The Priest: Bratva Blood Five: (A Dark Mafia Romance)

by SR Jones

  “Your English is good,” I say conversationally.

  “I’ve been living there for the last few years,” he replies.

  “Whereabouts?”

  “What the fuck?” Bianchi snaps, impatient now.

  I shoot him a murderous glare. I know what I’m doing. I’ve interrogated ISIS before. A nervy, crying, drug-runner is easy pickings.

  “Peckham, London.”

  “Nice.” I don’t know if it’s nice. I know London vaguely but not that area.

  His friend on the floor moans and says something.

  Nervous glances at him and back at me. “Kill him, and I’ll tell you.”

  “Tell me, and then I’ll kill him.”

  He shakes his head.

  I sigh. “You don’t tell me, and I will fuck you up. Knees first, remember? You’ll suffer.”

  “I swear I’ll tell you, but I can’t with him listening.”

  “What if he doesn’t know everything, and we need the other one alive?” Bianchi says.

  “I know it all,” nervous replies.

  “So, share.” I push the gun higher under his chin.

  He glances at his friend again. “Don’t look at him,” I growl. “He’s not the one with a gun on you, and the minute you spill your guts, he’s history. Talk because I’m getting bored, and when I get bored my trigger finger gets itchy.”

  “Okay. Calm down. Things are in a mess.” He glances at his colleague again.

  “It’s fine, keep looking at me,” I say. “When we’re done talking, I’ll get you some water and food, and you can rest up before you leave. We’ll give you some cash too. Enough to get yourself back home to Poland and go to ground for a while.”

  I’m good cop, bad cop, all in one, and it’s messing his head up. As is the plan.

  “Jan is dead,” he blurts out. “Taken out by Gezim, and no way the guys back home in Poland are letting that stand. So, they’ve counter moved. They have Gezim, and they sent us for his daughter. They want her as leverage as we need him to tell us the location of … some items.”

  “They, we, which is it? You part of this or you just an employee?”

  “Just an employee, but we’re all Polish. There are others, Romanian, Ukrainian, but they have all said they aren’t taking sides. The whole Allianz is falling apart. If we can get Gezim to stand down and tell us where he’s keeping … things, then everything can calm down.”

  My sixth sense is screaming at me. “What things?” I say.

  “Assets.”

  “What fucking assets?”

  “Some stuff Gezim took from Jan and is keeping somewhere.”

  “Last fucking time. What fucking stuff? Exactly what.”

  “Girls,” he says.

  “Trafficked?” Bianchi asks.

  “Yes.”

  “So, you guys want the girls back. Gezim has them somewhere. For leverage?”

  He shrugs one shoulder. “That’s the thing. We don’t know. He just moved them all. All the ones we’d been bringing in, he moved.” He coughs. “Our guys need to know where they are. There’s a lot of money tied up in those girls.”

  “You seen any of them?” I ask him. “Before they were taken.”

  “One. A few weeks ago. In London.”

  “Elaborate,” I demand.

  “I went to her … you know … visited with her. She’s called Maria, but that won’t be her real name. About nineteen. Five-foot-six or so. Skinny. Blonde hair, dyed, though, dark roots.”

  “Okay. Let me get this straight. Who is actually in charge on the Polish end with Jan gone?”

  “Jakub, who is running it from Poland and his sister, Zuzanna.”

  “His sister?” I stare at him. Jesus fuck, a woman trafficking women.

  “She’s the worst,” he says. “She wouldn’t kill me if she knew I’d talked to you; she’d torture me. For weeks.”

  I need Andrius and the guys to get this intel.

  “Surname?” I ask.

  “Kaminski,” he whispers as if they can hear him right now.

  “They want Gezim to tell them where the women are, and then they say they will let Roze go.”

  “They don’t have Roze, and they aren’t going to get her. So, what’s their play if that fails?”

  He shakes his head. “I don’t know. I’m not high up on the food chain. They want Gezim to let them have the women. It’s all I know.”

