Chapter 4

The world is a joke and not a funny one. I pace around the bedroom, my computer completely forgotten, my chest feeling like it's burning with rage, passion, and a severe sense of ownership. When I heard the floorboards creaking, I opened the door, expecting to find Ania sleepwalking.

But what I saw instead …

Even with the bitter hatred twisting through me, I can't stop wanting and needing her. She was wearing a bathrobe, the perfect shapeliness of her legs on full display. Was she naked underneath?

When she asked me if I was a programmer, I blanked her. I can't let myself learn more about her or, worse, flirt with her. I'll only want her more. I need to get a grip on this. I'm unsure how long I pace, but I can't sit still. My instincts are telling me to run into Dimitri's bedroom and pull him away from her. I feel like I'm in physical pain.

"Fuck," I grunt, heading for my bedroom door.

I know this is the stupidest thing I could do. I'm supposed to be loyal to the Sokolov Bratva, not my hunger. I'm especially not supposed to kick down the door while my brother and his wife-to-be are having sex for the first time. Yet, with each step, I feel more confident. This hunger deep within tells me this is the right thing to do—the only thing to do.

As I pull open the door, my head is rushing. Typically, my mind is a battleground of code and ideas and, sometimes, the bad things I've done to keep this Bratva going. I've never done anything evil, but I've hurt people. Maybe they deserved it, but still. I've never wanted to harm my older brother, not seriously, anyway.

That's changing now. I can't stop thinking about Mila with Dimitri, their bodies intertwined, grinding together in a way that makes me feel so sick I think I might puke. The idea of them together makes me want to hurt something. If I see them, what then? I love Dimitri, even if he can be a cold bastard. I don't want to hurt him, but I can't let anyone else touch her, either.

I turn down the hallway, my fists clenched at my sides. Then I hear Dimitri's door open. Instinct sends me partially down the nearest hallway. I press myself against the wall, my heartbeat loud in my ears, listening for a snatch of conversation

or … Hell, I can't pretend I've got a plan here.

When Mila walks past me, she's alone. Her eyes are red, as though she's been crying. What the fuck? What did Dimitri say to her? What did he do? I can't imagine my brother doing anything to hurt an innocent, especially a woman, but I'm sure her eyes were red. Instead of turning toward Dimitri's room, I leave the hallway and go the same way Mila did.

I catch up with her on the staircase. She turns, looking up at me. My rod gets stiff right away. The top part of her bathrobe is slightly open, revealing the shape of her round, plump tits. I walk down the stairs to stop staring at her because I have to.

"Why are you crying?" I say.

"I'm not."

"Why were you crying then, smartass?"

"Just …" She shivers. "He says he doesn'twant this, but what about Drake?"

"Who's Drake?" I ask.

"My brother." She adjusts her bathrobe, maybe because I keep glancing at her body without meaning to.

"Wait, slow down. Dimitri said you don't have to be together?"

Mila shakes her head. "He said he doesn't want this, and if it were up to him, we wouldn't ever get married. He also said I can have a comfortable life here and would have the best of everything. I was so stunned that I didn't even mention my brother. What will happen to him? Will I ever get to see him if I do marry Dimitri?"

"Dimitri said he doesn't want to marry you?" I ask, my head swimming.

"Yeah," Mila replies, "but I don't see how we can stop this. My dad said he and your dad arranged it before …" She pauses, giving me a searching look as if she wants to see the effect this has had on me. With her so close, her scent moving around her, her heat screaming at me, I can't think about anything else. "I don't see how we can back out of that. We've got three weeks to get married."

"Or find a way out," I growl.

Her mouth falls open. That's a bad idea. It activates the hunger in me even more than it already was. My balls feel like they're swelling. Her mouth was made for me, made for kissing, made for more steaminess. A vivid image of her moving that sweet mouth over my rock-hard cock flits into my mind. I push it away, trying to focus.

"You think it's a good idea?" she says.

"You don't want to marry him. He doesn't want to marry you."

"You sound surprised."

"Dimitri does what's best for the Bratva. He always has, but this is one step too far. Our father went too far. I don't think he will just go along with this, but he needs time to devise a plan."

