He may as well be dead. Holed up in a dilapidated building deep in cartel territory, Gavriil is a man against an army and utterly alone. With few alliances still in the Russian mob, he is surprised to find that his greatest resource may be a nosy true-crime author with wild hair and a delicious body. He may be able to leverage the information she has, that is, if the Russians don't realize that they'll be able to leverage her against him.
With worlds shattering upon impact, the mafia continue their search for persons and things of value in the Brothers' possession. The only shot for the hunted to stay alive is to rise and when they do, to rise together.
This novel is a romantic thriller and some violent and graphic content may not be suitable for young readers.
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Alina
Vy v bezopasnosti s nim. Vy v bezopasnosti s nim. Vy v bezopasnosti s nim. That’s what Gavriil told me. That’s what he said. He would not lie to me. Moy brat would not lie to me. He would protect me with his own life, but now he’s probably dead. Do I trust he words of a dead man?
Gavriil and Timur. I try to think of them hatefully – for leaving me alone here in this strange place that is not our home – because if not hate, then I will cry and I have spent the past three weeks crying alone in these strangers’ bed. My brothers made this town home for me. And now that they are gone I am an island in a sea of sharks, holding only onto the words of a dead man because the shark that frightens me the most is the one I am meant to trust.
I stare at the door. I find I am always staring at this door. I keep it locked, but I do not know why. No one has tried to come in unannounced or unexpected. In fact, everyone has been very polite and very good to me. It doesn’t help. Mer is the one I like the most. She is an open book, easy to read. They do not realize this though, so they send Sara because she seems the most approachable but her niceness reminds me only of the women that Erik employs, the one intended to lure other young women to the ranch. Once they go in, they never leave.
Our father tried to shut the operation down, but his brother – Erik’s father – did not approve of this idea. They were partners, or at least meant to be partners with an equal share, but when our father died of a heart attack our uncle took over everything. Timur always wanted to fight harder for control of the operation, but Gavriil was against the idea of a war. I had sided with him, but now as I stare at the glistening golden knob, I know that Timur was right. Fighting now, we are too late. Now we are just fighting for survival.
I exhale and fit my hand to the doorknob. It unlocks with a click and I inch it open carefully at the same time someone walks by. His feet jerk to a stop and he turns with a friendly smile. “Oh hello.”
I don’t smile back. Not because I don’t want to but because…I don’t know why. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I can’t shake this dream I had. It came to me right after Gavriil saved me from being kidnapped by Ivan, Aleks, and Maksim. I just…I remember his face. This face. He meets my gaze but the eyes I remember are wrong. I look down.
“Zdravstvuyte,” I say – a force of habit – and then when I try to apologize for using the formal all that comes out of my mouth is more Russian.
He grins even wider and there’s a pink hue to his cheeks that I’m sure must rival the red in my own. “Whatever you said, don’t sweat it. Glad you’re out of your room today,” he says, even though I’m not.
I open the door a little wider and he looks me from head to toe, then seems uncomfortable he’s done it. He clears his throat, edges back a bit farther and looks off into space. Then he laughs quite abruptly. I would say I’m surprised by his reaction, but I’m not. I am aware of how I look and I am used to men responding to me in this way, even when I’m only wearing a tanktop on loan from Mer and a pair of Sara’s leggings. They’re too short and so is Mer’s shirt so both the bottom portion of my stomach and my ankles are visible. I would grab a jacket but I’ve selected this outfit specifically to make a point.
“So are you hungry?” he says when I close the door to the room I’ve been staying in. I am because I haven’t eaten yet today, but that’s not why I’m here and even though English is not my first language, I understand that’s the question he’s really asking me.
I run my hand through my thick hair. It’s fluffed out today, unrestrained and rampant. “I hope to…” It takes me a long time to get the words out. English isn’t coming easily to me these days even though I’m surrounded by it. “I am…” Nu naher… “The brother called Aiden. Is he in the house?”
Clifton’s eyebrows raise and he smiles, but without meaning it. “You want to see Aiden?”
“Da.”
“Really?”
I’m not used to being denied a request and I feel momentarily irritated. “Is he here?”
“Yeah.” Clifton nods slowly. “Do you want me to…” He shakes his head. “I’ll take you to him.”
I could have guessed he would be in the gym, and that is where Clifton leads me now. Music blasts up the stairs, some sort of Goth metal. It is frightening and does nothing to ease the tension I feel here alone with two men in some strange house.
I clutch my opposite arms as Clifton pushes open the basement door and guides me through the opening to the right. It opens up onto a large gym – one that I’ve only been brave enough to venture into once because as I’d started on the treadmill, Aiden had walked in and he’d stared at me with the same horror he has on his face now.
He sees me in the mirror and trips, caches himself on the arms of the treadmill, pushes the emergency stop button and jumps off. His grey tank top is lighter grey in patches. The rest is sweat-soaked and clings to his skin so that I can see the definition of every muscle in his torso, including the lump of a small pendant hanging between his pecs.
