Aurora
Ten months earlier
The party was boring.
Women stood in their little groups, gossiping amongst themselves. Some of them glanced in my direction. The Italian mafia-made men mingling with the same version of the Russian ones. I wasn't exactly sure of the full details as to what they were all called. What I did know was Slavik Ivanov, my husband, was like the Capo in his world. Even though we were parted by twenty-one years. He was forty years old, and I was nineteen, but in this world, age didn't matter.
Sipping on my champagne, I held the glass in my hand, counting to ten repeatedly to try to calm my nerves.
I'd been married a week. The event had been a huge success. The press had been there to take pictures and to announce it in the paper. My father hadn't wanted to give my perfect, beautiful sister to such a man, but me, he had no problem. Put my hand in Slavik's and ignored me for the rest of the day.
Even the following morning, I'd done our family proud by bleeding. On our wedding night, my husband had made me bleed. I was sure a lot of virgins did on their first time.
The night itself was kind of a blur.
Slavik and I didn't talk.
No words were whispered or spoken out loud. To anyone who'd look at us, we'd been nothing more than perfect strangers. He hadn't touched me since, which was a blessing. In fact, at night, I slept alone.
The pain had been … well, it wasn't something I wished to repeat.
When we'd gotten to the room, he'd pulled the covers back, tore my dress off with his knife, and I'd lain down and closed my eyes as he climbed on top.
The only sounds in the room had been his heavy panting.
I'd drawn blood on my lip.
Done.
Finished.
No longer a virgin.
The romance books I read were so far off the mark, it wasn't even funny.
Glancing at my husband, I saw he stood with his constant scowl, looking out over the room. I didn't know if he had the first clue of how to smile.
It wasn't my problem. That was the mantra I kept telling myself.
Every single night this past week, he'd arrived home, and each time I saw him, he'd been covered in blood. In our world, it was best not to ask any questions, so I didn't.
Some would call me a coward. My mother had once told me it was all about survival. As women, we were so easily replaced.
In fact, as the men were all cheering at Slavik's virgin, my mother was telling me he'd be bored now and would find other women to deal with his appetites.
What did I have to look forward to? The children he'd grant me unless he killed me first.
It didn't matter. No one cared. I sipped at my champagne and simply waited. This was an engagement party for one of the other bosses' brigadiers or whatever it was he called them. I didn't even know if he kept to these terms as Ivan Volkov was supposed to be taking his Bratva into another era. A modern era of peace, where he set the hierarchy and the new rules and terms for how things were run.
I came from tradition. Where everything was done via the book, including arranged marriages.
Standing at a party, surrounded by a bunch of Russians, well, it was scary. They all spoke English. I knew my husband did speak Russian, or at least I thought he did. Sometimes I'd heard him in hushed tones. I didn't even dare to learn the language for fear of where that would leave me.
Finishing my champagne, I chanced another glance at my husband, and shame washed over me when I caught sight of a barely dressed woman hanging around him. Her head was tilted back and laughter spilled from her lips. The way she looked so calm and collected around him, I didn't get it.
He was scary as fuck.
Not that I'd say it aloud. In fact, over the years, I'd learned the fine art of saying stuff in my head. I'd even begun to cuss out my parents and tell the boss to fuck off. It was kind of fun. They controlled everything else around them, but not my thoughts. It was the one sense of freedom I got.
A waiter came by to offer me another flute of champagne, which I ignored. I didn't know when the polite time would come to make my excuses to leave. Rather than come with my guard and driver, Slavik had brought us. The moment we'd entered the party, he'd left me here all alone.
This was … humiliating.
A week married and my husband couldn't even be bothered to stand with me. Not that it came as any surprise. I wasn't beautiful. All my life I'd been told I was the ugly one. The ugly, fat sister no one wanted. I had long, brown hair, the tips of which touched the curve of my ass, which again was another issue. I had a weight problem. On a good day, I fit into a size eighteen. I had huge tits, massive hips, a somewhat slender stomach in comparison, and chunky thighs. Even when I dieted and exercised, the curves stayed. It was something I had to live with.
Was it polite to fold my arms across my chest?
It was so hard to not show boredom when that was exactly what I was.
When the woman, whoever she was, seemed to be kissing my husband's neck, I'd had enough of the spectacle and decided to make my way outside. The doors were wide open, and the moment I was out in the fresh air, I took a deep, calming breath.
Tilting my head up to the sky, I saw it was a clear night, which explained the cold. The chill made me realize I was very much alive. Not a single part of me was dead, even though people seemed to pray for my death.
The idea of my marriage being a peace treaty was so fucking lame and stupid. They thought it was going to bring peace. The truth was it now made more people hate me because they couldn't continue their bloodshed.
"It's a nice night out, isn't it?"
The deep rumble of a voice startled me, and I turned around to see none other than Ivan Volkov smoking a cigarette in the shadowed corner, slightly hidden away by the door. I hadn't known anyone else was out here.
"Do you speak?"
"Y-yes, sorry. You startled me."
He chuckled. "The party is not to your liking?"
I quickly glanced at the doors. Everything was an act of survival now. If I said the wrong thing, he'd kill me. If he wanted some entertainment with my screams, he'd kill me. There was no way to win.
"It's wonderful."
"And yet you escape to the cold outdoors." He tutted. His accent was rather nice.
"I just needed some air."
"Oh, please, I saw you in there." He chuckled. "I would have thought Slavik would have known better by now."
Crap! Was I going to get my husband in trouble? Did I care? He had another woman hanging off his arm. Girlfriends, mistresses, they weren't exactly unheard of in our circles. For many, it meant the husbands had other places to go for them to sate their appetite. For others, they were a pest and destroyers of loving relationships.
Love.
I didn't have love.