Savage Vow: A Dark Mafia Arranged Marriage Romance (Ivanov Crime Family Book 1)

by Zoe Blake

  That part was too humiliating to share, even with my closest friends.

  Pulling my hoodie sleeve down over my hand, I wiped my cheeks. “I’m sorry, Nadia, but I don’t want to marry your brother.”

  Nadia leaned over and gave me a hug. “I don’t want you to marry my brother either!”

  I pulled back. “What?”

  She shrugged. “I know you had this big crush on him when we were younger, and I know girls think he’s cute and stuff….”

  Yelena interrupted. “Uh… Nadia. Your brothers aren’t cute. They’re hot as fuck. Even though they’re both a pain in the ass, especially Damien.”

  She said Damien’s name with such animosity that Nadia and I exchanged a look.

  Yelena brushed us off. “We had words earlier. I… might be in a little trouble.”

  “Wait. What? Why?” I asked.

  “It’s nothing. We’re talking about your problem right now.”

  “Yelena….”

  “I’ll tell you both later.”

  Nadia twisted the gold fringe of the pillow she was sitting on. “I love Gregor, but he can be really old-fashioned. I know what he wants in a wife, and Samara is not it. No offense!”

  “None taken!” I quickly assured her.

  “It’s just. Look. It’s not like I wouldn’t love it if you were truly my sister and all that, but… you’re not the only one he scares. He terrifies me sometimes too, and he’s my brother! The guy’s intense! I still don’t know why they sent him back to Russia. It’s a big family secret, but I know it was something bad… really bad.” Nadia had twisted the fringe around her finger so tightly the tip was turning purple.

  We all fell silent for a moment.

  Finally, I slumped against the wall with a groan, then said, “I’m in real trouble, aren’t I?”

  The shock of the situation was wearing off, and the reality was setting in. If I didn’t do something drastic, then I would find myself married… married… in less than a month. All my dreams would be over. Never mind the fact that my husband would be a man who both terrified and enthralled me. With every kiss, I would lose a piece of myself until there was nothing left.

  Yelena pointed at me with a long red fingernail. “You have to run.”

  Nadia and I both looked at her.

  “What?” I asked, not sure I heard her correctly.

  “You have to leave. It’s your only option. If you stay, your parents will force you to marry him.”

  “I don’t know anyone. I don’t have any money. Where would I go?” I argued, even as the idea took root. She was right. It was my only option.

  Yelena sat up straighter, and her bright blue eyes lit with excitement. “I have money, and I’m coming with you.”

  We knew Yelena’s home life was shit. Her mother was dead, and her father was a drunk who occasionally hit her. Even in the low light of our treehouse, I could see the shadow of a bruise on her cheek.

  We never talked about it.

  There were a lot of things we never talked about.

  It was just how things were with our families.

  Nadia and I always suspected it was one of the reasons Yelena claimed to love makeup and would never be seen without lipstick and foundation on. The real reason was she needed it to cover the bruises.

  Nadia raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean you have money? How much money?”

  The corner of Yelena’s mouth quirked up. “Over a hundred grand.”

  My mouth fell open. “Yelena! How?”

  “Seriously?” Nadia exclaimed.

  “That racetrack scheme my piece of shit father was working on. I reworked the algorithm and hit big. Really big.” She turned to Nadia. “By the way, it’s why your brother Damien is pissed at me.” She waved her hand in the air dismissively. “Something about bringing on the attention of the feds to some mob scheme.”

  I took a deep breath. “So we’re really doing this? We’re running?”

  Yelena’s smile vanished. “All kidding aside, if Damien is right, I could be in some real trouble with some pretty nasty people because of what I did. I need to get out of town. Now.”

  We both turned to Nadia.

  Tears streamed down her cheeks. She shook her head and whispered, “I can’t go.”

  We didn’t bother arguing. She was right. Her brothers would never stop looking for her if she left with us.

