I swallow hard. “What for?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” He grabs my arm and claps a pair of handcuffs on my wrists, shackling them together. “That’s insurance that you don’t try to run off.” He grabs the chain and then yanks me toward the exit of the church as I stumble over my own feet, struggling to keep his pace.
Once we get to the van, he throws me in the back on my ass with the same three men that got out of it earlier. “Not a word,” he warns, before slamming the door shut in my face.
Tears prickle my eyes as I try to come to terms with what just happened. Adrik Volkov forced me to marry him and now he’s searching for Papá. Nothing good can come of this.
I fear I underestimated how much of a monster the man I just married is. I can’t stop the tears from falling as I sob silently in the back of the van, ignoring the three Russians sneering at me.
* * *
The van comesto a stop and I hear Budimir and Adrik talking in hushed Russian. And then they get out of the van and come around the back. “You three will come with me,” Adrik says. He grabs the chain between my handcuffs. “And of course, you, baby girl.”
I glare at him, a hate so intense rolling through my gut.
He chuckles. “Look at me that way all you want. You don’t know just how bad it’s going to get.”
How can a man be so utterly soulless?
He pulls me out of the van and onto the street outside Podolka. A few of the men at the front of the building look confused but allow Adrik in, as after all he’s one of them. I fear that perhaps that’s not quite true. Adrik works for no one but himself.
“You know what to do,” he says to one man.
Adrik pulls me toward the back room where he locked me and Lila in the day he caught us here. And I recognize Thiago’s voice immediately.
“No. Give us something to make it worthwhile.”
“Contracts,” someone says in a thick Russian accent.
“What kind of contracts?” Papá asks.
“All three of us agree to buy our product from you and sign contracts for that effect tonight. You end this bullshit. That way, you have a monopoly on the drugs flooding the city.”
Another man speaks, but I don’t recognize his voice either. “We can’t get out of our contract for cocaine with the current supplier.”
The Russian speaks. “Fine, the two of us, Me and Rourke, will sign contracts to that effect.”
“You’ll need to compensate us somehow, Morrone,” Papá says, which suggests the man speaking before is Italian.
“Guns. You supply our weapons,” he says.
“But—” Thiago says.
“Deal,” Papá cuts him off before he can finish his sentence.
“Now down to business,” the Italian says.
Adrik drags me forward and pulls his gun out of his jacket, cocking it. “Not so fucking fast, old man.”
My stomach churns as I watch my papá’s face fall. The man he had made a deal with is somehow one step ahead of him. It doesn’t take a genius to work out what is happening. My papá was agreeing peace with the three families and breaking whatever deal he made with Adrik.
“We had a deal, and now you go behind my back and abandon a plan we’ve had in place for months?” Adrik shakes his head. “Not if I have anything to say about it.”
Papá’s eyes narrow as he glances between me and my husband. “Let her go, Adrik.”
“She’s my wife. I’ll do what I want with her.”
“Fiancée.” Papá shakes his head. “You aren’t married yet.”