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“Sergey Gargarin is the only logical answer,” he replies at last. “He must’ve heard that you agreed to supply me with more guns. My guess is that he wants to wipe you off the board, so he’ll have an unobstructed and direct path to me.”
I don’t trust Dimitri’s words. Someone else is planning this. Someone close enough to him. As far as I know, it could even be him.
I’m too exposed to my enemies and allies to truly determine who it was. I need to make our alliance bulletproof.
“Call Katarina,” I say with authority. “The three of us need to talk. Now.”
The Bratva leader narrows his eyes at my order. I half expect him to argue and try to assert his own dominance, but instead, he calls for his butler and asks for his daughter to be fetched.
As the doors open and Katarina steps inside, I swallow the anger and focus on her for a moment. Even though my heart squeezes painfully tight, my body releases a sigh. She’s even more breathtaking than I remember.
I purposefully raise my brow as I blatantly drag my eyes down her body. My gaze focuses on her legs. They’re shapely and toned, the source of all my fantasies whenever I’m lucky enough to see them.
As she enters the room, her shoulders pull back in a confident stance. Her body is clothed in a pencil skirt that reaches just above her knees, a short-sleeved sweater, and a pair of black heels. She sits down next to her father and crosses her legs, revealing smooth skin and a hint of muscular thighs. The effect makes my balls tighten, and I force myself to think of anything other than getting her underneath me.
“She’s here,” Dimitri says cooly.
His voice brings me out of my trance, and once again, I’m filled with only one emotion. I turn the power of my glare to the Bratva leader, letting him take the full force of my fury.
“I demand that Katarina and I get married right now.”
TEN
KATARINA
I always knew Nikolai’s position was one of power and authority, but I never expected to hear him speak this way to my father. No one gives orders to the pakhan.
There’s an immediate reaction to his demand. Father’s face goes pale for the shortest of seconds, but as he begins to recover his color, his lips start to curl up in a smile. It must have something to do with the dinner conversation from the other night.
“Such a demand is highly unnecessary,” my father says in a tight voice. “And not just that. You’re in no position to be making demands. Not now and not ever again.”
Nikolai’s brows slightly furrow in confusion. “You’re the one that’s not in a position of rejecting me. Need I remind you that I’m your one and only gun supplier?”
“You were,” my father corrects him.
“Is that so?”
My wide-eyed gaze darts between the two as I stare in silence.
“I was willing to keep my business with you. We were partners for a long time, after all. But when you asked for my daughter, you crossed a line,” Father announces with the kind of casual tone one would use at a backyard barbecue. “You left me with no other choice but to shop around.”
I wait for Nikolai to lose his temper, for his jaw to clench, or for his fingers to twitch. But nothing of the sort happens.
The businessman stays perfectly still, his silver eyes as calm as a frozen lake.
My heartbeat quickens in apprehension. As much as I loathe the concept of an arranged marriage, the fact that I’m caught in the middle of their confrontation makes me nauseous. Not knowing the future, for one, as well as the possibility that there could be something even worse for me in the store.
“Without my support, Sergey Gargarin will eat you alive,” Nikolai warns with a cold voice. “Choose your next words carefully, or I won’t be here to help you.”
My father gives Nikolai a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. He pointedly looks at me and says with a firm voice, “Katarina, as of right now, you are a free woman. I’m officially breaking the arrangement between you and Nikolai Volkov.”
I blanch. My own heart is trying to hammer its way through my chest.
Is he being serious?
“I don’t fucking think so,” Nikolai seethes. His hands are clenched into fists.
“There’s nothing else for us to discuss,” Father declares. “I won’t be blackmailed. My daughter is sacred. No one touches her.”
