Filthy Rich (The Five Points' Mob Collection, #2)

by Serena Akeroyd

Never the twain shall meet, and all that shit. And personally, I didn’t appreciate playing Romeo to a fucking Muscovite Juliet...

Today was my wedding day. Yeah, I was getting married, and I wasn’t fucking happy about it. It was also my bride’s goddamn...

I already knew my father was a whack job, but if I hadn’t known it, this wedding proved it. He wanted my kid in office. Or, at least, one of his sons’ kids in office. That was the end game, and fuck, I wanted nothing to do with it and didn’t have a goddamn say in it either way.

Even in midsummer, St. Patrick’s was goddamn cold, so the Bridal Chorus came as a relief—my dick was about to fall off from the chill within the old stone walls.

“You look at her like that, she’ll have a heart attack,” Dec muttered, as he twisted around to stare at my bride. Disinterested in the proceedings, I shrugged. “Will save me the trouble of having her as a ball and chain.” His lips twitched. “She looks hot.” “She’s eighteen. I don’t go in for kids.”

“She’s legal,” Declan replied, “and, let’s face it, you can’t not consummate it. Da won’t allow it.” “What’s he going to do? Put fucking cameras ...

Declan snorted. “Just bone her. She’s beautiful. You should have gone to her birthday party yesterday, man. That was fucking rude. She looked banging.”

Beneath the organ, the throbbing notes that signified a death knell for every man’s freedom, under the low hum of the crowd’s oohing and aahing at my child fucking bride, I heard the hushed murmur of her skirts against the floor—that was only because my senses were honed. I also heard her father’s tapping footsteps, and knew my fate was sealed.

I mean, I’d known that earlier, but still. This was it. It was really fucking happening. Those tapping footsteps, the shushing skirts, they signed my death certificate.

Women were a commodity to the Bratva. Children were property to be bought and sold, and while that was the case with the Irish Mob too, we didn’t tend to pimp out our kids to the enemy.

That she didn’t use a lily-based scent actually perked me up. What didn’t? Why her father hadn’t raised her veil. Why her maid of honor hadn’t darted forward to do the same.

I wasn’t a man who appreciated weddings, but I was Catholic. Weddings, funerals, and fucking baptisms were our stock-in-trade. I knew the score. And I knew that, even if the Orthodox rituals were different, they weren’t that different.

Even if they were, I knew my father. He’d have micromanaged the shit out of the ceremony, and he liked things done just so. He wanted the world to know the father was giving up the d...

He’d want Vasov to raise the veil, to look at Inessa, for the girl to know she was a commodity her father was willing to trade, before handing her over to the buyer. Yeah, sick, but that was daddy dearest for you. That was how I knew...

I ignored it all, focused only on her, on the puzzle that I was about to uncover, because all my instincts were telling me something. Something I didn’t fucking like.

They were hiding her away like she was some ugly bitch, where Declan had distinctly told me she was beautiful. He wouldn’t lie. Not to me. Not without knowing I’d castrate him if he lied about that.

So what the fuck were they hiding? Whether I wanted Inessa or not, she was my property. Had been since my goddamn father had tied me into this fucking engagement. And...

So my stillness? It was me trying to prepare myself. Me trying to calm myself down, because if I didn’t, I would slice Vasov up like a motherfuc...

The sight did stir me into action a minute later, because I didn’t want her fear to encompass me, didn’t want her to associate me with fright. So, I reached out, noticing she flinched at the movement, and slowly began to unveil my prize. They’d done a skilled job of it. I’d give them that.

The makeup was pretty flawless, but my trade was blood. Broken bones. Bruises. I knew a black eye when I saw it. I knew a busted jaw too.

Sure, they might have been going for the demure look, but I’d seen nuns show more skin. My mouth tightened, and I stopped looking at her flaws, and instead, looked at her. My bride. She was beautiful. Dec was right. She was a fucking stunner.

Her face was delicate, the bones strong, but somehow fragile. Like she was a fairy. Her blonde hair was in a fancy topknot, and tiny curls bobbed around her cheeks—it was a neat updo, but the way it teased and bounced with the faintest movement reminded me of the way a woman would raise her hand to grasp a hold of her hair during a blowjob when shit got real and she got down to business.

Her eyes transmitted her confusion, but I wasn’t confused. She was just registering the truth. She was mine now.

