17. Alek

17

ALEK

N ow that I'd had Mila once, I wanted her again. Lying here on the bed was torture. She was within reach, just over here, an arm's length away.

I didn't move any closer. Distance would help her adjust to what I explained. I saw how much she struggled to understand, and I couldn't fault her for her naiveté. She was so damn young, so inexperienced with this world. Her father had sheltered her all her life, and now that she'd broken out of that existence, I bet she felt like her whole purpose was shattered.

I'd turned her life upside down, but I stood by my reasoning. It would be for the better. This was the only solution that would ensure my success and her survival.

Because in just these few short days that I'd known her, I didn't want to entertain the possibility of losing her. It didn't make sense how quickly and deeply she'd gotten under my skin. But she had.

I didn't plan to stop that wedding so I could take her for myself. I'd only gone to Plan B and kidnapped her so she wouldn't be able to marry Andrey. Not because I'd coveted her for myself. Now that I'd had her, now that I'd realized how fucking perfect she felt with me, I couldn't imagine releasing her.

I wouldn't be returning her to her father. I wouldn't consider letting Andrey have her now.

She was mine, and I intended to keep her.

As she lay there still and silent, brooding about what I said, I felt at ease. She could take her time. No matter how she chose to view these circumstances and no matter how she tweaked her perspective on the changes that had been forced on her, I would not change my mind.

Before her wedding, she'd been on my mind. I'd struggled to stop thinking about her, and that was from just a mere interaction at that shipping office.

Now that she'd been here with me, arguing or grinding back against me to come faster, I knew I'd never be able to cast her out of my mind.

Mila had spirit. She had fire. And she would be an ideal woman to help me bring the Valkov Bratva back to the top. I wasn't tricking myself into thinking I knew everything about her, but of the little I'd witnessed so far, I just knew. She was the kind of no-nonsense woman with the right amount of backbone to not only survive in our world, but also to contribute to it. I suspected that she was a maternal sort, a woman who would want to nurture and help. Someone who'd be inclined to help repair the chaos within my family. Women were submissive to the bratva men, but I also knew that with the right wife at my side, she could help me make the Valkov Bratva seem like a family again, not just an operation held together with shitty leadership.

They way things used to be, like when I was a boy and my grandfather was the Pakhan. When I was too small to understand all the violence as my grandmother helped to nurture me.

Mila staying with me—in marriage and life—had to be the solution to this mess. If I sent her home, she'd be as good as dead. Yusef couldn't have been lying when he predicted that Sergei would ensure Mila's death. I couldn't bear to think of her being taken from me like that. One time with her was nowhere near enough, and already, I looked forward to enjoying her sweet, sexy body again. Over and over, I would take my fill of her.

I glanced at her, wondering if that was the point that stuck the worst. She had to understand that she no longer had a family, no longer had a home with her father. He wanted to end her.

Pavel had never tried to kill me. We'd both viewed each other with malice and disrespect, but he'd never escalated to the point of eliminating me like a pest he didn't want to deal with any longer.

Perhaps killing me wouldn't have even mattered. Or he was too spiteful to ever lift his hand and kill the son of his brother, another he had murdered.

After my action at the wedding, though, I'd guaranteed a hit on my own head. Pavel was out for my blood. According to my brothers, he was furious and raging to bring me down. If he were to get ahold of me, he'd kill me on the spot. But that was different. I'd warranted that. I'd caused his fury by going against his will.

Mila had done nothing to deserve her father's wrath. She'd only served and worked as expected, going so far in her duty as to show up for that ill-fated wedding. She clung to the assumption that her virgin pussy was all that lent her any worth, but now that I had it, now that I'd claimed her, that power belonged to me.

She belonged to me.

Finally, she broke the silence with a grunt of a laugh. "You're crazy."

That's not the first time I've been called that. I bit back a wicked grin.

"We can't get married, Alek." She rolled her head on the pillow and gave me a droll look.

"We will."

She shook her hands, still bound over her head. The emphasis of her restraints amused me. They weren't cutting off her circulation. She was as comfortable as possible, but I knew I couldn't rely on them for good.

"How the hell could we get married if I'm hidden and tied up like an animal in a cage?"

Like an animal in a cage? I rolled my eyes at her theatrics. "I'll get a priest."

"To come here?" She scoffed.

"No." Ever since Yusef broke in, I debated with the urgency to relocate. If he found us here, someone else could get close. Staying stationary would be foolhardy.

"I'll make it legal. With a priest somewhere else." I held her gaze as I swore it. "You'll be my wife in every way, Mila."

Once more, she scoffed, stuck in that stubborn disbelief. "I still say you're crazy. You kidnap me from my wedding so you can plan your own with me?"

