Chapter 7
LEKS
The girl is a fucking headache. One that I need something stronger than Advil to deal with.
I don’t think she believed me when I said I wouldn’t hurt her. When that door clicked shut and she looked up at me on our wedding night, I saw nothing but fear in her wide green eyes.
To make matters worse, she opened those lips and exhaled.
The same way she’d exhaled on the altar before she said I do, like she was pushing a thought out of her mind, shutting down her own instincts.
Her face went blank, docile, and she asked me to touch her like she thought it was what she had to do.
Like she thought I was the kind of man who would hurt her if she didn’t offer me what I wanted.
That was when I decided I couldn’t touch Natalia Bryusova, no matter how pretty she might be to look at. I’d liked teasing her in that room, before our wedding, before she knew who I was. Everything is different now. I’m nothing but a threat, the husband she couldn’t get rid of before the wedding.
Not to mention the fact that she’s ten years younger than me and apparently has no idea how to exist in the real world.
Mostly, I’ve avoided spending too much time with my new wife. I can hardly ignore the fact that she’s filled my kitchen with bubbles.
My barking laugh makes her flinch. “What’s going on here?”
Natalia appears to be cleaning dishes in a sink full of nothing but bubbles. So many that they’re drifting through the air. There’s a mountain of white foam in the sink, and the faucet is still running, producing more.
When she whirls around to meet my evaluating gaze, it’s with that fire in her eyes. She gestures at the sink as if it’s a complex piece of machinery.
I’ve never seen someone so dressed up to wash dishes, but I can’t say I resent her wardrobe choices. Not when the heart-shaped cut-out in her dress reveals cleavage for miles.
“You need soapy water to clean the dishes,” she explains to me, gesturing at her phone, like it’s not something every child in the world knows.
“Oh, really?” I deadpan. She nods, missing the joke in her concentration.
I step closer, watching as she gently pushes the soapy water around a plate, holding the end of the scrubbing brush and not applying any real pressure. She seems concerned about getting her fingernails in the water, which are painted an iridescent blue and decorated with tiny hearts.
It’s ridiculous, that someone can reach the age of 21 without learning to wash dishes. That said, I do find watching her kind of hypnotic.
When she reaches for the dish soap again, I step in.
“How much dish soap did you already use?”
She tilts her head to the side, her sunshine-colored curls hanging over one shoulder. “If I’m doing it wrong, you can just tell me. I wanted to make sure everything was clean.”
I lean over her and let the water out of the sink. “You’re doing it wrong.”
She lets out a huff. “You do it, then. Since you’re the dishes expert.” She shoves the dish brush against my chest.
I catch her wrist and pluck the brush out of her grasp. She freezes, eyes widening like a deer in the headlights.
“You know, they call this weaponized incompetence,” I drawl.
“What?” She lets a puff of air out of her nose.
“Being so bad at something that other people have to do the work for you.”
She pulls her wrist out of my grip and I let it slip through. Her hands come to her hips, which I think is an attempt at defiance, but really just gives me a better view of her breasts.
“You could just hire someone to clean, you know. It’s not like you’re short on money, now that you’re marrying into our family.”
That would be the Bryusov solution. “I don’t want any extra eyes around this place.”
She flounces over to the couch to take a seat. She presses her lips together for a beat before responding. “Paranoid,” she mutters. “If your servants are well-paid enough they won’t talk.”
Only if someone else doesn’t pay them more.
Natalia catches my skepticism. “That’s what Mama always says,” she says defensively.
I catch a hint of longing in her voice. The idea that someone would miss their parents is a foreign concept to me, but Natalia is constantly talking about her mother.
It’s not something I want to deal with right now. I don’t want her interacting with the Bryusovs, not when I know that their focus is killing me and remarrying her at the soonest possible opportunity.
I suppose she’s never had to clean a thing before. I’m pretty sure she can’t cook, either. The only thing I’ve seen her eat is peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
Call me a sexist bastard, but I didn’t think that marriage would wind up with me doing all the housework.
I might be less annoyed if I was getting something out of it. Instead, she’s scheming to leave me, without being subtle about it. I hear her complain about me on the phone to her family, like some whiny child.
It would be stupid not to plan for that when she’s being so obvious about it.
“How is the CCTV around the docks?”
Yuri has years of experience steering the ship in my absence, while I’m still getting up to speed with the status quo.
“Outdated as shit.” He leans back in his chair and narrows his eyes. “Some of the cameras still run on film. It’s a real security issue.”
“Exactly, a security issue,” I nod. “Update it. I want state of the art cameras everywhere, as soon as we can.”
“This wouldn’t have anything to do with the new wife, would it?”
I shoot him a dark look. Yuri has been vocal about his opinion that this plan is batshit crazy and will end with me being sent back to Siberia. He was much more of a fan of his own plan, which involved lying low for five years until Bryusov was weak enough to take. I’m not as patient as he is.
I think he’s still bitter about the money he lost on his bet that I wouldn’t marry Natalia. Even though this deal got the motherfucker control of the whole port. He shouldn’t be complaining.
“Already worried she’s gonna run away?”
“She’s free to come and go as she pleases.”
He scoffs at that. “Right, because Maksim Bryusov’s daughter is going to stay with you voluntarily.”
“We have a deal.”
“Romantic. Heard you made quite an entrance the other day.”
I curse the fact that I didn’t opt for a car with tinted windows. And that Friday evenings are a bustling time for the Bratva’s shipments. Half the men at the port have now seen Natalia and, judging by the smirk on Yuri’s face, they liked what they saw.
“Unfortunately.” I tighten my jaw, which only causes Yuri to smirk harder. He’s a fucking sadist when he wants to be.
“Should I be offended that I haven’t been introduced to her?”
“No one has been introduced to her and it’s going to stay that way.”
He looks at me as though that’s unlikely. “That girl has practically been locked in a convent since she was eleven. You think she’s not going to be curious about the real world now that she’s been introduced to it?”
I had expected that, but Natalia seems strangely content to stay in the loft with her cat. Stockholm Syndrome, maybe. Even when you open the door of the cage, some birds just feel like it’s where they belong.
I run my tongue over my teeth. “Maybe she’s not enjoying the real world so much.”
“Your life would be easier if you hadn’t picked the one girl who everyone’s been fantasizing about for years.”
I grit my teeth together. He’s right, Natalia’s legendary status on the dock is inconvenient. Another reason we need that new CCTV system.
“C’mon, how was the wedding night?”
I just let out a growl.
“Don’t pretend you’re not the type to kiss and tell, Leks.”
For some reason, I don’t want to admit to Yuri that there’s nothing to tell. If the rumor spreads around the docks that Natalia and I aren’t fucking, that’s gonna create problems for both of us.
The fact that people are talking about us — that other men are wondering what it would be like to take Natalia Bryusova’s virginity — sends an unexplainable tension through my blood.
If I don’t do something about this, it’s going to boil over into rage.
Rage is bad for business.
That’s when I tell Yuri that I’m gonna need him to step in as a sparring partner, making up some bullshit excuse about losing the last fight night.
I’ve never lost at a fight night.
I already know as a certainty that nothing is gonna take my mind off this girl other than blood, sweat, and pain.