  “They’re either going to split and walk away once they get the women, or fight, and I can’t see them splitting,” Bianchi observes. “They’d have to know that Gezim would come after them.”

  I need to talk to the guys in Corfu and relay all the information.

  My phone vibrates, and I take it out of my pocket and glance at it.

  On my way to you. Be there in around two hours.

  It’s from Cole. What the fuck?

  Negative. I’m leaving. I type back fast.

  No. Already on my way. My head is clear, if that’s your concern? You’re going to need me where you’re going.

  Motherfucker. You don’t know where I’m going.

  Three dots appear and disappear.

  I have a good idea. See you in two, fucker.

  I sigh and pocket the damn phone. Turning to nervous, I give him a smile. “You did great.”

  I aim my gun at his friend, who is still writhing and moaning on the floor, and pull the trigger. Head shot, instant. I don’t like people suffering if there is no need. Not even scum like him. My brand of justice is to take them out, pure and simple. Get rid of the trash.

  “How do I get out of here?” Nervous asks as I untie the ropes binding him to the chair.

  I glance at Bianchi and see we’re on the same page. He knows there’s only one play here. Walking around to the front of nervous, I look at him for one beat. Young. Probably didn’t mean to get himself into this, but in it he is. Used Maria like she was nothing. Is involved in people trafficking. Yeah, only one play. “Quickly,” I say. Then I aim and fire.

  “That’s for Maria,” I mutter as he slumps in the chair.

  “Are you sure you won’t come work with us?” Marcello asks. “He pays damn well.” He jerks his chin at his brother.

  “Sorry, no can do.”

  “He can’t come and work for us because he has to protect the little lady upstairs who he’s in love with,” Bianchi explains to Marcello.

  I resist the urge to pistol whip him as I walk by. He’s right on one score. I do have to protect her.

  As for love?

  Yeah, not even going there.

  Chapter 20

  When the living room door opens, I peek out of the bedroom and seeing it is Priest, I race to him and throw my arms around him. He could have got himself killed. Then what would I do?

  He pushes me off him, and for a moment, my heart sinks. Then I see the blood splattered on his t-shirt. He grimaces. “I need a shower, baby. Change of clothes too. Then we have to talk.”

  “Okay.”

  I don’t like the sound of that. The talking bit. Is he going to cut me loose?

  After a good twenty minutes under the water, and I don’t blame him—blood stinks—Priest emerges, hair wet and a towel around his waist. “Give me ten minutes to get dressed and pack up, and then we’ll have that talk.”

  I sit and try to keep calm, but the whole time he’s moving around in his room getting shit done, my nerves are building.

  He finally comes back in, hair towel dried, wearing faded jeans, and a t-shirt, faded too, with a band name on it. He looks so damn delicious.

  Coming to where I’m sitting, legs under me on the sofa, he takes a seat and puts his phone to one side.

  “I need to call in, but first, we need to talk.”

  He takes hold of my hands, and my heart stalls. He’s going to cut me loose.

  “Roze. You’re in danger,” he states simply. “The kind that I don’t think is short term or going away anytime soon.”

  “Okay,” I whisper. Shit
. Shit. Shit. What does this mean for me? For my father? I might not want to speak to him right now, but I love him. He’s my dad.

  “Things are fucked up with the gang your father runs with. Roze … he’s… The Polish faction mounted a mutiny, and they have your father.”

  Oh, no.

  I pull my hands free and stand, needing to move. I pace up and down a couple of times, shaking my hands out, breathing in and out, trying not to panic. “Is he alive?”

  “Truthfully? I don’t know.”

  Everything stops. My whole world just halts.

  My father might be dead.

  The only presence I’ve had in my life so far, the only constant, might be gone. I can’t accept that reality. I would be an orphan.

  Then I give a bitter laugh because hell, what have I been so far? Really? I’ve always been an orphan, truth be told. In all the ways that matter.

  The laugh turns to a sob, and huge arms come around my stomach as heat covers my back.

  “I have you,” Priest murmurs as he holds me tight. “You’ll be okay. However this plays out, you’ll be okay.”

