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NATASHA
“Husband?” I manage to squeak out the word as my stomach free falls to my feet. There are plenty of other biting words on the tip of my tongue, but my mind is so twisted with horror and panic that I cannot find the ability to string any of them together.
“Yeah.” Dima crosses his inked, muscled biceps over his chest and glares at a guy who looks exactly like him, down to the matching snarl. “Meet your new fiancé. My brother, Dima.”
My brows furrow. “What? Then who the hell are you?”
The guy who snatched me from my home, the one who just launched an assault of the most erotic kind on my body, just shrugs.
“Fine, play your little game. But you obviously grabbed the wrong girl,” I snap. “Because I’m not marrying anyone.”
“That’s not your call to make.” The real Dima walks into the foyer and narrows his eyes at me for a second before letting them violate me from head to toe. My skin prickles under his hungry gaze like it’s being bitten up by an army of fire ants showing absolutely no mercy.
“You have no authority over me, asshole.”
“I have a lot more than that,” Dima sneers. “I have leverage, or did you forget?”
“You're not the one who kidnapped me from my house. Save your orders for your peons. And make no mistake — I’m not one of them.”
“Listen good, Natasha. You’ll obey every order I give and not say a word in return.” Dima’s eyes take on a fierce glow. “Your father is not a smart businessman. He got involved with the wrong people and attacked my family. He tried to take what didn’t belong to him. That makes us enemies.”
“So why the fuck would you want to marry the daughter of your enemy?” I fist my hair, trying to wrap my own mind around something so insane. “Does that make any bit of sense to you? To either of you?”
“An eye for an eye. He took from us, so we took from him. By marrying you, we’ll show the world that our power and strength can’t be challenged. You’re an example of what’ll happen if anyone else tries to cross my family again. A symbol of the legacy that won’t ever be challenged. The empire that won’t ever crumble. The kingdom that will never be breached.”
“Jesus, is this really how ‘your type’ of people seriously talk?” I roll my eyes. “You’re being very dramatic right now. Power, strength, empires, kingdoms. I mean, what in the actual fuck?”
Dima recoils, and I feel vindicated for a few seconds there. But, of course, that sliver of satisfaction is fleeting.
I haven’t spent much time with either of these asshats, but I can see some glaring differences between them clear as day. I know who’s willing to get dirty in the name of obligation and loyalty, and who won’t even consider doing the heavy lifting as long as he’s got people kissing his ass.
I narrow my eyes at Dima’s tailored, navy blue suit. A perfectly starched white button-down peeks out from behind the single-breasted jacket. Not one speck of lint is visible on the expensive-looking fabric. A shiny silver Rolex peeks out from one sleeve, his cordovan wingtips polished to perfection. There isn’t a single scratch or scuff mark on the leather, which tells me, one, he is a guy who has a vast shoe wardrobe. Or two, he never wades into the shit because he pays others plenty to do it for him, unlike his dark and dirty-talking doppelgänger who clearly will get as physical as he needs to in order to accomplish a task.
He’s proven that enough in the short time we’ve been grudgingly acquainted.
I bet Dima’s the guy who wants to be feared and respected, but he doesn’t want to do the nasty jobs required to elicit either feeling. He probably avoids the messy shit, like snatching innocent young girls from their beds, stripping them bare, and launching an erotic invasion on them with his devious hands as punishment.
This guy would not do any of that. I can tell just by watching his body language. He has himself on a pedestal, and everyone below him makes up his court.
I will not be anyone’s trophy, dammit.
An air of pomposity surrounds Dima, like he expects people to kiss his ass because of his title and influence. His arrogance, thick and smothering, pollutes the air around me. It chokes me to the point of gagging. I would bet he gets everything he wants, a big reason why he thinks I’m going to fall in line and bend to his will. He thinks he’s a winner, and winners always take the prize, right?
Sorry, Dima. Not this time.
I irritate him. He doesn’t like to be challenged, that much is obvious. And questioning his authority riles him, especially if it’s done in front of his currently nameless brother.
There’s something toxic in the air between them, and I’m going to expose it because why the fuck not? If he kills me as a result, he won’t be able to parade me around like a goddamn prized peacock.
“You will learn your place,” Dima growls once he recovers from my outburst. “My wife will never speak to me like that.”
“Then maybe you’d better find a replacement pretty damn fast, because the only way you can guarantee that I won’t talk back to you again is if you saw off my tongue.”
I fire off a glare at the tatted god when I hear a low chortle escape his bitable lips. His ice blue eyes rake over me like the vicious and carnal predator he is. He steps out from behind the kitchen island, still clutching the neck of the vodka bottle, his hardened gaze never flinching. “I told you your father would pay for his sins against my family.”
A low scoff slips from Dima’s mouth, and I slowly turn my head, fixing my hateful stare on him once our eyes meet. “I don’t know who the hell either of you are, but I’m telling you right now that if I had a choice between marrying you and a devastating, torturous death with me being thrown into a tank full of man-eating sharks as a grand finale, I’d go with death.”
“Who gave you the impression that you get a say in any of this?” Dima lifts an eyebrow. “You don’t have a voice anymore.”
