her birthday party yesterday, man. That was fucking rude. She looked banging.”
My mouth tightened at the mention of the early birthday/rehearsal dinner I’d refused to attend.
Before now, I’d seen pictures of her, but every time the Bratva Pakhan, the leader of the Russian Mafia, tried to get me to meet his spawn, Inessa, I’d managed to be out of the country.
It had taken some fucking calculated risks, but I’d achieved it. Sure, there was more blood on my hands as a result, but I liked honing my skills, making sure that my abilities with a rifle were as hot shit as ever.
Plus, I had a couple of million in the bank which my father couldn’t touch, and that was always a bonus.
The prick had a habit of tithing us when we displeased him.
Beneath the organ, the throbbing notes that signified a death knell for every man’s freedom, under the low hum of the crowd’s oohing and aahing at my child fucking bride, I heard the hushed murmur of her skirts against the floor—that was only because my senses were honed.
I also heard her father’s tapping footsteps, and knew my fate was sealed.
I mean, I’d known that earlier, but still. This was it.
It was really fucking happening.
Those tapping footsteps, the shushing skirts, they signed my death certificate.
I twisted around when the scent of lilies invaded my nostrils, and though it wasn’t displeasing, I hated it instantly.
Because I wasn’t a schmuck, and I knew Inessa had to be as unhappy with this situation as I was, I didn’t glower at her, but I kept my face expressionless as I nodded at her father and accepted her hand.
I wasn’t sure how Da had managed to wear Vasov down and had gotten him into a Catholic church and out of an Orthodox chapel, but from the look on his face, he was as happy as Aidan Sr. was with the upcoming nuptials.
I knew why, of course. Women were a commodity to the Bratva. Children were property to be bought and sold, and while that was the case with the Irish Mob too, we didn’t tend to pimp out our kids to the enemy.
I cut him a look, more interested in him than my bride, and when our eyes met, his flashed slightly, a flicker of something I couldn’t read surging to life inside them.
Maybe he saw my lack of fear, something that probably surprised him, maybe he saw that I was so beyond over this I’d moved into a different stratosphere, whatever it was, he muttered something in Russian to Inessa, then scuttled away like the pond scum he was.
He’d fucked off to his pew where a woman I assumed was his wife—not Inessa’s mother, because she was definitely too young—had taken a seat, dressed like some kind of colorblind whore in a bright green dress that was more fitting for a nightclub than a wedding. Her hat looked like she had a nest of parrots on her head, so I knew Vasov hadn’t married her for her taste in clothes, but for the tits that were spilling out of the dress. Tits were thirteen a dozen in my world, especially falsies, so, disinterested once Vasov was seated, I turned to Inessa.
The first thing I looked at was her hand trapped in mine. Her fingers were slender, delicate. The skin white and soft against my callused digits. The proof of my trade was written into the rough flesh of my hands, and there’d been so much blood shed by them that it should have marred her purity in a flash. The ring my father had procured for her sat on her finger. It wasn’t gaudy, which told me Ma had helped purchase it, and the clear emerald was a dark, rich green that throbbed with life.
I had to think that, with her involvement, the emerald would suit Inessa’s character—Ma would know my bride more than me. She’d met the bitch, after all. That was more than I’d done. So, for whatever reason, she sported an emerald instead of a diamond, and the heavy stone suited her delicate hand.
Letting my gaze drift over her fingers to her wrist, I took note of the thin sleeve that covered her forearm, and when I saw no sliver of skin, her face held more interest to me. Only, her head was covered with a veil, a thick one. The lace so dense that it was a wonder she could see through it without tripping.
The cream color reminded me