  We huddled together and hugged.

  I whispered against Nadia’s hair, wanting to believe what I said was true. “We won’t be separated forever. All this will blow over. Gregor will marry someone else, and whatever Yelena did will be forgotten. And then we’ll come back, okay, Nadia?”

  We stayed in the treehouse planning our escape till the early morning hours.

  As I crept across the damp lawn back to my house, I looked up at the gloomy windows of Nadia’s home. I could have sworn Gregor was watching me.

  I shivered.

  Everything would be fine.

  He would be mad for a week or two and then forget all about me.

  Chapter 5

  Gregor

  It really was a tragedy I couldn’t shoot the man and be done with it.

  I rubbed my temples and exhaled slowly, hating with every fiber of my being that I needed this piece of shit alive. The wooden spindle chair groaned and creaked as Boris Federov shifted his considerable bulk.

  Boris wiped the sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his suit jacket, leaving a greasy stain on the grey flannel. “She’ll be back. She’s just having a tantrum. Typical teenager stuff.”

  Samara had been missing for over a week now. Although my little sister still refused to answer any questions, I learned that because of Yelena Nikitina, Samara’s escape was well funded. This was problematic for me. Money bought a great many things.

  For our two little runaways, it meant flights out of the country, discreet hotels, and access to fake IDs and paperwork.

  For me, it was supposed to have meant an innocent, biddable wife from a well-connected family.

  Marrying into the Federov family would have given the Ivanovs the prestige and status my father had craved his entire, bitter life right up until the end, allowing entry into the upper echelons of high society around the globe.

  None of that really mattered to me. In my eyes, it was more about business.

  Bribes. Blackmail. Power. Politics. Malice. Murder.

  All just part of the job.

  To the everyday person, I was Gregor Ivanov, CEO of Ivanov Imports. To those who knew better, I was Gregor Ivanov, head of a massive criminal enterprise. I’d taken the helm after my father’s death four years ago and more than doubled our family wealth by securing countless, lucrative business relationships, both through fair means and foul.

  You see, I never bothered with the petty drug and prostitution game.

  Leave that to the gangs and the Italians.

  My real trade was in weapons and information.

  If you had it, I wanted it.

  If you didn’t want me to have it, all the better.

  Weapons were lucrative but information was the true power.

  I didn’t just know where all the skeletons were buried… I was the one who buried them.

  Because I was the man with all the information, the money… and the power.

  Which was how I found out Boris Federov had crossed a line, borrowing against money he didn’t have and gambling with his life and future by getting into bed with the Nigerians.

  So being my father’s son, I struck a deal.

  I purchased Federov’s daughter.

  It was as simple as that... or at least, I told myself it was that simple.

  It was just business, nothing personal.

  Just cold-hearted business.

  When I first learned she had fled, I assumed she’d be caught within a few days, figuring she was hiding at a friend’s house. It was understandable. Learning your father had arranged your marriage to someone you barely knew—and i
n all honesty, probably feared, had to have rattled her.

  I’m sure me chasing off that asshole she called a boyfriend didn’t help matters in her mind.

  The trouble was I didn’t care. This wasn’t about her.

  This was about business, and right now, her little teenage tantrum was interfering with my plans. We already had to suffer the embarrassment of cancelling the wedding. I didn’t give a shit about the pageantry of the affair; I cared about the seventy-five million-dollar weapons deal it scuttled. Weddings were an excellent cover for dark dealings. It was much easier bringing a general from the Russian 14th Army based in Transnistria and a third world dictator together under one roof when you could claim they were extended family here for a wedding.

  I worked with Dimitri Kosgov and Vaska Rostov for months to smuggle a small arsenal of tanks and surface-to-air missiles out of Transnistria and into Morocco. Now they sat in a warehouse gathering dust waiting to be transported out. There had already been one attempt to seize the weapons, which fortunately my head of security, Mikhail Volkov, and Dimitri had taken care of, but there would be others.

