by Nicole Fox
Daybreak
Tsezar Bratva
Nicole Fox
Copyright © 2019 by Nicole Fox
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Also by Nicole Fox
Nightfall
Owned by the Mob Boss
Unprotected with the Mob Boss
Broken Hope
Broken Vows
Knocked Up by the Mob Boss
Sold to the Mob Boss
Stolen by the Mob Boss
Trapped with the Mob Boss
Vin: A Mafia Romance
Contents
DAYBREAK
1. Dmitry
2. Courtney
3. Dmitry
4. Courtney
5. Dmitry
6. Courtney
7. Dmitry
8. Courtney
9. Dmitry
10. Courtney
11. Dmitry
12. Dmitry
13. Courtney
14. Dmitry
15. Courtney
16. Dmitry
17. Courtney
18. Dmitry
19. Courtney
20. Courtney
21. Courtney
22. Dmitry
Epilogue
Sneak Preview: Owned by the Mob Boss
Also by Nicole Fox
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DAYBREAK
Tsezar Bratva
By Nicole Fox
He gave me a chance at happily ever after. And then he snatched it all away.
COURTNEY
Did the man of my dreams sell me to the monster of my nightmares?
I don’t want to believe it.
But no matter how hard I pinch myself, the horrors won’t go away.
The facts are this:
I’m locked on a ship with my daughters, bound for a slave auction half a world away.
I’m surrounded by killers. Imprisoned by a psychopath.
And Dmitry is nowhere to be found.
All I have left is one desperate hope:
Will my husband come to save us?
Or was our love a lie all along?
1
Dmitry
I feel the pain in my hip before I can even open my eyes.
The pain may be what woke me up in the first place.
It is a throbbing, piercing kind of pain that radiates from my hip into my chest and down my thigh. I groan as I shift my leg out from underneath me. My foot prickles like a thousand needles being poked into my skin as blood finally rushes to it.
Where am I?
My vision is blurred, my eyes heavy as I blink against the dim light coming through the window. It’s too dark to be daylight outside, so it must be the glare from the security light above the garage.
Which means …
It takes me several seconds to realize I’m in Olivia’s nursery … on the floor.
Then, several seconds more to remember what happened.
The room is empty now except for me, but as the memories resurface, I can see Devon sitting in the rocking chair holding Olivia in the same way I always hold her to rock her to sleep. I turn to the crib. I can still see the curled indentation of where Tati lay in her sister’s bed, put there by Devon or one of his Yakuza minions, no doubt.
And Courtney.
She was battered and lying on the floor only a few feet away.
Devon had knocked her unconscious.
How hard did she fight to protect her girls? Our girls?
Did she wonder why I left? Why I wasn’t there to help?
I push myself upright and try to walk, but I have to stumble forward and grip the doorframe to keep from falling.
“Hello?” My voice is little more than a rasp, and I cough to try and clear it.
Whatever drug they injected me with, the effects are slow to fade. The hallway tilts and whirls with every blink. I feel like I’m walking through a fun house, though there is nothing at all fun about this experience.
“Hello?” I call again, my voice stronger this time.
For years, I was accustomed to no one answering my calls. When I’d stub my toe and curse or drop the bottle of shampoo in the shower, no one would hear the noise and come to check on me. But then Courtney came into my life and there was someone to care.
Someone to respond.
Courtney brought companionship into my life in a way I never knew I needed it. Our relationship began as nothing more than sex to cover her father’s debts, but she slowly became more important to me. Vital. Essential to my happiness.
She adopted Tati as her own daughter and then gave me another. And with Courtney, Tati, and Olivia in my life, I felt needed. I felt cared for.
And in this moment—calling for them and hearing nothing in return—I realize I’ve taken them all for granted.
Tati’s ballet shoes are piled in the corner of the hallway, and Olivia’s favorite teething ring is sitting in the middle of the floor where she likely dropped it while Courtney carried her to bed. I can still smell the vanilla scent of Courtney’s bodywash coming from under the bathroom door.
Evidence of them is everywhere, yet I’m met with silence. Unending silence.
“Hello!” I scream, pushing my voice to the extreme until it breaks.
When I’m met with nothing but echoes, my strength gives out, and I fall to the floor.
My knees crack against the floor, and I press my hands into the carpet and take deep breaths. Slowly, the desperate pain shifts into rage. Achingly slowly, I find the strength to stand up and move forward, walking through my now empty house. Knowing my family has been taken.
Since no one responded to my shouts for help, I’m not surprised when I make it to the guard room downstairs and discover they’re dead.