As he got on with the ceremony, I tilted my head to the side. “I will make them pay for beating you.” She stiffened. “I-I…they didn’t.” “Bullshit.” Another flinch. “Don’t lie to me, Inessa,” I warned, and as Doyle droned on, I whispered, “They did a good job, but not good enough. You’ll dance in their blood if you want.”

She didn’t reply, and while she was tense from the unusual hold I had her in, she relaxed somewhat at that. If there was any consolation to marrying Bratva scum, it was that she’d been raised in the life. She knew aggression and bloodshed were the universal language.

She was mine to protect, mine to defend, just fucking mine. Unlike every other aspect of my life, I wouldn’t have to share her. Not with my brothers, not with the family, not with the Five Points. She belonged to me, and Eoghan O’Donnelly protected what belonged to him. That was a fucking fact.

He knew.

Even as terror had filled me that he’d reject me, break off the wedding I knew he didn’t want—probably even less than me, considering he’d managed to evade every single one of my father’s invitations for us to meet—he’d raised my veil. And he’d seen. He’d seen what few men would. He’d seen what I was supposed to hide, what fantastic makeup had tucked away, but he’d noticed. Had witnessed the truth of what had gone down a few days ago.

An expert marksman who’d been dishonorably discharged from the army, his skills were renowned—even by my father. And Antoni Vasov didn’t approve of anyone or anything. The asshole.

Undoubtedly, Aidan O’Donnelly Sr. thought he’d won some kind of boon by having the wedding ceremony in a Catholic church, and by being able to hold a traditional Catholic wedding when, really, it was a sign of my father washing his hands of me.

There’d be none of the traditions my sister would get at her wedding. No special ceremonies like the crowns brides and grooms were given on the day, the earrings a bride received during the ceremony—Eoghan’s family had given me a set that matched my ring as part of a bridal trousseau. There’d be none of the games that were played between a couple who was in love for the entertainment of their family.

This was a business transaction, and Father had made that very clear by not having a thin...

Not even to save face among our people was he willing to lower his disregard of me, and though I didn’t want to be married at eighteen, I d...

There were only so many times an animal could be beaten before they decided to bite back, and each and every time he hit me, each and every time Svetlana slapped me and I was expected to do nothing other than take...

Gritting my teeth was almost as painful as the bruises they inflicted upon me. Things had gotten worse recently, and it had culminated in t...

My entire face was numb. I was a little high on Tylenol with codeine from the pain—not just from the wounds themselves, but from the fact I’d had three makeup artists flittering around me, ...

I wasn’t sure how I hadn’t cried my makeup off, but it stuck. Somehow. An...

A here and now where I was getting married. To a man I didn’t know. To a man I didn’t want to know. To a man who had killed only God knew how many people for cold, hard cash.

There was no divorce in our world. Only death. Either through the freedom of illness or violence.

And while his words weren’t comforting, they sure as hell stuck with me. “You’ll dance in their blood if you want to.”

Aidan Sr. was scary, and I said that when I was a Pakhan’s daughter. When I was the daughter of a woman who’d been slain for being married to said Pakhan… Scary and me were friends.

But Aidan Sr.’s eyes said it all. He was insane. I wondered if his family knew it, and if they did, if they were as terrified of him as I tried not to be.

A united front, a merging of the Bratva and the Mob, would make us stronger. Safer.

And I really didn’t want to die like my mom had. I didn’t want to be raped by scum who hurt me just because they hated my husband. I didn’t want to be butchered like an animal, even though I’d had no say whatsoever, just like she hadn’t, in whom she married.

Tears pricked my eyes at the thought, and I dipped my chin, whispering, “They can’t touch me anymore.” He stiffened at th...

Yeah, technically Eoghan was a dream. A technicolor one.

I hadn’t expected any kindness from him. If the Russians hated the Irish, that was nothing compared to what they felt for us. I’d known I was walking into enemy territory today, but, of course, life was full of surprises.

My ‘home’ camp had treated me worse than Eoghan who, the second he’d seen me, had stopped glowering at me, and had started glaring at the world like he was pissed at it and not me.

I couldn’t even begin to describe how much of a relief that was. Not to be in his crosshairs? Bliss! And the truth was, if he could keep me safe? I’d do anything, be any...

I just wanted away from my family, I just wanted a life of my own, even if it was still curtailed by being a wife to a high-r...