Page 26 of Forced Mafia Bride
“I helped them bring you here.”
A turbulent of strong emotion crashed against the walls of my heart and threatened to drag me under. Was it disappointment, anger, betrayal, orrelief? I couldn’t tell, although the tidal waves seemed like all of them.
“You helped them bring…?”
“Don’t be slow, princess. Aiden works for me, and by doing that, he has to continue working for your brother.” When I glared at Nikolai, he cocked his head to the side and bounced the heel of his shiny leather shoes on the carpet. “What?”
I ignored the handsome backstabber and faced Aiden. Looking at him made me want to cry. He’d always appeared so innocent yet fierce. I couldn’t say it was unusual to peg this type of atrocity to a man like him. On the contrary, men like him, Nikolai, Ronan…they lived for these kinds of tousle. But, deep down, in the recesses of my heart were….I may or may not have had the smallest crush on him while growing up.I thought he was one of thegoodones.
“So, you’re…a spy?”
“About a week ago,youwere willing to be my inside woman.”
From the periphery, I caught Hannah’s subtle grimace while not even the slight crease crossed Aiden’s face. Gritting my teeth, I shot daggers at the Russian with the arrogant brow raised on his forehead.
“Can you stop butting into our conversation? This does not concern you.”
A twitch of amusement settled on his lips when he reached forward to fill his tumbler with what I assumed to be Vodka in a transparent square-like bottle. This was certainly fun for him, watching me squirm uncomfortably in this miserable wedding dress.
“Oh, but itdoesconcern me. Stop deluding yourself and look around; you’re in my house.”
“Not by my choice.”
“But your brother thought it would be safer to keep you with me than—”
I frowned. “My brother…?”
“Ah.” He chuckled and nodded toward Aiden. “You are like a sister to him, are you not?”
This time, however, a shade of red dusted the paleness on Aiden’s cheeks. Slowly, he ducked his eyes away from mine and cleared his throat. I didn’t understand the hidden signals in the air, but I was sure of two things:
One. It stung.
The reason was uncertain, but Nikolai's confirmation that Aiden thought of me as a sister was heartwarmingandheartbreaking.
Two. The full reason for his presence in this house was not concluded.
I needed answers, and I needed them fast.
“Aiden, talk to me. Tell me, what is going on? Why are you here? Why are you working for him? Does he have something on you? Is it blackmail?”
Nikolai scoffed, and the other man chuckled.
Aiden remained quiet. His jaw flexed, and his gaze hardened by the second, as if the current reality of things strengthened his resolve. His shoulders slacked when he exhaled, and finally, he looked up at me again, his eyes letting me in for the first time since I could remember.
Honesty. Vulnerability.Care.
“Mr. Yezhov saved my life. No one else cared. Not your brother, not the men I thought were my brothers. The full story is irrelevant, but you should know that I owe him my life. If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be here. We are not saints, but your brother’s methods are….” He shook his head, his eyes going backto stone. “I don’t agree. I am sorry you had to find out this way, Rosalyn. My intentions have been nothing but genuine.”
If my reality was different, this would have been wrong—justifying Aiden’s actions,understandinghim. I believed him. I always did. Somehow, long before Hannah showed up, he was there to pick me up when my brothers pushed me. He was there to hold my hand and teach me how to ride a bike when Sean wanted to use that as punishment.
Aiden was always there.
I would have thrown a fit, or a punchmaybe, that the one man I trusted betrayed my family. But I couldn’t because reality was almost as nightmarish as my brother’s methods, and it shouldn’t have surprised me that I wasn’t the only one sick of him.
I twisted to the side, my fingers closing around her wrist with soft, questioning pressure. “That’s Aiden’s story, not yours. Were you a part of this from the beginning?”
She shook her head and patted the top of my hand. I released her. “No, I wasn’t. After….” Her eyes touched Nikolai’s briefly, and she swallowed. She couldn’t say his name. “Afterhetook you, your brother was livid, and, for the first time, I was scared of what he’d do to me.”