His body is huge and must be cut out of some kind of rock because there is no fat on him anywhere. It is clear he spends a lot of his time down here because he’s bulky in all the right places – the kind of muscle that speaks to strength and not to glamor. His shoulders are wide and his arms are thick, so are his legs and so is his neck.
He pulls his basketball shorts up and I wonder if it’s because he noticed me staring at the V-shaped muscle carved between the waist of his tank top and his hips. It disappears beneath the elastic. I swallow hard.
Aiden doesn’t say anything. He just snatches a towel from the rack on the wall and punches whatever button on the remote that ends the music. The sound of silence after so much screaming shocks me and I feel strangely cold and alone. My lips part and I look to Clifton for assistance. As if sensing just what I need from him, he takes a step closer and slips his hand between my shoulder blades.
The gesture is comforting and I don’t mean to, but I lean into the pressure of his palm and out loud, I thank him. “Spasiba.”
He gives me an encouraging smile and I am embarrassed when Aiden severs the connection between Clifton and I by clearing his throat. “Why the fuck is she here?” I am equal parts amused and terrified by the fact that Aiden uses Clifton as a crutch in the same way I do. With Clifton here, we will never have to interact with each other.
Since Aiden first unzipped the duffel bag Erik himself shoved me into while Timur and Gavriil watched, we haven’t touched. He even helped me when I first arrived at the house. He let me walk on his feet when the floor was too hot and he held me against his broad chest because I needed it because my one brother had been shot and the other, taken.
I’d melted into his broad chest and I’d felt safe and hopeful because of the way he’d helped me and because of what Gavriil had said. Vy v bezopasnosti s nim. You are safe with him. I st
are at him and at the chest I’d melted into now, wishing that what Gavriil had said was true.
Clifton seems to gain more confidence and takes a half step closer to me. “Alina was looking for you. We thought we might find you down here.” He keeps his voice pleasant and light. I don’t know how because there’s nothing pleasant or light about his brother.
“What did you both want?” There’s something nasty about his tone, and I am still trying to decipher what it is and why when I realize that the two brothers are watching me and are expecting that I answer.
“Da…ya…I mean yes.” My hands have become fascinating and I watch them with intensity. “I would like to leave the house.”
“Not an option,” he says.
“Yobannye passatizhi,” I curse. “You must allow me to leave the house.”
“No. You don’t go anywhere alone…”
“I didn’t mean alone. I meant with you.” He does not look at my body and his breath comes much more evenly than mine. He looks at me like I am anyone and that both irritates and comforts me. “I need to shop. I cannot live here like this. I cannot even read books you give me without glasses. Mine are lost and I need to get new phone. I need to buy computer. I need clothing.” He does not look at my body, even as I gesture at my second hand clothes. He looks at me like I am anyone and that both irritates and comforts me.
“We have computers here. You’re wearing clothes. What do you need with a phone?”
“You miss the point,” I huff. If he recognizes that I am right and that he is wrong he shows no sign of it. I feel a fool, because I will have to play his game to get what I want and normally I would never have to do anything but ask. In recognizing this, it occurs to me that this is a game I don’t know how to play.
“I…with phone I can…” What do I need with a phone? I have no one to call. “I have bank accounts,” I blurt out. “I will not need money from you.”
“You can’t get to your cash. Erik will have eyes on the Russian bank.”
“No, my money is clean. I have account at Bank of America.”
Aiden frowns. “How?”
“I am model.”
“I know.”
His statement leaves me nowhere to go so I stammer, “I earn more than dvesti…more than two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year. I need to leave the house.”
A long silence fills the space and I wonder if Aiden at all hears my unasked plea. I am desperate to leave the four walls that keep me safe and that keep me prisoner simultaneously. Clifton says, “I can take her quickly before dinner. Alina, we were hoping you would join us tonight…”
“Not on your fucking life.” Aiden stalks by Clifton’s opposite shoulder and shoves him hard enough that when he loses his balance, the contact between us is severed. I am left cold. He’s halfway up the stairs before I follow.
“You can’t…” Mounting the stairs, I fall and the hard edge of the wood clacks against my forearms. Clifton is behind me, lifting me up like a gentleman. I thank him and as I find my footing again, I glance up to see Aiden a few stairs closer, fist clenched around the rail.
“Be more careful,” he rasps.
Ignoring him, I stutter, “You must let me out of here. I don’t have any things and I am bored.” I trip again as I reach the top stair and tumble out into the hall. He watches until I regain my footing, then quickly races away. “I want to call my friends. I want to speak Russian to someone I know. I want my food. Food that I know. I want computer to watch Russian movies. I want to buy clothes that fit me. I want to buy watch. I do not know what time or even what day it is!”
“December twenty fourth,” he shouts over his shoulder, missing the point again and at the same time, crippling me. The words hit me in the empty stomach and I lurch at the memory of Ana’s honeyed bread. It’s what we use to break the Christmas Eve fast, though only I ever fast the day before. Gavriil and Timur never believed in the tradition, and goodness how they ate. They’d eat everything to the point that Ana would serve me separately just so there would be something left.
