Chapter 2

Ha, ha, ha. Life is a joke. I always knew that fate, God, or just the world—whatever a person wants to believe—had a funny sense of humor. Maybe being the spare, as my father loved to call me, has given me extra time to think and more space to analyze just what a comedic mess the world can be.

Mila Petrov looks up at me, her hair gorgeously dark and curly, her eyes wide and curious, her lips curved into a nervous smile. Her body has me almost forgetting that she's my brother's bride-to-be. I nearly grab her hips and pull her right up against me.

"When you meet Dimitri," I say, trying to keep my voice casual so she can't hear just how much she's messing with my head, "you'll see how different we are. You'll laugh."

"Yeah," she says quietly. "I bet."

She looks frightened, making it challenging to keep my usual smirk on my face. That's usually the best way to deal with the world. Just smirk at it like the big joke it is.

"Do you need anything?" I ask.

"Maybe the Wi-Fi passcode?" she asks.

"I guess you want to check in with your friends," I reply, nodding.

The way her eyes snap open wide, then quickly narrow as if she should feel guilty for letting her anger show makes me want to hug her. Before my father took his own life, he told my older brother that if he didn't marry Mila, he had made arrangements to give the city to Nikolai, Mila's father. Nikolai Petrov doesn't have a good reputation. Marrying Mila would be the right move. Yet suddenly, the idea sickens me.

"I don't have social media," she says after a pause. "I just want to continue with my work."

"Work?" I ask.

"I'm learning how to make websites," she says, with an adorable note of pride in her voice.

This is getting funnier by the second. So not only is Mila Petrov the only woman I've ever met who makes me feel, well, makes me feel, full stop, but she also has the same passion as me. I can hear the enthusiasm. I can see it. It makes me want to kiss her even more, but that's not saying much. Everything she does, I bet, will make me want to do that. She lit something inside me the moment I laid eyes on her.

"I'll give you the password," I say, walking over to the desk and jotting it down on a notepad. "But I should warn you …"

I trail off when I turn back to her. She's watching me in a cautious, captivating way. I don't know what she thinks about me. I want to, desperately, for some reason.

"W-warn me?" she stutters when I don't go on.

I was going to tell her that if she uses the internet to feed information to her father, we're going to have a problem. But I can't bring myself to threaten her. I might be the spare, but every Bratva man sometimes has to do bad things. However, I can't with Mila.

"The connection can be choppy," I tell her, bailing out.

"Oh, okay. I'm sure I'll survive."

"I'll leave you to it, then."

I quickly leave the room, my heart pounding so damn hard, my head swimming with thoughts of Mila Petrov. What if I'd just kissed her right then? What if I'd slid my hand around her waist, down to her thick ass, massaged, and indulged?

"Are you okay?" Ania asks, waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs.

My half-sister has always caused a mix of emotions in me. She's a clear sign Konstantin cheated on my mother. However, as Dimitri has reminded me many times, our father probably cheated on her dozens, if not hundreds of times, and it's not Ania's fault. That's true. Maybe it's my eighteen-year-old half-sister's thin build or how she unnervingly stares at whoever she's talking to.

"Yeah, fine. Why?"

She shrugs, making me feel guilty. My tone came out too harsh, but dammit. I want to return to Mila's side again—my brother's future wife.

I reach out and touch her hand, making myself do it. Ania doesn't deserve my coldness. "Thanks for asking," I tell her.

"What's she like?" Ania says a moment later.

"Why don't you go and say hello?"

Ania's eyes flash with nerves, and she shakes her head. "Maybe later. I want to practice some more."

Ania spends much of her time in the underground studio practicing ballet. Just like me with programming, it's her escape. I head to the gym, blasting music and lifting wights. As different as Dimitri and I are, at least we have this in common. When we want to distract ourselves, we lift until our muscles burn.

After showering, I step into the kitchen to make some coffee. Mila is standing in the garden, her back to me, letting me stare like a creep at the hourglass shape of her body. When she folds her arms across her middle, something in her posture tells me she's used to being afraid. My blood boils at the thought, and I find myself wishing I could beat the crap out of any monster who'd ever make her feel that way.

"Good workout?" Ania says, appearing behind me. That's another of her habits that freaks me out. She just appears silently, like a ninja or an eighty-pound woman with ballet slippers.

"It was all right," I reply. "Have you met Mila yet?"

Ania nods. "We said hello. She seems withdrawn. Nervous?"

"She's being forced to marry a man she doesn't even know," I snap, heading for the door.

I feel like an ass. Ania doesn't deserve to be spoken to like that. At the same time, thinking of Mila with Dimitri makes me want to howl. He has to marry her unless he wants the Petrovs to take over Vegas. One of the major differences between us and the Petrovs is that Nikolai Petrov has a large hand in human trafficking. We don't. If he took over Vegas, countless would suffer.

So why does thinking of my brother even touching Mila make me want to hurt him?

Mila doesn't turn as I step outside. I walk up beside her, making enough noise not to frighten her. She's got her arms folded tightly, staring into the pool.

"Everything okay?" I ask lamely, but I'm not sure what else to say. I have to be cold and keep my distance. She might be here to marry my brother, but she's still the enemy—a very lovely one.