I can hardly keep the relief out of my voice. The corner of my lip keeps trying to twitch upward. However, there's the not-so-small problem of the deadline. We've got three weeks to root out the rats so that if Dimitri decides not to marry her, Nikolai can't destroy the Bratva from the inside out.

"We've got time," I go on.

"Time," she repeats.

"That's all a person needs," I tell her, taking a step forward, finding it difficult not to grab her body, smooth my hands up, and feel every curvy inch. "We'll find a way."

"What about my brother?"

"We'll save him, too."

When she adjusts her bathrobe again nervously, I almost lose it. It's like she's trying to get me to look at her juicy tits. Juicy. I can't believe I'm thinking about stuff like this, but that's how she seems—a curvy treat just for me.

"In three weeks?" Mila says doubtfully. "Less than?"

"We'll find a way."

"Why are you so determined to help?" she mutters, then looks down at the floor.

I raise my hand and then lower it. What if I let myself care about and want her, and then she has to marry Dimitri anyway? I need to control this part of me until we find a way to end this engagement for good without any complications. That means I need to keep digging into the digital footprint of every one of our soldiers.

"I guess you don't want your brother to marry someone he doesn't care about, right?"

Wrong. Maybe that's the reason I should use, but it's not the truth. The truth would mean crossing far too many lines.

"I'm just trying to do the right thing," I say noncommittally.

She looks disappointed, making me wonder if she wanted more. Without another word, she turns and keeps walking away. I wonder if she intended to leave me standing here, but I follow her anyway.

We stop outside her room as though we've just returned from a date, and she's waiting for me to lean in, grab her bathrobe, tear it loose, and reveal her big tits and perfect body.

"How did you guess?" I say after a pause, needing her attention for a little longer.

"Huh?"

"You asked if I was a programmer, too, earlier," I say, gesturing back the way we came to jog her memory.

The smile that touches her lip wreaks havoc on my control. Hell, it would make any man want to kiss her. There's genuine enthusiasm in her eyes that makes them shine. "That's kind of an obvious tattoo."

"Is it the first thing you learned too? How to program Hello World?"

She nods. I know exactly how she feels when that spark enters her eyes. It's the same way I felt when I first discovered programming.

"Apart from websites, what else do you do?"

"I've been doing some algorithmic challenges, and I've been looking into game design. I've also …" She lowers her voice. "Well, I've downloaded a few hacking tutorials from the dark web. I've never actually done any hacking, though."

She adds the last part with a guilty note. I smirk, leaning in close. I'm one step away from leaning against the wall next to her head, then moving closer so we're mere inches from each other. Being as close to her as possible would be the most natural thing to do. She's into game design, too. The similarities won't stop.

"That would be terrible, right?" I say in a teasing tone. "Committing a crime like that?"

Her laughter is the most beautiful sound I've ever heard. It's the surprise nestled in there, like she can't believe she's actually laughing. She looks at me as though I'm magic for making her laugh. It makes me want to earn many, many, many more looks like that. "Fair point," she murmurs. A moment later, she says, "Is there any way I can help?"

I swallow, shaking my head on instinct. That would mean spending more time together.

"No," I tell her. "I'm sorry."

"Because I'm a Petrov, is that it?"

No, Mila. I know what will happen if I spend too much time with you.I know what I'll do. If she has to marry my brother to stop the city from falling into her father's hands, I know that I'll break me. Even if we only just met, I know deep down that is something I could never recover from.

"Yes," I say, because it's convenient.

She frowns. "Fair enough."

I almost grab her when she turns away, but that would be an even bigger mistake. She closes the door with a nod, and I nod back. Then I hurry back to my room, put my headphones on, and try to focus on my three computer screens.

Dammit, she's in my head. She won't leave. She won't quit.

From now on, I'll have to do my best to avoid her. We're all staying here because of the chaos our father threw the Bratva into when he ended it, so I can't return to the city, where I'd be more vulnerable to an attack.

This estate is large, though. I should be able to avoid her, even if I don't want to.