by Bella Rose
“Hello.”
Maria whipped around and pressed her hand to her chest. “My God, Vitale. You scared me!”
His smile was still oily, but now there was something else in the way he looked at her that really made her feel uncomfortable. She had never been around him all that much, simply because he was Papa’s right-hand man for business. Maria’s domain had been the household. But while she had been taking care of Papa, Vitale had been around constantly. She just didn’t understand why. Shouldn’t he have been managing the business while her father recouperated?
“I know why you’re here.” Vitale took a step closer.
Maria took a step back and found herself crowded against the wall. “And why do you think that is?”
“You believe that your father will give you the leadership of the Sokolov family,” Vitale hissed.
Maria’s mouth popped open in shock. Was this man completely insane? “You think I want to be pakhan?” She had to say it out loud just to hear how bizarre and untrue it really was. “Why would you think that? Have I done something that makes it seem like I have interests that lean in that direction?”
“Your father is going to give the position to me,” Vitale insisted. He drew himself up, which made him look even lankier. Then he put his fist against his chest as though he were trying to beat importance into himself. “I’m the only one fit to lead.”
“Okay.” She held out both hands to try and create space between them. The crazy man kept crowding into her personal space, and it was making her very nervous. “First of all, I cannot imagine why I would ever want to lead a crime family. It’s just not my thing. Second of all, I’m married to a Tarasov. I’m pretty sure that means I’m out of the running for the leadership of the Sokolovs.”
“That will change,” Vitale said cryptically. “Once your marriage is declared invalid, your father will give you to me.” His smile grew almost leering. The way he raked her body with his gaze made her whimper with discomfort. “So if you think to rule through me, you need to understand that it will never happen. I will be pakhan, and I will have no other leaders beside me.”
She swallowed back a shot of fear. “What are you talking about? Who is having my marriage declared invalid?”
“Why else do you think the council is meeting to discuss your situation?” Vitale taunted her. “Don’t worry. It will all be over soon.”
***
“Do any of you know why I’ve called this meeting?” Sasha gazed out at the men who claimed him as their leader. Most of them had been orphans at one time. Some were hereditary Sokolvs. Some were his own relatives from Russia. All were part of Sasha’s family.
Someone raised a hand. Sasha was not surprised to see it was Yuri. The avoritet was one of the most outspoken of the Tarasov clan. “You’ve been summoned by the council. Have you called us here to tell us why?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Sasha admitted. “I know that you are all aware of my wife’s decision to leave me and go home to her Sokolov relatives.”
There was a round of nods and affirmatives. Sasha had a moment’s thought that someday he would really appreciate a little bit of privacy.
Sasha glanced at every man at the conference table. “Then you might understand why the council is concerned. My marriage was arranged and blessed by the council itself. The members have eyes and ears everywhere. Especially in the Sokolov household, where my wife is staying with her father’s family.”
The mutterings turned nasty. Sasha held up his hands and pegged every single man with a very dark look.
“You cannot be angry with her for leaving,” Sasha insisted. “She only did what you wanted her to. How many of you made her feel welcome? How many of you tried to get to know her? How many of you talked about her behind her back or mocked her to her face?”
The men looked chagrined.
“She is a woman!” Sasha was getting angrier by the second. Soon he would say something that would really push his men over the edge. “Not only that, but she is the beloved wife of your pakhan! She is my wife. She will be the mother of my children! And yet all of you made her feel like a disease in her own home. I love her, and you treated her with disdain!”
They looked shocked. He could not blame them. Finally it was Yuri who spoke up. The man glanced around at his brethren. “You really love her?”
“Yes!” Sasha wanted to beat their stupid heads together. “I love her. She is sweet and innocent, and she believes the best about everyone. It is completely impractical, and yet I find it refreshing and very, very comforting to know that no matter how bad things might seem, I still have her smile to come home to.”
There were whispers. He didn’t care how weak or ineffectual he sounded to these men. He did not care that they might be laughing at him behind their stoic faces. Surely somewhere, sometime, at least some of them had loved a woman and knew firsthand what he was talking about.
Yuri lifted his chin and nodded. It appeared that he was speaking for the entire table of avoritets. “We will help you get her back.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Maria tiptoed through the house and prayed she did not meet anyone. She felt like an idiot with the bag from the drugstore stashed beneath her jacket, but she certainly didn’t want to answer any of the uncomfortable questions that would surely arise from that.
The bag made a telltale crinkling noise, and Maria cringed. The only reason she had decided to take a stupid pregnancy test was because of the maids she’d overheard talking about symptoms that morning. Maria had been so sick to her stomach lately, and she was always exhausted. Of course there were a lot of reasons for that stuff. Still, she didn’t care to explain what she was doing to anyone just yet. She bolted through the foyer and up the steps. She’d just barely managed to shut the door to her bedroom suite when someone knocked.
“Who is it?” she called out, trying not to sound out of breath.
“We leave for the council meeting in fifteen minutes.”
Great. Vitale was standing outside her door like some creepy stalker, and she needed an extra ten minutes to take a pregnancy test. How weird was this situation turning out to be?
