Hunted By The Bratva Beast: A Bratva Stalker/Captive Romance

by Jagger Cole

  “So, this is for dinner,” he drops more money on the table. “Please, stay, enjoy.”

  My brow furrows. “Hey, is everything okay?”

  I step towards him, but he actually recoils, jumping back from me. He whips his head around, looking around the room with a terrified look on his face.

  “Pierre, what is going on?”

  “Nothing,” he blurts. “Nothing at all. I just… we should end things, Nina. And I don’t think we should try this again. Nothing personal.”

  “I…” I frown again. “Um, okay? Pierre, are you sure—”

  He recoils again as I step towards him. His eyes dart past me, scanning the room. But then he swallows and looks back to me.

  “Look, Nina, when you see him next, can you just let him know that I understand perfectly, and he’s got nothing to worry about with me.”

  “What?”

  “Please just tell him that. Tell him I said, ‘I understand completely and I will not ever be an issue.’ Can you please do that? Please?”

  I stare at him, perplexed. “What the hell are you talking? Next time I see who?”

  He blinks. “Your friend. The big, big guy, with all the tattoos.”

  I tremble. Suddenly, I have zero doubts who he’s talking about.

  “Goodbye, Nina.”

  Pierre nods, white-faced, and quickly bolts from the restaurant. I whip my head around, scanning the room. He’s here. Or he was here. I replay the terrified look on Pierre’s face, and his words about “the big, big guy with all the tattoos.”

  It’s my hunter. My beast. I know it.

  I swallow and scan the room again. My heart is racing with a fucked up excitement that I might actually see him again. That he’s looking at me, and if I look hard enough, I’ll spot him back. But it’s not a big restaurant. And it’s pretty clear that he’s not here.

  Part of me wonders if I’m crazy, and just jumping to conclusions. But what the hell else could explain Pierre’s sudden departure?

  A waiter comes by to see if I’ll still be dining with them. But I shake my head. I collect my stuff, and I leave. Outside, it’s raining. But the valet brings my car around, and I get behind the wheel. But my heart is still thudding in my chest. My mind is still trying to put the pieces of this together.

  I’m being stalked. I mean, that’s literally the word for it. He’s watching me. He’s been in my house—in my bathroom while I showered. He’s seen me, and I’ve knowingly put on a show for him, knowing he was out there. I want to question my own sanity at that. I mean there’s reckless, and then there’s playing with live dynamite.

  And now he’s gone and escalated things. Now, he’s showing up to dinner and scaring my dates away. I blush, shivering in my seat as I drive through the city.

  He’s my stalker. But also my escape. He’s my shadowy nightmare, and he’s also my forbidden fantasy. But the fantasy is getting real. Maybe too real…

  I’m driving in a haze, lost in thought. I slow for a red light, when suddenly, high-beam headlights blind me from the side, from an alleyway. I wince as I turn to shield my eyes. But the headlights suddenly get bigger, and closer. I hear the roar of a diesel engine, my heart skips, and I scream and throw my hands up.

  The hit comes hard. My whole world goes upside down in a shower of shattered glass. The sound of wrenching metal and screeching tires is all I know as my car slams sideways. The airbag slams into my face, and the car tilts onto two wheels. Then, it goes all the way over onto the roof as I scream.

  I blink, feeling something hot and wet trickling down my face. But through that and the daze of the crash, I can hear truck doors opening. I hear barked command in Russian, and my jaw tenses. I reach over, fumbling with the glove compartment before it opens. I yank the gun out and take the safety off, and whirl as boots rush to the side of the car.

  “Ubey yeye!” A man snarls in Russian. Kill her.

  Not today, motherfucker. I’m upside down and pinned by the airbag and my seatbelt. But I twist and level the gun at the legs approaching my driver’s side door. I grit my teeth and squeeze the trigger. The man roars, blood exploding from his shin as he goes down. I shoot him again, ending him this time.

  But instantly, gunfire rakes the side of the car. I scream as shrapnel and glass shower me. The airbag pops, and I shove it down to jab the gun through the shattered windshield. I start to fire at the approaching men through the rain, screaming when they start shooting back.

