Chapter 25
Artem
Yaroslav and Sasha are waiting for me in the kitchen, the eldest sitting on a high stool, the youngest rummaging through the fridge.
Each of them has a glass of vodka on the island in the center.
“You don’t have any chocolate in this house?” Aleksandr scolds me the moment he catches sight of me from the corner of his eye.
My answer is dry like a sandstorm.
“Not for you.”
“I think I’m starting a second war...” he mutters, upset, then shuts the fridge door and returns to his glass.
“All good?” Yar asks me. “Or do I need to bring some rope from my apartment so you can tie her up?”
“I knew you were into that kind of stuff!” Sasha notes with delight. “Can you teach me how to tie those knots like you do?”
He receives a short, cold answer.
“No.”
Then Yar looks at me, still waiting for my reply.
“All good,” I say in a flat tone.
“How is she handling the situation?”
“Which one?”
“Depends on what you told her.”
“Everything. I don’t ever intend to keep secrets from my wife.”
Sasha smacks his lips. “I still can’t believe you actually did that. I never would’ve pictured you wanting to bind yourself to a woman forever.”
“Well, I did. And I wouldn’t change a thing if I had the chance to do it all over again.”
“To start a war for a woman...” he says thoughtfully. “I’d like that too.”
“Careful what you wish for,” Yaroslav warns him with a frown. “Anyway, you might not get the chance, because I don’t know if we’ll survive the current war.”
My older brother was the first person I consulted about my plan.
I knew Sasha wanted us to reach this point, but it seems Yaroslav was just as hungry for revenge.
Especially since the attack that put us all in danger ten days ago.
It infuriated him, and he took the whole thing as an affront.
Even then, we realized someone had a problem with me, and the intervention of an invisible enemy, striking only to keep me away from Ekaterina, didn’t sit well with him.
But I can’t say Yaroslav was the most enthusiastic about what I intended to do.
He tried to be reasonable one, advising me to find a plan B or a less bloody route, one that wouldn’t lead to war with the entire Russian mafia.
But he didn’t stand a chance against my voices, desperate to reach her faster.
To destroy everything in their path and show the whole world our true power.
The Birds of Darkness are not petty gangsters trying to make a feared name for themselves in London. The Birds of Darkness spread across the entire world, through sacred partnerships with organizations even Bratva would consider sinfully forbidden.
I didn’t turn against the big organization, but I rewrote the rules of the game. I changed the structure of history itself, steering it toward a future that will bring us power far beyond the limits of the old Vors’ imagination.
That is exactly why my father understood the uselessness of this wedding and accepted my marriage to Ekaterina, even if other “colleagues” of his opposed it. For now.
“We’ll survive,” I tell him as I pour vodka into a glass. “Relax.”
“I am very relaxed. I’d be unsettled if I feared death, but I have no such concerns. When it’s written for me to die, then so be it.”
“Totally agree,” Sasha says, starting to search through the drawers again. “I can’t believe this...” he mutters, growing more upset. “Not even a lollipop? What kind of person are you?!”
“Eat a banana,” I tell him.
“Take your bananas and shove them up your ass. Maybe you’ll like them even more.”
“No, thank you.”
I take a seat on the same side as Yar, leaving one stool between us, and sip from the clear alcohol.
“You’re worried,” I remark.
He snorts.
“I don’t care about the war with the people in Bratva who consider us traitors. On the contrary. A little action doesn’t bother me. But I don’t want anything happening to you or Sasha. And now Katya either.”
“Ah! Let’s not forget!” Sasha exclaims quickly, vanishing from sight for a few seconds before returning from the living room with some papers. “She needs to sign these too.”
“When she comes down,” I answer, then look at Yar, who hasn’t finished what he had to say.
“The problem is that we’re facing two enemies: Bratva, and whoever the fuck tried to take you out. And as for that one, we have no damn clue where to even start looking, so we drag him out and can cut off his head. We’ll be hit from two sides.”
“We won’t drag anyone out. Like the first time, he’ll come to us. All we need to do is organize properly and be ready for his attack.”
He folds his thick arms over his chest.
Compared to me, he had time to change into a dark gray suit, with a white shirt and only a vest over it, the jacket nowhere in sight.
The youngest takes a seat too, sighing in frustration because he didn’t find anything sweet.
It isn’t long before I hear the bare soles of my soulmate approaching. Before I even see her, my body comes alive, the way it does every time she is near or whenever I think about her.