The guards were probably dead before my car even left the driveway. My family was no doubt being attacked while I sat in Elena’s living room, attempting to offer her money she neither needed nor deserved. And for what?
Honor?
Fuck honor.
What good is honor when my family is gone?
I wish I’d killed them all. I wish that after finishing Rurik, I’d tracked down his family and murdered them all. That’s what you do with a diseased plant—pull it up, root and stem.
Instead, I took the merciful approach. I allowed Elena to carry on living, and then I allowed myself to be lured into a false sense of security. Since it had been over a year, I assumed my worries were over. I assumed all was well.
I’m a fucking idiot.
I slam the door shut on the guard room and then slam my fist into the wall.
Pain erupts in my knuckles, and I curse, the word echoing off the high ceiling. It does nothing to make me feel better.
Emotion is what got me into this mess in the first place.
Compassion, guilt, shame—all of it weakened my ability to care for my family in the way I needed to. So, if emotion got me into this mess, it won’t get me out.
I shake my hand out, slightly easing the pulsating pain in my knuckles, and take a deep breath.
My family is gone.
I push away the stab of emotion that threatens to split me open and focus on the fact.
My guards are dead.
Rage flares my nostrils, but I breathe it away.
I’
m alone in my house with no idea where anyone is.
After acknowledging that fact, there is no emotion, but there is a path forward. It’s a problem I can solve.
I spin away from the guard room and jog into the kitchen. It looks shockingly ordinary compared to the bloody scene in the guard room only feet away. I sit down and pull my phone out of my pocket.
One by one, I call my lieutenants—the men I can trust. I tell them to get to my house now.
My men are angry.
Many of them are not my blood family, but they love Courtney and Tati and Olivia as their own. They have sworn to protect me and my family, and like me, they are frustrated to have failed them.
The guards in the guard room are removed, but nothing is cleaned. Every inch of the house is searched and inspected.
Devon clearly got in through the sliding glass door that opens onto the large deck. The lock is broken and the door is halfway open. After that, his Yakuza lackeys took out the guards and attacked my family.
As the events are laid out before me, rage thrashes against the wall I’ve built around my heart, like a wild animal desperate to escape and kill. But I keep it in.
I’ve failed my family. I’ve failed to protect my family in full view of my men, and if they see me lose my wits, I will have lost all of my dignity. There will be no coming back from it.
So, I keep it in. For my girls more than for myself. I will need the help of my men if I want any chance of getting them back.
The realization that there is a possibility I won’t get them back awakens the beast in my chest again, and I have to close my eyes and breathe deeply to keep from kicking through a wall. I stand in the dining room, eyes closed and breathing, until Pasha finds me.
“We found this in Tati’s room,” he says.
I open my eyes, and he is holding an envelope out to me, his hand shaking slightly.
I recognize it as the money I left for Elena. It’s the reason I was away from my family in the first place, and now it’s in my house.
I snatch it out of his hand and tear it open as though Elena might be hiding inside.
All of the money is still there. I don’t need to count it to know. She returned every penny that I gave her. But why? Why bother? The money is a small enough amount to make no difference to me, and she clearly doesn’t need it. Why not just throw it away? Or use it. That would be adding insult to injury. Kidnap my family and use the money I generously and idiotically gave her.
Then, I see it. Tucked in the back of the envelope between a few of the bills is a small picture.
It’s me and Courtney and our girls out on the beach. We are smiling and playing. Tati is throwing sand in the air like confetti, and Courtney is shielding the baby’s head and laughing. I’m rushing towards Tati, arms wide to scoop her up and throw her in the air.
Every face but mine is crossed through with a red ‘X.’
It’s a childish thing to do. A move so simple and mocking as to be almost stereotypical, and yet … it shakes me. Seeing my beautiful girls’ faces slashed through brings a wave of panic down over me so strong my vision blurs at the edges.
“Do you recognize the picture?” Pasha asks, pulling me from the breakdown just in time.
I narrow my eyes, trying to see beyond the violent red scratches in the picture. I recognize the red swimsuit Courtney is wearing. Later that afternoon, when the girls went down for a nap, I peeled it off her with my teeth. We made love in the walk-in shower until the floor was covered with sand and the water ran cold. It was a beautiful day.
But we didn’t take any pictures.
The photograph is taken from further up the beach and we are blurry, as though the photographer zoomed in a good deal before snapping the shot.
“We were watched.” I throw the picture on the floor, letting it slide across the tile and land under the table. “They were watching my house—my family—and I didn’t know.”