  I’m pinned, and I don’t have an extra clip of ammo. My heart races, and I scramble to try and unhook my seatbelt. I look up through the windshield and see more men with guns approaching the car. My pulse thuds in my ears, and the panic rises with it. I sob and try to rip my seatbelt off, but I’m totally stuck.

  Outside, the men raise their guns, and I squeeze my eyes shut. The sound of a machine gun rips through the night, and I scream and wince. But when I hear men roaring and screaming in Russian, my eyes open. My mouth falls open.

  The men approaching me are dropping like flies. The gunfire is coming from behind me, and I gasp when I hear something huge suddenly thud down on the car, rocking it. The men outside scramble to run off, leaving their dead or wounded as they dive into three SUV’s and roar off.

  And then, it’s silent. I blink, feeling the warm blood still trickling down my face. The weight on top of the upside-down car shifts, and suddenly two huge feet hit the concrete next to my window. I gasp, feeling my heart flip into my throat.

  Huge hands reach down, and they almost rip the whole dented door off getting it open. A knife flashes as it jabs through the open door. I scream, but the blade slices through the seatbelt. It drops, and two huge hands catch me as I drop out of the upside-down seat.

  My head is foggy and spinning. It’s still raining, and I can hear sirens approaching. The huge arms pull me from the wreckage of my car. I look up, and my breath catches when I see the piercing blue eyes I already knew I’d find. My hand weakly raises. But he grits his jaw and gently pulls the bullet-less gun from my hand.

  “Not this time,” he growls heavily. I let him take the gun. I let him scoop me into his muscled, huge arms. I let him lean down, and I ache for everything that’s played out in my filthy dreams as his lips move to mine.

  He pauses for one second, his mouth inches from mine. I’m trembling, my heart thudding in my chest as I look up into his gorgeous, dangerous, and somehow familiar eyes.

  But then the moment breaks. And I know there’s nothing in this world that could stop this kiss.

  His mouth crushes to mine. I moan at the intensity of it, but I hungrily open my lips for him. I whimper into the kiss as he growls into my mouth. His huge hands cradle me effortlessly. His savageness seems to radiate off of his enormous body, looming over me, shielding me from the rain.

  My arms go around his neck, and I kiss him desperately. But suddenly, he hisses and pulls away. His hand yanks up, and I flinch when he pulls the trigger on his gun. I glance behind me, staring at the last of the hitmen who crumples to the ground.

  The sirens are getting closer. My mystery man pulls back, his face grim.

  “You must lay down.”

  “Who…” my head spins. My words slur. And I know it’s more than rain that’s trickling down the side of my head.

  “Lay down, little one,” he grunts in a thick Russian accent.

  “Kto ty?” I murmur. Who are you?

  “Lay still. Help is coming.” He starts to stand. Out of panic, my hands grab his soaked t-shirt, pulling him back to me.

  “Wait, please…”

  “Lay down, little one,” he murmurs again. “You will be safe. I will always make sure you are safe.” His eyes hold mine magnetically, burning hotly in the rain and the smell of gun smoke and burnt rubber.

  “Kto ty?” I mumble as my vision starts to go black. “Kto ty—”

  “I am yours, Nina,” he growls. “I’m yours.”

  The lights dim. I try and focus on his gorgeous eyes and deep, grow
ly voice. But slowly, it all fades away.

  7

  Nina

  “Nina?”

  I frown, my eyes still closed. I can feel consciousness slowly fading in. My brow furrows as I hear my name again. A soft hand pushes hair from my face. With a gasp, my eyes fly open, and I sit bolt upright.

  “Whoa! Whoa! Hang on there, lady.”

  It’s Fiona leaning over me, frowning with concern—or, I’m pretty sure it’s Fiona. My glasses are off, and my vision is blurred.

  “My… my glasses.”

  “I have them.”

  The sound of my brother’s voice calms me. A figure approaches, and I feel his hands pressing my glasses into mine. I slowly slip them on, and suddenly, things come into focus. My pulse is still racing through as I slowly take in my surroundings.

  I blink at the bright lights and white walls and realize I’m in a hospital room. But I’m surrounded familiar faces, at least. Fiona and Viktor are on either side of my hospital bed. But behind them are Lev, Zoey, and Nikolai.

