Page 79 of The Bratva's Bride

Oh, a body was found with forty-six stab wounds? Obviously it was done by a sick and twisted individual, not good ol’ Angel—no, never. This sweet nurse with not a blemish on her record could never commit such a heinous act.

Not that I would ever get caught—because most of the law was in our pocket—but having a seemingly innocent image was a good cover to have myself be overlooked initially.

Remaining the silent spectator, I quietly ate my breakfast while continuing to watch the brothers banter with each other and have a good time. I couldn’t help myself but wonder if this was how a family was supposed to be. Happy, content, united. Obviously my family was all kinds of fucked up. Greg being the only good sibling I had, but we weren’t as close compared to Nikolai and his brothers.

I wonder if our children would get along like this.

The image of seeing our children playing in the backyard, enjoying a game or a tv show in the family room, and being all together for meal time at the dining table brought a big smile to my face. Hopefully we’d have that one day once we deem business to be smooth sailing.

“What are you smiling about over there? You look like you took some happy pills.” Arseny joked with a chuckle, snapping me out of my little day dream.

Looking up, I could see that the table went quiet as all five of them had their beady little blue eyes trained on me. “Hm? Nothing, just remembering something good.” I lied with a smile. No way in hell would tell them I just imagined our house filled with little mini mes and Nikolais. I’d get teased to no end for a good month.

Thankfully, Nikolai prevented any further prodding from his brothers. But I knew it was far from over with the look he gave me. Nikolai would bring this back up later tonight, and there was no escaping it. “Do you have any plans today,lisichka?”

“Besides my appointment, no. Why? We didn’t have anything planned today, right?” I was usually pretty good about remembering any dates, outings, and events. But given how much of a ditz I’ve been the past two-ish weeks, I wouldn’t be surprised if something didn’t get filed away properly in my brain.

“No.” His head lightly shook with his chuckle, “We didn’t. Just wondering for later possibly. Don’t worry about it.” It was his typical smile that always made my heart flutter, but there was something different about it this time—and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. Usually the little uptick to his smile meant he would be doing some shady business, the ones where he came home in ruined clothes or with blood on his hands—or both.

A part of me wished he’d let me know what his plans were, so I won’t get a bad surprise when he’d come home. Granted he hasn’t come home in terrible shape; the worst I’ve seen were minor knife cuts and grazes from bullets.

There was no stopping him though. He had his family business to run, and I wouldn’t try to convince him otherwise. This wasn’t one of those ‘oh I can change him’ relationships and shit. Honestly though, when have those ever worked out?

Besides, I didn’t want to change anything about Nikolai, even if I were an innocent party in the marriage. Having my own protective bratva boss was damn awesome. Someone wronged me? They’d be dealt with. I want someone gone? Done. Sure, not everyone wants a killer as their husband, but I honestly didn’t mind.

Then again, I was pretty fucked up. So, I don’t think anyone should ever follow my life.

Everyone wants the hero, but the hero would never make the sacrifices needed. I only realized it once I grew up. The hero is nice, but I don’t want nice. I want the fucked up villain who would fuck shit up for me if I asked them to. I want the man who wouldn’t be afraid to get his hands filthy to keep mine clean.

If I asked Nikolai to shoot someone, he’d say who and pull the trigger with no hesitation. If I asked for a victim, then he’d procure one. That’s what I liked about our relationship. Nikolai didn’t care about my twisted tendencies—hell he indulges them. He doesn’t try to stop me if I do decide to shoot someone in the knees or if I decide to go on a raid and burn down a building. Hell, he’d provide me with the ammunition and means.

I really adored this husband of mine. “Well, stay safe out there. Just remember to come home to me alive.” It’s the least I could ask of him. I could deal with minor injuries—hell I’d take missing limbs—as long as he was alive.

“Don’t worry, we’ll bring him back alive and in one piece.” Stepan assured me with a confident smile. “Ain’t ready to be a dad yet, so he’s gotta give me some nieces and nephews to spoil.” His soft laugh stirred the others into one too as he patted his older brother on the shoulder.

“Go get laid yourself.” Nikolai sneered, shoving his brother back a little before getting up from his seat. Looking at me with a positive smile, he leaned over and placed a kiss to the top of my head, “I’ll be back to you, promise.” With that, he left along with his brothers, leaving me alone with Benjamin who stood at the entryway of the dining room.

I had planned on staying home until my appointment time came closer, but I decided against lazing around when I thought about my father. It had been a while since I’ve gotten to spend quality time with him. My life’s gotten a little too hectic lately to spend much time with my father after work or outside of it.

When I arrived at my father’s private room in the hospital, I was a little surprised to find Greg there. He knew about what Nikolai discovered along with the plan to wean our father off the drugs, and he had to be fine with it. Not like Greg had much of a say in our father’s medical care. While I valued his opinion because he saw things from a nonmedical person’s perspective, I still had the final say.

Even after the medical proxy papers were—illegally—fixed, I couldn’t put Greg on it because it would put him directly in Lady Qing’s path. Greg kept under the radar for a reason, so if his name suddenly appeared on papers connected to our father then Lady Qing would dig into him and tear his life apart.

“Still nothing?” Greg asked with a heavy sigh as he stood there by our father’s bedside with his hands in his pockets.

“It’s not an instantaneous thing, or fast thing... Or a guaranteed thing either...” I held out too much hope to accept the fact our father would never wake up again.

“You gotta stop beating yourself up about this. I can see how it’s eating you up still.” Greg sighed heavily with concern, his eyes furrowing together with his eyebrows.

“I should have just stuck to my initial gut feeling about her being more involved inba’scondition and been more persistent.” I should’ve been stubborn like a bull and plowed head first into the walls that popped up when Greg and I dug into Lady Qing for evidence of foul play against my father. Everything thread we grasped led back to nothing concrete or nothing at all. Maybe if I had been more persistent then I could’ve found something and reversed things for our father sooner.

“Ange, we did what we could, and nothing panned out. Even the best cops get cold cases.” Greg’s attempts to ease my inner turmoil fell onto deaf ears.

Sighing softly, he shook his head and stared off for a few seconds before speaking up again, “What are you going to do if he-”

“He’s going to wake up.” I wasn’t even going to let him finish that question. I knew I should be seeing all the possibilities, be reasonable and rational. It’s what I told all my patients whenever it came down to them needing to make difficult decisions. Yet, I couldn’t find it in myself to think objectively when it came to our father.

“Angel... I know this is hard for you, but you need to step back and think like a nurse right now. I don’t want you getting hurt more than needed if the worst comes true. You’ve already been through enough shit.” Greg said with a sigh, throwing his arm around my shoulder and pulling me against him in a brief side hug.