  Having the diplomatic ties of the Federov name as I traveled with my blushing new bride would have helped mediate the matter.

  My little malyshka was definitely becoming more of a problem than I anticipated.

  She certainly had shown more spirit than I was expecting.

  When I made the deal with her father, she was nothing but a fragmented memory to me, a pretty girl in pigtails who played with my sister. I remembered her being a shy and squirrelly little thing who always seemed to hide whenever I entered a room but that was about it. I hadn’t even asked to see a photo. At the time, the chit’s appearance was of no importance.

  To me, she was a means to an end. Nothing more.

  I was after her family name and an heir. She didn’t have to be pretty for me to fuck a baby into her belly. Especially since I had no intention of truly honoring our vows. I would return to Russia and my life and women there for the better part of each year while she kept my home and raised my children here.

  Then I saw her.

  Standing there in the moonlight.

  I couldn’t believe it when I heard that asshole utter her name.

  Samara. This was Samara.

  My Samara? My future bride.

  In truth I had been expecting a skinny somewhat awkward girl so I wasn’t prepared for those generous curves that made a man just want to grab her by the hips and thrust in deep. Her skin was so pale and flawless it looked luminous. In that instant, I wanted to drive my fingers into her thick hair, which fell in a riot of auburn waves over her shoulders, and twist till her head fell back so I could claim those gorgeous full lips for my own.

  Those beautiful emerald eyes wide with fear.

  That fuckwit boy is lucky I didn’t snap his neck then and there.

  Then later, I certainly wasn’t prepared for the physical shock the moment I touched her.

  Tasted those lips.

  Felt her innocence pressed against the tip of my finger as her body writhed within my embrace.

  In that moment, everything changed.

  A primal need to seize and conquer rose within my blood.

  In retrospect, I should have realized she was barely more than a child.

  No wonder I had terrified and overwhelmed her.

  No wonder she had fled.

  I had been a monster.

  In short, I had been my father’s son.

  The bastard was dead. I was king of the savage Ivanov criminal empire, and yet still his dark shadow stretched over my life.

  My earliest memory as a child was my father beating a man to death with his bare hands.

  I remembered every detail of that moment. The sick copper smell of fresh blood. My father’s bruised knuckles. The splatters of crimson across the wall and floor, and most especially, the pitiful moans.

  What made it worse was the man lying at my father’s feet had been my beloved uncle.

  My uncle had betrayed the family. That was the only explanation I received at the time and would ever receive, even decades later.

  Still, the message was obvious.

  Our loyalty to family came first, and we never betrayed family.

  The Ivanov family had enough wealth to last for generations, but what we didn’t have was prestige.

  In my father’s eyes, our family was still scrounging for scraps after losing it all in the Bolshevik revolution. He had been obsessed with reclaiming our status and honor, but unfortunately, you cannot buy back the past but you can buy the future.

  Tilting my wrist, I wound the dial on my Maîtres du Temps platinum watch. “You’ve cost me not only a great deal of money but a great deal of embarrassment and inconvenience as well.”

  “Gregor, I promise you….”

  “That’s Mr. Ivanov to you.”

  The older man bristled but swallowed his pride. Pride had no place when you were a useless beggar dependent on others for your survival. Boris Federov would have nothing if I hadn’t stepped in and replenished his fortune… for the bargain price of his virgin daughter.

  Clearing his throat, he continued, “Mr. Ivanov, I promise you. Samara is a good girl. She’ll return soon.”

  Rising to my full height from my position leaning against his desk, I crossed the room and circled around his chair. “You assured me your daughter was obedient and would fall in line with our plans.”

  Boris sputtered and coughed. “And… and… she will! This isn’t her fault. It’s those slut friends of hers. They’re a bad influence.”