  “How do you feel?”

  I frown as I turn to look up at Viktor.

  “Like I got hit by a truck.”

  His face is lined and grim. “Well, you were.”

  “The doctors say you’re going to be okay, Nina,” Fiona says gently, squeezing my arm comfortingly. “But they’re going to keep you for a night or two to monitor stuff. You banged your head pretty good,” she frowns. I raise a hand up to the side of my head and wince when I touch bandage.

  “How bad?”

  “Nothing they’re worried about, but I’m flying a neurologist in from LA tonight.”

  I turn to smile at my brother. “You don’t have to do that.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  I reach out and take his hand with one of mine.

  “I should have had people there with you,” he growls thickly. His eyes cloud with fury as he shakes his head. “I fucking should have—”

  “Viktor,” I say quietly, patting his hand. “I’m okay.” But then suddenly, I pale. “Fuck, Vik, I was carrying, and I shot back—”

  “It’s been taken care of,” he smiles thinly. “The first cops on the scene are… friends. Your reports are being written now about how you were caught in the middle of a terrible gang shootout.”

  “And the gun?”

  “What gun?”

  I smile wryly.

  “For what it’s worth,” Lev grunts from across the room. “That was some pretty fucking incredible shooting, Nina.”

  “It… it was?”

  “Girl,” Fiona raises a brow. “You took out like ten guys.”

  I frown. My mind flashes back to my blind shooting out through the smashed windshield, in the rain. But then suddenly, everything comes rushing back. I gasp when my mind replays the thud of him on top of the car, like he dropped out of the fucking sky to save me or something. I remember the machine gun fire, and the would-be assassins dropping and falling back.

  Viktor frowns. “Do you remember anything?”

  “No,” I lie. Because I do remember. I remember his hands. I remember his eyes. And I remember his lips—I’ll remember that kiss for the rest of my life, actually. But for some reason, I know I can’t tell anyone about that. I know I can’t mention the help I had, either. I can’t mention that I know a beast of a man has been watching me, maybe even stalking me. Just like I haven’t mentioned his presence back at the rooftop shooting, when he grabbed me, and I shot him.

  So he stays a secret; my secret. My dark, heart-pounding, skin-tingling secret.

  “Anything at all?”

  I shake my head. “I was out to dinner, but it didn’t last long. I was in my car at a red light, and they—this truck just slammed into me out of an alley and knocked the car over.”

  “Jesus, Nina,” Fiona murmurs, taking my hand again and squeezing it.

  “Any ideas who they were?”

  Viktor’s mouth thins. “Yes and no. The men you shot were just hired muscle—Russian, some with some Bratva connections. But no one of note. This wasn’t a move by another family or anything.”

  “It feels like there’s a ‘but’ in there somewhere.”

  He nods grimly and turns to glance at Nikolai for a second before turning back. “The business last year with Fyodor Kuznetsov…”

  I scowl. My eyes slip over to Lev and Zoey, and I see him take her hand and squeeze. Months ago, Fyodor, who was actually Lev’s estranged father, tried to have him and Zoey killed in retaliation for a business deal Lev screwed up for him. Through the ordeal, it seemed for a minute that Nikolai, one of my brother and Lev’s top captains, was actually working for Fyodor. But in the end, it turned out he was only playing Fyodor to get close to him.

  The very short version of the story is, Fyodor had assaulted a cocktail waitress in Moscow years before. The result of that horrible assault was Nikolai. And years later, he exacted his revenge on Fyodor, by killing him and ending the whole ordeal involving Lev and Zoey.

  “Is this blowback from the Volkovs?” Technically, Fyodor worked for the Volkovs, a rival Bratva family. But Yuri Volkov, the head of the family himself, has assured Viktor several times that Fyodor was acting on his own, and that there is no aggression between the two families to rattle the fragile peace agreement we have with them.

  Viktor shakes his head. “No. But there’s some new information on him.”

