Page 43 of The Russian's Bought Bride

He nods. “Roman got us in deeper, then the rest of us followed.”

“And you all just run organized crime together?”

His mouth twitches again. “It sounds dramatic when you say it like that.”

“It is dramatic.”

“Maybe.”

I shake my head slightly, still trying to wrap my mind around it and the fact that this is even real. “You don’t really seem like what I expected.”

That earns me a longer look, and one that’s more curious than he has allowed himself before. “What did you expect?”

“I don’t know,” I admit. “Someone crueler.”

He’s quiet for a long moment, considering his words, then he murmurs, “There’s enough cruelty in the world already.”

It’s true enough, and the sentiment lingers between us, especially because he sounds like he means them, and we can both attest to that one way or another.

Something softer settles over the kitchen after that, and while it isn’t necessarily comfortable, it’s easier than it had been. And maybe that’s why I do what I do next.

Maybe grief has broken my self-preservation, or I just want to see if I can crack through that controlled exterior again, but either way, I pick up another cookie, walk up to him, and hold it out in offering.

He looks at it suspiciously, not even moving.

I scoff when he doesn’t take it. “You think I poisoned it?”

“I wouldn’t put it past you.”

“If I somehow managed to acquire poison in this place, then maybe you’re not as good at your job as you think.”

“Stranger things have happened…”

Rolling my eyes at that, I shove the cookie closer to him. “Just take the cookie, Nikolai.”

The second the name leaves my mouth intentionally, I feel something change in me, or maybe in the room itself.

When his gaze locks onto mine, warmth curls unexpectedly low in my stomach, and I can’t bring myself to pull back.

Then, before I can second-guess myself, I murmur, “Unless hardened Bratva men are afraid to take risks on baked goods.”

For one brief second, I fully expect him to scowl or tell me off for making light of his world.

Instead, he laughs, deep and genuine enough that it startles me.

And somehow, impossibly, it makes him even more attractive.

That is a whole new problem I absolutely do not need.

Chapter 13 - Nikolai

I don’t remember the last time I laughed like that.

Not the controlled, polite kind when I need to disarm someone, and not the short, dry amusement I give my brothers during meetings or the occasional smirk after someone says something stupid.

It’s a real laugh, and the kind that feels like something has loosened inside me because of it.

It catches me off guard almost as much as it catches her.