pixie-sized woman leap onto the back of one of the attackers, tackling him out of sight. I’d never seen her before, and I knew everyone in the Bratva. Even though I wasn’t a soldier, I was still very much a Bratva woman. I went through all the training, did all that hard work. I even went through the initiation, only to later discover it wasn’t what I wanted to do with my life. Not really.
It wasn’t the brutality of it. The blood and the killing. That shit didn’t faze me (though it was annoying every time one of my nails would snap off after a sparring match, especially after I’d just spent $500 on a new set). Not to mention the uniforms the enforcers had to wear were the ugliest pieces of fabric I’d ever seen in my life.
It surprisingly was none of those things that made me decide not to go down the same road as my dad. It was simply because my heart wasn’t in it.
I wanted to explore fashion. I wanted to design my own clothing line, like Brooke Davis, and move to one of the fashion capitals of the world. Paris or Milan. Hell, I’d even take London. Anywhere that would take me away from the man who’d broken not only my heart, but my soul.
Nikolai Volkov was every woman’s wet dream. Huge, broad shoulders. Hard, firm muscles. Dark hair. A face that put all of those Hollywood movie stars to shame. Square jaw. Flawless tanned skin. High cheekbones. He was tall. Hunky. Fierce. His eyes were what I loved the most, though. It was so easy to lose yourself in them. Sparkling blue, like the ocean.
I’d had a crush on him since I was sixteen years old, following him around like a little puppy dog. He barely noticed me though. I was just his sister’s idiot best friend. He’d just grunt a “Hello” any time I was over, and that was it. He wouldn’t even look at me, always having his head stuck in that laptop he carried around everywhere he went.
Some time after I turned nineteen, though, that all changed.
I’d been staying over one night and he cornered me in one of the many dark hallways of their home, looking all gloomy and mysterious.
“What are you doing wandering around all alone, Tati?”
A shiver ran down my spine. I stopped dead in my tracks, goosebumps pebbling my skin. The hallway was dark, so dark I could barely make out Nikolai’s silhouette as he leant against the wall in front of me.
I was acutely aware of the fact that I wasn’t wearing any pants. I’d woken up in the middle of the night, mouth as dry as the Sahara Desert. I always slept in my underwear, so I hadn’t bothered to put on a pair of pants before going down to the kitchen to grab a glass of water.
If I’d known the big, bad wolf was stalking the halls…I still wouldn’t have. Let’s be honest, I’d been trying to get Nikolai’s attention for years. And it wasn’t until recently that he’d started to return that attention with long, heated looks that burned my insides. He set my whole body on fire.
“I could ask you the same thing. Do you usually stalk around in the dark at three in the morning?” I asked, arching an eyebrow. I didn’t cover myself because I wanted him to look at me, to see me as a woman and not just some little kid.
Nikolai took a step forward and a sliver of light brought his face into view. Fuck, I’d never get over how handsome he was. He took my breath away every time I saw him. My heart slammed in my chest, beating so hard that I could hear it in my ears. I wanted him so badly, to feel him touch me, his hard, calloused hands on my skin.
His eyes ran down my body and up again in slow perusal, like a man committing every single detail to memory. “Sometimes. Depends on who I’m stalking.”
Why did that statement piss me off? Who the fuck was he stalking when he wasn’t there?
I took a bold move and stepped closer. His head tilted to the side curiously, his gaze running over my legs again, almost as if he couldn’t help himself. It was the most exposed I’d ever been around him. Did he like what he saw? I couldn’t tell. There might have been a glimmer of interest in his eyes, but I wasn’t sure.
“Are you stalking me, Nicky?” I whispered softly, trailing a hand slowly down my front. I stopped at the waistband of my underwear, running a finger over the exposed skin of my lower belly. I wanted to test him, to see if he really was interested. I didn’t chase after men who didn’t want me. Not anymore.
Nikolai watched my movements like a predator watching its prey. Deathly still. Laser focus. Muscles bunched, like he was ready to strike at any moment.
“Don’t call me Nicky,” he growled low in his throat, his eyes still locked on my hand.
“Why? I kinda like it. Nicky, Nicky, Nicky—”
A muffled gasp flew out of my mouth when he rushed me, his hand curling around my throat as he pushed me up against the wall. His body was flush against mine, his breath fanning over my face. I could feel every glorious inch of him. All those hard, toned muscles, built from a lifetime of training.
He’d never been that close to me before, never touched me before. The excitement bubbling inside me exploded to the point that I could barely breathe.
His tongue ran across his bottom lip as he stared at my mouth, eyes burning with what I was sure was want, desire. “Careful, Tatiana,” he rumbled. “I like to punish little girls like you.”