“Maria?” Vitale knocked again. “Your father requested that you be ready to attend.”
She tried another tactic. “Women don’t attend council meetings.”
“This one is different.” She could actually hear him getting pissed off. “Be ready in fifteen minutes, or I’m breaking the door down and dragging you out by your hair. It makes no difference to me how the task is accomplished.”
Maria didn’t comment. She didn’t have time. She was already halfway to her bathroom while ripping the little cardboard box open. Pulling out the little stick, she gazed at it with distaste. Sometimes being a woman was unnecessarily complicated.
It took only a minute to pee on the test strip. She laid the stick on the sink top, set a timer, and began pacing around her bedroom.
A quick glance in the mirror showed that she could really use a set of fresh clothes and maybe even a shower. How far things had come! There was a time in the not so distant past when she would have been choosing a coordinating outfit for this excursion. Her nails would have been done and her hair impeccable. She would have appeared the perfect wife.
Not anymore. Her blonde hair was pulled up into a messy ponytail. Bits and pieces of tangled hair curled around her forehead and ears. Her sweater and jeans were on the worn side—old clothes she’d left behind when she moved to Sasha’s house—and she was still wearing her favorite sneakers. She just didn’t feel like all that image stuff mattered anymore. Her father had been shot. Her husband had all but admitted that she was nothing more than a business deal. And now she had to go stand in front of the stupid Bratva council and listen to them judge her. Great.
Her timer went off, and Maria jumped in surprise. She made a mad dash to the sink to view the test. The result was oh, so good and oh, so bad. What was she supposed to do now?
***<
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Sasha paced back and forth. Yuri and Aleksei stood behind him with their hands casually clasped before them. He was glad they could be calm, because he couldn’t manage it. The council’s meeting room was hotter than hell, and he was already agitated. The old building belonged to the Orlovs, and for the moment, they had everyone in the Bratva by the balls. It was the one reason he had originally agreed to the marriage alliance. The Sokolovs had a long-standing friendship with the Orlovs. Sasha had hoped to capitalize on it. Now he was afraid that same relationship was going to bite him in the ass.
Boris Orlov sauntered into the room with five of his soldiers at his back. “Hello, Sasha,” Boris said smugly. “I just spoke with Emil. The Sokolovs will be here momentarily.”
“Are they bringing my wife?” Sasha asked tersely. “I’ve not been in touch with her for the last several days.”
“Yes.” Boris cocked his head. “But we’ll get to all that in a moment, won’t we?”
That wasn’t good. Sasha pursed his lips as Boris took his seat at the council table. Soon the representatives from the other five council families sat down as well. There were ten families in the Bratva all together. Only half of them had the power of the council; the rest were just struggling to remain a legitimate voice within the Bratva.
The council table sat on a dais, the council members themselves gazing down upon the attendants in judgment. The setup made Sasha feel like he was in a courtroom. It was not a pleasant sensation. But when the Sokolovs finally arrived, he couldn’t focus on anything but Maria.
She looked tired. He offered her a smile, and she looked away. Was she really still that angry with him? If so, why could they not just talk together? Why this whole bullshit council involvement? What was really going on here?
“If the assembled company will turn their attention to the dais,” Boris droned in his self-important voice. “We will begin the meeting.”
Sasha cleared his throat. “I demand to know what the purpose of this meeting is. I was told to present myself, but not why.”
“This meeting is to determine whether or not this council will dissolve your marriage.” Boris’s smile now held an element of twisted pleasure. “Do you have anything to say about that?”
“Only that I fail to see how the council can dissolve a marriage that was made before God and consummated,” Sasha said quickly. He had to stay calm. If he gave in to the rage that was slowly beginning to make his blood boil, he would murder anyone who thought to take Maria away from him.
Maria was stunned by Boris Orlov’s announcement. Dissolve her marriage? She wasn’t even aware that was possible. And what would that mean for the child she carried? Vitale was breathing down her neck as if he were just waiting for the word. He’d step in and be her husband. All because he believed it would get him a better chance to become the next pakhan of the Sokolovs.
“Excuse me!” Maria called out.
It was really rather amusing to watch the members of the council. They were a bunch of gender-biased old men who had happily decided her fate a few months back without even meeting her. Now she was standing here trying to speak up for herself, and they looked like she’d just squawked like a chicken.
“Excuse me!” she called out in a louder voice. “None of you should be involved in what goes on in my marriage.”
“Your father asked for our help,” Boris pointed out. “Do you deny that he did?”
“No. I simply don’t think he had the right,” she insisted. “My marriage is my business. What goes on between a man and his wife is their business—not yours. I don’t need you mediating my argument with my husband.”
One of the other men—Popov—gaped at her as though he could not believe his own ears. “Excuse me, young lady, but the council has the right to ask about your concerns when they involve an alliance.”
“Then I want to talk to my husband alone,” Maria insisted. “It’s only fair. I have not had a chance to speak with him.”
“Request denied.” Popov folded his arms against his chest.
