British Bratva: A Russian Mafia Romance (Russian Underworld Book 2) Read online

  But somewhere along the line, he started hitting me, and ruining his reputation, taking back what was mine ceased to be enough. I wanted him dead more than I wanted anything else in my life.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I could see my egg fried rice sticking to the side of the fridge. It pissed me off that he'd wasted my food when I was achingly hungry when I had nothing else to eat in the entire house.

  "I was having my dinner!" I growled, screeching my chair back as I got to my feet. "That's all I was doing you fat, ugly troll!"

  He'd never liked lip from me. Sometimes, though, it was a struggle not to give it to him. Some days I didn't care if it made it worse. Maybe I was just looking for an excuse. If he pushed me far enough, I could say it was self-defense when I ended him.

  Pierce was red-faced and snarling.

  "Not yours, is it? You filthy little leach. Nothing in this bloody house is yours!"

  I had to bite my tongue. It bloody well was mine. Everything should have been.

  All those reviewers would have a field day if they knew the lorded Pierce Sutherland made his eighteen year old step daughter work bar shifts to pay rent in her dead mother's house, and didn't let her eat any of the food in the cupboards or the fridge.

  He was paying for my schooling, he said. So I owed him.

  My fists balled by my sides. I couldn't take it any longer.

  Before I knew what I was doing, I'd advanced on him, my hand reaching out for his shoulder to spin him around. I was small, but he was unathletic, and I had more strength despite his size. The gun was right there on the table. I didn't even have to get it out of the bag. He'd go down like a sack of potatoes if I hit him hard enough and God I wanted to smash his smug face in.

  "I paid for that food."

  "About bloody time you paid for something."

  Pierce sneered at me. And something in me snapped.

  My arm ratcheted back, winding up to punch him, but his eyes leveled on mine, suddenly sober and I realized he had the bread knife in his hand.

  "Try it, girl. I dare you."

  Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw a red dot hovering, but I blinked and it was gone.

  And then the top pane of glass in the multi-paneled sash of the semi-basement room we were in cracked sharply. The whisky bottle on the table exploded in on itself, shards of glass splintering across the stripped pine top, and the both of us spun sharply around to face it.

  I looked to the window, but there was nothing to see, other than a crude hole with jagged edges in the very top corner, cracking the square pane so the shards were held in place only by the putty at the edges.

  Pierce blundered over, leering up towards the street.

  "Bloody kids throwing stones." He stormed off up the stairs, and I heard his heavy footsteps as he charged out into the street, the front door thrown wide, bellowing out into the night. Something in me knew before he got up there that it had nothing to do with stones.

  There was nothing in the pile of broken glass on the table.

  I looked over my shoulder, back towards the Welsh dresser which was full of all the kinds of things I wasn't supposed to touch. There was a neat little pile of sugar forming directly below the rapidly empty bag of Tate and Lyle. I had a feeling Pierce wasn't going to find any kids out on the street.

  A prickle of tension ran up the back of my neck and I crossed the kitchen to pick up the bag, already knowing what I was going to find when I tipped the rest of the sugar out. There, embedded in a lump of rapidly cooling molten sugar that almost looked like melted glass, was a round from a gun.

  My heart rate quickened, and I went back over to the window, peering out of it. Above the low wall that circled the house, through the iron railings, I could only just glimpse the windows of the middle floor of the mansion block opposite us. The sash was open at the bottom about a foot. Just enough for someone to point a gun through and take aim.

  I swallowed hard.

  Who was the bullet meant for, and did they really miss? I didn't think so. It would have taken skill, and an insanely powerful scope to aim for the sugar bag. I hadn't imagined that red dot. If whoever was holding that gun had wanted to kill either of us, they could have done it right there and then.

  One thing I knew for sure - someone was watching every single thing that went on in this house. That wasn't going to do me any favors when I finally brought all Pierce had been brewing down on top of him.

  I couldn't kill the man with a bloody sniper watching. Not when I didn't know whether they were there for protection, or to do one of us harm. That was a chilling concept. But I couldn't afford to let my imagination run away, I had to find out for myself.

  After I swept up the remains of my dinner, and the pile of sugar on the floor, I took the empty paper bag and the bullet with me upstairs.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Elizabeth

  Our house was tall and skinny, going up all four floors, right through from the basement to the attic where my room was, up in the eaves. Dad had done well in business, before he died, but he and Mum had bought this place back when a million pounds still sounded like a lot of money for a house.

  These days there were studio apartments around the corner going for more than they paid for the whole thing.

  Anything with more than one bedroom was at least four times the price. The opposite building was a mansion that stood empty most of the time, then full of Russians and sheikhs and princes from Saudi and the UAE that Pierce was so determined to pin down with his stupid little book.

