ALEKSEI
CHAOS UNFURLED AROUND ME as breakfast preparations were made, but all I could fixate on was the simple text Igor had sent me last night.
Home. Now!
That was all the text said, but I could feel the fury behind it all the way from Russia. I sighed, pushing my hair out of my face. I must have really pissed my old man off because he didn't do texts. He claimed it was too 'basic' and 'beneath him', whatever the fuck that meant. He preferred his email chains.
I clicked the exit button on my phone, closing the text he sent me. I clicked on Ariana's text next, against my better judgment.
This was my fifteenth time checking the text since she sent it last night. Yes, I was counting. It was an unhealthy fixation. One I was powerless to. I promised myself I'd delete the text chain and forget all about it, but I eventually found myself scrolling through our chain of texts.
Oddly enough, I always wished people around me would stop talking. It was different with her. I wanted to hear what she sounded like. She'd succeeded in intriguing me just through her text messages. They packed enough attitude behind them that it made me wonder what she'd sound like spilling those words from her mouth.
I read her last text again, and my amusement dropped.
You're Bratva scum, after all. Always looking for lives to ruin.
My mother had shared the same sentiments as her in her last days, but I couldn't hold it against her. Neither of them. How a woman like my mother ended up with Igor remained a mystery to me, but Mikhail liked to remind me that love was blind.
Until it wasn't.
She finally started to see her husband in his true colors when she neared her deathbed, and she didn't like what she found after being oblivious to it for years. Mikhail and I had suffered the brunt of her episodes when she couldn't reconcile the heartless criminal with the man she was obsessed with.
Igor sure didn't care about her or her well-being anymore. She'd lost his interest, after all.
The only reason he kept her around after she birthed two sons for him was because of said sons. He said a little soft wouldn't hurt. If only he knew that 'soft' involved cleaning up dried vomit and disinfecting knife wounds.
Mikhail's voice floated into my head.
Forget about her. Let's go start something for ourselves one day.
I chanced a look at my little brother, who was goofing around with the Samoyed he'd roped me into buying.
I didn't even like dogs, but there were only a few things I wouldn't do for him. Like joining his threesome parties or orgies.
He was the reason I had found the courage to leave Russia. I wanted a better life for him. He wasn't cut out for the brutal work Igor forced him to do at ten. Taking care of him was the least I could do after I let our mother slip between my fingers.
"No more treats for you, you greedy fucker," he said, waving the last treat in front of Villentretenmerth.
Yes, he named his dog after a character from a fantasy TV series he wouldn't get his head out of. He claimed it made the dog sound badass.
Villentretenmerth was scared of his own fucking shadow.
And yes, his name was a fucking mouthful, so Mikhail shortened it to just Villen. Why he couldn't go with a normal name in the first place was as good as anyone's guess as mine.
I returned my gaze to my now black screen. I opened the phone again, exiting the messaging app totally before answering some work emails on my phone, banishing every thought of Ariana from my head. She had no place being there at all.
Like I'd conjured her by just thinking about her, the door opened, and she walked in clad in dark slacks and a blouse that hugged her frame.
Speak of the devil.
Her heels clicked on the floor as she made her way down to the table, all the way to the far end directly facing me, only she didn't lift her gaze once to acknowledge me.
I cast discreet glances her way as she dug into her breakfast, blissfully ignoring our presence in the dining room. Mikhail found her amusing, and he wouldn't stop grinning like a madman. It wasn't every day a woman ran the opposite way when they saw him, after all.
He was a ladies' man, as he liked to call himself, and he prided himself on his natural charm that had women falling head over heels for him.
It was safe to say that charm was failing him today, and I couldn't help but crack a smile at Mikhail. Ariana couldn't give two fucks about him. He flipped his middle finger at me, and I chuckled, downing a piece of toast with some coffee.
I caught a flash of the bracelet around Ariana's wrist as she brought a piece of bacon to her lips, the shiny metal mocking me as it glinted under the chandeliers.
That fucking bracelet again.
Cold fury pricked at my skin, desperately trying to claw its way out and unleash destruction on her for going against me and choosing another man over me when we were married. I pushed the thought away before I could act on it, dropping my utensil on my plate.
I cleared my throat to get her attention, and sure enough, she looked up from her plate, curiosity eating up her entire face.
"I don't tolerate infidelity, and I certainly do not appreciate you wearing another man's declaration of love to our wedding," I said, fixing her with one of my intimidating stares that had men twice her age pissing their pants, only she held my gaze with a defiant one of hers.
"You'll take off that bracelet immediately, and you'll forget about whatever man you were seeing," I continued when she didn't pull her phone out to text me. "You're mine now, and I won't tolerate another man fucking my wife behind my back."
Just thinking about it cast a red haze over my vision. Over my dead body would I allow that.
