Page 53 of Brutal Vows

“Luca?” I murmur when I’ve caught my breath enough to talk, knowing this grief is going to hit me in waves as I wait for the final word from Ivan. I need to tell Luca before he gets a chance to speak to someone else.

“Yes, princess?”

The nickname annoyed me at the start, but it’s been growing on me, just like him. Even worse, I’m starting to love it, hearing him say it in that deep, musical voice of his.

“Nobody can know,” I whisper, still not sure who’s watching me, listening in on our conversations, hacking into my phone. “You can’t tell Benedict or Matteo. You can’t tell anybody.”

“Why? It’s your dad, Milana. Surely, you’ll have a funeral? I’ll take you, there’s no question.”

I shake my head. At least we’ve managed to keep the Pakhan’s strokes and imminent death under wraps long enough for Ivan to take control of the Petrov Bratva again. If it comes out now, it’s better than fourteen months ago when rumors of a planned coup first started to trickle in. I wouldn’t be surprised if the threat of a coup stressed Papa so much, it led to him having those strokes in the first place.

I lean back so I can look up at him. He slides his hand to my hip to keep me close while still giving me space. I struggle up onto my elbow to look at him properly—he needs to understand how important this is.

“There’ll be no funeral. Not yet. Ivan’s position as Pakhan is tenuous at best. He barely survived the coup in July and they could still come for him…for us. If they think the Pakhan is still alive, it could buy us time.”

Buy me time. I need it more desperately than Ivan.

“How? I don’t understand the rules of your Russian turf war. We’re not even in Russia.”

“Still, it’s important that this stays under wraps.”

“I won’t say anything, but you need to help me out here, princess. I want to protect you and we’ve married into your—” He breaks off, seeming to struggle to find the right word. “Situation.”

Mess. Shit fest. Glorious irreversible fuckup. I have so many more eloquent words for it.

“Yes, I get that you don’t get it,” I say, suppressing my frustration at always being only a powerless pawn. Of not being in the know when it comes to how anything really works. Luca spoke of human and drug trafficking, but he hasn’t made the connection yet. I might not know much, but I know what we have that other Bratva would want. “It’s all about control of the black-market trade routes in and out of Russia. Our logistics business and routes have been in place for decades. People are getting desperate what with the war dragging on, and the sanctions. Like the Mafia, the Bratva rule certain areas, turfs, whatever. The Bratva in Russia wants control of ours.”

“For what? Drugs maybe, but you don’t ship humans around like that.”

I chew my tongue, because I would hate to reenter this cursed trade our Papa struggled for years to get out of. “Weapons.”

He frowns, the gears shifting. “No, from here to Russia?”

“Both ways.” I swallow, knowing I’ve opened a can of worms now. “You know you never sail a cargo ship empty if you could help it. I don’t know exactly what gets shipped, when and how, but it wouldn’t be hard to smuggle weapons. It’s as simple as that.”

“Nothing is ever as simple as that, Milana.”

He’s staring at me, his gaze begging me to open up more. To tell him things I honestly don’t know. He’s going to have to grapple with this information first, because this, from his expression, has definitely not been on their radar.

One thing I do understand though. “The reality is, with the Pakhan gone, it’s just Ivan and me as his heirs, and eliminating Ivan would just leave me, as the weak and compliant link.”

That was the plan, the one I knew nothing about. I learned the hard way how I would’ve played a key role in letting it all fall into place once Ivan was killed.

Luca goes up on his elbow as his brow knits together and his eyes darken with something that sends a chill down my spine. He squeezes my hip, then presses down, forcing me on my back.

“Has someone threatened to kill you?” he asks, leaning in, dominant now, his voice edgy. “To hurt you? Here, in America?”

“No. Not here. And it isn’t like that.”

“No? What is it, then? Tell me,” he says, urgent. “Because I’ll have to kill them and trust me, we don’t play nice. Whoever is behind the coup have no fucking clue who we are, what type of family you’ve married into, not if they’re in Russia.”

“They have no clue I’m married.” Unless they’ve intercepted Masha’s messages. She won’t talk. They can’t make her. She’s become fearless. They’ve done their worst already. Death doesn’t scare her anymore. As for Varya—what if they push her too far? I clutch at his shirt’s hem, needing to ground myself. “And even if they do, they have no idea where I am. Plus this is an impenetrable fort. I’ve never felt safer.”

This is the truth. I might be broken, but I’m safe.

“My poor princess in her tower.” He seems to relax a bit, the frown gone as his gaze softens. He gathers my hair away from my temple and strokes my cheek. “Nobody will ever hurt you here, understand? Or anywhere. Over my dead body.”

This is true. Despite being in this house with him for so many days now, Luca hasn’t done anything but try and build trust, so gentle, yet shaking me in the foundations of my beliefs. He is so different from the men I knew before, and I’m going to crumble. This man is going to be my undoing.