Page 48 of Romi

“She won’t agree to this! You can’t just do this!” I cried.

What the hell was I going to do?

“It is done!” he said firmly, leaning back in his chair and narrowing his eyes at me again.

Shit, shit, shit! This was all my fault. I should have told Miki of my feelings for Sonia the minute I had accepted that our love was real and we belonged together and dealt with the consequences instead of procrastinating. I had wanted to make things easier on all of us and had been waiting for the right time, but while I was waiting, my woman was being signed over to another man like some sort of commodity. How the fuck could I have been so stupid? I should never have waited. I’d thought we’d had enough problems stacked up against us, but now we had a bloody arranged marriage to contend with.

“Surely Ash and Marko don’t agree?” I asked, unable to believe for a second that they would have condoned this.

“They will because their Pakhan has entered into an agreement, and it can’t be broken,” he stated in an obvious warning,

Fuck! I’d only just finally accepted my love for Sonia and her love for me. We were meant to be together. I couldn’t lose her now. My stomach churned and sweat broke out all over my body.

“Miki, this is not right. You can’t force Sonia to marry against her will,” I stated incredulously.

“You don’t want her to be unhappy, do you?” I asked, trying to appeal to his brotherly instincts instead of his Pakhan ones.

“Dariusz is a good man. I’m sure he will do everything he can to make her happy,” Miki said firmly, annoyance and anger lacing his voice.

No fucking way! I surged to my feet. No other man would make her happy but me!

Seething with rage, my body was poised for a fight, my fists clenched tightly at my sides; I desperately held myself back from leaping over the desk and punching the hell out of Miki.

Calm down! I pleaded with myself, running my hands through my hair in frustration. Attacking Miki wouldn’t help my case. I needed to think things through.

“You have work to do; I suggest you go do it!” Miki said with barely contained anger, dismissing me.

Fuck him! I stormed out of his office, slamming the door behind me. The crashing sound of something falling off the wall gave me a tiny bit of satisfaction as I rushed straight for the front door. I needed to put some distance between us, or I might end up returning to beat the crap out of my pakhan, and that would definitely land me in even more trouble than I was in and certainly wouldn’t do anything to change his mind.

Climbing into my car, I drove along the driveway and out of the gates like a bat out of hell. I sped along the country roads like a man with a death wish, only coming to my senses when I stupidly overtook another vehicle and just barely missed an oncoming truck. Swerving out of the way just in time, I gulped at the close call.

What the hell was I doing? Acting like an idiot and getting myself killed was hardly the way to deal with this situation.

Slowing down, I pulled into a layby, turned the engine off and jumped out. I dragged big heaving breaths of country air into my lungs, determined to calm the fuck down and make some plans.

My instincts were like those of a caveman. I wanted to go back home, throw Sonia over my shoulder, and run off with her right now, but I knew I couldn’t do that—not yet, anyway.

I needed to be rational right now. We were about to have a huge battle on our hands. If I ran with Sonia now, it would jeopardise all of our plans, which could be disastrous. I didn’t want any of our family or men to be killed because I was selfish. I might be spitting mad at him right now, but Miki needed me, and I couldn’t let him, the rest of our family, or Brotherhood down.

Still, I had to do something.

Huffing heavily, I sat on the bonnet of the car with my head in my hands. Sonia was going to have a fit when she found out, and I needed to figure things out before then. It was going to be hard to change Miki’s mind, but I had to try to stop this situation before it got to the point of no return—if it hadn’t already. But how?

Uncle Maxim! If anyone could help us, it was him. I just hoped he could.

As I placed the call, I tapped my leg anxiously, too pent up and worried to sit still.

“Romi, my boy, how are you?” Uncle Maxim asked.

“Not so good!” I told him truthfully.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, and the genuine concern in his voice was all it took.

Confessing everything, I told him that I was in love with Sonia, and she was in love with me, but now Miki had entered into an arranged marriage contract with Glowacki for her to marry his son, screwing things up for us.

When I had finally finished, I was breathing heavily again, pacing in front of the car, and clenching and unclenching my fists in anger.

“Can you help?” I asked him, holding my breath.