Page 66 of Arranged Marriage to the Brutal Bratva King
“We just got here.”
“Now, Janice. Unless you want me to make this worse.”
She must see something in my expression that convinces her I’m serious. She lets me guide her toward the exit, though her posture radiates fury.
The drive back is silent. Janice stares out the window, jaw tight, refusing to look at me.
I don’t apologize. Seeing another man’s hands on her, seeing her smile at him with genuine warmth, ignited something I can’t control or reason with.
She’s mine, and I’ll burn down anyone who forgets it.
Even if that makes me exactly the monster she thinks I am.
Chapter Seventeen - Janice
The silence in the car is suffocating.
I stare out the window, watching Westchester blur into highway, highway into city, the lights of Manhattan growing brighter as we get closer to the prison Dimitri calls home. My hands are clenched so tight in my lap that my nails dig crescents into my palms.
I’ve never been this angry in my life.
The humiliation burns through me in waves—the way every conversation died when Dimitri grabbed my old colleague. The shock on people’s faces. The whispers that followed as he dragged me out like I was a misbehaving child instead of a grown woman.
Most of all, the casual violence in his voice when he’d saidmine. Like I’m a possession. A thing he owns.
I wait until we’re in the elevator, doors closed, before I finally speak. “You had no right.”
Dimitri doesn’t look at me. Just watches the floor numbers climb. “I had every right.”
“He was my friend!”
“You don’t have friends anymore.”
The words land like a slap. “Excuse me?”
“Friends are liabilities. People who can be used against you, against me, against the family. You don’t get to maintain those connections.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I’m completely serious.” He turns to face me finally, expression carved from stone. “You’re a Bratva wife now. Thatmeans certain sacrifices. Friendships outside the family are one of them.”
“That’s insane. You can’t just… you don’t get to dictate who I talk to, who I see.”
“Yes, I do. That’s exactly what I get to do.”
The elevator doors open. I storm out ahead of him, needing distance, needing space to process the rage coursing through me.
Dimitri follows at a measured pace, maddeningly calm while I’m practically vibrating with fury.
“You humiliated me,” I snap, whirling to face him once we’re inside the penthouse. “In front of everyone. Made me look like I can’t handle a simple conversation without you intervening like some jealous asshole.”
“I am an asshole.” He shrugs out of his jacket, draping it over a chair with careful precision. “I thought you understood that by now.”
“Understanding it and accepting it are two different things!”
“Then don’t accept it. Be angry. Hate me for it.” He loosens his tie, watching me with those steel-gray eyes that miss nothing. “You have to understand that it won’t change anything. You’re mine, Janice. I don’t share. Not your time, not your attention, not your smiles or your touch or your friendship. Nothing.”
“That’s not love.”
