Chapter 20 #2
Unbothered, Alexi just shrugs. He tosses his cards into the center of the table and joins Liam at the side of the room. “I can’t seem to find the time, but I’m trying to convince Ulayna to do it.”
Liam takes another sip of his whiskey, the silky amber liquid warm on his tongue. “Why hasn’t she yet? Surely, she hates it just as much as you do.”
Alexi nods. “Yeah, she does. But she’s hung up on the idea of it not being her place to do so. She’s got this weird notion that she has to prove herself before she can be with me.”
“Prove herself? To you?”
“No, not to me. To my men. She thinks the Bratva won’t accept her as my equal if she doesn’t prove herself worthy of it.”
Liam frowns. “Is she right?”
“Maybe in some ways.” Alexi rubs the back of his neck. “The culture of the Bratva is still entrenched in the old ways. It will be hard for many of the men to see her as my partner and not as my property. They won’t give her the respect that she’s due.”
Liam’s eyebrows rise to his hairline. “And you’d allow those men to remain in your organization?”
“No,” Alexi says immediately. “Any man who dared to speak a bad word against her would lose his tongue. And Ulayna knows that. But…”
Liam nods in understanding. “Let me guess. She doesn’t want you to fight her battles for her?”
“Yeah. That about sums it up,” Alexi says, grateful that someone understands the difficult position he’s in.
“It’s not easy loving a strong, independent woman, is it?”
Alexi lets out a choked laugh. “Ha! That’s one way to put it. She’s going to be the death of me.”
Liam grins. “I once came home after dealing with an unexpected threat, only to find Cara decked out in enough firepower to take down a small army. She was guarding my home and prepared to defend it against a threat she knew nothing about. I think she’s like Ulayna that way.
She looks small, but she’s got a spine of steel.
And put a gun in her hand…” He whistles through his teeth. “Game over.”
Alexi laughs at the mental image. “I know what you mean.”
“If you’re determined to let her fight her own battles, how is she going to earn the respect of your men without you cutting out all of their tongues?”
“I don’t—”
Alexi’s words are cut off when the door to the den is shoved open, thudding against the side wall.
The men, Alexi included, all draw their weapons simultaneously, ready to kill the intruder. But Ulayna waltzes in without a care in the world.
With a shit-eating grin on her face, she says, “Evening, gentlemen,” as if there aren’t ten guns trained on her.
“Jesus, Ptichka,” Alexi says, holstering his weapon with a sigh of relief.
Ulayna ignores him and walks to the table in the center of the room. With a loud thunk, she hoists the large duffel bag in her hand and drops it onto the center of the table. Poker chips and cards scatter, and men scramble to move their drinks out of the way.
Ulayna takes a step back, places her hands on her hips, and winks at Alexi. “I brought you a present,” she says.
Alexi’s eyes narrow on the bag. “Is that—”
“Yup,” she says, smacking the P on the end of the word for emphasis.
“But how?”
“Work smarter, not harder, baby.”
Liam looks back and forth between Ulayna, Alexi, and the bag. Then he tips his head back and roars with laughter.
The men at the table all look confused. Eventually, one of them leans forward and zips open the bag. “It’s full of cash, Pakhan,” he says to Alexi.
“I know,” Alexi sighs in resignation.
“What is it?” the man asks.
Alexi pinches the bridge of his nose. Finally, he looks up at his men. He’d invited several of the top-tier men to play poker with them tonight as a way for him to get to know them better before he makes the final decisions about team placement.
He gestures to the bag on the table before them. “That’s the item that the Irish were holding securely for the second challenge.”
The room goes silent.
The man who looked inside the bag looks from the bag to Ulayna and back at Alexi. “You mean, the Gremlin just won the second challenge?”
Liam asks, “Gremlin?”
Ulayna waves at him, her shit-eating grin getting even wider, if that’s possible.
Again, Liam tips his head back and laughs.
Once he’s finally recovered, he asks Ulayna, “You and my wife set this up, didn’t you?”
Ulayna shrugs. “Like I said. Work smarter, not harder.”
“Pakhan—” One of the men at the table starts, but Ulayna cuts him off before he can continue.
She rounds on him and slices her palm through the air in a clear sign to stop talking.
“I won fairly,” she says, her voice steady but firm.
“The only rule was that we couldn’t kill Liam’s men.
There was no rule against obtaining the package the way I did.
So while you all were swinging your dicks around and trying to figure out how to hack into the Irish’s security, I formed a strategic alliance and bartered for it. ”
“She has a point,” one of the other men says grudgingly and tips his head to Ulayna.
“You bartered for it?” Alexi asks, curious.
“Yep,” Ulayna says, her smile returning. “Cara made me promise to use the money to redecorate this place so it won’t be hideous when they come over for ladies’ brunch.”
For the third time in as many minutes, Liam laughs. “That sounds like something my wife would do.” Turning to Alexi, he shakes his head. “I think we need to watch out. If we’re not careful, our women are going to take over the world while we’re not looking.”
Alexi heaves out a huge sigh, part pride, part worry, and part resignation. He shakes his head, then closes the distance between himself and Ulayna.
With a possessive growl, he yanks her to his chest and claims her mouth with his.
After a few seconds, he addresses his men, his eyes never leaving Ulayna’s. “It appears we have a winner of the second challenge. The third and final challenge will begin at dawn. I suggest you all find somewhere else to be in the meantime.”
Snickering, Liam pats Alexi on the back in congratulations and heads for the door. It’s time he got back to his own woman and his child growing inside her.