Description
“You’re getting married. Milos Levin needs a wife. He heads the Russian mafia—Bratva—here in Chicago. It’s time for him to get married, he wants kids and he wants them soon.”
Ice slides down my spine. Milos Levin is a man who has haunted my dreams and nightmares for the last four years. As the daughter of the Don of the Outfit, I knew this was a possibility. Yet I hoped since I made it to the ancient age of twenty-three, I was safe from a mob marriage. I’m the weird cat lady, too fat, and my mother is half Filipino. I shouldn’t have anyone asking for me—but Milos isn’t asking for me.
All he wants is a woman who fits his needs, someone who will cement his relationship with the Outfit and give him the children he wants. He would take my sister if she were willing because, as he told Carlo, all women are the same in the dark. But Carlo picked me, and I’ll do anything to protect my little sister.
Or so I tell myself—but that’s the biggest lie of all. The truth is four years ago I met Milos Levin on a freezing February morning, and I’ve never been the same since. I’ll marry him because I think that day, as crazy as it sounds, I fell in love with him.
But I can’t let Milos know that. Ever. He’s mafia, and whatever the name, their ways are all the same: take until there’s nothing left, then leave the enemy broken. I won’t be broken by him, or anyone. I won’t become my mother, willing to endure the affairs and lies in exchange for the money and status.