“None of us did,” Pasha says, laying a hand on my shoulder. “We all failed them.”
The emotion I’ve locked deep inside bubbles to the surface again, but this time it’s gratitude.
Still, like the rage, I push it away. Letting anything through puts me at risk of letting it all through.
I step away from Pasha’s comfort, and he lets his arm fall.
“We need to go back to Elena’s.”
Pasha nods and turns to deliver my message to the other men.
I know she won’t be there. Taking my family there to hide would be the dumbest, most obvious move, and as much as I wish it wasn’t true, Elena is smart. She and Rurik arranged all of this. They kept their son a secret for years so he could be used as a pawn against me. Even with Rurik no longer at the reins, I know Elena would never take my family back to the house where she first laid bare the plans she had for me.
Still, I’m disappointed when I pull up out front, parking in the same space I parked only hours before, and see the house is dark.
The windows are blank and gaping like black holes. No movement inside.
I kick down the door and the alarm system doesn’t even trigger.
There are no security measures put into place. No guards. No effort taken to keep anyone outside, which means there is nothing important inside.
The furniture is there. Art is on the walls. There is even a pair of shoes next to the door.
But no Elena.
No Devon.
No Courtney, Tati, or Olivia.
My men search the house the way they did mine, investigating every possible hiding place to ensure there are no traps, no tricks, no stones left unturned.
When they return, someone hands me a baby sock. It’s white with pink on the toes and heel. Olivia’s.
She was here.
At one point, my family was here, and now they’re gone.
Something bubbles up inside of me again, but this time, it isn’t emotion. It’s nausea.
I turn and walk out of the house, the sock pinched between my fingers, and stumble back to my car.
I shut the door, throw the seat back, and take deep breaths as I stare up at the roof.
I’m too many steps behind. Elena and Devon are moving quickly. My family is in their control right now, and I have no idea where they have been taken. No idea how to find them. No idea what to do next.
The list of things I don’t know crushes down on me until I can’t inhale a whole breath. I’m so focused on breathing and getting oxygen to my brain that I don’t hear the passenger door open. I don’t even know anyone is there until someone’s throat clears.
I look over and see Yorik.
He is only in his mid-forties, but there are thick patches of gray at his temples and throughout his beard. Laugh lines crinkle around his eyes, and I realize this is the first time in a long time I’ve seen him without a smile on his face.
Usually, his unfailing happiness annoys me. Now, the absence of it spills dread in my chest.
“You don’t have to run away from us,” he says gently, his eyes on my face.
I turn away and stare out the window, hoping he’ll do the same, but he doesn’t.
“You lost your family, and we all understand. We all want to help.”
Yorik has a wife and two sons. He has been married since he was nineteen. If anyone can understand what I’m going through right now, it is him.
“I know you are losing your shit right now,” he continues. “I know this is the shittiest thing that has ever happened to you. We all understand that, and we want to help.”
“You keep saying that,” I bark.
“Because it’s true.” His voice is calm and even. It would be soothing, if only his words could penetrate the wall around my heart. “Emotion does not make you weak. Your father believed that, but I know you don’t. We all know how much you love your family, and when that kind of love can be channeled into action, nothing in the world is stronger.”
I consider his words; consider my desire to bring vengeance down on t
he heads of anyone responsible for taking my family. I know he is right. The rage I feel is not separate from my love; it is fueled by it. Without anyone to give my love to, the wasted emotion is being channeled towards other, more useful emotions. It is spurring me on, and every second, more of it is being created. Every second, rage builds inside of me, desperate to escape, and I know that if I don’t find Elena and Devon, if I don’t get my family back, it will kill me.
“No one thinks you are weak,” Yorik says.
The word triggers something inside of me. Weak.
I know Yorik is right. I can feel the truth of it in the burning of my chest, but I still turn towards him, lip curled back in distaste.
“I don’t know why you think you can talk to me so candidly, but if you do it again, I’ll slice your balls off.”
Yorik is not surprised or angry. He looks sad. His eyes turn down at the corners, and then he nods and leaves.
I sit in the car for a few more minutes before stuffing the baby sock into my glove compartment and going back into Elena’s house.
No other signs of my family have been found in the house, so I order my lieutenants to begin reaching out to our rivals.
“Cut whatever deal you have to cut,” I say. “Give up whatever you have to give up to get information, but don’t let them know my family is gone. Make it seem like we’re simply looking for stolen merchandise.”
If my missing family can make me look vulnerable to my own men, it will make me look pathetic to our rivals. It will be an opening for another family to exploit my weakness and take advantage of our distraction.