  Personally, I thought it was all one big vendetta against Mrs Koskova two doors over, and her little dog who always leaped and snarled at him whenever they passed in the street, because the dog was clearly a good judge of character. It gave me more pleasure than it should have to see him flinch away from it. Mrs Koskova was very grand and liked to pretend she didn’t notice that it kept leaving little steaming presents in the front garden. Pierce narrowed his eyes and muttered darkly about bloody Russians and Cold Wars all over again whenever he saw her.

  Around here, there were regulations about the door colors and how frequently to paint the iron railings that had been replaced over the years at great expense. It was the kind of thing Pierce lived for, and no doubt he wanted neighbors who shared the same values. Mrs Koskova's Christmas wreath was the biggest on the street, and it was all metallic silver and Swarovszki crystals. Not in keeping at all.

  I loved it.

  I'd rather have glitzy crystal icicles than some snobby sheen of civilization while everyone pulled the curtains closed and turn up the volume on Classic FM when Pierce bellowed loud enough to make the walls shake. They didn't ask questions about why I never went home straight after school, absented myself on the weekends, and why I didn't wear short sleeves in the summer.

  One of the things I remember my father telling me was that during the war, a lot of the railings around London were cut off and melted down to help during the munitions crisis, but here in Chelsea, there was little evidence of that having any long term effect on the aesthetic of the old buildings.

  The mansion building opposite had been bought some time the year before, and whoever owned it was turning it into quite the impressive set of apartments. There had been builders swarming all over it for months on end.

  Outside the entrance, just inside the railings, one of the site workers was having a cigarette as I went past on my way to the bus stop. His dusty black hoodie, plaster-covered jeans and steel capped boots marked him as the builder that he was, but there was something different. He wasn't some twenty-something laborer. He held himself with the poise of an older man comfortable in his skin rather than one of the over-muscled poser-types my gym was littered with. His face was weathered, a little rugged even underneath the stubble. But there was something else. Something polished and smooth that I couldn't place.

  Before I could stop myself, I'd turned my head for a better look. And he was looking right at me.

  Maybe it w
as just the way his cool blue eyes connected with mine with such intensity that stole my breath. The shock of him catching me looking, knowing he was looking back had my heart pounding. I felt my cheeks flush hot as his lips twitched into the ghost of a smile.

  My eyes drifted to the cigarette pinched between his thumb and first finger, watching him blow smoke carefully away from his face.

  My jaw hinged open before I could stop it and I tilted my head, transfixed by the size of them. Hand span was supposed to mean something relating to the size of a man's cock. My eyes glanced down to the bulge of his crotch before I could stop myself.

  Christ, what was I thinking?

  Flustered, I looked away sharply, walking faster, expecting a wolf-whistle to trail on after me. But nothing came.

  From the bus stop, I risked another look back along the street.

  He'd moved up against the railings, an ancient, indestructible Nokia 3310 held to his ear. Anyone else would have thought he was making a call. But I could see his lips weren't moving and his eyes were on me too intently for him to be focused on anything else, and they never left me.

  His shoulders were rounded, almost hunched, as though he was trying to shrink himself down. Oddly, it had worked until I looked right at him. It shouldn't have. Even beneath that hoodie I could see he was all muscle, his chest impossibly broad and his waist tapered to a perfect V. His boots were huge, and he was hulkingly tall when he straightened up.

  The act melted away as he cricked his neck from side to side, stance powerful and wide. He put his phone back into his pocket, stubbed the cigarette out on the ground. He glanced purposefully towards my house and looked back to me.

  I felt a jolt go through me. He knew exactly where I lived. Did he have something to do with the bullet in the kitchen?

  Had he been watching me?

  The thought was madness. All week I was out during the day and he should have been gone in the evenings. I was hardly in on weekends, by design. Keeping out of Pierce's way was what my day-to-day revolved around.

  Did this guy think he knew something about that?

  Something made me tilt my chin up in response, made my feet slip wider, securing my stance, but it wasn't fear I felt, and it wasn't aggression coming off him. He was looking at me like he knew me, like he saw exactly who I was, and it was exhilarating and terrifying all at once. Under his gaze I was conscious of every part of my body.

  And God, I wanted things from him I never let myself want. I didn't have time for boys, didn't want the sleazy men who thought maybe they could get me at the hotel, but he definitely wasn't a boy and I got the sense he'd break more than fingers if anyone tried to touch me the way those businessmen did.

  I should have looked away. I should have stopped staring. Should have walked on, but my feet were rooted to the spot.

  The sudden slippery wetness dampening my knickers told me that I didn't want to fight him and I was halfway appalled that my body was so ready for a total stranger to take me. But I couldn't deny it. I'd have spread my legs for him in an instant. I could practically feel myself ovulate on sight.

