Sanctum: A Dark Bratva Arranged Marriage Romance (Wicked Vows)
Sanctum: Chapter 1

“I’LL DO whatever it takes, Mikhail. Whatever our family fucking needs.” When I close my eyes, I can still see my brother Lev, his face beaten to a bloody pulp. Unrecognizable. It was a threat, a thinly veiled warning meant to send a message to my brothers: we’re watching.

Jumped after a late-night gym session, it was five against one. Lev is a formidable opponent, but his pair of fists didn’t stand a chance against the pack of five masked men wielding broken bottles, a length of pipe, and a goddamn baseball bat.

We’ll replace who did this and when we do, they’ll wish they were never fucking born. But until then, we have to plan our next move strategically.

My older brother Mikhail paces in front of me, his hands shoved into his pockets. The blue light from our computer monitors casts shadows on the floor of his dimly lit office.

We’ve been at this all damn night. Empty pizza boxes are piled haphazardly in a corner of the room, the emergency stash of vodka long gone. The entire atmosphere of the room is charged, the weight of our decision impacting all of us.

We haven’t been able to replace out who beat him. Not yet. But we got the message. The death of our enemy Fyodor Volkov was only the beginning.

I pinch the bridge of my nose, my eyes stinging from staring at the computer screen for way too long.

Mikhail blows out a breath. “I know. That’s the problem, Aleks. I want to be sure bringing the Bianchis in through marriage is the best next move.”

I push away from the desk and stretch, my muscles aching from lifting earlier and sitting too damn long. On instinct, I glance at my phone to check the security details of our family. I’m always on hyperalert, but ever since Lev took a beating, I’m damn near glued to the screen.

I glance through the list of everyone who isn’t present. My mother and Polina are both at home, Viktor and Nikko in their homes, our younger brother Ollie in Moscow. Lev is still in the hospital. I can fit my entire world in the palm of my hand.

The security cameras show nothing out of place, including the two men we have in holding we transported back here to America from Russia.

I sit back down while Mikhail continues to pace.

“Mikhail, it’s probably best we don’t make decisions when we’ve been up all night.” Kolya leans back in his chair and strokes his beard threaded with silver. The group mastermind, my late father’s war buddy, Kolya’s taken on the position of father figure of the group even though he’s only half a generation older than we are and younger than my father was.

While Mikhail and I have changed into tees and jeans, Kolya’s still more formally attired in a dress shirt and neatly pressed pants. He’s well-meaning but ought to know by now you don’t talk me or Mikhail into letting anything go when the security of our family’s at stake.

Still, Kolya tries. “Go to bed. Go home to Aria.”

“Home to Aria?” Mikhail’s wife Aria appears in the doorway, wearing Mikhail’s tee and sweats, the only clothes that apparently fit her when she’s stuck in the office nine months pregnant. Her hair’s in a messy bun, her glasses perched on the edge of her nose. She has a laptop in one hand and a large plastic cup filled with something vibrantly pink, in the other. “I’ve been here working in between naps the whole time, I just didn’t want anything to do with the vodka shots for obvious reasons.”

Before Aria came, I was the group cybersecurity expert…at least ostensibly. We all knew the real job I got paid the big bucks for doing was hacking — until Aria showed me she was better. I’ve gotten over it, though, mostly because she isn’t just better than I am. She’s better than anyone in the goddamn world.

Aria isn’t well-versed in Bratva business, though, which is why she sticks to some jobs, and I do others.

“C’mere.” Mikhail sits in his office chair and gestures for her to come to him. She sidles onto his lap and plunks her computer on the desk. The real reason she’s here is because Mikhail doesn’t let her out of his sight. Not that I blame him. If I cared for anyone half as much as he does her, I wouldn’t let them out of my sight either.

“I’ve been listening to everything you said, I just needed to do so in a comfortable position.” She nestles in against my brother. “Though if I knew you were this comfortable…”

He kisses her temple and wraps his arms around her, whispering something I can’t hear in her ear.

I look back at my computer, a headache brewing behind my eyes.

“Aria, what’s your take?” I ask. If there’s anything I love about my sister-in-law, it’s that she is absolutely Mensa-level brilliant, likely the smartest person I’ve ever met. Just for fun, she learned Russian in a few short months. She can out-code anyone in the goddamn world. In the digital age, having the world’s best hacker on our team puts us at a decided advantage.

But even Aria hasn’t been able to identify the perpetrators.

“Alright, I’ll fill you boys in on what I’m thinking here.” Her fingers fly over the keyboard like she’s performing a magic trick. “We have two informants that we can trust, and I think⁠—”

“Maybe trust,” I interrupt. “I’m not convinced. You know we haven’t released them yet, right?”

Mikhail’s eyes narrow on me. He doesn’t like that I interrupted his wife, but we can deal with that later if he wants to be a dick about it.

“You still don’t trust them?” she asks, her eyebrows rising. “Seriously?”

“Of course not.”

“What will it take?” she asks, giving me a curious look.

“A decided show of loyalty. Some skin in the game. Talk is cheap.” I shrug. “They need to fucking bleed for us before I’ll trust them.”

“I agree,” Mikhail says soberly.

“As do I.” Kolya nods in agreement.

“Alright, alright,” Aria says, shaking her head. “Simmer down. All I was going to say was that they might be able to point you in the right direction.”

