Chapter 8
KATYA
“What about this one?”
I stare at the wedding dress Svetlana holds up for my inspection.
It’s a strapless mermaid style with a slit in the skirt.
She took the train into the city and met me here, insisting on joining me after I broke the news to her over the phone.
Svetlana was shocked to hear I was getting married so suddenly, and to a man she’d never met.
I can still hear her voice, uncharacteristically rattled and worried.
“But, lisichka, you didn’t even tell me you were dating someone.”
She’s trying to be cheerful about this insta-wedding for my sake, so I know I have to hold it together and do the same for her. She can never discover the reason I gave in to Misha and agreed to marry a man I barely know.
She would sacrifice herself for me.
She already has, raising me as her daughter.
So now it’s my turn to repay the favor.
“It’s pretty,” I tell her, forcing a bright note into my tone that sounds forced, even to my ears.
“Do you want to try it on?” she asks, frowning at me.
“Not really.”
The thought of trying on any of the gowns in the showroom makes me feel vaguely ill. But maybe that’s because I didn’t eat breakfast or lunch and it’s now three in the afternoon. Now that I think about it, I’m a little light-headed.
Svetlana abandons the gown and comes to me, a look of concern on her face. “Are you sure about this, lisichka?”
A determined saleswoman is lingering not far. And even if she weren’t within eavesdropping distance, this isn’t a conversation I want to have with the woman I owe everything. So I pretend I don’t understand what she’s actually asking me.
“There are so many dresses to choose from, it’s a little overwhelming.”
She shakes her head at me and tsks in the way she would when I was a girl and did something naughty like secretly cutting the hair on my favorite doll.
“Not the dresses, the wedding. You never mentioned this fiancé of yours, and now suddenly you are marrying.” She snaps her fingers for emphasis.
Her long nails are painted blood-red. She’s always had a flair for anything bold and colorful.
“I know it’s sudden, but yes,” I lie. “It’s been a whirlwind, but when you know, you know.”
“Are you pregnant?” she whispers.
It’s not the first time she’s asked me that.
“Mama, it’s not the 1800s,” I tell her. “A woman doesn’t have to get married just because she’s having a baby. But also, no. I’m not.”
Scorpion didn’t even kiss me, let alone touch me with any kind of sexual interest. I tamp down the surge of disappointment at the reminder, because it’s not just illogical, it’s downright crazy.
Svetlana shakes her head. “I don’t like this, lisichka. You don’t seem happy like a bride should be. There’s sadness in your eyes.”
I knew that the hardest part of pulling this off would be convincing the woman who knows me better than anyone else that I’ve suddenly decided to marry a man I’ve never mentioned to her and she’s never met.
My face feels like it might crack under the force of my smile. “It’s just stress. Planning a wedding on such short notice is a lot.”
She searches my face for something—maybe a flashing neon I’m a liar sign.
But then she nods. “I’m so glad the company gave you the time off.”
Her voice has a note of doubt. She doesn’t believe me that the company would give me a leave of absence to plan a wedding this close to our summer season beginning.
And she’s not wrong about that. They wouldn’t.
I wouldn’t dream of asking for it either.
I don’t know how I’m going to break it to her that I’ve been forced to quit.
It will shatter her heart as much as it fractured mine.
“It was really generous of them,” I agree, trying not to allow her to see how much I hate every second of planning this sham wedding. “Let’s keep looking. Maybe something a little more extravagant.”
Misha is paying for the wedding. I’m going to do my best to bankrupt him with it. To get even with him, however I can.
“Whatever you want, lisichka,” she tells me. “You deserve to have everything the way you want it for your special day.”
Nothing is the way I want it. Misha has taken that from me.
But it’s okay. I’ll be okay.
Because I have a plan.
Misha only said I had to marry Scorpion.
He didn’t say anything about staying married to him, and I’ll make Andriani’s life a living hell until he has no choice but to get rid of me the only way he can without starting a war—divorce.
And then I’ll be free to carry on with my life.
I’m going to leave this city, go so far that Misha can never find me.
And I’m taking Svetlana with me.
All I have to do is bide my time and stick to the plan.
I don’t even need ballet anymore. I’ll do something else. I can teach yoga, work at a dance studio for kids, anything. I’ll change my name, my hair. Everything. I’ll be free in a way Ekaterina Sidorova could never be.
I turn to the hovering saleswoman. “Where are your most expensive lines? Let’s start there.”
Her eyes light up like a kid who’s just seen Santa Claus. I knew it. She’s been listening in all along.
“Right this way,” she says.
Scorpion
I’m stewing in my office at the underground club I run, poring over the contract Priest forced on me, when a knock sounds at the door. I already know it’s my brother Lucky. Gio, my head of security, texted a few minutes ago to clear the interruption with me.
Probably because I told him I’d shoot anyone who came through the door.
“Come in,” I call, reaching the end of another page and flipping it over.
The urge to set it on fire is strong, but I’ve been resisting so far. I’d rather wad it up and stuff it into Mikhail Sidorov’s mouth while he’s hog-tied and begging for mercy, just before I end him. But that’s a project for another day.
Lucky sweeps into the room, the youngest of us all, and it shows. His name is no accident. He’s got a pretty face, he always wins at cards, and he’s a damn good shot. We babied the shit out of him, protecting him from most of our old man’s wrath. He’s the golden boy.
“You’re a difficult man to get ahold of, fratello mio,” he announces, sounding like a jealous girlfriend.
Probably because I’ve been ignoring his texts and calls.
“Did you get shot?” I ask him, leaning back in my chair.
“Nope.”
I rest my elbows on the plush armrests and steeple my fingers. “Arrested?”
