At the next ear-piercing cry, I climbed off the rail and ran toward his office. Was he hurt? Had Sergei tried to kill him?
Two steps at a time, I raced down the stairs, where I found him crumbled in a heap on the floor. Sergei sat stoically in a chair by the desk.
I fell to my knees. I didn’t like him much, but he was my father. “What’s wrong?” I looked over my shoulder at Sergei. His black eyes masked any emotion.
My father shoved me aside. “Get away from me.”
Scrambling back, I fell into Sergei, who pulled me into his lap and wrapped his arms around my waist. “Your brother is dead, my love. He hung himself in his cell.” He said the words like he was ordering Chinese take-out. As if it was routine to announce the death of a beloved son.
“What? No. That’s not possible. Mikhail would never do that.” I pushed and squirmed, trying to get away from his grasp, but Sergei was big and strong, and he wouldn’t let go. Tears pooled in my eyes. I imagined I looked like the grieving sister. Heartbroken that her brother was gone, but that wasn’t why I cried. My tears were spilled for me. Mikhail had beaten me once again. He’d always come in first in everything. How was I supposed to escape my life and leave my father childless? I’d been considered cold-hearted by many because I didn’t show my emotions, but today my heart was frozen. I was stuck in this miserable existence. Not even I could be so cold as to make my awful father lose both his children on the same day.
Damn you, Mikhail. He screwed up everything.
When I stopped fighting, Sergei loosened his hold on me. My father stood and walked behind his desk. If it hadn’t been for his red-rimmed eyes, I wouldn’t have known he’d been crying.
“This changes everything,” he said. He looked at me sitting on Sergei’s lap. “You will marry this week. I need an heir, and although you’re not good for much else, you can at least give me that.”
I’d never thought I could feel lower than dirt. My father had reduced me to the value of my womb. Cinders of disappointment and hurt had burned inside me for a long time, but the winds of his hatred fed it. Those cinders were rising up to become an inferno. I was tired of being nothing.
“We’ll bury your brother on Sunday morning, and you will marry on Sunday night.”
I hopped off Sergei’s lap. “No. That is not the way this is going. I refuse to have my wedding on the same day my brother is buried. If you force me to do that, I’ll be the next person you put in the ground because I’ll fight you to my death over it.”
Sergei’s hands gripped my hips, and he pulled me back to his lap. “My love is right. She deserves more than a shared celebration.”
I spun around at his use of the word 'celebration' when we were talking about burying Mikhail. A glint of light danced in his darkness. A chill went straight to my bones. While I would never be able to prove it, something told me Sergei tied that noose around my brother’s neck and yanked him to the rafters.
“She will do as she’s told,” my father snapped.
Sergei slammed his fist on the table. “She belongs to me now. She will do as I tell her.”
While the men fought over my loyalty, I slipped from Sergei’s lap and walked to the door. “I will do as I like,” I yelled. I turned to my future husband. “I will not marry you on the day of my brother’s funeral, nor will I marry you on the anniversary of my mother’s death. However, I will marry you, and I’ll give you a son because that’s what I was born to do. Once I fulfill my commitments, both of you will leave me alone.” I spun around and walked out of the room.
I took the stairs one at a time. There was no hurry to get anywhere. The door to my mother’s room was still ajar. I walked inside and looked around. Why it remained locked was a mystery. There was nothing of her inside this room but memories. Tea on the balcony. Bedtime stories while we snuggled together under her floral bedspread. I didn’t need a room to keep those memories alive. They lived inside me. They reminded me that once someone had actually loved me.
“Ms.,” Darya spoke behind me. “You shouldn’t be in here with your father home. He won’t be pleased.”
I laughed. Despite all the surrounding sadness, I found humor in her words. “Darya, he’s never been pleased. Why should he start now?” I walked to the bed. “Where is Sergei staying?”
She lowered her head, and a blush rose to her cheeks. It seemed that all women but me found him appealing. “He’s in the south wing with his men.”
