Vicious Promise: A Dark Bratva Mafia Romance (Azarov Bratva Book 6) by Nessa Graye

Author:Nessa Graye [Graye, Nessa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-02-27T21:00:00+00:00

12

Brianna

My next few sessions with Devonne go well—I find that spending two hours a day reading actually isn’t that difficult, once I find something I enjoy reading.

Inspired by the story Ilya told me about his sister, and Devonne’s own thinly veiled affection for romance novels, I start reading a few she brings me. They’re much easier to read than Crime and Punishment, which I still work on a bit each day—I’m afraid I’ll hurt Ilya’s feelings if we don’t read it together, at least a bit, every day.

Now that he’s no longer living at my father’s estate, he seems busier. I wonder if that sojourn in my bedroom, doing his business from the love-seat in my room or recliner in the living room where Manuela always stuck an extra pillow for him, was almost a vacation for the mobster.

I don’t ask about his business, but the more I hear him speak Russian, the more I piece it together.

On Tuesday, I hear him talking about executing some drug dealers who operate too close to a school on Bratva territory, and refuse to offer some of their earnings by way of an apology to the gang. On Wednesday, he debates bribing a representative of the Governor’s Office with a BMW or a Mercedes. On Thursday, he decides to send the BMW to the Governor’s Office, and has one of his men drive the Mercedes to Florida to receive a shipment of Cuban cigars.

On Friday, after my first full week of tutoring, however, he suggests a celebration.

“When I was a kid, my mother would make pelmeni whenever I got a perfect score on my report card.”

“What are pelmeni? And how often was that, huh?”

“Often. I always did well in school, if you can believe it.”

I smirk. “I believe it. But what are pelmeni?”

“Like ravioli. Served with a kind of sour cream, called smetana. It’s fantastic.”

“Where do we get pelmeni around here?” I ask, figuring we’ll be driving into the city. I wouldn’t mind getting out of the house, but I suppose Ilya isn’t willing to risk the cartels finding me, because he has another plan.

Together, we put the huge, modern kitchen in the mansion to good use. Together, we make the dough for the pelmeni—he tells me what to do, how to roll it out—and he cooks the herbed meat filling, lamb and beef and pork, and together, we roll up the pelmeni, making delicate little bundles of deliciousness just as he shows me.

“I’ve never done this before,” I comment, softly, as we settle into the quiet, satisfying routine of manufacturing the little dumplings.

“Never done what?”

“Cooked with someone. Not even Manuela. I can barely cook, myself. But—I never did this with my mom or anything.”

Our hands touch as we both reach for the bowl of filling at the same time. I feel my cheeks burning.

We’ve gone so much further than this—how is it possible that just touching his hand can make me blush?

I have to admit, he does look amazing, cooking in a

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