Til Death Do Us Part (Kornilov Bratva Duet #2) - Nicole Fox Page 0,4

that he cares about me. He has proven that he will be a good father figure to Theo and will take care of us.

It would be so easy to give him what he wants. To surrender myself to him and let him lead me through life by the hand, providing what I need along the way.

His hand slides up my arm, cupping the back of my arm and drawing me closer to him.

I could lay my head on his chest, curl into his warmth, and nod my head. That’s all it would take.

“Marry me,” he whispers, his breath warm on the top of my head.

Goose bumps trail down my back, and I push him away and shake my head to clear it.

“No.”

He growls, frustrated. “Why are you making this so difficult?”

“Why is marriage your solution for everything?”

He narrows his eyes. “Fake marry me, at least. Let me tell my men this is real. They all know the justice of the peace before wasn’t real. We aren’t living together, so they’ve worked out that this isn’t a serious arrangement. Pretend.”

I’ve been there before. I fake married Viktor—though I didn’t know it was fake at the time—and I can’t go back to that. Letting people think he’s my sugar daddy is one thing, but pretending to be his wife when really we are … I’m not sure what we are. No. I can’t do it. I won’t.

“I’m done pretending.”

His hands fist at his side, and he turns away from me, his body shaking. “You are carrying my child, but you won’t let me do anything to protect it. I have a say.”

“Not over me and my body, you don’t.”

We stare at one another, a silent standoff. I refuse to back down. Not on this. I’ve been pushed around by so many people in my life, but I’m done with that. Not anymore. Not again.

Finally, Viktor turns away. “This isn’t over.”

“Yes, it is.” I grab his keys from the coffee table and hold them out for him. “I think you should go.”

He could tell me that I can’t kick him out of a house that he pays for. That I don’t have any control over him. I almost expect him to say all of those things, but instead, he snatches the keys from my hand and storms towards the door.

“This isn’t over,” he repeats again before the door slams closed. He locks it before stomping down the hallway.

2

Viktor

The bar is dim. The windows were long ago blotted out with signs and black smears of paint, giving it the appearance of eternal night. Right now, I’m grateful for the gloom. It makes the scene in front of me easier to digest.

I feel a tacky squelch under my boot. Petr grabs my arm and pulls me to a stop.

“Careful.” He points to the right of where I was walking, and I see the source of the mess on the floor.

The body is wedged between the barstool and the wood paneling of the bar like it slumped down there and didn’t move again. Not surprising, considering the person’s head is sitting in a bowl of peanuts on the bar. At least, I think it’s the same head. There are several other dead bodies missing heads of their own.

Fedor sounded normal on the phone. Normal for him, anyway.

I was in my office when he called. Going home to the apartment I used to share with Molly and Theo was depressing, and I couldn’t go back to Molly’s. No matter how badly I wanted to talk with her and figure out what we were going to do about the baby, she didn’t want me there. So, I stayed at the office even later than usual. Maybe I should’ve thanked Fedor, after all. Because of him, there was plenty to keep me busy.

He took half of my men, and the men who stayed behind barely trusted me. I had lost Molly and Theo, and now, because of the brother who should have been my right-hand man, I was looking at losing my control of the Bratva, too. Everything was going to shit.

When Fedor called, I naively thought it could be to make amends. No matter how many times Fedor fucked me over, I wanted to think of him as my little brother. As the boy I’d cared for and protected our entire lives. I didn’t want to see him as the monster he’d become.

“Working late?” he asked.

I didn’t want to think about how he knew. About whether I was