Page 4 of Bratva Prince
Dmitri became aware she wasn’t only studying him either.Her attention flicked briefly toward the men behind him.Their positioning, posture.Perhaps she was silently cataloguing them for concealed weapons.
The realization settled into place with quiet satisfaction.His assumptions had been correct.Most mafia daughters were taught how to smile beside monsters.Sofia Marino looked exceptionally well-trained at surviving them.
The thought amused him more than it should have.
There had been a very real possibility she would arrive timid and overdressed, prepared to play obedient bride while older men arranged her future around her.Instead, she met his gaze like someone fully aware how dangerous this world was, and entirely capable of surviving inside it.Maybe even thriving.
Slowly, she lifted one elegant eyebrow at him in challenge. Dmitri felt the faintest pull of genuine interest for the first time that day.
Well, then.At least this marriage might provide him with some entertainment.
Chapter Two
Sofia Marino knew DimitriVolkov was assessing her.She could feel it from the moment he entered the conference room, although it was not the obvious kind of male attention she’d dealt with her entire life.
Dimitri’s gaze didn’t linger greedily over her body or sharpen with immediate possessiveness.He moved with precision instead, cool and methodical, cataloging details the same way a man might study exits before entering hostile territory.
Dangerous men rarely stopped being dangerous simply because they wore tailored suits.Sofia met his gaze evenly across the room while her father exchanged greetings with him.
So this was Dimitri Volkov.The infamous Volkov prince.Even as a child, Sofia had known this day would come eventually.Maybe not with the Volkovs specifically, but with someone.Her future had never truly belonged to her.
Daughters in mafia families were raised with invisible price tags attached to their throats.They brokered alliances, became offerings for peace treaties.They were strategic leverage wrapped in silk dresses and expensive jewelry.
She had spent years preparing herself for it.Still, standing in the conference room with the marriage contract waiting only feet away felt strangely unreal.It was as if she’d spent her entire life hearing distant thunder only to realize the storm had finally arrived overhead.
Outwardly, she remained perfectly calm.Sofia kept her shoulders relaxed, her expression neutral, and her pulse controlled.Her father had spent years teaching her that weakness invited predators.Emotion belonged behind locked doors, not negotiation tables.
Inside, though, anxiety coiled tightly beneath her ribs.Because regardless of how prepared she was, she was still about to marry a complete stranger.He was not just any stranger either, but Dimitri Volkov.
She knew the Volkov family well enough.Every important crime family name had been drilled into her head since childhood alongside languages, etiquette, and firearms training.She knew which alliances had collapsed into massacres, and more importantly, which wives mysteriously disappeared after becoming inconvenient.
Dimitri, though, he was the charming sort, which honestly made him more dangerous than his brothers.Alexei Volkov ruled through authority and intimidation.Maksim Volkov carried violence around him openly enough people crossed the street to avoid provoking him.
But Dimitri?Dimitri smiled before he destroyed people, and in her opinion, that required a different kind of predator.
He was handsome in a way Sofia immediately distrusted.He had broad shoulders clad in a dark tailored suit.He kept his posture controlled, and his features were sharp enough to belong on magazine covers instead of whispered conversations about organized crime.He carried himself with effortless confidence, but there was restraint underneath it too.
