Page 6 of The Pakhan’s Stolen Bride

I see the black SUV waiting like a hearse.

I see the smoke rising from the church doors.

I start to scream.

2

ILYA

"YOU ARCH-VILLAIN SON OF A BITCH! PUT ME DOWN! I WILL BITE YOUR FREAKING EAR OFF! DO YOU HEAR ME?"

She’s been screaming since I threw her over my shoulders, a high-pitched sound that’s currently vibrating directly into my kidney.

Most women scream when I take them—a thin, pathetic sound that dies in their throats when they realize no one is coming to save them.

But this girl? She doesn't stop. She even has the audacity to threaten me.

I adjust my grip on her thighs, hoisting her higher over my shoulder.

The white lace of her wedding dress is scratchy against my neck, and the sheer volume of fabric is a goddamn nightmare to navigate through the rubble.

"Dimitri," I grunt, not looking back.

"Path’s clear, Boss," my second-in-command says. I hear the rhythmic thud-thud-thud of his rifle as he picks off the last of Petr’s stragglers near the side exit. "SUV is idling. We need to move. The police are ten minutes out, and they aren't paid enough to ignore a cathedral exploding."

I don't respond. I’m too busy trying to keep the bride from kicking me in the windpipe.

"Let! Me! Go!" she shrieks, punctuating each word with a fist to my lower back. "You’re a dead man! My father is going to have your head on a⁠—"

I’ve had enough. I stop in the middle of the debris-strewn alleyway. I swing my hand back and deliver a stinging, loud crack of a spank right across the center of her lace-covered ass.

Smack.

The sound echoes off the brick walls. Via goes stiff as a board, her breath hitching in a sharp, incredulous gasp.

"Shut the fuck up, Viallentinka," I growl, my voice sounding like it was dragged through a gutter. "Or I will reach into that pretty mouth and pull your tongue out by the root. Do you understand me?"

She doesn't answer. Good. I reach the SUV and Dimitri flings the door open. I drop her onto the leather seat and climb in right after her, slamming the door shut.

The lock engages with a heavy, metallic clunk—the sound of a tomb closing.

She scrambles to the far side of the seat, her hair a wild, golden bird’s nest of tangled curls and pieces of stone dust.

Her veil is hanging off one ear, and her lipstick is smeared. She doesn’t look broken. She looks ready to clear my claw my eyes out.

I take a breath, trying to steady my own pulse.

The adrenaline from the hit is still humming in my veins, but there’s something else there now. Something darker.

I think back to an hour ago.

I’d seen her file. I’d seen the grainy surveillance photos of the "Bratva Princess" sitting in the back of black cars or walking through her father’s gardens. In the photos, she looked soft. Delicate. Like a piece of porcelain Petr had spent twenty years polishing. I hadn't even really looked at her face. I was too busy calculating the interest on Mikhail’s debt. To me, she was just a line item, a piece of leverage to be traded.

Then I walked through those doors.

The smoke was clearing, and I saw her standing there on that altar. She was trembling so hard, I thought she might actually shatter. She looked like she was on the verge of death from pure terror. In that split second, it amused me.

I like fear. I understand it.