“Do you?” I whispered, exhilaration filling me up inside. “Show me.”
His deep, throaty chuckle made my pussy tingle. His hand caressed down the front of my body slowly and I arched forward, desperate for his touch. I’d dreamed of this moment so many times, it bordered on obsessive.
He gripped the fabric of my underwear and pulled back, letting it go with a snap. I yelped and he covered my mouth with his hand. “Shhh. You don’t want to wake anyone, do you?”
I shook my head, breathing heavily.
“That’s right. You’re going to be my good little girl right now, aren’t you, Tati?”
I nodded my head eagerly. My ability to speak was out, but I needed him to know that I would do whatever the fuck he asked, as long as he kept touching me.
“Good.” He kept one hand covering my mouth as he moved the other down my front slowly, torturously, with an agonisingly light touch that had me squirming. “I’ve been wondering how you taste.”
“You have?” I mumbled.
He nodded, his eyes piercing into mine. “Ever since I saw you in that little red dress. Do you remember that?”
How could I fucking forget? That was my nineteenth birthday. It was the first time I’d managed to get his attention. The first time he actually looked at me and saw me. I’d been riding high on cloud nine ever since.
“Should I find out? Hmm, Tati? Should I find out what you taste like?”
I tried not to seem too eager, but fuck I was. I wrapped my fingers around his wrist and pulled his hand away from my mouth. “I think you should.”
“I think I should too.” His hand disappeared down the front of my underwear and I moaned when his finger lightly grazed my clit. He gave me a reprimanding look and I bit my lip to keep from making another sound.
God, his touch felt so good. So unbearably good.
He dipped his finger inside me. I panted, my hips swirling as pleasure shot up my spine. He pulled it out far too quickly and brought it up between our bodies. His eyes stayed plastered to mine as he sucked his finger into his mouth and released a deep, masculine groan.
“Perfect and sweet, just like I thought.”
Fuck. This.
I reared forward and slammed my lips to his, unable to hold back for one more second. He kissed me back eagerly, his tongue pushing into my mouth. He took control of the kiss quickly, holding my head tight in his hands, slanting it this way and that way to get better access. I moaned and he swallowed the sound before it could be heard by anyone else. He pushed up against me, smothering me against the wall, his hard body grinding into me.
Fuck, he felt amazing.
The sound of someone laughing had him ripping his mouth away with a snarl. His hand moved along the wall beside me and he pushed a button hidden under one of the light sconces. Then he was backing me into the wall.
I had no idea what was going on. I was just along for the ride as he shoved me inside and the wall shifted back into place, leaving us locked in some sort of hidden passage. His hand was back, covering my mouth again as the voices got louder and louder.
Oh, god, we are so going to get caught. Why that turned me on, I had no idea.
I didn’t want to stop, didn’t want it to be the end. If this was the only moment we were going to share together, I was going to fucking remember it. And I was going to make sure he remembered it too.
I took his free hand and put it back where it had been a moment ago. His eyes darted down to me in surprise and his lips curved into a wicked, feral grin.
“That’s Drea.”
I shook my head, the memory that had just taken me over disappearing in an instant. Where the hell had that come from?
Nikolai was already moving towards the house, a frown set deep on his brows.
“Drea?” I questioned.
“She’s Aleksandr’s plaything.” Lukyan walked beside me, checking the chamber of his gun. “He’s very protective of her, so don’t try and sleep with her or anything.”
I chuckled. “Okay, then.”
When we finally made it inside, Drea was trying to drag one of the attackers into the next room. She was such a small little thing, barely five feet and covered head-to-toe in tattoos. She had a real punk-rock kind of vibe.
I was a little surprised. The few women I’d seen Aleksandr with didn’t look anything like her. Not that that was necessarily a bad thing. The women Aleksandr tended to go for were a bit on the stuckup-ish side.
Nikolai picked up a gun from the floor and pointed it right at her. “What are you doing out of your room?”
She didn’t even seem phased. In fact, she didn’t even look at him, continuing to try and pull the unconscious man across the floor. “What”—pull—“the fuck”—pull—“does it look like?” she growled with exertion.
“It looks like you’re trying to save one of the attackers.”
“Save?!” She huffed and stood up to her full height. “This fucker just stabbed Dayton. I’m trying to drag him back to Aleksandr.”
Dayton? Who the hell is Dayton?
“What?” Panic laced Nikolai’s voice. “Where?”
“In that room behind me.”
“Lukyan, grab his legs.” Nikolai and Lukyan worked together to carry him into the room Drea indicated.
Aleksandr was on the floor, cradling a kid in his arms. Blood seeped from a hole in the middle of his throat, and he was deathly pale. If he was alive, he wouldn’t be for much longer.
