. The last vacation we took together before the accident.
My throat tightens. I pick up the photo, tracing their faces with my finger.
“I’m doing this for you,” I whisper. “For all of us.”
“But at what cost?” Devil-Conscience asks.
And that’s when I notice the movement outside. I freeze, watching through Lila’s window as one of the men from the SUV stretches, then casually walks up our driveway, eyes scanning the perimeter of the house.
“Oh God, oh God,” I mutter, ducking away from the window. “They’re coming for me. They changed their minds. I’m going to be whacked. Or whatever the Russian word for whacked is. Probably something with lots of consonants.”
I scramble for my phone, nearly dropping it twice before managing to dial Elena.
It rings four times—each one a small eternity of panic—before she picks up.
“Babe?” Her voice is distant, like she’s got me on speaker. In the background, I can hear the clatter of keyboards, voices speaking rapid Japanese, the hustle of her Tokyo office.
“They’re watching me,” I whisper urgently, crouching behind Lila’s bed like I’m in some terrible spy movie.
“Who’s watching you?” Elena sounds distracted. I can hear her typing, probably working on some important presentation while I’m having a complete meltdown.
“Konstantin’s men. In a black SUV. Like, directly across from my house.”
“Well, duh ,” Elena says, maddeningly calm. “You’re marrying him tomorrow. Of course he has people watching you.”
“I slapped him, Elena!” I hiss. “I slapped him across the face in the middle of a crowded restaurant!”
The typing pauses.
“You did what now?”
“I. Slapped. Him.” I feel my stomach drop with each word. “The head of the Russian mafia. My boss. My future husband. I slapped him, and now his goons are outside my house, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to end up in a cement overcoat at the bottom of the river.”
Elena goes silent for so long I check if the call dropped. I hear papers shuffling.
Then the typing resumes. “Ah, huh.”
“Elena!” I am shouting into the phone now. “Elena! Did you not hear me? The head of the Russian mafia! My boss! My future husband!”
“Babe, chill. If he wanted you dead, you’d be dead already.”
“That’s not comforting!”
“It should be,” she counters. “Look, you slapped him, he didn’t kill you on the spot, and now he’s just making sure you don’t run. It’s weirdly respectful, if you think about it.”
I hear Mrs. Gutierrez from next door call out to the man in my driveway. Her high, cheerful voice drifts through the window: “Are you a friend of Bella’s? She’s such a nice girl, always helping with my groceries.”
The man says something I can’t hear, but Mrs. Gutierrez laughs like he’s told the funniest joke in the world.
“And now they’re making friends with my neighbors,” I groan. “Great. Fantastic. The entire neighborhood is going to be infiltrated by the Bratva.”
I hear Elena sigh. “Bella, listen to me. Take a deep breath.”
“I can’t breathe! I’m too busy panicking!” But I try anyway, sucking in air that doesn’t quite reach my lungs.
A stern male voice breaks through on Elena’s end, speaking Japanese.
“ Hai, chotto matte kudasai ,” (Please wait for a moment) she answers, before returning to our call. “Look, I’ve got to go in a minute. Important meeting. But you need to calm down.”
“Calm down? I’M MARRYING THE MOB TOMORROW! ” My voice rises to a shriek that probably alerts the entire block, including Konstantin’s men.
I hear Elena take a deep breath, the kind she uses when she’s trying not to laugh at me.
“Bella. Listen. You have three options here. One , you run—and get caught within the hour because those men outside your house definitely have orders to stop you. Two , you cancel the wedding and lose everything—your house, your siblings’ education, probably your job, and who knows what else.”
I slump against Lila’s bed. “What’s option three?”
“You marry him.” Her voice goes softer. “Look, I know it’s not ideal. But from what you’ve told me, he keeps his promises. He’s taken care of everything you asked for. Your siblings are safe. Your house is yours.”
“He’s a criminal!”
“He’s a businessman with… additional income streams.”
“He’s dangerous!”
“So are student loans, but people sign up for those every day.”
Despite everything, I snort out a laugh. “Did you just compare my mafia marriage to student debt?”
“If the crippling life choice fits…” she says, and I can hear the smile in her voice.
Another voice calls out to her in Japanese, more insistent this time.
“Listen, I really have to go,” Elena says. “But you’re going to be fine. Just get through the wedding, enjoy the phenomenal sex you’re definitely going to have with your hot criminal husband, and try not to slap him again. At least not in public.”
“Elena!”
“I love you! You’ll survive this! Call me after the honeymoon!” And she hangs up.
I sit there on Lila’s floor, phone in hand, staring at nothing.
The sex. Oh God. The wedding night .
How did I not think about that part before? I mean, I knew, obviously—but between the legal agreements and the logistics and the utter shock of finding out I was marrying into the Russian mafia, I somehow… didn’t process the part where I’d be sharing a bed with Konstantin Belov.
Sharing a bed with the man who looked at me tonight with murder in his eyes after I slapped him. With the man whose kiss turned my insides to liquid fire right before I hit him.
I groan and flop backward onto Lila’s carpet, covering my face with my hands.
Through the window, I hear Mrs. Gutierrez inviting Konstantin’s thug infor coffee and homemade empanadas .
“She makes the best in the neighborhood,” I mutter to the ceiling. “You’ll love them.”
And then, because apparently, I’ve gone completely insane, I start laughing. Full-blown, hysterical laughing, tears streaming down my face as I lie on my little sister’s bedroom floor the night before my mafia wedding while my neighbor feeds pastries to the men sent to make sure I don’t escape.
This is my life now.
Tomorrow, I marry Konstantin Belov.
And God help me, part of me is actually looking forward to it.