Maria gave every one of them a dirty look. Then she turned to face Sasha. “I guess we have to have this conversation out in the open.”
“I guess so,” he answered back.
“Do you know why I left?”
“No.” Sasha’s expression was tortured. It surprised her a bit. She hadn’t expected him to be affected by her leaving at all.
“I left because you told me that those guns were just as important as I was.”
He looked baffled. “I said no such thing. I went into that stupid bar to get you. The guns were just a way to get back at the Italians. They belonged to my crazy Ukrainian contacts. The Dinozzos paid dearly for taking my wife.”
“Really?” Why did she feel romantic about that? It was ridiculous!
“They took you. You were just gone!” Sasha fisted his hands in front of him. “Do you know what it was like? I had every Tarasov soldier searching the mall for you! We turned that place upside down, and that was when I knew. So I contacted your father and found out that Grigori had been in touch with your uncles.”
“You really did all of that?” She was astounded at the lengths he had gone to in order to find her. It was sort of…flattering.
Did she really think he would not try to find her when she was missing? What kind of husband did she believe he was? And then Sasha recalled the way his people had been treating her. “I’ve spoken with Oksana and Ana. I’ve talked to all of my men. I never realized how cold your welcome was. You were never accepted, and they believed that you were only there temporarily. That’s not how it is.”
“Really?” She was inching closer to the Tarasov side of the room.
It was time for Sasha to take the plunge. “I love you.”
“You do?” Now her expression turned hopeful. “I thought I was just something you had to put up with for the alliance.”
“I might have said that. I might have felt it, before I got to know you. I don’t remember. But if I did it was a momentarily loss of sanity.” Sasha was really putting himself out there and he could absolutely feel the judgmental stares of everyone in the room. “Or maybe I was saying things to make myself believe that I didn’t need you, because I needed you so much that it frightened me.”
Her expression had softened almost completely. He recognized that warm-hearted woman whom he had shared secrets with in the dark. Then she turned to the council. “You can’t just dissolve my marriage. See?”
Then one of the Sokolovs stepped forward. Sasha recognized Emil’s second in command, Vitale. Vitale stabbed his hand in the air. “This Tarasov bastard has disrespected the daughter of our pakhan after this council demanded they marry! The council should dissolve the marriage.” He thumped himself on the chest. “I will marry Maria and then lead the Sokolvs in Emil’s place once he has gone.”
“Planning a little soon, aren’t we?” Sasha drawled. “Have you already buried the pakhan in your mind? Because I happen to know that Emil has plenty of years left as leader of the Sokolovs. So what’s your angle? Other than stealing my wife?”
“I’m not stealing her,” Vitale insisted. “She was always Sokolov property. Look where she went from your place. She went to the Sokolovs.”
“Enough!”
Everyone in the room whipped around to look at Maria. There was that powerful voice once again. Sasha couldn’t help but smile. She was getting sassy and confident, and he happened to like it. Of course, he’d like it a lot more if they could hurry up and ditch this place and go home to bed.
Maria exhaled a deep sigh and propped her hands on her hips. “You cannot dissolve my marriage, because I am pregnant with Sasha Tarasov’s child.”
There was a round of totally dumbfounded looks and then some nodding. Sasha himself was speechless. Then Maria flung herself into his arms and kissed his neck and his face. He held her in his embrace and knew that he would never, ever let go again.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The
only word to describe Maria’s return to the Tarasov house was “surreal.” She wasn’t sure what she had expected. Probably more of the same. The soldiers’ cool looks of disdain and being completely ignored by the house staff. But that was not at all how it happened.
The change was almost immediate. The Tarasovs lingering on the front porch straightened when they saw the SUV come up the driveway. Maria sensed something expectant in their manner. They were staring at the car as though nothing else in the world mattered at that moment. It was sort of disconcerting.
Maria smoothed her hands down her thighs. Her jeans were worn, and she looked like hell. She hadn’t even considered coming home to an audience. What would they think of her?
“Things will be different,” Sasha murmured. “I promise.”
That phrase could mean more than one thing. “Are they going to lynch me?”
“No, silly!” He gently touched her shoulder before resting his hand on her thigh. “We’ve had a little discussion about how much you mean to me. They’re sorry.”
“What?” She could hardly even process that. They—his men—were sorry?
Then Sasha stopped the car and got out. He strode around the car and opened Maria’s door for her. As he held out his hand to help her down, she felt a pang of emotion so strong that she nearly couldn’t hold herself together. She was nervous and excited, and she felt so scattered that she knew it must be the stupid pregnancy hormones. She was turning into a twit!
“It’s all right,” Sasha told her gently. The look in his dark eyes made her belly drop with eager anticipation.
“Welcome!” One of the men on the steps belted out the word in accented English.
Maria spoke in Russian in return. “Thank you. I’m so glad to be home. I appreciate the warm welcome!”
The men gave a huge shout. They were clapping and laughing and complimenting her efforts to speak Russian. Maria started giggling with them and could not stop. She already felt better. This was going to be good. It was going to be home.
