Living for the Badman (Russian Bratva Book 4)

by Hayley Faiman

  “You’re lucky your father is a powerful Pakhan and indulges you, little girl,” Zoya says, pointing a finger at Oksana. “You probably don’t have much time left. Soon, none of the power players will want you. You’re getting a little old to make a good match.”

  “Old? I’m twenty-two,” she says. It surprises me. She acts much younger than somebody two years older than me.

  “Old. My match was made when I was ten and I was married on my eighteenth birthday,” Elena says.

  “Mom?” Oksana says, turning to her mother with wide eyes as though this is the first she’s heard of anything like this before. She has been sheltered and indulged, so it seems.

  “I was married to your father at sixteen,” she admits. “It was arranged. It’s our way. We wanted you to find somebody you loved, but you’re twenty-two. In all honesty, a match should have been made when you were a small child.”

  “I can’t believe this,” she whispers.

  “The same goes for your brother. It’s not just a girl thing. It’s how things are done, and it works,” Irina, a lovely redhead who has yet to speak says, breaking her silence. “Don’t think of it as a bad thing.”

  “I don’t want to marry a stranger. I’m happy exactly where I am,” Oksana announces.

  “It’s nice living at home and having your daddy take care of you, right? Having no responsibilities and spending money like water. I want that, too, but that’s not the real world. It’s time to face the facts Oksana. You’re the daughter of a powerful Pakhan. You’re very useful, and whoever you marry, they could gain great power through you,” Irina says.

  “Irina,” Sonia hisses.

  “I don’t lie,” she shrugs.

  “I won’t do it,” Oksana says, crossing her arms like a child.

  I feel like my head is bouncing around between people so much, it’s exhausting; and yet, I’m curious to see what’s going to happen.

  “You won’t have a choice,” Zoya announces.

  “Okay, lunch is over,” Sonia says standing up.

  I stand as well, afraid of what will happen next.

  “I won’t have a choice?” Oksana hisses. “I live in America, don’t I?”

  “Oh, did I say that wrong? Okay, you’ll have a choice, but it will be between living the life you live now, with luxuries and not working for your money, or trying to make it on your own with no financial help from your family,” Zoya shrugs.

  “We’re leaving, now,” Sonia grinds out, wrapping her hand around Oksana’s bicep and pulling her out of her chair.

  “You’re all out of line. This is family business and none of your concern,” Sonia grinds out as she starts to head toward the door, Oksana at her side and me trailing behind.

  “You’re wrong. When one spoiled girl gets her way that sets an example. How do you keep order and tradition when you cater to your children?” Zoya calls out after us.

  “I’m so sorry it turned out that way, Ashley,” Sonia murmurs as we walk outside.

  “Are you going to be okay?” I ask, looking between a pale faced Oksana and an angry Sonia.

  “We’ll be okay. Apparently, it’s time for the talk,” Sonia mutters.

  “I already know about sex,” Oksana says, rolling her eyes.

  “I should hope so, you’re twenty-two. No, it’s time for the talk about the future. Timofei is having his, too. Might as well make it a family affair,” Sonia shrugs.

  “You’re okay to get home?” Leonid asks them.

  “I’ll drive Oksana’s car. We’ll be okay,” she mutters with a soft smile. She then promises to call me later, insisting that we’ll go to lunch alone next time.

  I thank her and agree before Leonid walks me toward the waiting car. I don’t say anything else as we drive toward The Mark.

  I need a nap after that stressful lunch.

  “Not all women are like that,” Leonid mutters as he navigates through the city traffic.

  “My friends in California aren’t like that,” I say, looking out the window.

  “Sometimes women in the organization wear their husband’s ranks on their sleeves, thinking that they deserve something special because of who their husband is. While it’s true that both you and Sonia should be respected because of your husband’s ranks, it does not hold true for every rank. It also doesn’t mean you treat someone badly because their husband isn’t as high ranking as yours,” he tries to explain. I understand what he’s saying.

  “I think that everybody should be nice to everybody,” I whisper.

  “I like that,” he nods.