  I rubbed my jaw with the back of my hand before reaching into the inner pocket of my suit jacket and pulling out my brass knuckles. Slipping them onto my right hand, I positioned myself in front of Boris. I waited as his beady eyes shifted from my metal-encased knuckles, to my face, the men who were guarding the two entrances to his home study.

  The man’s body jerked with fear as I reached over and picked a small piece of lint off his shoulder. My voice was deceptively low and calm. “My little sister happens to be one of your daughter’s closest friends. Are you calling her a slut?”

  Before he could respond, I bent my arm back and threw a hard punch straight into his jaw.

  The chair tipped backwards and crashed to the floor as Boris howled in pain. Climbing out of the chair, he fell to his knees and raised his arms in a placating gesture. “No! No! I wouldn’t disrespect you or your departed father that way!”

  Grabbing him by the collar, I wrenched him to his feet as I kicked the chair upright. Tossing him back into his seat, I rested my hands on the armrests. “It occurs to me that your daughter might not be lost after all.”

  Boris tilted his head to the side and spit out the blood which had pooled in his mouth. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying you are a deceitful, disloyal bastard who may have gotten the extremely dangerous idea of double-crossing me by selling your daughter’s virtue to a second bidder.”

  “How dare you call into question my honor!” he raged.

  I punched him a second time.

  Boris started to bellow as snot dripped from his nose and blood from his mouth.

  Fuck, I really hated this part of my job. Not the violence, that was necessary. I hated the distasteful crying.

  Turning away in disgust, I ran the tips of my fingers over the cool surface of a large Fabergé egg on his desk which was suspended on a gold pedestal. From its intricate emerald and gold design, it resembled the Empire Nephrite, one of the missing eggs which disappeared after the fall of the Romanovs. The beginning of the end for my family name. If it were in fact real, it would figure that a man like Federov would have one of the lost imperial treasures casually displayed on this desk. An obscene gesture of wealth and influence.

  Turning back to the matter at hand, I said, “I’m afraid we have a problem then. I have paid you a great deal of money for a product you haven’t delivered on.”

 
“I… I… can’t give you the money back. I’ve already spent most of it. I had creditors and obligations,” he blubbered.

  Fortunately, for him. I didn’t give a damn about the money, not anymore. Fifteen million was nothing to a man of my fortune.

  I didn’t want my money back… I wanted her.

  Now.

  I wasn’t a patient man, so being denied something I already considered mine did not rest easily with me.

  Boris continued to spew venom. Nothing was this man’s fault. Not his staggeringly poor financial management or judgement, not his daughter’s disappearance, nothing. “This isn’t on me. The bitch is your problem now. I can’t be held responsible if you can’t get her down the aisle. And I shouldn’t be expected to give the money back!”

  And now… he'd just crossed a line.

  Storming back over to him, I snatched him up by the front of his shirt. “That’s my future wife you just insulted,” I growled. Raising my arm, I slammed my fist into his mouth over and over again. A final cut to the jaw rendered him unconscious. I tossed his heavy, dead weight to the floor.

  “Take care of this,” I said over my shoulder as I pulled off the bloody brass knuckles and threw it to one of my men.

  Leaving the study, I headed to the front stairs and upper level. It took only a moment to find Samara’s bedroom. Perhaps there was a clue to where she and Yelena were hiding. It was apparent her parents weren’t going to search for her. If she was going to be found, it would be up to me.

  The hunt was on but first I needed to learn more about my prey.

  If I was expecting a foolish girl’s room filled with pink pillows and unicorns, I was disappointed. The walls were covered in posters of famous paintings, mostly the Impressionists, which happened to be one of my favorite art periods, as well.

  The carpet was stained with small drops of paint and just about every surface was cluttered with brushes, paint tubes, and other paraphernalia.

  She was an artist.

  I didn’t know that.

  But where was her artwork?

  Her parents’ taste could best be described as garish. Their house was filled with gilt-framed, unremarkable works including a rather unfortunate portrait of a panther stretched out on a gold-limbed tree.