  Lev steps forward, frowning. “I left home when I was eleven, Nina. But it seems after I left, Fyodor took to taking in ‘proteges’—boys he saw potential in as…” he scowls. “Thugs, I guess. Kids he could inflict his cruelty onto, molding them into fighters, or soldiers for his own fucked up little squabbles.”

  I frown. I’ve spoken to Lev briefly before about his biological father—who wasn’t that dissimilar from Bogdan, my foster dad. Both cruel, merciless, abusive pieces of shit.

  “There were two of these proteges in particular that went on to become forces to be feared in the Bratva world in Moscow. Ten years ago, though, one of them was killed, and the other went to prison—a Siberian gulag known as The Hole.” Lev frowns. “It’s where the worst of the worst go. It’s a black hole where they throw evil so that they may forget about it. Like nuclear waste.”

  I bite my lip. “Lev, why are you telling—”

  “Because, Nina,” Nikolai says quietly, stepping forward. “A few months ago, this gulag had the first escape they’ve ever had. A man broke out of the hole—Fyodor’s protege. His name is Kostya Romanoff. But inside, they called him The Beast.”

  I shiver, feeling my pulse quicken. “Why—”

  “Because he’s a wild animal,” Nikolai grunts. “Because he’s a savage, brutal, emotionless killer. And I’m more than slightly worried that his breakout coinciding so close with me killing Fyodor is no accident.”

  A heat pulses deep inside of me. The Beast. That’s the man who kissed me tonight. The man who saved me, but also the man who tried to take me. The man watching out for me, but also watching me.

  The man I can’t decide whether or not to be terrified of or hopelessly lusting after.

  It’s a back and forth I’m still trying to figure out when Viktor and the rest of my family leave. I’m still pondering it when the dozen armed guards and three uniformed policemen that my brother has set up as my personal hospital watch checks in with me.

  When the nurses come in with some meds to help me sleep, I just nod. Because my every thought is on The Beast—the monster who almost stole me, and who just stole a single, perfect kiss.

  The room fades as the meds kick in. But the darker it gets, the more he becomes the only thing I can see.

  8

  Kostya

  Moscow, Thirteen Years Ago:

  “Did you get it?”

  I hear him, but I can’t answer. The adrenaline is still thudding too hard. I’m still covered with too much blood to think of anything but stripping down and showering to see which blood is mine and which is not.

  I w
ince as I pull my ripped shirt over my head. My shoulder screams in agony as it rotates, and a fresh wave of slick wetness pours down my side. Found the blood that’s mine.

  “Kostya!” Fyodor roars from the couch. He twists his head to shout at me again. “Did you fucking get it?!”

  “Da,” I mumble. I stagger into the bathroom, peeling the rest of my clothes off. The water is cold, but I don’t really feel it anyways. I lean my head to the wall, letting the water drum down on me and drown out the echoes of the screams.

  After a minute, the water starts to spit and smell sour. In this shitty apartment block, it’s not that uncommon. But it also means it’s time to get out. I rub the hand towel over myself, drying as much as I can. I step out of the bathroom, but I instantly hiss as I’m grabbed by the throat and tossed to the floor.

  “How dare you!!” Fyodor roars as he lunges over me. He’s got a police baton in his hand, and I flinch as he slams it against my side. I go to deflect, but he cracks my knuckles with it. I hiss, but when he slams it into my bleeding shoulder, I howl in pain.

  “How dare you ignore me in my own fucking house, you ungrateful little cur!” He bellows at me. He hits me again, spits at me, and stands upright. “One more time, Kostya. Did you fucking get it?”

  “It” is the money the boxing organizer owed him. That’s where I just was; “retrieving it” in the way I do best: with brute force.

  “Da, Fyodor!” I grunt. “Yes, I have it.”

  “Get it,” he snaps.

  I nod and shuffle over to my bloody pants on the floor. I pull the wad of cash out of my pocket and turn to hand it to him.

  Fyodor grins when he snatches it. And suddenly, his whole demeanor changes. “Ahh, see, my boy?” He chuckles. “All I ask is a little bit of respect in this house. That is all. You give it, and everything is good, yes?”

  “Da, Fyodor,” I nod. “Yes, sir.”

  He flips through the wad of bills, counting. Then he grins. “Good boy, Kostya. You did good.”