Chapter 20 – Vivian
T he smiles Luka flashed the receptionist at the wedding chapel should have been illegal. I thought the matter was done, dropped. Ended. But when the rust bucket of a vehicle stopped in a parking lot, I shook from my daze. Arguments fell on deaf ears, and Luka had drug me inside.
“This is your best option,” he’d said.
And it was.
With a hefty bribe, we were told we’d be the next appointment. Much to my chagrin, Luka plopped my driver’s license on the desk next to his.
Post. Not a bad last name. But I wasn’t taking it.
“Do you want any—” Luka gestured at the catalog “—trinkets or baubles?”
I glared at him. “This might not have been my first choice, but if you think I’m playing dress up, you are sorely mistaken, Luka Post.”
He chuckled softly. “I’ll take a bowtie, please.”
“Oh, for the love of heaven,” I grumbled, moving to stare at the wall where snapshots of happy couples decorated the space.
There wasn’t a frown among the assortment.
“Ready?” Luka came up behind me. The ridiculous black bow on his neck hid the angry mark left by my teeth.
I should have felt bad about that, but I didn’t.
I cleared my throat, trying—and failing—to send my heart back into my chest. This wasn’t how I wanted any of this. Some girls might not dream of walking down the aisle and riding into the sunset, but I wanted to be a bride. It was supposed to be law school first, make partner with a corner office next, then be a bride, and finally a mother. In that order. But life cut me off at the knees, and now I was in a blingy setting, walking down an aisle that normally cost 150 bucks.
“Lead the way,” I said flatly.
Luka’s gaze swept over me, assessing and calculating. “Do you want me to walk down with you or ahead and wait?”
Turning on him, I smacked the back of my hand across his broad chest. “Honestly, Luka, I don’t give a shit. We’ve been through hell, and this is just another chapter in that story.”
“Walk with me,” he said, holding out his arm.
Looking at the tanned skin stretched over the toned muscle, a sudden wash of panic shot through me. This feline beast was offering me a lifeline, but at what cost? This monster could just as easily devour me as he could save me.
Luka stepped forward, took my arm, and threaded it through his.
“Hold onto me, baby.” His voice was glittered with darkness. The velvety texture slithered around my walls and coaxed me to obey. It struck a fire in my veins that had nothing to do with my anger. It overpowered the desire to flee and dared the panic to rear its head.
Music swelled over the speakers. It was an older song, but only by a few decades. I couldn’t focus on the lyrics, only the feeling. It soothed . Or maybe that was the warmth radiating off the man next to me.
The man who in a matter of minutes I was vowing my troth to.
I didn’t even know his last name until now.
Luka murmured something in Russian, tacking it onto the vow he made. I cocked my head. Post wasn’t a very Russian surname.
I know next to nothing about this man.
Well, if I was committing myself to his protection, that would end. Immediately. I needed to know who this person was that I was trusting myself to.
“No pictures,” I snapped as we were pronounced husband and wife.
The photographer took a step back.
“We won’t be kissing,” Luka placated.
Immediately, heat scorched my body, and the only thing I could think of was his lips on mine.
Luka gave me a devilish grin. “When I kiss you for the first time, Vivian, there won’t be an audience.”
“We’ve already kissed,” I hissed, hiding the emotions I couldn’t name behind annoyance.
“You tried to kiss me on the beach, but no…. Technically, we haven’t, miss lawyer.” He spoke low enough it was doubtful the officiant or the photographer heard.
As he tugged me back down the aisle, I was tempted to declare it wasn’t happening. But the fever in my veins coupled with the ache between my legs told me that was a lie.
In a whirlwind of paperwork, all of which the groom handled, we left the chapel. Sitting in the front seat of his car, I blinked. I didn’t feel any different. Did that really just happen? We’d been in and out in thirty minutes. Those blue, gaudy doors—I went into them single and came out married.
Married, to the lunatic who had darkness dripping from every pore.
I shot a glance at him and caught the glitter of madness in his light blue eyes.
“We need ground rules,” I rushed to say. I had to protect myself. The idea of following him down the rabbit hole was too enticing.
Luka started the antique. The damn three-peddled car roared to life. I refused to like the vehicle. It was loud. It had a funny smell that had nothing to do with our dip in the river. And the seat shapes were rigid.
“Such as?” Luka placated.
“Sex is off the table.” I flattened my hands on my thighs. Rational thought scrambled through my mind.
A barked laugh exploded from Luka. He cut it short, but the damn thing twinkled at the corners of his mouth. “If that’s what you want. My original ground rules hold. You touch me, I’ll consider it fair game to touch you.”
I would not be touching him again. It was that simple.
My pussy screamed in protest. Need pulsed deep in my core, but I was able to ignore it.
“What else? That’s an awfully long pause. I should be nervous,” Luka teased.
“I can’t think of anything right now!” I raged. “Just—give me space!”
