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It was time to pick a side.
Chapter 31 - Lev
After regretfully dropping Jenna off at the spa, I raced back to San Francisco to tie up loose ends before she came home. I hated seeing her so stressed out, but there was also no way I could give up my life in the Bratva. I could, however, concentrate more on the legal side of my businesses, continue to offer protection, and keep my people safe from interlopers. I’d somehow find a happy medium for the sake of my wife.
She was everything to me, and I wouldn’t have her return to this budding turf war. It was about to end. No more waiting around for the group from Portland to make their next move. The next move was mine, and it was going to be the one that ended this game they started, once and for all.
Max was back to help out, and when I rolled up to the new house, he was already waiting there for me, along with our sister, Mila. She had just returned from Moscow, where she’d been visiting our father with Dima, and I was relieved to hear a good report.
“I knew it was time to get back home when he started acting bossy and grumpy again,” she said. “He’s definitely good as new, and I didn’t want to get caught up in some project he was getting ready to give me when so much is going on back here.”
Max and I rolled our eyes at Mila’s report. Our baby sister was twenty-two, much younger than our youngest brother Nikolai, who was thirty-five. She’d been a shocking but much-loved surprise to our parents, and we all doted on her. She had no idea what it was like to be on the receiving end of our father’s bossy attitude.
I beamed at her, as delighted to see her as always, and since it had been quite a while. Her previously long blonde hairwas trimmed to her chin, giving her an elfin look that neatly matched her willowy height. I gave the strands a tug and asked her if she was getting over a broken heart.
She scowled. “Does every extreme haircut have to mean that?” Her slender shoulders sagged momentarily before she straightened her spine. “Not exactly broken, just a bit dinged. And no, you don’t have to break anyone’s neck. It was a dumb, unrequited crush.”
“Who wouldn’t jump at the chance to be with you?” Max bellowed, ready to bash the poor object of Mila’s affection.
“As if I’d tell you. And if I did, you’d only find a reason to think he wasn’t good enough for me. It was nothing, so let’s drop it, shall we?”
I held up my hands, perfectly happy to let it go, but Max continued to grumble as we loaded our guns and extra ammo into the car. I’d been tipped off to the location where the leader of the Portland organization was hiding out, so we were going to head that way to pay him a surprise visit. Some of my best guys were already staking the place out, as ready as I was to finish this.
Max sat up front with the driver, an old friend who Max hadn’t seen for months since he’d moved up to San Francisco to work full time for me. Mila and I slid into the back, and once we were on the road, she turned to me with a gleam in her eye.
“Max spilled the beans,” she said, squeezing my arm. “Congratulations.”
“What the hell?”
She pulled me back from reaching forward to whack our brother across the head. “He only told me, and your secret is safe. Don’t worry.”
Her smile was so sincerely happy for me that I believed she wouldn’t tell anyone. She was a peacekeeper, like Max, and they often shared confidences. She was also the most diplomatic of all of us, and her eyes turned serious as she visibly tried to prepare her next words. “I met Jenna at the Christmas party and thought she was sweet, but is she worth the hell you’re going to have to pay?”
I didn’t even blink under her steady gaze. “She’s worth it and more. In fact, I’m done with this bullshit secrecy. I’m going to face the music when I pick her up after this weekend is over.”
Mila nodded slowly, worry creeping into her face. “I can see how happy you are, and it makes me so glad, but will Aleks feel the same when he finds out you snapped up his wife’s little sister?”
She left it unsaid, but I didn’t need her to tell me that he wasn’t going to be as thrilled as she was for me. Aleks was most likely going to kick my ass into the next century, and Katie might never speak to me again. I’d been looking forward to being an uncle again, spoiling my new niece rotten, as I’d done with Nat when she was little. Once it was out in the open that I’d basically tricked Jenna into marrying me and wasn’t about to ever let her go, that was all going to disappear. It might completely tear our family apart if Aleks wanted our other brothers to choose sides.
“Whatever happens, I’m ready for it,” I said, putting my hands behind my head and faking a relaxation I didn’t feel.
I didn’t want to admit it to my little sister, because there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do for Jenna. But the truth of the matter was, I was more anxious about facing my brother than I was about bursting into the den of vipers we were trying to eradicate.
Chapter 32 - Jenna
Councilman Hardy was still far enough away that I could make a break for it, turn around, and run. I needed more time to think things through, but I’d already sat in my room doing nothing but thinking, and I was still as confused as ever.
Gripping my hands so tightly that my nails dug into my palms, I planted my feet and rolled my shoulders back. That awful confusion, those mixed emotions, and guilt were easier to deal with if I let them come out as anger. And I had plenty to be pissed off about.
Lev had tricked me into marrying him, knowing who I was and what I stood for, when I only thought he was a handsome, eccentric businessman. No, he was a Bratva king, and that threatened my future goals. His possessive nature would never let me go on my own terms. He had to go down.
Now, it was too late. Hardy stood in front of me, reaching out to shake my hand. “Is this Jenna Brixton?” he asked. “What a surprise.”
I flinched at my old last name, having grown accustomed to saying Jenna Volkov in my mind even though I still went by Brixton in public. Even Volkov wasn’t really Lev’s last name, was it? I held tight to my ragged anger, crystallizing it into a hard ball in my stomach to blot out the churning that threatened to make me flee for the nearest restroom.
I kept up the ruse of this being a coincidental meeting. “I’m here with my sister and friend,” I said, loud enough for the few stragglers going into the dining room.
“This is a wonderful resort. My wife and I come here at least once a year.”