“Fuck,” Lukyan exhaled.
Aleksandr looked up briefly before focusing back on Dayton. “Call the doc.”
I stuck by Nikolai’s side as he moved closer. “Zander.” That one word held a multitude of meanings. He knew just by looking that calling for help would be useless. The kid wasn’t going to make it.
“Call!” Aleksandr roared.
My breath hitched. I’d never seen him so angry. So frantic. So desperate.
Dayton gripped the front of Aleksandr’s shirt, clinging to him. He gasped and cried, his body trembling and eyes so wide and full of terror that it broke my heart. I’d never met the kid before, but he was just that: a kid. I felt bad for him.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Aleksandr soothed, but I could tell he was saying that more to himself than to Dayton.
Then, just like that, the kid just stopped breathing. His body went limp in Aleksandr’s arms and Aleksandr did nothing but stare down at him, shocked, like he couldn’t believe what just happened.
The man responsible for stabbing him—the one Nikolai and Lukyan had carried into the room—coughed all of a sudden. Aleksandr’s gaze snapped to him wicked fast, like a snake coiled to strike. A dark anger rolled over his face.
He put Dayton down with a gentleness I didn’t realise he was capable of and marched towards the guy, baring his teeth as he released a deep, savage growl. Nikolai grabbed my arm quickly and yanked me out of his way. Everybody got the fuck out of his way, leaving a clear path between Aleksandr and the man.
He straddled his chest and just started hammering into him, over and over and over again. He slammed his head down into the ground, dug his fingers into his eyes. He absolutely fucking pummelled him—right hook, left hook, right hook, left hook—as he screamed out an animalistic roar that shook the whole fucking house.
Never in the twenty or so odd years that I’d known Aleksandr, had I ever seen him like that. He was…terrifying.
“Jesus Christ,” Lukyan breathed out, watching on. “Stop him, Nik, before he hurts himself.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. Of course I didn’t want Aleksandr to hurt himself. But that wasn’t him. That was something else. Someone else. What if he turned on Nikolai?
Nikolai hesitated but took a cautious step forward. Panic gripped me and I couldn’t stop myself from reaching out to him to stop him, but he was already approaching his brother. He touched him lightly on the shoulder. “Zander—”
He spun and punched him right in the face. Nikolai flew back and Aleksandr went right back to pounding at the dead body beneath him.
A shriek burst out of my mouth and I ran over to Nikolai, frantically running my hands over him. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” he grunted, rubbing his jaw. He went to get up and try again, but I pushed him back down.
“No,” I hissed. “Don’t go near him. Not until he’s calmed down.”
“He’s not going to calm down, Tati. It took five men to subdue him the last time he was like this. If we don’t—what the fuck?”
I glanced over my shoulder to see Drea in Aleksandr’s lap, his head buried deep into her chest, his arms wrapped around her tightly as she whispered something to him and him alone.
The whole thing shocked me. Aleksandr was not an affectionate person. Not the Aleksandr I knew. Who was this woman?
I helped Nikolai to his feet and he looked at them with the same shock I’m sure was on my face. He cleared his throat awkwardly to get their attention and Aleksandr lifted his head. Some of that darkness was gone. He seemed to be back in control.
Good. If he hit Nikolai again, I was going to fucking hit him.
“Is there anyone left alive?” Aleksandr grunted, his voice thick.
“If they are, they won’t be for long,” Nikolai said, glancing around at the numerous bodies littering the ground.
“Find out what you can from them quickly before they die.”
Nikolai nodded. “On it.” He paused, hesitating. “I’m sorry, Zander.”
Aleksandr’s jaw clenched. He said nothing, only jerking his head once in acknowledgement.
I followed Nikolai out of the room and back into the kitchen. “I need to start checking the bodies, see who’s alive and who’s dead.”
“I can help you.” There was no way I was going to leave. Yeah, I wasn’t in the Bratva technically, but I could still help out with things like this. Plus, I didn’t feel comfortable leaving just yet.
We worked together to move the dead bodies into a pile. It was a tiresome and tedious task, especially when we started dragging bodies down from upstairs. Anyone who was still alive was carried down to the warehouse and put in the pit—the place the Bratva kept all their prisoners.
We didn’t talk while we worked. He didn’t ask me why I was staying. I was thankful for it, because even I didn’t have an answer to that question. Not one I was willing to acknowledge just yet, anyway. Roughly ten minutes or so after we started checking the bodies, Lukyan came barrelling into the room, his face a mask of fear and distress.
Nikolai uncaringly dropped the body in his hands and rushed over to his brother. “What? What is it?”
“It’s Father,” he whispered, so softly I could barely hear him. “He’s been kidnapped.”