  “We’re all in the same family, per se, and it would be nice if we could unite as such,” I continue.

  “I agree.”

  The rest of the ride is endured in silence. By the time we make it back, all I want is a nap.

  I thank Leonid for taking me and I make my way back up to my room, with him still at my heels. Once I’m safely inside, I strip down to my panties and a tank top and slide between the sheets of the bed.

  Yakov will be home from work, soon. I just need a small nap.

  I LOOK AT MY man from across the table and pinch my eyes closed tightly in irritation. Not at him, but at the lack of knowledge we’ve gathered from the attacks on the girls a few nights ago. Our security has been tight on the call girls since that night, and everything has been quiet, but I want to know who these fuckers are. I want to take them down. You don’t beat women like that and get away with it. Not my women, anyway.

  “We have absolutely nothing,” Dominik mutters.

  “Tell me about it,” I grunt.

  “It could be anyone. The Irish, The Cartel, The Italians…” Dominik says.

  “I know,” I murmur, staring at my computer as though the blank screen will give me an answer. “I guess we just wait. Dammit, I don’t want to wait.”

  “What choice do we have? We have absolutely nothing to go by,” he says.

  “Fuck, I know.” I shake my head. “Nothing else from the girls?”

  “He never spoke, and they could only tell us he was white with dark hair and dark eyes. It doesn’t help at all.”

  I rub my hand over my face in irritation and yank on my hair a bit. I dismiss Dominik before picking up my phone to call Pasha. He’s always good for advice on things when I can’t figure them out.

  “Yakov,” he grunts.

  “I’m sure you’ve heard by now, but I had some girls attacked,” I say. I hear his hum his acknowledgement “We have nothing to go off of. I need someone else to think outside of the box.”

  “You’ve pulled security tape and talked to the girls, yes?”

  “Yes,” I agree.

  “You need to appear to get lazy, appear to cut back on your security,” he suggests as I grab my keys from my drawer and lock down my office to head back to The Mark.

  “You mean, use some girls as bait?” I ask as I walk out of my building toward my parked car.

  “Yeah. They’re not going to strike again if the girls are heavily guarded. Not like that, anyway,” he says. I can picture him shrugging.

  “Fuck,” I hiss as I feel something stinging me in the shoulder.

  I reach for the gun in the back of my waistband.

  I know what the stinging is without even reaching for the source as my body fills with white hot pain. With my fingers gripping my gun, I feel another stinging sensation hit my upper chest and another my leg, then my other leg as the phone clatters to the ground and my knees buckle, taking me down.

  I’m unable to get my gun out, my body not moving the way I want it to. No matter how loudly my brain is screaming at my limbs to fucking move, they won’t.

  Silence surrounds me, but I try not to close my eyes, knowing that if I do, I’ll surely pass out from a mix of the pain and the blood loss I assuredly have pooling around me. I try to reach for the phone and grunt as I attempt to bring it to my ear. Then I feel my hand being smashed and I look up into the green eyes of a man who is standing on my hand.

>   “Leave South Beach,” he grunts in an unmistaken Irish brogue.

  “Fuck you,” I grind out. His foot twists a little more into my hand and his gun presses against my throat.

  “I said, leave South Beach, Ruskie. You’re not welcome here,” he grinds out. Then I watch as his head shoots up, and the next second, he’s gone.

  Not even a minute later, I’m surrounded by my own men. I exhale a sigh of relief at the welcome sight of familiar faces. One is on the phone, and another leans down beside me.

  “You okay, boss?” he asks.

  “Need Dr. Pavlov,” I rasp.

  “He’s meeting us at the hospital. He can’t fix this without the right equipment,” he murmurs. Then I hear the sirens of an ambulance.

  I wonder how they got here so quickly, or maybe it isn’t all that quickly, I think as it starts to go quiet and darkness takes over.

  I hear a ringing in the distance and then sit straight up in surprise. I look around as my heart beats frantically in my chest and realize that it’s the telephone that woke me from my slumber. I quickly glance at the clock. Seven in the evening. I wonder where Yakov is, but figure that’s him on the phone. I quickly answer.