I ran my hand over the soft blue comforter. “He shall move in here.”
“Do you have permission to move him?”
I stalked toward her, and she stepped back. “I don’t need permission. I’m a damn Petrenko, and if I want my fiancé moved closer to me, it better happen. Don’t think for a moment Sergei won’t be ruling this kingdom. You better cater to the new king. Never forget, I’m his queen.”
I moved like a violent storm across the hallway and slammed my door. I was tired of being a babbling brook. Fury whirled inside me, turning me into a fierce raging river.
I changed into the dress I’d hoped to be buried in. While my father planned my brother’s funeral, I dressed in four-inch heels and a little black dress.
I had a damn wedding to plan, and it was time to go shopping. I’d have the rest of my life to mourn, but today I was celebrating because by not dying, I was reborn. The world better move aside because Katya Petrenko was here to stay, and I’d take no prisoners.
Chapter 8
As soon as the word of Mikhail’s death got to him, I went straight to my computer and snuck into Katya’s room. I felt creepy spying on her, but I wanted to make sure she was okay. Why that was important to me, I didn’t understand. The woman had told me she’d placed me in prison. Her excuse…to save my life. Funny how it almost got me killed.
I caught a glimpse of her. Wearing a black dress, she pulled up the hem and straightened her damn thigh-high stockings. My dick twitched in response. I’d been between those thighs today. Hell, given that they hadn’t used a condom, I was no doubt still between her thighs in essence, and I liked that thought.
How screwed up was it that I wanted to hate her and love her at the same time? My heart skipped a beat when I thought of love and Katya in the same sentence. Surely, my body had misread sex for real emotion. It had been too long, and Katya had been my first since my release. The wires of my brain were crossed.
My eyes went to her milky white thighs, where she strapped on a blade and dropped the hem of her dress. She hadn’t been carrying a weapon when she came to my office—at least not on her body. Had she felt safe here? Did she feel in danger now?
I tracked her on the screen like a hawk tracked it’s prey. She moved around the room with swift efficiency, putting herself together and grabbing her bag. She turned to the computer and frowned. The last thing I saw was her give me the finger before she slammed the screen shut.
What did I expect? I’d basically tossed her out on her ass. I never gave her a chance to explain. I hadn’t wanted to hear her lies, but what if they weren’t lies?
I punched his brother’s number in my phone and waited for the call to ring through. I had to come clean about the Katya issue, or it would certainly bite me in the ass. I’d be surprised if Mrs. Price hadn’t called my brother the second Katya started moaning.
“I heard,” I answered.
“News travels fast. It was just a one-time deal.” I thought about the second time when she straddled me and took control. “Okay, it was two times, but all within fifteen minutes or so.”
“What the hell are you talking about? I thought you were calling to tell me Mikhail was dead.”
“Oh, no, I figured you knew that. I was calling to tell you that I had sex with Katya in the office.”
“You what?”
“I fu—”
“I heard what you said. Do you have a death wish? She’s promised to the Bull. He’ll rip your head from your shoulders.”
“I wasn’t thinking with that head.”
“No shit.” The turn signal clicked in the background. “I’m five minutes away. Meet me in Gatsby’s.”
In a matter of seconds, I went from feeling like the adult owner of a multi-million dollar enterprise to the child caught sneaking a cookie before dinner. I shoved my gun into the waistband of my slacks and covered it with my jacket.
“I’ll be back,” I told Mrs. Price as I walked by her desk.
“If you’re looking for round two, I think a service would be safer,” she called after me.
I laughed. “You mean round three, and no I’m good. Meeting Alex at Gatsby’s.”
Sam stood in front of me at the elevator and waited for it to open. When he deemed it was safe, he stood aside in order for me to enter. How funny that having a bodyguard never seemed odd to me because I’d always had one. My thoughts went to Katya. She’d never been protected. No wonder she felt compelled to strap a blade to her thigh.