Instead of reacting, Ariana rose to her feet, picking up her bag. Anger clung to the air around her like armor. She was going to walk out on me, I realized, and that only quadrupled my anger.
"You'll sit while I'm speaking to you, Ariana."
She ripped her phone out of her bag, shooting off a text to me with anger marring her features. Fuck that barely-contained fury filled her eyes, rolling off of her in waves.
I reached for my phone before it beeped.
"Stop talking to me like you're my father."
I scowled. "Stop acting like a brat. Sit the fuck down. We're still in the middle of a conversation."
"Barking orders at me isn't a conversation, in case you have things confused. Where were you last night?"
"That's none of your business," I snapped after reading the text. If she was implying I went off to cheat, I'd be even more pissed at her.
I had urgent work to get done last night, and while I was weirdly intrigued by the girl, I didn't trust her enough to tell her every move I made. She wasn't privy to such information until she earned my trust, which by the way things were going was never.
The next text came before I could string two thoughts together.
"Who I fuck should also be none of your business."
I glared at her, letting my disdain for her show. "Don't be ridiculous. You are my wife. I won't let you disrespect me like that. Especially not in front of the whole world."
"Don't worry. I'll be discreet with my infidelity. And spoiler alert: you can't have what was never yours. I'm not yours, Mr. Tarasov. The vows we said at the altar were nothing but a mockery. Don't read meaning into it. I won't."
The minute she sent the text to my phone, she escaped the dining hall, leaving me brewing with anger. That seemed to be my MO since I put my ring on her finger, permanently tying her to me.
Mikhail pushed back his chair, fleeing the dining hall. Wisely so. I didn't want anyone in my orbit when I was this angry.
Villen moved from his position by Mikhail's chair to the door, flopping down by it, completely erasing me out of his immediate environment. He was smart, after all.
I'll be discreet with my infidelity.
I replayed that sentence in my head repeatedly until my anger could barely be held in any longer. I swept my breakfast off the table, watching as expensive plates shattered into pieces on the floor.
It did nothing to ease the anger in me. If anything, it fueled my anger, bringing back unsavory memories.
From the door, I felt Villen's gaze on me, silently judging like he always did. I glared back at him, mentally flipping him off. Fuck him. He could go fucking judge—
I paused mid-thought, falling back into my chair.
"Fuck!" I pushed my hair out of my face.
I was arguing with a fucking dog. A dog!
Christ. I needed professional help.
I stared up at the ceiling, mentally sorting out every move I'd made in the last week.
Was Igor right?
Was marrying Ariana not worth it?
I didn't have time to dwell on the thought before the door opened and Mikhail strolled in, whistling a stupidly annoying tune.
He eyed the mess on the floor, a massive grin pulling at his lips. "Okay, I guess I'm not half as bad. I've never made you break plates in your anger fits."
No, he just made me want to point a gun at my temple and pull the trigger.
"You have your work cut out for you, brother. Ariana doesn't like you one bit."
No fucking shit.
"She even asked me if we could send you to hell." He laughed at the last sentence a little too hard.
I scoffed. That sounded like something she would say.
"I don't have any work cut out for me. I just have to keep her in line for as long as I can, so the Italians don't strike. That's all I need to do with her. Nothing more. Nothing less," I recited to my brother, my voice monotone.
It was a little speech I'd put together for myself after I stroked myself in the shower to the thoughts of her lips sucking me dry.
"You also have to figure out how to play nice by her and get her to put out for you. I don't suppose you'll go get your dick wet somewhere else?"
"Fuck no!" I hissed, my nose wrinkling in disgust.
I was a lot of things, but a cheat wasn't one of them. If I was committed, I was fucking committed. To me, marriage was the highest form of commitment between two people.
My father had taught me what not to be if I ever got married.
I wouldn't fuck around on her outside our marriage even if she didn't let me fuck her. I'd die of blue balls if that was the case.
It was better to split if the relationship was no longer serving its purpose, or the both parties involved.
A lesson my mother hadn't learned, and I was left picking up the pieces of her that my father shattered every passing day until I couldn't anymore.
The only problem I had was getting it through my wife's skull that I expected her to extend the same courtesy to me, or I'd end up killing every man who put his hands on her.
She said our vows were a mockery, but I meant every word I said at that altar.
Ariana Rossi was mine and mine alone, and I'd be damned if I let anyone else have her.
"Good," Mikhail said, dragging me out of my murderous thoughts, and back into the present. "I can't stand cheaters." He clamped his hand down on my shoulder, squeezing lightly. "Gonna swing by the office later today. Byt' bezopasnym." [TL: Be safe]
I nodded, squeezing his hand on my shoulder. "Vsegda." [TL:
With one last pat on my shoulder, Mikhail bade me goodbye and went on with his day.
Me? I fucking planned.