  “Come to the door, we must leave,” a voice orders.

  “Who is this?” I ask nervously.

  “Pasha. You need to come to the door quickly. It’s Yakov,” he says. My heart rapidly leaps to my throat and my eyes begin to water.

  “Where is Leonid?” I ask cautiously.

  I don’t know who to trust. I only know that Leo is my guard and that he’s supposed to be with me at all times. I want to trust Pasha—I know that he’s important in the organization, and I know that he works closely, not just with Yakov, but with Maxim, Radimir, and Kirill—but I’m scared. I’m aware enough to realize that men in the organization can turn. Dimitri did it without a second thought as to who he was hurting.

  “Leonid?” he asks, confused.

  “My Byki,” I respond, my apprehension rising.

  I hear him muffle the phone and I listen as another person talks, a woman.

  “Ashley?” Sonia’s voice fills the phone and I relax a little bit.

  “Where’s Leonid? What’s happened to Yakov?” I blurt out, skipping pleasantries.

  “Leonid isn’t in front of your door. I don’t know where he is, but after we hang up, I’ll have Pasha find him. But Yakov is in the hospital, you need to come with us.”

  My whole body shivers at her words. Yakov is in the hospital. I throw the covers back and tell her I’ll be out in just a second. I quickly rush around my room and slip on a pair of skinny jeans and a sweater before slipping my feet into a pair of flat canvas shoes. I grab a hair tie and throw my hair into a high ponytail, not bothering to look at myself in the mirror. I don’t care what I look like. Yakov is hurt and he’s all that matters.

  I pull the hotel door open and see both Pasha and Sonia standing there, both looking solemn.

  “They rushed him to Mount Sinai. Dr. Pavlov almost had a heart attack at the fact that Yakov was in Staten Island when everything went down,” Sonia explains.

  “What went down?” I ask as I hurry after them.

  Pasha turns to me once we’re in the elevator and he levels me with a very serious and intense gaze. I don’t know him very well, but right now, I’m terrified—of him, and of what he’s about to tell me.

  “Yakov was shot,” he announces. My breath hitches.

  “Is he…” I ask.

  I’m too afraid to say the words out loud, because if I say them, then it could be true. Maybe if I don’t, he’ll be perfectly fine.

  “Critical,” Pasha says as the elevator car opens and he and Sonia hustle out and walk swiftly to their waiting car.

  “I—I don’t understand what happened,” I whisper once Pasha pulls the car out of the hotel and into traffic. “Where’s Leo?”

  “Leonid isn’t answering my calls, or the calls Dominik put in for him. We don’t know where he is,” Pasha explains.

  “What about his wife and children?” I ask, trying to keep my mind busy, trying not to think about Yakov and wandering into what-if’s.

  Pasha doesn’t respond. He picks up his phone and punches some buttons before he puts it to his ear and begins speaking in rapid Russian. I know a few words, but I don’t recognize anything he’s saying.

  I hear Sonia gasp and then watch her as she turns her head to look out the side of the window. As soon as Pasha ends the call, I watch him wrap his hand around her knee and give it a squeeze, comforting and reassuring her, for whatever reason.

  “Dominik was already at their home when I called. The family is missing as well. Food on plates at the breakfast table, the clothes aren’t in their closets, and a small safe was left open and empty in the master bedroom. They left in a hurry. I issued an order to find them,” he growls.

  “Do you think he had something to do with what happened to Yakov?” I ask in surprise.

  “It’s not looking too good,” he grunts.

  We don’t say anything else as he speeds toward the hospital—well, as quickly as he can with the city’s traffic in his way.

  Once we pull into the parking garage, we all hurry out of the car and toward the doors of the facility. I run toward the counter and ask the nurse where Yakov Chekov is. She blinks at my frantic state and then turns to her computer. She punches in some keys, and all I want to do is scream in her face to hurry up. Then her eyes narrow and she turns to me.

  “Are you family?”

  “I’m his fiancée,” I say, a bit taken back by her question.

  He’s been shot and I’m here to get to him. She needs to tell me where he is, not ask me who I am.

