Page 39 of Bratva and Betrayal: Kirill

“We were happy, Sandrine,” he murmurs, his voice dropping and roughening at the same time. “You loved me.”

His hand lifts, reaching for me, but I flinch. Anger flickers across his face. He’s wounded. That hurts, and I hate that I notice. That I feel the pull of him even as fear curls tighter in my chest.

“Did you love me?” I force my voice to be steady. “You put a gun to my head. Put me in handcuffs. Locked me in a cell.”

“I thought you betrayed me,” he snaps, the restraint cracking just enough to let that anger I saw earlier through. “I had no idea about the amnesia.”

“I’m not agreeing to anything,” I say, standing my ground in a way I haven’t in five years. “Until I see my sister.”

“You will,” he replies, his tone controlled again. “Soon.”

“I was in a rehab facility,” I add, the words tumbling out.

I need him to hear this, to understand my needs.

“I’m still recovering from head trauma. I’m following a program with meds and therapy. When can I go home?”

His gaze sweeps the room, then it returns to me, steady and unyielding. “You are home.”

The certainty in his voice sends a chill down my spine. As if it isn’t turning my world inside out.

“And I will see to your care. I promise,” he adds.

I look around the room again, taking in the details. It looks comfortable. But not lived in. Not his, since most of this space is bare.

“If I’m your wife, why are you putting me in this room?”

“Do you want to share my bed already?” His voice drops to a tone I’ve heard Ares use on Lourdes.

The kind that made her blush and her nipples rage through her blouse.

My throat goes tight. “No. I never want to share your bed. I don’t know you.”

Yet, as I say those words, they feel weak in my throat.

His eyes narrow, and even like that, he’s so ridiculously handsome. “You say you don’t know me because of a head injury. I don’t know you because you left me the night of your accident, and I have no idea if you intended to ever come home. So right now, I don’t know what I want for us.”

“Then why stay married?”

Kirill straightens slowly. “Because my father is dying, and I’m next in line to lead the Bratva.”

My stomach tightens. Bratva. I know what that means. He’s not a businessman. Not a politician. Kirill is mafia. Like Ares.

I’d heard whispered rumors over the years at Lakeshore of the Russian Mafia here in Chicago and how dangerous and lethal they are.

“Within thirty days of my father’s death,” he continues evenly, “I’ll be crowned pakhan, and I need my wife at my side.”

According to him, that’s me.

“Is he in the hospital?” I ask. “Your father?”

“No.” Kirill shakes his head. “He’s here. In the north wing. He has a nurse.”

“Have I… Have I met him?”

Kirill goes still. “Yes. You have.”

He doesn’t elaborate, and I can’t process much else right now. I’m too tired to argue anymore. I glance down at my shorts and flip-flops.