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

“WHERE ARE WE GOING?” I’m trying to pretend I’m all casual sitting next to him in the SUV, but I’m still as warm and pliable as softened caramel. I wonder if he knows that sex does that to me. It’s healing, in its own way, to lose control to him. To let him actually pleasure me.

I don’t have many recollections of the night I was assaulted, but the few that I do have fade every time Aleksandr touches me.

“We were supposed to take you to the shooting range this morning. That was my original plan.”

“Oooh.” My eyes go wide and my heart races a bit faster. “I’m going to learn to shoot?”

“Learn to shoot?” The familiar darkness shadows his face and his grip on the steering wheel tightens. “Fuck yeah, you’re gonna learn to shoot. And not just shoot. I’m going to train you in hand-to-hand combat and self-defense. There will be justice served, and you’ll have your hand in it.”

Imagine being empowered. Feeling like I’ll be able to defend myself if anyone ever tries to assault me again. Because while I love the thought of Aleks seeking vengeance as well, I don’t like having to depend on a man to do it for me.

“Don’t get any ideas,” he says with a warning cut of his eyes. “You’ll never be able to overpower me, Princess.”

My heart thumps in my chest.

That’s what he thinks.

I mean, I could have fun trying, anyway.

“Aleks, what’s the plan here? I mean, we go in and tell them that she’ll be coming home with us?”

“Yes. We’re stopping first at the police station. Got a friend there who does car seat safety.”

Oh my God. Our first stop is to get the baby’s car seat installed. I almost laugh out loud.

“What?” he says, as he flicks the directional. “You don’t fuck around with that shit, Harper. Needs to be installed safely.”

The police station looms ahead.

“You’re a mobster, that’s what.”

He curls his lip. “In your world you call those fucking men mobsters.” He lifts his chest, his accent thickening. “I’m Bratva.” Another cut of his eyes. “We’ll have a talk about that later. You’ll have to practice saying it correctly.”

Another heart somersault. I keep it together. “I don’t think we’ll have time. We’re bringing home a child.”

“A child who will have a nanny and the endless attention of her Auntie Polina. We’ll have plenty of time.”

I frown at him. “Not sure I want a nanny.”

“You can spend as much time with her as you like, but the nanny’s not optional. As my wife, you’ll be expected to attend events with me, and we have hours of practice ahead of us.”

It’s a lot to take in all at once. “What if I want to be the one to soothe her when she cries?”

Why does my voice sound all shaky? Why is it that the only thing I can think of is the way my mother used to send me to bed and lock the door and I would cry myself to sleep?

Am I crying?

I turn my head away so he doesn’t see.

“Harper.” His voice is the slightest bit softer now. “No one is saying you won’t get a chance to mother your child.” We pull to a stop outside the police station. The weight of his hand is heavy on my knee, but I don’t look around yet. “I wouldn’t have planned on bringing her home to you only to deny you that. But devoting every minute of your time to her won’t work in our world.”

There are many things that won’t work in our world.

He parks the car and taps a text out on his phone.

“Telling Anton we’re here.”

“So you have a friend here.”

“Of course. Didn’t your father?”

When I left home, all he had left were enemies. I don’t answer.

The door to the station opens and a tall, fit man in his early thirties strides out. He nods to Aleks. Aleks pops open the back of the car and takes out an enormous box.

“Wow, did that materialize out of thin air or what?”

“Aleksandr has a way of getting what he wants when he wants it,” Anton says, and I can’t tell if it’s only a statement or a warning.

“Anton, meet Harper.” Aleks stands taller. “My wife.” I don’t miss the surge of pride in his voice when he says my wife.

My heart melts a little.

Anton extends his hand to me but one look from Aleks and he pulls it back and gives me a little wave. Ha.

“Now let’s get this going, we’re on a schedule.”

“Not even sunrise yet and you’re on a schedule,” Anton says with a shake of his head. “Alright, we begin by making sure we’re on level ground.”

The two of them get all sweaty and breathless anchoring the seat into position. It’s one of those fancy ones. Finally, Anton points to a little bubble on the base of the seat like a mini level. “When that’s in the center position, you’re good to go.”

They do some kind of brotherly fist bump thing, and we’re on our way.

I wouldn’t ever tell him, but it’s absolutely adorable that he got a car seat.

His phone on the dash has the directions I gave him on it. It says we’re only fifteen minutes out. This feels so different from other times. I’ve been here before, but always surreptitiously, never with the intent of taking Ivy back with me — and never with a dangerous man by my side. Some of his brothers look like they could pass as normal civilians, with some effort. But when Aleks leans slightly to the side to crack his window, the outline of a gun bulges under his tee. There’s nothing normal about him.

“I still feel guilty we’re taking her. It’ll wreck them.”

Aleks raises his brows. “This is the right thing to do.”

“So right, and I get that.” A part of me’s elated not to leave her again. “But I— they’ve had her since birth.”

“But she’s your baby. That’s the risk a foster family takes. The goal is usually reuniting the child with the birth mother, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know about usual but… well, yeah. It’s what they sign up for, I guess.”

