2. Konstantin
KONSTANTIN
Outside, the rain pours like the skies have been split open and there's nothing holding back the waves of water pouring down across the city, turning New York’s streets into rivers flowing alarmingly fast.
"Kon!" Calvin's voice carries through the reception area to where I stand at the door, shrugging on my coat.
"Calvin."
"You're leaving?"
I nod. "Ethan and I have business to attend to." As if hearing his name, my main bodyguard, Ethan, melts out from the corridor and joins us.
"Do you need me?" Calvin asks with a distasteful glance outside.
"No, I need you with Rose."
"Your new wife," Ethan smirks. "I missed you saying I do. How was it?"
"It was fine."
"Fine?" Calvin snorts softly. "The way you kissed her was far from fine."
"I had to sell it." Pulling on my leather gloves, I flex my fingers to make them sit more comfortably and ignore the lingering warmth from her soft hand. I can't afford to be distracted by that now.
"You sold it, alright," Calvin says, and he steps back as a hefty surge of rain splatters through the door. "She was like a robot up until that moment."
"A robot?" Ethan pulls out a black beanie and crams it over his wild blond hair. "Did she forget that she has to sell this too?"
"Not like that." Calvin glances over her shoulder. "I think her brother was giving her some grief before she walked down the aisle.
"Grief about what?"
Ethan's question goes unanswered, because I clear my throat to silence them and turn to Calvin. "Stay with Rose. I will meet you at the reception hall when we are finished."
"On it, boss." Calvin salutes me with a smile, then he turns and dashes back into the still-cheering wedding hall.
"Leaving your bride at the altar?" Ethan remarks as we step outside. "That's cold, even for you."
Together, we rush down the stone steps and into the sleek, black cars waiting at the curb.
Despite only being outside for a few seconds, my hair clings to my forehead by the time I make it inside the vehicle and a pulse of irritation lances through me.
"I am not leaving her at the altar," I reply once Ethan is in the car and we've started driving. "I cannot leave business unfinished just because I have gotten married."
Married.
What a shitshow this whole thing is turning out to be.
Rose wasn't supposed to be that beautiful.
I picked the Chaika family because they are small and unassuming, and marrying their eldest daughter was supposed to grant me a plain, unassuming wife who would quell the constant concerns and questions rising from my generals.
Rose is the opposite.
Her golden brown hair softly curled around her beautiful oval face, those stunning gold eyes stood out like the fucking sun from dark-lined eyelids, and her sweet rose-pink lips were cushion soft against my own.
All of it hovers in my mind like a snapshot I can't shake.
She's as far from unassuming as one can get, but there's no going back now.
I press my lips together. The ghost of pressure from Rose's lips kisses me back, so I turn my attention out of the window and map out nothing but patterns in the raindrops battering against the glass.
In the end, it doesn't matter what Rose looks like or even what she's like as a person.
I just needed a name on the dotted line and some breathing space from generals who act like my influence and power in this world will disappear simply because there is no child to carry on the line.
Fucking ridiculous.
Thinking about it gets me heated, and that heat remains as we pull up outside of an old steakhouse that's closed despite the late hour.
My first meal in New York City was at this steakhouse, a meal so succulent that I ended up buying the place.
Now it has other purposes.
That purpose shakes his bloodied fist at me when I stride into the kitchen.
"Boss."
"Harold. Anything?"
Behind Harold sits a man with half of his face bloodied and swollen from the beating he's just received.
Bound to one of the dining chairs, blood trickles from his lower lip and splatters onto his bare chest where several deep lacerations weep crimson over dark bruises.
"No," Harold grunts. "Won't talk t'anyone but you."
Beside me, Ethan removes his beanie and twists it in his hands over the sink, sending a splattering of water down onto the metal. The noise makes our captive lurch suddenly and he lifts his head back to gaze up at the ceiling.
"You want to speak to me?" I move past Harold and gaze down at his ruined face. "What makes you think there is anything I want to hear from a man who has stolen from me?"
"I stole… nothin'," the man slurs through a mouthful of blood. "An' you?" He fixes his good eye on me and then attempts to spit, but the lack of force sends the blood trickling down his chin. "Your time is up."
I don't reply. I watch as he glances between me to Ethan and then Harold, then back to me.
"Fuckin' ruskies," he spits again. "Comin' here thinkin' you can take what's ours, what we worked hard for. Fucking bullshit is what it is."
"Take?" I tilt my head and glance down at my leather-clad hands. "I have not taken anything from you."
"Yesh you have," he slurs wetly. "Fuckin'… fuckin' fuck you."
"Eloquent." I glance at Harold. "Who was he working for?"
"Italians," Harold replies.
"Interesting."
"They're coming foryou," the bound man snarls. "They're coming for you and you're gonna end up in pieces shipped back to where you fuckin' came from!"
I lean forward and grip the man's chin, pressing my fingers tight against his cheeks until his mouth purses and blood dribbles over my leather gloves.
"You are very much mistaken. How weak must your family be if I have had this much of an impact in only one year?
I bring my own product and find my own customers, yet you sit there and spew like I have taken something from you when in actual fact—" My grip tightens and the man whimpers when pressure increases against his jaw.
"I have earned every single cent I have made since coming to this dark country.
In one year, I have doubled my earnings with my own product and you dare accuse me of stealing?
After my men found you with a truckload of my product? "
Every word is calm and measured, my tone cold and level, but each word lands with the force of a threat.
By the time I'm finished, my captive is trembling.
It's unclear if it's fear or suppressed rage that makes him quake like a leaf, and I don't give him a chance to tell me.
