Velvet Devil: A Russian Mafia Romance (105)

She sits a little straighter in the tub, pulls her legs up, and wraps her arms around them. Her hair and clothes are completely drenched and translucent.

She still manages to look like a fucking mermaid. Her green eyes bore into mine without blinking or backing down.

And I have to wonder: where has all this confidence come from?

I’ve seen glimmers of it before. When we’ve fought. When we’ve fucked. But nothing as bold and as unabashed as this.

“There’s a first time for everything,” she tells me.

And almost impossibly, I find myself hoping that I’ve made the right mistake.





40





Camila





I stay in the tub.

Partly because the hot water feels so luxuriously comforting after that ice cold punishment Isaak had unleashed on me. And partly because I can’t bring myself to move.

So I stay here. Caught in between two forces I can’t explain, can’t resist, can’t decide between.

I’m still wearing my clothes. The fabric clings to my body in some places and floats around freely in others. I watch the patterns they make and try not to think.

I look up only when I hear a knock on the door. It’s definitely not Isaak. He’s not capable of knocking before he enters a room. It’s not Edith, either. The knock was too self-assured, too confident to belong to her.

“Can I come in?”

Bogdan?

I frown, but I’m incapable of feeling self-conscious right now. Then again, I’m incapable of feeling much of anything.

“You can come in,” I say, hating how small my voice sounds.

He steps into my bathroom and eyes me with a sympathetic expression. “Ah.”

“What are you doing here?”

“My mother told me what happened in the garden,” he says. “She wanted me to come up here and break up the fight.”

“Would you have done?” I ask curiously. “If Isaak had still been in here raging at me?”

“Depends,” he answers vaguely.

I roll my eyes. “Sorry I asked.”

Bogdan sighs and grabs the ornate chair that rests on the side of the bathroom. It’s meant to be purely decorative, but he ignores that, dumps off the carefully rolled towels that were resting on it, and sits down.

“I know he must seem pretty harsh sometimes.”

“Harsh?” I repeat incredulously. “He’s borderline psychopathic.”

“Trust me—with the father we had, it’s a wonder he’s not full-on mental. He considers himself a lot like our dad, and in some ways, he is. But his true nature is very different.”

“Sounds like some cop-out excuse. But fine, I’ll bite: what’s his true nature?”

“He’s fiercely protective,” Bogdan says simply.

“I think you mean ‘insanely controlling.’”

Bogdan laughs. “Of course he’s controlling. He’s a don, and he has been for years now. Even before he had the title, he had the responsibility.”

“He’s the same with you, isn’t he?”

“He’s the same with everyone. He fights only because he’s trying to do what’s best for the Bratva.”

I sigh and splash my hand down in the lukewarm water. “He doesn’t always know better.”

“That’s what I used to think, too,” Bogdan says with a commiserating nod. “See, of all the people here, I’m probably the one who can relate to you the most.”

“How do you figure that?”

“Because I’m his brother. And I was na?ve enough to think that our relationship as brothers would trump everything else. But then he became don, and I realized that when it came to certain decisions, he was my don first, my brother second.”

I sigh with frustration. “Okay, fine. But he’s not my don, Bogdan.”

“Even worse—he’s your husband.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “Legally, maybe,” I concede. “But in my eyes, that wasn’t a real marriage.”

“Doesn’t make it any less binding.”

“What’s your point?” I ask with irritation. “Just accept that my life is tied to his and bow down to him? Obey him like the rest of you do?”

“Fuck no. That’s what you got from what I was saying?”

I do a double-take. “Um…”

He grins mischievously. “Camila, you’re the only one in his entire life who’s ever fought back. He’s not used to it. And until he gets used to it, you two will clash. Personally, I think it’s good for him.” He pauses to think and then adds, “But just to be clear, if you ever tell him I said so, I’m going to deny it. Confidently and vehemently and completely shamelessly.”

I crack a smile. The numbness that had engulfed me only a few minutes ago seems to fade slowly. I’m very aware that I’m still sitting fully clothed in a bathtub full of water like a lunatic. But I don’t care anymore.

“Was it really so bad with your father?” I ask.

I know it was. But I’m just being nosy, angling for information that I’m not sure Isaak will ever give me. There are no stakes with Bogdan, though, so naturally, he’s easier to talk to.