Yuri always had Dima. Before prison, Mikhail had Yevgeny. Who did Katya have? No one.
I made my way to the bar and ordered burgers and fries from Randy, the old man working today. Waiting for Alex, I toyed with the idea of reaching out to Katya just to ask if she was okay, but what I really needed to analyze was if I was okay. I had so many conflicting feelings when it came to that woman.
Alex walked in looking calm and relaxed, while inside I was as jittery as a chicken at a slaughterhouse.
Randy slid our plates in front of us and brought ice tea before he disappeared behind the bar.
“Why Katya?” Alex popped a fry into his mouth and waited for my answer.
“Have you seen her? I can’t believe you didn’t want a piece of that.”
“While she’s pretty, she wasn’t my type. Add in the fact that her father is an unpredictable asshole and no doubt killed our father and tried to kill my wife, I want nothing to do with that family.”
“Might I remind you that your wife is not dead because of Katya?”
Alex chuckled. “So you were thanking her on my behalf one inch at a time?”
“Consider her thanked thoroughly.” I picked up my burger and took a bite. It had been too long since I’d had a decent burger. This was almost as good as sex. Actually, it was far off from being as good as sex with Katya, but it was satisfying.
“Might I remind you that Katya is as good as married to Sergei, that her father killed our father, that the plan was to kill me after we had married? Hell, he tried to have you killed in prison.” He sipped his tea. “If given enough time, he would have gotten to Rafe too.”
While Alex and I were in the thick of things in Las Vegas, Rafe appeared safe in Boston. The reality was, he wasn’t safe anywhere.
“Rafe will be home soon. We can keep an eye on him. Speaking of the hit on me, I found out today that Katya set me up and put me in prison.”
“I knew that.”
I dropped my burger to my plate, sending fries flying. “You knew she set me up and didn’t say anything?”
“I found out at the hospital when she came to see if you were okay. She cares about you.”
“Funny way of showing it.”
“She heard her father talking about putting a hit on you because you wouldn’t tell him who was stealing from him. She told me it had been her and you’d hidden that fact from her father.”
The memory of that day still haunted me. She’d taken too much at one time, and it threw up a red flag. “She’d been careless. I didn’t want Yuri going after her, so I put the money back and refused to tell him who the account belonged to. I buried the information so it could never be retrieved. She thanked me by sending me to prison.”
“You didn’t know that. You thought it was Yuri. Hell, we all did until she came clean. That girl had a thing for you, and while her actions don’t quite make sense, you can see why she thought putting you in prison would protect you. It got you off the street. If you’re honest, you were safe until Dad was murdered.”
I hadn’t considered much when it came to the details. No one had bothered me in prison. I was the son of Vince Wilde, but the minute he was dead, I was the son of no one. Had I judged Katya too hard?
“You don’t need to worry about Katya and me. I pretty much tossed her on her ass the second she told me.” Though my burger was delicious, I couldn’t take another bite. My stomach twisted and ached. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“She asked me not to, and I owed her.” He swiped a fry through the ketchup. “While I’m happy you aren’t going after Katya, I do feel bad for her. She’s a victim, not an accomplice. Stay away from Sergei.”
I pushed my half-eaten meal to the side. “Tell him to stay away from me. He paid me a visit last night. Said he wanted to negotiate a new deal.”
“He came here?”
My brother grew before my eyes. He sat up tall and fisted his hands.
“He brought Katya and his goons here on the premise of celebrating their engagement. She doesn’t even have a ring on her finger.”
“It’s not a love match.”
Thinking about Katya in love with Sergei made my stomach burn. Thinking of them in bed made my brain ache. Hadn’t she told me she wanted one memory to last the rest of her life? Holy shit. She would think of me when he was pressed inside her. I clenched my fists so tight, my knuckles turned white.
“She’s a sacrificial lamb. We have to do something.”