My grip tightens further while grabbing a fistful of his damp, blood-soaked hair in my other hand.
One twist of my wrist and a sickening crack echoes through the kitchen as his jaw snaps out of place.
Screams of pain erupt from him while we stare into each other's eyes, then I release him and step back.
"Kill him," I instruct Harold. "No one steals from me. I want this message to be loud and clear. Kill him and dismember, then send a piece along with a brick of product to every family he had an association with."
Harold nods once. "Sure thing, boss."
With that, Ethan and I step out of the kitchen and the bound man's screams stop by the time we reach the front door.
Rain still lashes down outside, and my driver huddles under a black umbrella that's barely strong enough to withstand the wind.
America is such a wet country.
I peel the leather gloves from my hands and toss them into the trash by the door, then take a deep, calming breath.
"Ready to go show everyone how in love you are?" Ethan asks while trying to reform his beanie enough that it will sit on his head.
"This is not my first time," I remind him.
The party within the hotel is in full swing by the time Ethan and I arrive twenty minutes later.
Those from Rose's side of the family are more reserved in their celebration and easy to spot in the crowd.
They hold their drinks close to their chests, glancing at one another as if the very air around them is at risk of spiking them.
Music fills the air, glasses clink and rattle, and several of my guards are in the party spirit, given how they chant and dance near the stage where the live band plays.
Calvin approaches me with a vodka in hand.
"Here," he says with a brief, polite smile. "Is everything sorted?"
"Yup," Ethan says sadly, once again holding a soaked beanie while his hair stands up in all directions. "Shouldn't be an issue."
"Where is Rose?" I scan the crowd, mapping the faces of my generals who stare at me with heavy expectation in their eyes, a few close friends and staff, and even Rose's brother, Mathew. But I don't see Rose.
Something uncomfortable ticks under my heart in the few seconds it takes for me to scan the room.
As much as this is a business deal, Rose is now my responsibility and anything that happens to her, good or bad, will reflect on me.
"She was with me a second ago." Calvin spins a one-eighty, his brows knitting together. He's barely finished his sentence when she suddenly appears right in front of me with the widest, happiest smile on her face.
The joy warming her features is completely unexpected, given the situation, but there's an innocence to it as she lays her hand on my forearm.
"Kon! Can I call you Kon? Calvin called you Kon so I figured that's what you like to be called and I am your wife after all so it makes sense I would call you that, right? "
Beneath the soft, floral notes of her perfume, the subtle tang of alcohol warms the air between us.
Ah.
She's not joyful.
She's just a little drunk. That explains everything.
Calvin winces to my left, but there's no need to reprimand him since, for appearances' sake, it makes sense for her to call me whatever she wants.
"You can call me that," I reply quietly.
"Good. Kon." Her expression hardens immediately while I soak up the rather soft way she pronounces my name. "I can't believe you said I do and then ran from that place like that! Do you truly detest the thought of being married to me?"
Her words draw the attention of a few curious onlookers close enough to overhear.
Those on my side of this marriage are less curious about Rose and more curious about the members from her family that they are subtly shadowing.
After all, if someone from her side is unhappy, then there's no telling what could go wrong, especially here.
This is the one place where she remains on the cusp of being a Chaika until I take her home with me.
Then, she is a Belyaev for good.
"I had business to attend to."
"Business?" Rose pouts suddenly and her hand slides up to my elbow.
"More important than me?" She tilts her head to the side and a loose curl drifts past her ear.
In this lower light, the shadows that dance across her face are extra enticing.
Her lips look fuller, her eyes are brighter, and there are two shadows of dimples growing in her cheeks when she suddenly smiles again. "I know how you can make it up to me?"
"How?"
"Dance with me!"
My blood runs cold. "I do not dance."
"Don't care!"
She speaks loud enough that a handful more people are drawn to our conversation and I'm powerless to stop her from taking my hand and dragging me forward.
Calvin rescues the glass of vodka from my hand, and before I know it, Rose has dragged me out into the middle of the dance floor amidst a sea of watching, prying eyes.
"It's tradition," Rose says as she faces me. "A tradition no one else listened to because you weren't here, but now you are." Her wide smile softens slightly. "Dance with me?"
I ache to say no.
It was bad enough standing at that altar feeling exposed to any passing bullet or person with a grudge but somehow, it's worse here.
Everyone is staring with the weight of their invisible expectations, and I'm expected to dance?
Rose's smile doesn't waver and after a few seconds of staring at one another, she steps into my space and rests both her hands on my shoulders. "Come on," she coaxes with that soft smile. "It's just one dance. Tradition, don't you think?"
Something about the bubbling warmth in her eyes and the sweet way she talks is like honey to my anxiety.
Fuck it.
I take her hand in mine, then drape the other around her waist as the band strikes up a new song.
Rose steps closer and aligns her body with mine just enough that the subtle boning in her corset presses into my abdomen.
Her fingers thread through mine and when I step and sway in one direction, she follows.
Not once does she break eye contact.
"See?" She beams up at me. "Not so bad, right?"
"I… have not danced in a long time," I admit.
"Don't worry, I can teach you!"
Her smile is surprisingly infectious. Something pulls at the corner of my mouth. "Rose."
"Mhm?"
"You are… happier than I expected, given the nature of this deal. Or… did no one give you all the details?"
"I have the details," Rose smiles, and she leans up onto her tiptoes, lowering her voice. "But that's no reason for us not to enjoy ourselves, right? After all, we're going to be in each other's lives forever."