He took a seat across my table. “At leastI’mnot the one sulking in the dark.” He flashed me a corny grin.
My brows knitted together, forming creases between them. “Say that again. I dare you.”
He laughed lightly, reclining in his chair. “Relax, brother. I mean no disrespect.”
“What do you want?”
“Since when did it become a crime to check on my brother?” He grabbed the bottle of whiskey on my table and poured himself a glass.
“Since checking in now feels like babysitting.”
He let out a quiet chuckle and lifted the glass to his lips. After taking a sip, he looked at me and said, “It’s time to move on, Adrik. It’s time to open a new chapter.”
I squinted my eyes at him.
“Or at least, revisit an old one.” He sipped his whiskey again. Artur cleared his throat and leaned in. “I know you don’t wanna hear this, but…with Richard gone, the Bratva’s looking at another candidate for a, uh….”
I stared right at him, knowing where he was going with this.
“…potential marriage.”
I took a second, my gaze unwavering. “They want me to remarry?”
“Don’t look at me like that; it wasn’tmyidea.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose, hating how my loyalty to the Bratva was turning me into a puppet.
“They’re considering Yelena,” he explained. “Her father is just as powerful as Pakhan Artem. An alliance between both families would benefit the family business.”
The Bratva elites who had come to this conclusion must’ve been a bunch of baboons. Why hadn’t they just matched me with Yelena from the beginning? Why’d they convince Pakhan Artem to pair me with the Beaumont granddaughter?
Those crazy old men knew about my affair with Yelena. Yet they’d chosen to match me with Richard’s granddaughter. Now that things didn’t go their way, they wanted me to go back to the woman I’d dumped.
How convenient for them!
At this point, I didn’t even care anymore. If my orders were to remarry, then that’s what I’d do. Except this time, I wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice.
If I somehow ended up marrying Yelena, the two of us would live like total strangers in this house. I wasn’t the man I used to be—the man she used to know. And I could only hope for her sake that she was strong enough to tolerate this new version of me.
Chapter 27 – Emika
One year.
That was how long it took me to get my act together, to gather back the pieces of what had been broken. It took a lot of effort to finally find myself again: my spark and the kindness that made me Emika Morgan.
My classmate, Josh, played a huge role in reshaping me into the woman they all knew me to be. We became close over time, but even at that, I was still as secretive as ever. Nobody knew too much about me because I only shared fragments of what I decided should be public knowledge.
My friendship with Josh was strictly platonic. No weird emotions or anything like that. He had a girlfriend in Fine Arts, Tiffany. She hadn’t liked me at first because in her mind, I was pretty enough to snatch her boyfriend.
It wasn’t until recently that she began loosening up around me after she realized that I had no interest in Josh.
No offense. But eww.
He wasn’t bad at all. In fact, he was a ladies’ man; tall, clean-shaven, pale blue eyes, and a lean, athletic frame. Plus, the boy was a genius, not to mention assistant captain of the football team.
Josh was like a mini celebrity, loved by many, disliked by a few. And even until now, I’d yet to understand why he chose to be my friend all of a sudden. We’d spent years in the same class and never spoke to each other.
Yet, out of the blue, he showed up for me when I was falling to pieces and was losing myself. He took a chance on me, tolerated my bad behavior, and kept showing up until I had no choice but to give in.