Alex ignored my plea. “What did you tell Sergei?”
Did he think I’d side deal my way back into the business? “I told him there was nothing to negotiate.”
Alex finished his meal. “He’ll keep trying until he’s got his liquor sales and money laundering back.”
“He can try, but we’re legit and plan to stay that way.” While I wouldn’t jeopardize the business, the opportunity to bury Yuri would appeal to me. I’d never been a trigger-happy man, but I wouldn’t hesitate to pull it if Katya’s father was in my crosshairs.
Alex’s and my phones beeped with incoming messages. It was Mrs. Price informing us the funeral for Mikhail was in two days. Funny how everything halted for weddings and funerals, including grudges.
“I’ll go and represent the family,” Alex said.
“No, we will all go and show our unity. Besides, Mikhail’s death will make Yuri more dangerous.” I wasn’t the head of the family, but I needed to see with my eyes that Katya was okay. Her world was crumbling around her. A weaker woman would have taken a gun to her head. Not my Katya. She was solid as a rock.
Why I thought of her as mine was baffling, but in my heart, I knew it was true. How was I supposed to stand aside and watch her marry a man like the Bull? I bet he didn’t know her favorite color was red, or that she was allergic to strawberries, or that she liked her coffee with more cream than coffee. Hell, I didn’t know why I knew those things, but I did. Katya had been on my radar since her seventh birthday party, where she crowned me her knight and gave me the black pony to ride next to her all white one. I was the darkness, and she was the light.
“Fine, but you’ll have to behave.” Alex rose and left while I sat at the table by myself. Behave wasn’t a word that resonated in my brain. If I were going to behave, I’d have to leave her alone. I couldn’t, so I texted her.
I heard about Mikhail. Is there anything I can do for you?
Several minutes later, scrolling dots danced across the screen. She was texting back, which gave me hope that I hadn’t completely ruined our shaky friendship. I stared at the screen, waiting and waiting. The dots stopped, and there was nothing. She was done with me. I couldn’t blame her. I’d acted impulsively. I’d responded without all the facts. She had indeed chosen me over her father, which said something about her feelings for me.
I’d taken what she offered freely. She’d shown up this morning and put it all on the line. She’d given me her body. I wondered if she realized she’d taken my heart when she left.
I typed in the two words I owed her. The two words I should have said
in person.
I’m sorry.
Chapter 9
Hours passed as I made the necessary arrangements for my wedding. There were some benefits to being Yuri’s daughter. When I told the Russian Orthodox priest I needed him three weeks from now, he nodded. When I told him I wanted to marry in front of the Bellagio Fountains, he said no problem. When I asked for the hotel to book an already scheduled ballroom, they didn’t blink an eye. I was a Petrenko, and it didn’t matter if my father loved or hated me. To disrespect me meant disrespect to him. Any form of insult would not be tolerated.
I amassed hundreds of thousands of dollars in debts in a few hours. If my father wanted me married, he’d foot the damn bill. All my life, I’d been easy. I fell into place as a woman in a crime family. I held no power. I had no control. I did what I was told but no more. Everyone around me had an agenda, so why shouldn’t I?
There were too many balls in the air. Juggling wasn’t a skill I’d mastered. It was hard to keep everything in perspective when my world was disintegrating around me. Wasn’t a big wedding every girl’s dream? I’d scheduled mine in the same way someone ordered delivery pizza.
While getting it done was a relief, there was no joy in the event. Nothing made sense. I walked into the little Italian Bistro outside of the Bellagio and asked for a private table. Once my glass of wine was poured and my meal was ordered, I buried my head in my hands and cried. These were the only tears I’d shed for my brother. While he’d always been an asshole, he was still mine. There was a certain amount of loyalty expected when it came to family. At least he protected me as much as he tortured me. That couldn’t be said for my father. With Mikhail gone, I was truly alone in the world.
Betting On Her (A Wilde Love Novel Book 2) Page 6