“We did, but the ceremony is a chance for the Bratva to pledge their loyalty to you, as well.”
She frowned, a wrinkle forming between her brows. “Wasn’t the reception enough? They all seemed respectful.”
I shook my head and pushed a strand of hair behind her ear, ignoring the nervous flutter of her lashes at my touch. “This is how things are done. I want my men to view you as their queen. I want them to know that your life is as important as mine or Theo’s. You will be as good as blood now.”
“Won’t they be upset with you when they find out this is fake?”
The question plays in my mind again now as I towel off my damp hair and slip into a fresh suit.
The short answer is: yes. They will be angry.
The more complicated answer is that I hope they will never find out the marriage is fake.
My secret hope is that Molly will realize this marriage is more than just protection. I hope she’ll come to enjoy my company and decide to stay. If she does, we’ll file the paperwork and have a private ceremony all to ourselves. Outwardly, nothing will change, and my men will never know I violated a sacred Bratva ritual.
I know there is a possibility Molly will leave once this war is over. I know there is a possibility I’ll have to confess everything to my men and risk losing even more of their trust. But I can’t think about that now. Right now, the only thing that matters to me is keeping Molly and Theo safe. Even my allegiance to the Bratva has to come second—another thing I hope my men never find out.
Petr knocks on the bathroom door, pulling me from my thoughts. “I have to leave to set up. Are you picking up Molly or should I have the guards bring her?”
I know the men I have posted at Molly’s apartment are trustworthy, but I still can’t bring myself to let them drive her around the city. Especially before the ceremony has been performed.
“I’ll pick her up.”
“Okay.” Petr’s voice tapers off, but I don’t hear his footsteps walking away. After half a minute, I walk over and pull the bathroom door open to find him still standing there.
“What is it?”
He looks ashamed to have been caught, but then his shoulders slump forward. “I was debating whether I should say something sentimental.”
I raise a brow. “Like?”
“Like how you are not only my leader but my family,” he says, looking down at the floor. “And as my family, I’m happy that you are happy. I know this marriage to Molly is partly out of a desire to protect her from Fedor, but I know you care for her, and I’m happy for you.”
I clear my throat. “You’re right. That was sentimental.”
Petr runs a hand over the back of his neck and takes a step back from the door. “Yeah. I think I’ve decided against saying it.”
“Probably a good idea,” I say, trying not to smile.
Petr lifts a hand and disappears down the hallway. When I close the bathroom door, my smile fades.
I’m lying to everyone. Fooling even my top advisor in order to protect Molly.
I hope, in the end, it is all worth it.
Theo is sitting on the living room floor with a mountain of blocks in front of him. He is arranging them into a single tower, his tongue sticking out the side of his mouth from concentration, so he doesn’t notice my entrance.
The nanny is sitting at the kitchen table with a book and a cup of coffee, and after a quick glance to see who I am, she goes back to her book. I don’t blame her. I love Theo, but I learned how exhausting he can be when Molly ran away for a week.
He stands up to place another block on top, holding it carefully in his small hands. As he places it, however, the whole tower wobbles and topples over. The second it does, I grab him from behind and swing him off his feet. He shrieks and then giggles when I tickle his side.
“I didn’t know you were coming.” He grabs my face and then wraps his skinny arms around my neck.
If someone had told me six months ago I’d be the pseudo-father to a four-year-old boy, I would have told them they were crazy. Yet, here I am.
“I’m here to get your mommy. We are going out.”
“Me too?” he asks, his eyebrows lifting to his hairline with expectation.
He looks so much like Fedor. So much I feel my heart squeeze. They have the same pointed chin and narrow nose. People who don’t know any better will say he looks just like me—we are related, after all—but knowing Fedor as intimately as I do, the truth is obvious. Theo is Fedor’s.
I sit down on the couch and plop him on my knee. “Not today, I’m afraid. We are going somewhere that is just for grown-ups.”
He frowns, but I flick my thumb over his lower lip and release it quickly, making a loud popping noise that, despite his disappointment, makes him smile.
“Next time,” I promise.
He climbs off my lap and goes back to working on his tower, enlisting my help to gather up all of the blocks that skittered under the couch after the first collapse. The tower is half as tall as it was before when I hear the muffled shouting upstairs.
I turn around and the nanny is glancing towards the stairs as well. When she sees me looking at her, she nods for me to go and walks over to keep Theo busy. I thank her with a half-smile and hurry up the stairs.
Voices are coming from Molly’s room, and as I approach the door, I can hear sobbing mixed in.
“I can do something else with it, Mrs. Kornilov. If you don’t like it—”
“Don’t call me that,” Molly interrupts the hairdresser. “Molly, please. Call me Molly.”
I walk into the room without knocking.
Molly and the hairdresser both start, eyes wide. Molly’s dark hair is half up, twisted into a crown of braids on the top of her head with the bottom half curled and flowing down her back. She looks incredible, even more enchanting than normal.
The hairdresser backs away from Molly and goes to the vanity table, needlessly rearranging her supplies. Molly sags onto the bed, her shoulders hunched forward. She looks nothing like the happy, sated woman I left in bed this morning.
“What’s going on?” I ask, turning my ire on the hairdresser. “Why did I hear my wife screaming?”
Don’t call me that. Call me Molly.
She is regretting her decision already. Less than twenty-four hours later, and she wants to back out. When Molly agreed to the fake arrangement, I knew I needed to act quickly before she could change her mind, but maybe this was too fast. Maybe it was too much, too soon.
Though, the alternative was to wait and allow more of my men the opportunity to defect to Fedor’s side of this war, and the Bratva can’t afford anymore losses. Neither can Molly. Fedor got close enough the night he sent one of his men into the apartment holding Theo. I couldn’t let him get any closer. This was necessary, regardless of how Molly felt about it.
“It’s nothing. It’s not her fault,” Molly says, shaking her head. She sits up, a breath hitching in her chest like she is going to say something, before she sinks back down and shakes her head again. “It’s nothing.”
“Yeah, it seems like nothing,” I say, voice thick with sarcasm. I move to sit on the bed next to her and lay my hand on her knee. “What is it?”
All of a sudden, Molly stands up, slipping out from under my touch, and begins to pace across the room. I can clearly see she is upset, but I also can’t take my eyes off the figure she cuts in her dress.