“I don’t care!” she shouted. “You can’t stop me, Alexei. You can’t.”
I sigh. I understand her anger, her pain. Her loyalty to her father is something to be admired.
It’s also dangerous as fuck. “I’m sorry, Isabella.”
She only has time to take a single step back before I grab her around the waist and lift her off her feet and into my arms. She flails and kicks, slapping me in the face as I carry her back to the car.
“Put me down, goddammit!” she shrieks.
I get the back door open and throw her in, shutting the door behind her. By the time, she pops back up, I’m in the driver’s seat and locking the doors. She struggles with opening the door as I pull off. “You bastard!” she screams, kicking the back of myseat. “This is bullshit! You and your stupid Bratva loyalty! Your lives are not worth more than his!”
I have nothing to say in response, and honestly, I don’t disagree with her fundamentally. But facts are facts and what she just did was reckless. We get about a mile away when she kicks my seat hard enough to make me brake hard. The car skids to a halt, the sound of the tires echoing through the air. I park the car and turn around to her.
“He tried to kill me,” I yell at her. “You understand? That can’t go unanswered, Isabella! If one of us took a shot at him or someone else in your family, he would never risk coming to you to warn you about what was coming. What you did was foolish, Isabella. Just being here could get you killed.”
“He’s not some heartlessPakhan,” she spits back at me. “He might not be the best father in the world, but he would protect me if I were in danger.”
“Please, Isabella. He sold you off to me to save his own skin. He’s not your savior.”
“And you are?” Her watery eyes are filled with rage. “What the hell are you saving me from in my own home!”
“It is not your home! Not anymore! You are my wife, now! Whether you like it or not, you are of this brotherhood. Your life is no longer his to protect. It is mine.”
She just stares at me, speechless. I turn back around and put the car in drive, too angry to speak another word.
We drive a little while in silence before my phone rings. Pavel’s number pops up on my dashboard, so I answer it. “Yes?”
“We need you at Father’s house,” he says in Russian. “Now. He’s been arrested.”
I can’t even comprehend that statement.Arrested?“What?” I respond in kind. “How…?”
“The club. It was raided this morning. They’re saying they found several kilos of cocaine on the premises, but that’s bullshit. He never kept drugs there in the clubs. The risk is too high.”
He’s been set up. That’s the implication. Shit. The war truly is on. “Alright. I’m on my way.”
I hang up and I hear from the backseat, “What’s going on?”
I almost don’t want to tell her, but I don’t have time to drop her off back at the penthouse and I can’t trust that she’ll stay there, anyway. She’ll have to come with me while I deal with this madness. “My father was arrested in a raid. Pavel needs me to come to his house. Now.”
She doesn’t say anything for a long few seconds. Then, “What did he do?”
“Nothing. He’s been set up.”
She scoffs.
“I don’t have any details yet, so don’t assume anything.”
“I didn’t say anything,” she says. “But that phone call was too short for you to know for a fact that he was set up. Pavel already has my father figured for the rat, right?”
“When we get there,” I say with a big breath, “you will be expected to keep your mouth shut and do as you are told. If you don’t comply, so help me?—”
“I get it, all right? You’ll carry me out of there like a toddler. Again.”
“Maybe if you didn’t act like one?—”
“Fuck off, Alexei.”
We drive the rest of the way in silence, and thank goodness. It’s not even nine in the morning yet and the day already feels like the longest in the world.