I shake my head and Mikhail and I respond in unison. “No.”

Aria sighs. “This is driving me batshit crazy.”

“You and me both,” I mutter. “The masks mean we can’t use facial recognition.”

She contemplates her laptop screen. “And the quality of the video looks like an iPhone at a rave. I just think your prisoners might have some useful info is all.”

Dmitri Petrov and Pavel Kuznetsov turned tail on their former mob after the death of their pakhan, Fyodor Volkov. Before he hung himself in prison, Volkov’s life mission was to decimate my family. He kept his men at odds and controlled them with intimidation tactics. There were no leaders, a sham of a hierarchy, and in the wake of his death, they’ve begun to fall apart.

Petrov and Kuznetsov turned themselves in to Mikhail following Volkov’s suicide. We’ve had them in holding now for several months. They haven’t had any contact with former associates. I would know because they’re under my charge.

“Maybe if you sent me in.”

Mikhail curses and grips her more tightly. “Are you out of your mind? Khristos, Aria. You’re not going anywhere near them.”

“But if I could ask the right⁠—”

“Enough.” Mikhail rarely raises his voice to her but what she’s suggesting is unthinkable. For all we know, they could be moles. Patient moles, but moles nonetheless.

With a sigh, Aria logs out and leans back thoughtfully against Mikhail. “Do you guys know about the sequoia tree?”

Jesus. I clench my jaw to keep from snapping. I’m fucking tired and I don’t want some fucking science quiz⁠—

“Aleks.” My gaze snaps to Mikhail. He doesn’t say another word. My name is only a warning. It’s uncanny how he can read my mind.

I blow out a breath and shut my laptop. My eyes need a break anyway. “Yes. The sequoia tree is one of the largest in the world. They can grow up to something like three hundred feet in height and they’re so big in circumference, some of them have actual tunnels large enough for cars to drive through them. What about them?”

Aria gives me that smug look she sometimes gets when she beats me in a hacking race. She’s lucky I love her like a sister.

“And what can you tell me about their roots, Aleksandr?” she asks in a tone a teacher might use when asking a student to recite the alphabet.

I’d tell her to fuck off, but Mikhail’s watching and I still value my life.

“Don’t know anything about the roots,” I admit through gritted teeth.

Aria’s eyes glow with triumph. She loves one-upping me.

“One might think they have massive roots, right? But no, they don’t. Their roots are quite shallow. It isn’t the depth of their roots that makes them so sturdy but how far they spread.”

Kolya’s eyes twinkle at her. He slowly nods, and Mikhail gives her a little squeeze.

“You guys are sequoias. Kings of the jungle. Volkov who? Good riddance. He thought he was going to overtake you guys, but no way. And lucky for you, he was so full of himself he practically self-destructed on his way out.”

She fires up her laptop again. “So yeah, you’re right. This isn’t looking good. While you’re strong financially, our group is comparatively small. While you’re strong physically, you’re still lacking reliable manpower to fortify. And while we’re doing our best to grow,” she says, patting her ample belly, “it will take time that we really don’t have. Mikhail was right when he suggested a marriage with the Bianchi family, Aleks. We need to consider further unions as well for the other men.”

“Yes. We’ve suffered three physical attacks and two cyberattacks since Volkov’s death. We aren’t the only ones who want to capitalize on his demise,” Kolya says. “We need to solidify our alliances sooner than later. We can’t underestimate the potential for ruin if we don’t.”

My mind whirs. “Right. What does Bianchi bring to the table?”

“Connections,” Mikhail says. “I agree with Kolya. We need to secure an alliance that fortifies our defenses. We need a lifeline.”

Aria nods. “Right. Also, you guys, we’ve looked at accounting, and while you are all still richer than God, some of your investments have gone belly-up. While you’ve all been hard at work establishing yourselves as the premier Bratva group here in The Cove, others have been trying to do the same.”

The Cove, nestled in the heart of New York, smack dab between Coney Island and Manhattan, is our stomping ground, the place we own.

I draw in a ragged breath as a chilling clarity cuts through my fuzzy haze of exhaustion. The burden of what happens rests squarely on my shoulders. We don’t have the luxury of time anymore. Every second that passes could mean my family’s demise.

“There’s no more time. My marriage to Harper Bianchi has to happen now.”

I hold Mikhail’s gaze and hide my clenched fists. I can’t put into words why the thought of a loveless marriage makes me want to hurl my laptop against the wall of his office. I thought by now I’d have gotten used to the idea. It isn’t the first time we’ve discussed it, but I thought I still had a few more months to warm up to the idea.

It’s only a wedding.

For life. To a woman I don’t love and haven’t even met.

But I owe this to my family.

I swallow the anger that boils inside me at the thought of what I have to do.

Mikhail’s still holding my gaze.

“Your loyalty to the brotherhood is admirable, Aleksandr,” he says softly.

I despise what I have to do to prove it.

I loved once, and once is enough for a lifetime. I know I’ll never love again. The least I can do is bring peace to my family.

I owe this to my brothers. To my family. If someone ever got to my sister Polina, or my mother, or, God forbid, Mikhail and Aria’s innocent baby… I’d never forgive myself.

I won’t make the same mistake twice.

My phone buzzes with a text. Mikhail nods, silent permission to check it.

I stare at the screen. “Speak of the fucking devil.”