Maybe it was my tone or my words. But Luka sobered. “You’re not my captive, Vivian. That—” he waved at the building as we drove out of the lot “—gives you freedom.”
“How?” My question lacked any bite.
“Simple,” Luka grinned. “No one is stupid enough to touch what is mine. Go where you want, do what you will. No one is going to stop you.”
For the first time in months, the cement on my chest melted. I was returning to the Windy City, not as the scared little girl, but as a force of nature. I could rebuild from the rubble. And maybe there would be a lawyer crazy enough to help me to be reinstated with the bar!
Markem can’t stop me.
I shot a look at my…husband. No, that word felt way too weird. Luka wasn’t that. Ally? That would work.
“I don’t know you. I need to in order for us to coexist.” I crossed my arms, tapping my nail against my opposite arm.
“I’ll tell you as much as I can.”
At least his tone held sincerity. The words left me shivering. “What are you?”
“A twenty-nine-year-old, red blooded, all-American boy who loves fast cars and rock and roll.”
There was no kidding, not a drop of laughter in his voice. I wanted to smack him so freaking hard.
“Don’t blame me,” he tossed me a smirk. “You didn’t ask the question correctly.”
I let out a wordless huff of exasperation.
“Quick! It’s almost time for supper.”
I started. That thought sapped all the twisted mess into nonexistence. “Supper?”
The grin that crowned his face was sheer delight. “You’re in for a treat, darlin.” When I didn’t respond, he snorted. “Can’t go to Nashville without eatin’ some good home cookin’.”
I was trained in argument and words. Talking to Luka had the effect of making language all but nonexistent.
Sliding into a parking spot, Luka cut the engine. “You meant to ask me what kind of criminal I am. And the answer is simple: I’m the worst.”
A shiver full of excitement and anticipation shot down my spine. “A bad guy for a husband. Great.”
“No, baby, not a bad guy. I’m very good, and a good man is a dangerous one.”
“Yeah, very dangerous.”
He gave me a half shrug. “We have rules, though.”
What kind of criminal had rules—
“A mobster,” I blurted out. Luka only smirked as he left the car. My heart skipped. The mob. Organized crime. “What in the hell did I just get myself into?”
***
When he returned, he placed two takeout bags between us.
“I didn’t know what you’d want so I got two half birds, and all the sides,” he explained, as he fished out a box and sank his teeth into a piece of fried chicken.
The sauce smelled hot and spicy. My tongue watered.
Luka let out an appreciative sigh. “Hattie B’s is a staple.”
“You speak as if you’ve been there before,” I observed opening my own box.
“Years ago.” Luka waved his chicken thigh in the air before devouring it. While driving a stick shift, no less. “Ask,” he said around a bite of meat.
Since I’d taken the time while he was in the restaurant to think, I had a series of rapid-fire questions. “Russian mob, right?”
“Right.”
“So this arrangement…you won’t let my step-father interfere, but are you going to go after my inheritance?” I nibbled the skin. Fiery, but so tasty.
Luka shrugged and shook his head. “I have money. We’re making more and more every day. Don’t need yours.”
That was nice to know. But…did he know how much I was worth? I swallowed. “What did Markem promise you when he hired your services?”
I didn’t blink once, wanting to catch his every reaction.
Luka peeled the last bite of meat from the bone before dropping it in the box. Needing to shift, he braced his knees on the steering wheel, shifted with his clean hand, all while reaching into the box for his second piece of chicken.
He just merged, on the highway, with his knees. His fucking knees! Who the hell drove with their knees?!
I was going to die.
“He was going to help us with cutting through bureaucratic tape for our businesses,” Luka explained. “It affects my boss more than me.”
“Will your boss kill you?” I arched a brow, not ready to acknowledge the feeling of his potential death created in my chest.
“I’m too cute to cut from his life completely. He might beat me to within an inch of my life, but he’ll keep me breathing,” Luka quipped as if that wasn’t a terrible fate.
I balked.
“Don’t worry, darlin, I’m not going anywhere.” Luka dropped the bones. “I am filled with remorse at the thought of causing Dimitri trouble, but he’ll understand this wasn’t the way to achieve his goals.”
That made little to no sense.
“Wait! You know the law.” Luka waved a chicken breast at me. “You could cut through the legal tape. Oh! Brilliant! You can be our lawyer.”
From maid to mob lawyer. Not how I envisioned my career path during all those late nights studying and promising myself it would be worth it post-graduation.
“And if I refuse? I’m not a criminal,” I countered, dropping my own set of bones into the bucket and reaching for one of the cups of sides. Mac and cheese. Perfection.
“You’ll find that in our lives, we sink or swim together. There are no lone wolves in the pack, Vivian.” Luka tossed me a smirk. “Welcome to the family.”
A family…. Such a simple word but it sent my heart skittering in my chest.