My father’s face contorts into something ugly. “Fuck you, Nikolai. I will come for my daughter.” He storms out of the church.
Nikolai sighs. “Your father is going to be a problem. But right now, all I want is to marry you. Come along.”
“Why didn’t you buy me? My father said you never actually paid the money.”
“I initially offered up the money to get you and then I took it back. That horrid organization won’t put up a fight when it comes to me. I wasn’t going to let your father get a dime from me.”
“But you didn’t buy me which means I’m not yours.”
He cups my face between his two strong hands. “You are mine, Irina. And you know you have no other prospects. I have shown I will do what is necessary to have you in my life. You can’t trust your father.”
“Can I trust you?”
He doesn’t answer my question as he steps back and looks me over. “You are beautiful. My perfect, innocent bride. I will walk you down the aisle. It’s not customary but it will have to do.”
He places my hand in the crook of his arm as he opens the church doors and leads me down the aisle. The church is filled with guests. That’s the power Nikolai has. He can get at least a hundred people here in the span of a day.
I walk side by side with Nikolai down the aisle towards the priest. Towards my future.
I just have to hope that it won’t be the end of me.
Chapter Four
Irina
Nikolai stands before me at the altar. The priest is beside us, reciting the wedding vows. A crowd of people are here to see us.
And I’m marrying a man I just met yesterday.
Everything is happening so fast that I find myself swaying on my feet. Nikolai tightens his hands around my own to steady me. A concerned look is in his eyes. Does he actually care for me? How is that possible when we just met?
When he’s a Bratva man. When he’s not a good man.
“Do you, Nikolai Volkov, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?” the priest asks.
“I do,” he responds in his clear, warm voice. It’s a voice that I feel the urge to sink in to.
The priest turns to me. “And do you, Irina Koslov, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?”
There’s so much I want to say. How we don’t even know each other. How he bought me and yet didn’t technically buy me. How he saved me from my father but do I need saving from him? There’s way too much that needs to be answered and yet I don’t have the time. Nikolai is a high ranking Bratva man. He wants me for himself and I have no power here. Nowhere else to go.
My only option is to move forward and hope for the best.
“I do,” I whisper.
The priest nods. “I now pronounce you husband and wife.”
Nikolai takes my face between his hands and lowers his lips briefly to mine. It’s a peck, nothing more, but it makes a heat spread throughout my body.
“You are mine now,” he murmurs against my lips before pulling back. I shiver.
The rest of the guests – all the people I don’t even know – clap for us as we walk down the aisle.
“Who are all these people?” I ask as they follow us out of the church.
“People who work with me. Friends.”
“You managed to get them here this fast for our wedding? We only met last night.”