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3
Mandy
The silk fabric brushed against my legs, another reminder that I wasn’t at home anymore. Not that the small apartment I’d been renting off campus had been home, per se. But I’d chosen everything in it, from the sheets to the furniture, and while it had been simple, it had been mine.
The room I was locked inside of was not. It was decadent, decked out in silks and brocades, the heavy curtains drawn shut to block out the bright light of the morning sun that I wasn’t ready to face.
My first morning as a married woman.
It just so happened to be to a man whose tongue I’d rather bite off than allow in my mouth.Even if he had smelled good. Really, really good. Even if he were more handsome than any man I had ever seen before, the scorching way his eyes had travelled up and down my figure outside the chapel an even more sinful promise than I had been prepared to face.
He was just a thug.
I reminded that to myself over and over again as I prowled the room for hours. A Bratva born and bred, blooded and in his prime. He was the embodiment of the very life that I had been trying to escape all these years. . . .More than that even, he was a Koalitsia.
I knew that name just as well as I knew my own, and for all the wrong reasons. It was the name that my babushka had been sobbing the night we received the news of my mother’s death. My father had torn up and down the hallway of that small house we had been holed up in, cursing that family name and anyone who came from it. . . .
And now he had married me off to them.
Like a prized broodmare, bargained away in order to better his own standing. I had been under no illusion that all this was for my father’s benefit, no matter who I was promised to. The fact that it was into this family made it an even bigger insult to me than it would have been otherwise.
It was why I wanted to ignore the missive that had come via a note shoved under my door. I had wanted to, but my babushka’s words from before the ceremony rang in my ears like an ominous warning.
Manya, it is a marriage. You do not have to like him. You do not have to tolerate him even. You handle him though, da? You learn this . . . you have happy marriage.
Handle him . . .what did I know of handling men? I was far from the blushing virgin that I was sure my father had wanted to sell me as, but I was hardly an expert on the opposite sex. My history was a handful of failed relationships and an even smaller handful of one-night stands that had led to nothing more than disappointment and old-world shame. I didn’t know how to handle men, much less a future Pakhan to a Bratva family.
But this was my lot now.
It was why I sat in front of the gold brocade vanity in the far corner of the room putting the finishing touches on myself for the night ‘out’ I’d been summoned for.
My ash-blonde, nearly silver looking hair hung in loose ringlets down my back, brushing against the skin left exposed by the dress I was wearing. It was not its usual ramrod straight only because of the way it had been done up the day before. The woman who looked back at me in the mirror was like another version of me, with lips painted a deep burgundy to keep from paling under the dark shadowy lashes. Magenta and gold was dusted over my eyelids, bringing out the almost inky blackness of my irises.
I almost never wore makeup, especially not a full face. But it matched the expensive dress that he had sent up.
And I wanted to match it. I wanted to be darkly beautiful and imposing, so alight with wonder that I made him question his own thoughts. I wanted to undermine him so that I could live out the advice my babushka had given me. I painted my face as if I rode to war, decked in the dress like a silky armor to better protect me. I would not be the puppet my father had sent me to be, but I wouldn’t share the same fate as my mother either. . . .
If I handled him, it would be me that ruled the house. I wasn’t sure if the advice thrilled or scared me.
The knock on my door was light, and when I haughtily opened it, it was him that I expected to see waiting for me. Only it wasn’t. It was the driver from the evening before. His eyes stayed respectfully lowered all the way to the car, and even to the restaurant where I was apparently meeting my husband.Because obviously it was too much trouble to wait for me to get ready.
I had steeled myself so much, wrapping myself in sheaves of insult and injury both given and imagined, that by the time I strode into the side entrance of the building that looked more like a run-down warehouse than a restaurant, I was ready to spit nails. It was only once I was through the side door and in the hallway that I heard the music, loud enough to rattle the heavily framed paintings lining the wall.
As we walked into the inner entrance into the club that I realized where we were. Tantsuyushchiy Medved. Even as far removed from the Russian scene here as I was, I had heard rumors of the secret Russian club so exclusive that one needed an invite to find it, let alone get in. But the tall, gaunt man that had let me into the club didn’t lead me through the entrance where I saw so many people dancing.
Instead he kept walking, opening another door and ushering me into a quieter, much fancier section.
If I thought my room was expensive, with its brocade and silk, this place put it to shame.
White tablecloths spanned across every table, adorned with vases of exotic flowers obviously real. I was willing to bet my entire tuition over the last four years that the chandeliers that hung above us were genuine crystal. I felt out of place; my steps slowing despite the fact that the man in front of me kept up his pace. I was so engrossed in my surroundings; I almost didn’t see him.
He wasn’t dressed as formally today as he had been at our wedding. His dark hair was slicked off to one side, and for the first time I was able to recognize how shaggy he kept it, which oddly suited him. He was taller than me by nearly a whole foot; his bright blue eyes striking from beneath his heavy black eyebrows. He was attractive,but I wasn’t supposed to be noticing that.
“Good evening.” He greeted me congenially, as if no memory existed of the evening before. As if we were old friends simply out to dinner.Or worse, lovers.
I lifted my chin, passing him where he had stood at the table and slid into my own chair before he could do something as foolish as pull it out for me. I didn’t want to acknowledge that there was already food on the table despite my absence.The arrogance.
“We’re keeping that same energy then, da?” he chuckled, sliding into his own seat gracefully. He shook his napkin out, grinning charmingly at me over the steaming food before him. “I hope you don’t mind, I went ahead and ordered before you arrived. I wanted you to try the Pelmeni. They are the best I have had outside of Russia.” His words were light and conversational, focused on me so fully, despite my refusal to lift my gaze to his. “I didn’t order your drink though,” he continued, impervious to my icy silence. “I wasn’t sure what you preferred.”