  “I have no one,” I choke out.

  “You have me.”

  Those words are beautiful, but they’re a beautiful lie. I don’t have him. Not really. Not in all the ways that matter. We’ve been thrown together, but what about next month, hell even next week? He could get re-assigned and poof, he’s gone.

  I can’t handle reality in this moment, though, so I let his beautiful lie steal around me like smoke and cover me in the fog of make believe.

  “Come, sit.” He turns me around and guides me to the sofa. “Do you need anything? A drink?”

  I shake my head.

  “My grandmother, she always made sweet tea whenever we had a shock.” He smiles at me.

  “What was it like?” I ask. “Having a family? People around you all the time?”

  “It was great,” he says, but his smile is sad. “Now, though? I can’t relate to them. Can’t relate to most people. It’s not their fault, but it sucks.”

  “Why can’t you relate to them?”

  “I don’t know. Most days I feel as if there’s a glass wall between me and the world.”

  That’s how I’ve felt since I was taken. Trauma will do that for you. He’s suffered trauma. I suspected it; now I know it.

  “I don’t feel the same way when I’m with my brothers from my time serving,” he goes on. Then he looks at me, and his eyes are so unguarded. “I don’t feel that way with you.”

  I’m the same. When I’m with him, I feel real. Substantial. Yet, at the same time, it feels like a dream. Too good to be true. Too beautiful to last.

  His phone vibrates, and he glances at the screen. “This is Konstantin. I need to take it. He might have news of your father.”

  I nod.

  Priest answers, and Konstantin’s voice rings out.

  “Do you have news for me?” Mr. Silvanov asks in accented English. His voice is sexy. Gruff and deep.

  “Yeah, but first, so you know, I have Roze here with me, and you’re on speaker. Do you have any news of her father?”

  “All we know is that he’s alive,” another man says. British accent this time.

  “Oh, thank God,” I say, relief flooding me.

  “Yeah, they’re using him as a bargaining chip. What for, we don’t know.”

  “I do.” Priest shifts in his seat and glances at me. “It seems that Gezim took something the Polish faction wants back.”

  “What?” Konstantin asks.

  “Women. He took their trafficked women.”

  I suck in a breath, and hold it, unable to let it go.

  “I think he’s protecting them, if he did,” the Brit says. “From what I can gather, he tried to shut down that side of things, and some of the Polish crew weren’t happy so if what you’re saying is correct, Gezim sent his men in to move the women.”

  “From what I can gather,” Priest says. “We’re now looking at a full-on mob war between the Polish crew and the Albanians. The others involved have all drifted away, not wanting to be a part of it.”

  “Bigger picture, this suits us,” the Russian says. “Last thing we needed was the Starz Allianz growing and becoming huge. Immediate picture, though, is bad. For you and for Roze. Cole’s on his way to you. He’ll be there soon enough.”

  Cole?

  Priest nods and chuckles. “Told the fucker not to come, but he wouldn’t have it.”

  “Yes, well, I feel better knowing if you’re going off grid there’s two of you.”

  “Does any of this pose more of a threat to you there?” Priest asks.

  “No, not really. Think it reduces it. Disparate groups aren’t a danger. When we took out the head of the Allianz, we really did kill the rest of the snake. It just took a while to break into parts.”

  “I want you to do me a favor,” Priest says.

  “Go on,” Konstantin answers.

  “You still have connections in that world, no?”

  “I do.”

  “Some that people greatly fear?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you and Andrius still put the fear of God in many.”

  “Yes.”

  “I want you to put word out on the streets, where it matters, that if anyone touches a hair on Roze Muka’s head, they’re not only going to be hunted down by me until my very last breath, but that she’s also under your protection. And by that, Konstantin, I mean the Russians in general. I know for a fact you still have connections with people who the Polish will not want to get on the wrong side of. Can you do that? Can she have Bratva protection?”

  “I’m not sure how much it will be worth with some of these fucking idiotic street kids coming up these days. No honor in those scum. However, yes, I will make calls, and she will get Bratva protection.”

