Second Best (Volkov Bratva 1)

Time ticked by, and along with it, my patience.

All my life, I’d been told to be quiet, to not make waves. I was nearly killed a week ago, and I’d followed all the rules. Not once had it helped me.

Sitting up, I put my arms on the table and looked at my husband. “Did you talk to my father?” I asked.

I must have taken Slavik by surprise because he finally looked up.

Silence.

I would not look away. This time, in a restaurant, we would at the very least pretend to want to be around each other.

Not that I should care. I was already a mockery wherever I went. For some reason, I felt rebellious tonight. Like I wanted him to notice me. Sergei had terrified me, to be frank. The only person offering to be my friend was the one person who could get killed for being so.

“I don’t talk business,” he said.

“Then what would you like to talk about?” I asked.

“What is this?”

“You drag me out of your home. Dress me up. Sit me here, for appearances’ sake. Am I right?”

He didn’t say anything.

“Then we sit here and you make me a complete laughing stock because you cannot even give your wife the time of day. You’re always attached to your phone. Are you, like, addicted to social media? You do the endless scrolling?” I needed to shut up. Clearly when I was attacked, something went wrong inside my brain because my lips kept on working when they should stay shut.

“Are you on social media?”

“No,” I said. I wasn’t allowed an account. My sister had been until she did the stupid thing of taking a selfie at a private party. Guess who got the punishment for that, little old me. Daddy didn’t like to punish his sweet girl. “Just because I don’t have an account doesn’t mean I don’t understand it. I don’t know you or what you do, but I can guess. If you don’t want to talk shop, fine. Just don’t ignore me. I’d rather eat at home if that’s what you want. I’m sure you have a lot more to do other than this.”

“Women like being taken out to dinner.”

“This woman likes to be acknowledged as actually existing. You’ve ignored me all week.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“With work you won’t talk about.” I shrugged. “We’re running around in circles right now.”

The waiter came, and I stopped, taking a deep breath. What the hell was wrong with me?

“Excuse me.”

I got to my feet, ignoring my husband, and walked to the ladies’ room. Entering, I saw there was no one there. I had no need for the toilet, so I went straight to the sink.

“What the hell is wrong with me?” I kept my head down. The last thing I wanted to do was look in a mirror. What I’d see looking back at me scared me.

I was going to get myself killed if I kept this up.

My face felt incredibly hot, but with the small amount of makeup I’d put on, there was no way I could splash my face.

After running my wrists beneath the cold tap, I reached out for a towel when my arm was grabbed and I spun around. Slavik was in the ladies’ room. He pressed me up against the bathroom counter.

I nibbled on my lip and tried to get as far as I could with the counter stopping me. There was nowhere for me to go.

“What is your problem?” he asked.

“I don’t have one. I don’t see a point in being here wasting our time if we’re not even going to have a civil conversation.” Why would I even want to have Slavik talking to me? The man was scary.

He made grown men afraid.

Here I was offering up a conversation with a man whose expertise was death.

“You’ve never seemed to mind before.”

“I always minded. Once or twice was fine, but we’ve been doing this same dance for far too long and I’m bored of it.”

In the back of my mind, I literally screamed for myself to shut the fuck up. Whatever I was doing, or thought I was doing, was going to get me killed.

“You’re bored.”

“You can’t tell me you’re excited about eating dinner with me when you’re checking your cell phone every two minutes.”

He didn’t say anything.

His body pressed against mine, and not for the first time, I became very aware of him as a man.

****

Slavik

I caught the flash.

Aurora didn’t understand it, but I did.

My wife felt a spark of attraction. The way she moved her body, like she wanted to get away from me, but only made me aware of her as a woman.

In fact, I’d been made aware of it several times.

I’d never allowed myself to get attached to anyone. Not even Ivan or Cara. I cared for them, and they were like a family, but the truth was I had no real emotion when it came to them. It was business. We’d survived by banding together and creating the world we now lived in where we were on top.