I studied her expressive face, grateful that she wasn't prone to hysterics. I doubted many other women could have this degree of levelheadedness to so calmly discuss our situation. The more I considered it, I realized this was likely the most input she'd had yet about her wedding at all. I was under no illusion that this all had to be fucking with her head. She was a captive here, under my rule as I called the shots. Still, she didn't adopt a hopelessness as my prisoner. She could… work with me.

"I didn't take you from your wedding knowing that you would instead end up being my bride."

She rolled her eyes.

"But now that the circumstances have fallen into place like this, it makes the most sense to marry."

"According to you," she sassed.

I nodded. "Yes." Of course, this would happen as I saw fit.

"I still say you're only asking for trouble to marry me."

I almost smiled, reminded of how she'd said that before. She'd told me that she knew I was trouble the first time she saw me, and I felt the same about her. The longer I spent with her, the more I came to realize that she offered a good sort of challenge in my life. Not a threat or danger.

"I agree. I'm stirring things up and welcoming chaos by marrying you. But it needs to be done. This war has to happen to change what has been the status quo for too long."

She sighed and shook her head as she nestled it on the pillow. "You're still crazy," she repeated, resigned with something like amusement in her tone. "You want to marry me, to align yourself with me as you see fit, but you don't trust me enough to untie me?"

I looked at her wound, then her bindings. "Not yet."

She shot me a beady-eyed glare as I sat up quickly and retrieved my phone from the table. I did my best to ignore the burn of her stare on me as I paced, needing to move as I set preparations in place.

First, I would contact my brothers and request their help in making my wedding possible.

If Yusef hadn't broken in here to try to kill Mila, I wasn't sure if I would've jumped as quickly on this decision to marry her. I was being rash. The idea had come to me suddenly as I disposed of the soldier's body, but I didn't require more time to think it through. Marrying her was the best logical reaction to the news of the hit placed on her by her father. And I'd stand by my choice.

I began with Nik, counting on him to show the least amount of shock with my update. He didn't pick up, though. In the time that it took me to scroll through my contacts to reach Ivan instead, Nik texted.

Nikolai: Busy at the moment. Do you need something?

Aleksei: Prepare to be a witness at my wedding.

I dialed Ivan before replying to the many texts that Nik fired my way in response.

Ivan didn't answer either, but I wasn't worried. They had to hide. They had to investigate that bullshit at the docks. Pavel had placed targets on them, and I knew they would take extreme care and caution to be safe as they did as I'd instructed.

I finally reached Maxim, and to his credit, he didn't sound distressed when he picked up.

"I need you to find a priest to officiate my marriage to Mila."

"Mila?" He coughed in surprise. " You're going to marry her?"

"It's a long story to explain. I will fill you in later with all the details. Right now, it's imperative that we marry as quickly as possible." I glanced at her resting. It seemed all the ups and downs had finally caught up to her and exhausted her.

"As legally as possible, too," I added. "Find a priest. Pay him to come to a secure location. Once you have it arranged, I need you and another brother to witness the ceremony."

"Fuck, Alek." He scoffed on the other line, and I bet he was raking his hand through his thick hair, his tell for being agitated. "This is… this is insane."

I smirked. "Crazy? Yeah, it is, but I know what I'm doing."

"What's the point of marrying her? I thought you were convinced that aligning with the Kastavas will ruin us."

"Not unless I take her as my bride and end their Family in the same blow."

"How?"

I paced, rubbing the back of my neck as all the stress and fighting caught up to me in a physical sense. I was tired, too, and a good night of rest would make me clearheaded enough to take Mila as my bride tomorrow.

"Because they want to use her to begin the next generation. As Kastavas, not Valkovs. She's mine now, and I will determine the future of her—our—children. Not Sergei fucking Kastava."

Maxim swore, immediately uneasy, as I expected he'd be. "How do you know of his plans? We're trying to get an angle on the shipment and figure out who this third party is with the Colver dock arrangement, and you seem to be going on a different approach with all of this."

"I'll explain later. A soldier snuck in to try to kill her."

"Who put a hit on her?" he demanded.

"Sergei Kastava."

As he reacted, cursing and asking more questions that I tried to answer the best I could, my patience wore thin. "You'll help me?"

"Yeah. Yes, Alek. I'll help. I'll get it ready and text you once I find a secure place," he replied.

"Good. Thank you, Brother."

After I hung up, I felt elated and excited. Stealing Mila from her wedding had caused a lot of commotion.

But I joined her on the bed knowing that marrying her in the morning would incite much more chaos.

Everything we needed to prove to Sergei, Pavel, and the rest of the world that I would be in charge from here on out.