  Priest nods. “Thank you. That means anyone coming for her must be crazy. They’ll be going up against Gezim, me, and the Bratva.”

  Konstantin chuckles.

  “What’s funny, motherfucker?” Priest asks.

  “It’s just the way you Americans refer to the Bratva, as if we’re a collective hive mind. We’re not the Borg, you know. But, before you get your American panties in a tangle, I will do as you ask. She’ll have the protection of Moscow and St Petersburg at least.”

  Priest gives the phone a scowl but says “Thank you.”

  “Reece here.” The Brit comes on the line. “We’re in the process of setting up an in-house messaging system. Encrypted on both ends. Still need to use burners, but it will be damn well hack proof. I’m working on it with Damen, but until things are ready, keep on as we are. Use text-only burners and delete as soon as sent and received.”

  “Copy.”

  “Cole has a phone for you, well a few; they’re for Roze. They’re encrypted burners. Fancy as fuck. He’ll give you the details, but it means she can call people and not be traced.”

  “Good. Thanks.”

  “Later.”

  Priest hangs up.

  “He’s alive,” I whisper.

  “Yes, he’s alive.”

  “And I’m under Bratva protection?”

  “You are. And mine.”

  “Yes.” I bite my lip but then I think, fuck it. I just say it. “For now. Until your next job.”

  “Roze…” He twists his massive upper body to face me. “You’re not a job.”

  “What am I?”

  “You’re mine.” He kisses my forehead, gets up and heads out of the room, presumably to carry on packing.

  I stay where I am on the sofa, trying to take in those two words, and the enormity of what they mean.

  Did Priest just claim me?

  Chapter 21

  We’re all set to leave when the helicopter whirs into view, hovering as it lands on the lawn to the side of the house.

  “Oh God, are we taking that thing again?” I ask.

  We haven’t discussed the whole, mine, moment. Priest
seems to think it’s a done deal, and I’m too freaked out to go there. I’m grateful, excited, scared, and giddy, all at the same time. I’ve decided it’s not a good idea to question him on his feelings when I don’t understand my own.

  My father’s life is in mortal danger. I’m still in danger. I can’t be making any major life decisions right now. I want him. In the here and now, I want him, and something tells me that is unlikely to change, but as fucked in the head as I am in this moment, I can’t make long-term life decisions. So, I do what I’m being taught to always advise against. I bury my head in the sand. I pretend a six-and-a-half-feet Navy SEAL, who works for a shadowy organization as a mercenary, didn’t just claim me.

  “You liked it,” he says with a frown.

  “Yeah, I did, and it was a rush, but frankly, this adrenaline junkie is all rushed out.”

  “Ah, don’t go soft on me now, AJ.” He winks.

  He winks, and my heart flip flops because he’s beyond gorgeous when he does that.

  “Anyway,” he says, “it’s not for us. It’s bringing my friend here. You have a new protection officer, ma’am.”

  “You’re leaving?” He said I was his.

  “No. In what world didn’t you understand what I said?” He comes to me, face all hard lines. He tips my chin up, hustles me against the door and kisses me.

  He kisses me like he’s dying for me. Like I’m the last drop of water in the desert of his life. It breaks me down and makes me nothing more than elemental atoms full of yearning and need.

  Breaking away he rests his forehead against mine.

  “You. Are. Mine. Cole is just an extra precaution.”

  Ah, yes, the mysterious Cole.

  A few moments later, there are footsteps along the corridor, and then a banging at the door.

  Priest grins. He stalks to the door, throws it wide open, and welcomes his friend with the words, “I told you not to come, motherfucker.”

  A handsome man walks into the room. He’s good looking, but in a totally different way to Mr. Bianchi, who is standing next to him. This man… Cole is all golden, American charm. Soft brown eyes, tan, big built. Where do they grow them? I have a vision suddenly of America and instead of corn fields, it’s just fields full of massive men who glow with health. I snigger at myself, and three sets of eyes turn on me.