He squeezes my hand. “It is.”

There’s more than that, though. I have so many fears. And even though I’ve already talked to him about being a mother and it helped, all of that worries me.

“What do I do if she doesn’t sleep in the middle of the night?”

“I think you’d… well, probably, maybe rock her. Give her some milk. Soothe her until she’s sleepy.”

I nod. Okay, I can do that.

“And what if that doesn’t work?”

He scratches his nose. “Hmm. Well, presumably the nanny will know about things like that.”

Oh, right.

I guess I’m just in a place I’ve never been before. Married, to a dangerous man I still hardly know. About to co-parent with him. Guilty I’m taking Ivy away from the only people who’ve ever loved her.

But love is messy and complicated. Protection wears many hats. And I know there are difficult choices ahead, but the hardest part of all is admitting I’ve never had a safe place to go.

Is this what I’m offering my baby?

Why does the thought of being safe terrify the hell out of me?

“You’re doing that thing again.”

“What thing?” He shouldn’t be noticing patterns with me already. It isn’t fair.

“That thing where you bite your lip because you’re all up in your head. You’re thinking about something, and you probably won’t tell me what.”

I shrug. I guess there’s no real point in hiding anything. “I just feel strange with the thought of having a safe place to go for me and the baby, you know?”

He shakes his head. “No. I don’t know. What the fuck does that even mean?”

I huff out a mirthless laugh. “It’s just so foreign to me, but it makes no sense that it scares me.” I don’t expect him to respond. I don’t even get it myself.

But when he does, he takes me by surprise. “I have a small detour to take you on before we arrive. We’re not far now and I want to show you this first.”

My heart beats faster. My palms are sweaty. I’m so nervous to get to their house, I could throw up, so I welcome the detour.

The changes around us at first are subtle. We leave the vibrant, bustling streets of the city. The smooth asphalt under our tires becomes a rugged road filled with potholes and litter. Graffiti marks subway signs and the vibrant storefronts become sparse. Boarded-up windows and stained walls give me an unsettled feeling.

“Are we still in The Cove?” I ask in a whisper.

Aleks’s jaw tightens. “Just outside it.” I’m relieved he and his brothers don’t own this area.

The air itself seems heavier, as if forgotten dreams and broken promises linger behind. The buildings themselves appear tired and worn down, as if their shoulders slump beneath the weight of what they carry.

There’s no lush greenery or pretty trees lining the streets here. Nothing but old metal and bare trunks, never mind the weeds that fight their way through cracks in the pavement. Worse than anything, sounds of cars driving by and people chatting have quickly given way to something else entirely.

A dog barks, followed by the shout of a man and the dog’s yelp. I wince even though I can’t see what happened.

“Why are you bringing me here?” I shiver and look away. I feel sad to see homeless people cowering in doorways, trash littering the ground. If the houses and surrounding buildings are neglected…what about their inhabitants?

“Aleks,” I whisper as he brings the car to a stop. This is a place people like us come to for hookers or weed and nothing more.

“Before I was adopted by my father, I lived in that house there.” He points to a brick house with steps that were once painted but have now faded. “We came from Russia and had only been here a year or two.”

A broken window’s stuffed with remnants of newspaper that’s yellowed. A sickly-looking cat scowls at us from the stoop.

“I’m sorry.” I may not have grown up in a good home, but I didn’t grow up…like this.

“Don’t be. It’s not why I brought you here.”

He drapes his arm over the steering wheel and turns to face me.

“When I left here, I was a kid. I barely knew how to tie my shoes or spell my name. And everything in my new home was shiny, pretty, and new. And it made me so fucking uncomfortable. I didn’t want scrambled eggs and fried potatoes, like my mother tried to feed me. I wanted the packaged, sugar-coated food I knew. It was what was familiar to me, even though it wasn’t what was best for me.”

I look back at the house. It’s hard to imagine Aleks as a child, but somehow, seeing this place makes it easier to do so.

A door swings open and a young girl with long, wavy hair hanging down her back comes out. Her face is streaked with tears and her eyes are red from crying. My heart twists looking at her. She trots down the steps and runs down the street, her hair waving in the wind behind her.

I’ve seen poverty and I’ve seen wealth, and I’ve seen plenty in between, but this is something very different.

“Harper.” I look over at him. “Just because we’re used to something being broken doesn’t mean it’s what’s best for us,” he says quietly. I nod and swallow my own fear and pride. I lift my chin.

I can be the mother Ivy needs. I know I can.

Aleks starts the car up again. I watch in silence as the girl stops and bends to pick something up in the street. She holds it up to the light and shoves it in her pocket. Her step picks up and she smiles.© 2024 Nôv/el/Dram/a.Org.

I remember being a little girl myself, afraid of my father and scared of my mother. I tried to please them and never learned that I couldn’t, that it was never in my control and never would be.

In minutes, we’re back on the main road, and not far from little Ivy.

When he takes the turn down the street to her house, he asks me, “Are you ready?”

“Let’s go.”