“Nope.” He throws himself into one of the two seats on the opposite side of my desk. “Fuck, these are uncomfortable.”
“That’s the point,” I drawl. “The only one I want spending time in here is me.”
He raises a brow, looking unimpressed. “I wouldn’t have to be sitting here if you’d answer your damn phone.”
“I’ve been busy.” Working my jaw, I glare pointedly at the no-longer-neat stack of papers sitting on my desk. “A marriage contract to review and all that.”
Lucky winces. “Cazzo, I forgot about the whole contract thing.”
I’m not surprised he did. Apparently, no one in my family is as fucked up as I am over being forced to marry a Sidorov. But why should they be? It doesn’t affect them.
I pin my younger brother with a glare.
“Did you know there’s a fucking section on issue in this thing?” I demand.
Lucky looks at me like I just started speaking in tongues. “A section on tissues? Why would it matter which brand you use?”
“Not tissues, coglione. Issue. As in kids. As in my kids with the feral Russian hellcat. As in, I’m being forced to procreate with her against my will.”
What I don’t say is that, as enraged as it makes me to think of Priest and that Bratva piece of shit hammering out the details of my future down to this specific detail, the thought of fucking Ekaterina bare and getting her pregnant also makes my dick hard.
I’ll chalk that up to some kind of fucked-up Neanderthal instinct and forget about it.
Lucky scowls. “Don’t take it out on me. I had nothing to do with this shitshow of yours.”
It is a shitshow.
My life has gone from fucking amazing to full-on implosion in less than a week.
And all because of one woman. One beautiful, homicidal Russian ballerina with gorgeous tits, an ass I’d love to sink my teeth into, and a mouth that makes me think about filling it with my cock.
Maybe I need to get laid. I should call Chiara before the rehearsal dinner, get the poison out.
“I know this isn’t your fault, Luck.” I run a hand through my hair, sighing. “This is all Priest and Saint. Who needs enemies when you have brothers who marry you off to the fucking enemy?”
Lucky winces. “When you put it like that…”
“Just wait until they do it to you,” I warn.
“Don’t worry. I’m not planning on kidnapping Pakhan’s sister.” The stronzo grins at me. “Too soon?”
I give him a dark look. “Do you want to keep all your fingers?”
We both know I’ve taken fingers for far less, but Lucky isn’t worried.
He chuckles. “The ladies would prefer it if I did.”
“Yeah,” I agree. “To supplement your tiny dick.”
He only laughs harder. Which pisses me off more.
“Was there something you wanted?” I growl. “Like I said, I’m kind of busy here.”
“Yeah. I want to make sure Mom, Bianca, and Camilla are invited to the wedding.”
I blink. In all that’s been going down, I haven’t had much time to think about our mother being back in the city.
She abandoned us when we were kids after she cheated on our pop.
The father of our twin half sisters was none other than Tomasso Revello, Luna’s father and the don of the Revello family—up until he was clipped at Priest and Luna’s wedding.
After years in hiding, our mother showed up with a sob story we’re not all sure we’re buying. Lucky, though, he’s fallen for it. Antonella’s got her claws in him, and she’s not letting go.
“As far as I’m concerned, there isn’t going to be a wedding,” I bite out, scrubbing a hand along my jaw.
The truth is, the more days that pass, the more I’m starting to realize there is no way out of this. I dug my own fucking grave the day I took Ekaterina off the street.
“You sure about that, fratello mio? Priest seems pretty sure that you’re marrying the hot Russian ballerina on Saturday.”
Something inside me catches fire. “That’s my future wife you’re talking about. Watch your fucking tongue.”
The bastard smirks. “Thought there wasn’t going to be a wedding.”
Fucker.
“There won’t.”
He lifts a shoulder, nonchalant. “Then it doesn’t matter if I notice how hot she is. Did you look up any of her performances on YouTube? I bet she looks hot as fuck in those ballerina costumes.”
Heat crawls up my neck, because yes, I did look her up on YouTube.
Before I kidnapped her and then again after.
And she looks hotter than hot as fuck in her costumes.
Those legs of hers, long and elegant and muscular and so graceful.
Every time I look at them, I imagine them wrapped around my waist. I can’t stop thinking about the ways I could put all that flexibility to good use.
“It’ll probably be like fucking a pretzel,” Lucky adds, apparently having no will to live.
I pick up the nearest object—a vintage crystal ashtray that costs more than the average car—and throw it against the wall behind him. It hits and smashes into thousands of tiny shards, raining to the floor.
“I liked that fucking ashtray,” I tell him.
“Forget I said anything.” He gets up. “So, Mom, Bianca, and Camilla can come to the wedding?”
“Bianca and Camilla can come,” I correct him. “If there is a wedding at all.”
He gives me a look like I just kicked his puppy in the head. “Mom’s going to be devastated. She already missed Priest’s wedding.”
“Antonella should have thought about that before she fucked off and left us,” I snap.
Lucky holds up his hands in surrender. “Fine. Groom’s choice. But I get a plus-one, right?”
“Right,” I grit, disliking being called the groom.
It’s too fucking real. Too commitment and babies and picket fences and all that shit.
“Not two or three,” I add, because this is Lucky, and he’s always got more women dangling after him than anyone I know.
“So pick your favorite flavor of the month and bring her. It’s going to be small, if there is a wedding.
The fewer people who witness it, the better. ”
“Got it.” He walks past what’s left of my thirty-thousand-dollar ashtray, his shoes crunching on the crystal. “Might want to have someone clean that up so you don’t cut yourself and bleed to death before the wedding.”
I grind my molars. “Get the fuck out of here, stronzo.”
He just laughs as he walks out the door.