The image of my wife walking toward the altar will remain an icon in my memory, one I will worship for the rest of my life.
She was a queen coming toward me, even if she had no idea I was there.
Her eyes were sad behind the thin veil, and that only made me move faster.
I wanted her to know I was beside her and that I would always save her from situations she could not escape on her own.
I gave her ten days to cancel the wedding. In the meantime, I found out about that damned contract, the one that raised questions for me and to which I later found the answer.
Saint Oliver is not as saintly as he made himself seem. He is a false, cold man who would do anything to get his hands on the power offered by the Russians.
And his actions didn’t begin taking shape a few months ago, when his father stepped forward with the plan for a marriage.
He entered Ekaterina’s life two years ago, and that still makes me deeply suspicious when it comes to the Prescott family and their weapons business, something my wife only found out about today.
A fact confirmed even by my father, who hinted that something about the story with the Englishmen didn’t sit right with him, but that he would let me know if he uncovered anything new.
I turn toward her and hold out a hand, which she refuses, throwing me a sharp look. That doesn’t stop me from taking what I want, which is why I pull her between my spread legs and kiss her. But I do it the way I constantly crave.
She can’t refuse my kiss, and my tongue conquers the stubborn woman who is still angry with me.
When I pull away from her lips, tasting them briefly before giving her the chance to breathe, her cheeks are flushed, and she looks slightly embarrassed toward my brothers.
“Stop it.” Her voice is sharp.
“Am I not allowed to kiss my wife?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because this entire marriage is just as fake as the one with Oliver would have been.”
“That’s what you think, dusha moya.”
She rolls her eyes and looks toward the other two, trying to ignore me, then sits on the stool beside mine.
“Having marriage problems already? They say sex is the best solution,” Sasha says, then he puts a worm smile on his face, looking at my wife. “Hello, Helen.”
She’s looking at him confused. “Helen?”
“You’re Helen of Troy!”
“I’d smile if it weren’t so tragic in reality. Were you both on board with your brother’s plan this whole time?”
“More or less,” Yar declares, his voice impassive.
“I’m sorry you were dragged into this war because of me,” she says, with a trace of guilt on her face that makes all of us look at one another for a moment, guessing what’s going through her mind when she sees us all involved in this problem.
“You have nothing to apologize for, my dear sister-in-law,” Sasha says immediately. “It’s not that bad. It’s beautiful, actually!”
“It is bad,” Yar intervenes calmly. “We’re all risking death...”
“And death isn’t beautiful?” Sasha interrupts him.
Yaroslav rolls his eyes.
“I repeat. It’s bsd,” he continues, looking back at Ekaterina. “But there was no other way to get you out of there. And we’re glad you’re part of the family now, so don’t imagine any one of us is here without having been fully on board with our Pakhan’s insane plan.”
I’m glad he made that clear to her. It gives them the chance to grow closer as a real family, now that Ekaterina is with us too.
“Thank you,” she says with a faint smile, though a little forced. “Although I’m not sure attacking the cathedral was the best approach to the situation.”
She’s right. I could have abducted her before the wedding, I could have called her and explained why I didn’t make it to the recital. There were many options, but I needed confirmation that Oliver’s people were working with the ones who tried to kidnap me.
Oliver Prescott III sent the men who attacked us at the club ten days ago.
I had to drag the bastard out of the hole where he had been hiding before the wedding and find out how far his cockroach antennae stretched.
But first and foremost, I wanted to have my own wedding with Ekaterina and, since everything was already prepared...
Remembering that detail, I drag the papers in front of her in an instant, and Sasha pulls a pen out of God knows where, offering it to her like a devil grinning dangerously.
“The lawyer is waiting for the signed marriage certificate so Oliver can no longer lay any claim to you,” I tell her, slightly irritated by her hesitation, but also by the lack of trust she has in my feelings.
Or maybe she still doesn’t feel something as strong for me as I feel for her. Obsession. Madness.
This is love, right?
She slowly takes the pen from my youngest brother’s fingers and looks at me.
“I hate you,” she tells me without conviction, in a way that, in fact, strengthens my theory that she feels the same as I do.
“And I love you too, Katya.”
She sighs and shakes her head, visibly too exhausted to keep fighting me.
She signs the certificate, then places the pen on top of it with a sigh.
“And now?”