"Fine," she mutters.

"Dimitri should be home soon."

She folds her arms even tighter. I don't let myself look down at her for too long. The position of her arms only works to bring attention to her big tits, making them even more tempting. I feel like a bloody teenager when my rod stiffens.

"He's a good person," I tell her, ignoring my growing erection. "He won't hurt you."

"But I won't love him," she replies, still staring at the water, "and he won't love me."

"Maybe he will," I say.

It hurts to force those words out. If Dimitri did love her, it would just piss me off. No, that's an understatement. It would force me to leave and forget I was ever a Sokolov. I couldn't watch them.

Snap out of it, Mikhail. Dammit, what am I thinking? She's nobody to me.

Mila doesn't respond, but she doesn't need to. She obviously would prefer not to be here, and can I blame her? Even if she doesn't want to meet him, she's gone through the effort of changing into a skirt that makes the tip of my cock ache. Her legs are so thick, so voluptuous. I think about gently biting into her thickness, tasting her sweat, kissing and nibbling up her leg, and her sweet …

I turn when I hear a motion in the kitchen and head inside. When I see Dimitri, I say hello to my older brother. He's the heir, the first in line, not the spare, and anybody could tell just by looking at him. He's got close-trimmed hair and a semipermanent serious look on his face.

"What?" Dimitri says, reading my expression.

I don't plan on saying this, but I lower my voice. "I don't think she wants to do this."

What the hell am I doing? Coming between him and Mila might improve my life. However, it will worsen many people's lives if Dimitri reneges on the deal and Nikolai Sokolov takes over the city, but I can't help myself. She feels like mine.

"And I do? Any progress?"

Dimitri claims he's unbothered by our father's death. I haven't claimed anything like that since I've always found the old, cruel bastard confusing. I hate myself for the confusion, but that doesn't eliminate it.

"Stop looking at me like that," he says after a pause, his dark mood clear.

"It's been a day," I tell him, referring to how long I've been searching for the rats in our organization. Before our father died, he basically admitted that he and Nikolai planted people in the Sokolov Bratva. Meaning we don't know who we can trust. I've got several programs running to look into people.

"I've started work, brother," I go on, "but it might take a week. Maybe two. This is some serious digging."

"Hmm. I better go say hello."

I shouldn't let myself stay here. It's just going to drive me even crazier. I end up standing at the kitchen window. When Mila hears him coming, she looks over her shoulder in the most beautiful, come-here way. I squeeze the counter, wishing I was the one she was looking at like that.

She touches her skirt and does a bow-curtsey combo that seems awkward and rehearsed. Of course, it does. She doesn't want to be with him, but that doesn't mean she wants to be with me, does it?

They have a short conversation, maybe a minute or even a little less. My head starts heating up like there's a bomb in there getting ready to blow. When Dimitri returns to the house, I walk into his path, focusing too hard on not clenching my fists or letting my emotions show.

"Is everything okay?" I ask.

"It's fine," he says shortly.

"That didn't take very long."

What am I doing, exactly? Do I want to force Dimitri to win her over? Do I want to condemn myself to a life of watching them together when I feel this strange longing for her?

"How long is hello supposed to take?"

"You just left her out there."

"Then show her where the bedroom is. You're the underboss now, remember?"

I haven't technically agreed to that, but Dimitri seems majorly pissed. I don't bother mentioning she already knows where her bedroom is. Seeing him like this is rare, but he was on the phone when our father ended it. It's not like he's just going to be okay, magically. When Dimitri tries to storm away, I walk right into his path. I'm the only person alive who would dream of confronting Dimitri Sokolov like this.

"Look, it's okay to mourn him. I know he had his problems, but it's okay."

"You think this is about our father?"

Dimitri tries to bump me out of the way with his shoulder, but he's forgetting I'm big and strong, too. I don't budge.

"What is it, then?" I ask. "Something's different with you.

"Can you blame me?"

His tone gets even lower, containing even more confusion and sadness. This time, when he tries to leave, I let him.

There's no point keeping him here to beg him to be nicer to her. A cynical smirk touches my lips. The two ideas that pop into my head almost have me laughing like a loon. The first is the idea that I could want somebody this badly this quickly. The second is that I'd try to persuade my brother to take this woman from me when I crave her like nothing else.

Mila remains outside, her back still turned. I watch her as my pulse stutters in my neck. It's like an animal trying to get free. There's suddenly all this life in me, hunger and passion that never existed before. She's even got me wondering that if I'm passionate about programming, that's nothing compared to this new feeling.

My gaze moves to her legs. Her calves look like they were sculpted for the sole purpose of driving me crazy. She's thick and beautiful and so sexy. I want to touch her and run my hands slowly over her body.

She turns and catches me staring. As she walks toward the house, she looks somehow determined. When she steps inside, she gives me a look, opens her mouth, says nothing, and walks away. I spend the next several minutes making a coffee and trying to decode the look she gave me: hard, angry eyes, soft, pursed lips, her cheeks a glowing red. I wonder if I'm nuts for letting myself believe there was desire hiding in there somewhere.