  “Sorry, honey. Once you’re married, I can tell you anything you want to know. But until that day, no can-do,” she shrugs then turns away from me and walks away.

  “Where is he?’ Pasha asks as he arrives at my side.

  “They won’t tell me,” I whisper as my eyes fill with tears.

  “What?” Sonia hisses.

  “I’m not family. I’m not his wife, they won’t tell me,” I sob as my body starts to shake.

  I’m about to completely lose it in the middle of the hospital lobby. Yakov is somewhere in this building fighting for his life, in critical condition, and I can’t get to him. I now understand, a little, how helpless he felt when I was in South Africa and he couldn’t find me. I want to curl into a ball and cry right now.

  I want my Jacob.

  “Dr. Pavlov is in there with him. Once we get a hold of him, we’ll find Yakov,” Sonia murmurs as she wraps her arm around my shoulders.

  A few minutes later, Pasha comes back to our side. Apparently he walked away, though I didn’t see him through the haze of my tears. He looks between Sonia and me as we stand embracing, and he smiles sadly.

  “Come. I’ve found him,” he mutters.

  Sonia keeps her arm wrapped around my shoulders as we follow behind Pasha. I’m not looking anywhere but at Pasha’s back as we walk. I couldn’t see anything else anyway. My tears are falling in a steady stream, and it is all I can do to keep moving one foot in front of the other.

  Pasha takes us to a little waiting area where I notice a few men, dressed in suits much like Yakov and Pasha’s typical style, are standing around chatting. Leo’s not in the group, but I do recognize a man from the front yard of the whore house from a few weeks ago.

  I look around, realizing that these must be Yakov’s men, and yet I don’t know a single one of them. I have been in his life for three years and know not one person in this room, other than Pasha and Sonia. I disengage my arm from Sonia’s and back myself against the wall, wanting to disappear.

  My entire body fills with doubt. Am I really Yakov’s fiancée? I don’t know any of his men. They all look at me like I am this strange creature. I don’t feel welcome. I feel as though they are curious of my presence, but that is all. Leonid is gone, he is the only one I know, and evidence is sugges
ting he had something to do with Yakov being in here.

  I wait. Sonia, thankfully, leaves me alone, and I appreciate it. I need to be alone. I’m used to it and I enjoy it. I can think when I’m alone.

  There is a commotion that brings me out of my solitude, and that’s when I see Dr. Pavlov standing at the entrance of the room. He’s wearing scrubs, and they’re covered in blood. A few of the men walk up to him, but he holds his hand up and scans the room. Then his eyes meet mine and he walks through the crowd of people and straight over to me.

  I stand from my seat, but don’t move otherwise. All I can do is focus on the deep red that stains his seafoam green scrubs. I know that it’s Yakov’s blood that is smeared all over him, and it makes my knees knock together and threaten to buckle.

  “Ashley,” Dr. Pavlov whispers gently. His hand wraps around my shoulder, giving me a gentle squeeze.

  Dr. Pavlov has seen me at my absolute worst. He knows more than anybody the traumas my body has been through, and he’s been very kind to me every single time he’s seen me, including in this very moment.

  There are surely more important men waiting on an update, but he’s come straight to me. It eases my mind a little about truly being Yakov’s fiancée. I feel like my mind is spinning and I’m thinking nonsense when I should be demanding to know what’s happened, but I can’t speak.

  “He’s critical, but he’s alive,” he murmurs.

  “Can I see him?” I ask, finally speaking.

  “For only a minute. He isn’t awake, and he won’t be anytime soon. He’s fighting, Ashley. His body is strong, so I think he’ll be okay, but the next twenty-four hours are crucial,” he informs me.

  “I won’t be leaving his side,” I announce.

  “You shouldn’t stay in there. You should go back to your room and get some sleep. Both of you need your rest,” he tries to council.

  I take a step toward him and wrap my hands in his blood soaked scrub shirt as I go to my toes.

  “I love him. I’m his and I won’t leave his side. Yakov is my fiancé. Without him, I am nothing. Nobody is going to keep me from him,” I growl.