Clifton is trying to mediate between the two of us. He is saying something about possibilities and compromise and is busy listing other options. I don’t want to hear anything from the nicer brother – the one I wish had opened the black duffel bag and who had been the one to come after me in the barn despite the fact that he was shot twice for doing what he did. Why did he do those things then and why now does he speak to me like this?
I run to the room they keep me in, lock the door and dive onto the bed. There is a light rapping and several times, the cooing of gentle voices – Clifton’s mostly and Sara’s. It is Christmas Eve and all I know is that I can’t stay here and I can’t leave. I am trapped in a prison that will likely be my tomb while Gavriil lies six feet beneath the earth alongside Timur and our father while Ana serves Erik the first serving of pagach for the Christmas Eve velija.
Gavriil told me we would never have this meal apart and it’s as I remember him telling me this when I was eighteen and telling me just weeks ago to trust the monster from the basement in basketball shorts, I cry, just as I said I wouldn’t.
Also by Elizabeth
Population series
Population (book 1) Saltlands (book 2)
Lawlessness, violence and desperation are all that is left of the world following the coming of the Others. Abel exists only within the boundaries that her rules allow - rules that she created to keep her alive. But when her best friend's daughter is taken by the Others, she can't keep playing by the rule book. Instead, she must begin a life defining journey that will test her survival techniques and bring all of her instincts into question. When she finds herself allied with one of the Others, Abel must confront foreign concepts like allegiance and desire and trust as he challenges her ability to find what she has always feared: hope.
This series is a science fiction romance and some violent and graphic content may not be suitable for young readers.
Continue reading for a preview of Population
Population preview
I’m not asleep for more than an hour. Maybe two. But I wake to the sound of crunching porcelain. A door opens somewhere on the first floor and as I slide off of the bed in a pile of slippery sheets, I’m wide awake and listening hard for the sounds of gangs and scavengers. I hope for the latter.
I don’t hear anything for the first moment, then I slowly begin to make out the steady metronome of footsteps on the staircase. Whoever it is, is clomping loudly and I immediately assess that the intruder is both male and alone. A woman wouldn’t walk with a gait that heavy. She wouldn’t be so stupid in a world full of lawlessness and perverts. Or so bold.
As quietly as I can, I slide across the floor to the window and rip open the blinds, letting in a pale, silvery light. I wonder if the moon is full behind that sheet of perpetually grey clouds, but there’s no way for me to know. Though the frigid wind moves, the grey is somehow stagnant and I can’t remember the last time I saw the sky, a familiar constellation, or the glimmer of even a single star.
The footsteps pound harder, coming closer, and I quickly shuffle across the floor and tuck myself into the darkest corner of the room – right up against the head of the bed, on the side closest to the door. This way I’ll be able to see the intruder before he sees me and ideally, cut him to pieces before he crosses the threshold. That’s if he even decides to open the door. After all, once he finds out that it’s locked and barred he may assume that I’m not alone, or that I’m much more threatening.
As I make mental bets with myself over whether or not he’ll fight or run, I pull my sword out from underneath the bed and hold it in a firm, fierce grip. My mouth is dry and my muscles are tense. Then I hear the footsteps come to a stop just on the other side of the wall. If not for that wall, the intruder would’ve been no more than four feet from me. And then to my surprise and chagrin, I hear a gentle knock on the back of the bedroom door.
�
��Hello?” A low voice says, and I feel my heartbeat succumb to shock as I recognize the intonation. Slightly carnivorous, fully condescending, and masked by the thinnest veneer of pain. This can’t be happening. But when the doorknob jiggles, I know that I’m not dreaming. I jump, more skittish now than ever – and with reason. I mean, it’s not often that I’m greeted in the night by the gentle rapping of a dead man against my door.
When I don’t answer, the wooden barrier keeping him out presses against the back of the chair, which gives just a few inches. “Don’t you dare,” I say, trying to keep my voice even as the wall and door split to reveal a three inch sliver of darkness. In that darkness I can just barely see him there, face concealed by shadows and charcoal- colored silhouette standing much taller than the average human.
He stops twisting the handle. I can’t see his eyes but I get the impression that he’s looking directly at me, which rattles me even more. How the hell can this guy see in the dark? But I’m sure that he can and that he’s looking right at me because his shadow moves, ducking lower as if attempting to meet the line of my gaze. And I understand what he’s doing, I really do. He’s provoking me. Well, either that or belittling me. Maybe both.
“I see you,” he simpers sardonically. His words have a strange way of reaching me, as if they are tangible and inching towards me across the floorboards. I shiver all over. “And you have something that is mine.”
I don’t know what to do. There’s no reason that I shouldn’t just go find what he wants and slide it across the floor to him. But the thought of maybe even possibly being able to trade that slippery piece of silver for Ashlyn’s life keeps me from it. I say instead, “I’ll give you what you want. But you have to do something for me in return.”
The Hunting Town (Brothers Book 1) Page 37