  I had never seen anyone I'd been so instantly attracted to. It was like we were two halves of the same whole, and the force pulling us together was stronger than an electromagnetic wave.

  Whoever he was, that man was no builder. He moved with too much purpose. Like some kind of big cat stalking its prey. If I was it, I was totally done for. But what the hell did he want with me?

  I swallowed hard. No doubt, he was trouble. He had it written all over him. I should have been petrified, but I wasn't.

  The hiss of the bus doors opening right in front of me nearly gave me a heart attack, and I stepped back, trying not to let it show on my face how rattled I was. Mentally I shook myself as I got on board, swiping my Oyster Card, giving the driver a tight smile as the reader beeped to deduct my fare.

  What the hell was wrong with me?

  I never fancied anyone. Didn't let myself. But that man made me want to do things I'd never even let myself think about before. His eyes were dangerous, but I didn't care. Some stupid part of me was suddenly thinking about what it would be like to have a family of my own again, to be with someone who'd never let anyone in this world hurt me.

  Ridiculous, when I'd spent the last three years of my life proving I didn't need anybody at all. Maybe that was just because until I'd seen him, there wasn't anyone I trusted to keep me safe except myself. One look from him, and I had no doubts he'd do whatever it would take.

  Maxim

  It was a stupid risk to show myself outside her home. Especially after shooting through her window.

  I'd been on edge all night, barely getting any sleep on the narrow cot bed I folded out in the middle of the building site in the mansion block opposite her home. I kept waking up, thinking she'd called the police, that I could hear sirens, or worse, the careful tiptoeing of a CO19 team or an anti-terror squad moving into place, armed to the eyeballs and ready to take me down.

  They'd be so lucky. I was ready for whatever came and I always was. I wasn't planning on going down, and they'd have a fight on their hands while I made my exit.

  The only worry I had was that I'd spooked Elizabeth.

  But come morning there was no sign of any of that and my worries about what she thought seemed unfounded.

  She must have had a plan for that bullet, an idea of what she was going to do, but I was still none the wiser.

  Professionally, I knew that showing my face only gave her a suspect to ID. It should have been the most stupid move to make, but as soon as I saw her, face to face, I knew she wasn't going to do that.

  She'd felt the spark between us, I was sure of it. And that chemistry had power. There was no denying it. The way she let her eyes linger, and the tint to her skin, soft and pale, made my cock harden even though I was doing my best to keep my cool.

  As much as I wanted to, I couldn't march on over and snatch her up, steal her away from everything. Not without her going ballistic.

  But God it was good to know it wasn't all one sided. She looked at me like she wanted me to do my worst and I'd gladly have taken her up on that. I couldn't wrap my head around how she could be so innocent, yet so fierce. She was devastatingly curious and I was more than fascinated. I'd been at her mercy for weeks, it didn't matter that now she had a reason to call the police if she was going to. That wasn't going to hold me back.

  Nothing could have.

  Whatever happened, I needed to meet her. I needed to know for sure that this was more than an obsession stemming from watching her day in and day out.

  I wanted her to recognize me when I made my approach for real. Maybe it shouldn't have, but that mattered to me. When I came up to her, I wanted her to know, bone-deep, that I wasn't just some random stranger. And now, she did.

  Maybe she didn't know I was the guy who'd been looking out for her for weeks. The guy who wanted her stepfather dead for ever touching her. The guy who'd been with her every time she was lonely, every time she cried up in her room, and every time she hung up her punch bag up and hit and hit and hit, until her knuckles were raw instead. But she'd find all that out soon enough.

  As long as I got it right, she was going to fall in love with me the way I'd fallen in love with her. It had to happen. Otherwise my life had no further purpose.

  Granted, it was a lot to ask from a first meeting. I knew it had to be perfect, Valentin didn't understand. All he cared about was the bloody job I was supposed to be doing.

  "Use the stepdaughter, Maxim," Valentin said once more, steepling his fingers as he leaned in closer to the camera on his side of the computer screen. "I am not understanding why you do not approach her yet."

  I gritted my teeth. There was nothing I wanted to do more. That morning I'd nearly walked right up to her. Valentin wouldn't have been egging me on had he known I'd breached protocol. I'd wanted to break cover so badly and that was not the kind of approach he meant at all.

  The nigh
t before, I'd watched her pick up the bullet from the sugar bag barely daring to move from the window in case she turned around and saw the curtain twitch, or the streetlight caught the lens of my scope. But God I wanted her to see me. I wanted her to know I was the one protecting her, keeping her safe and I always would.

  "Her name's Elizabeth." My correction slipped out sternly. Valentin raised an eyebrow, but didn't comment.

  I cleared my throat and folded my arms across my chest, trying and mostly failing to cover my hostility at him treating her like just another cog in the machine. "Elizabeth Harrington. She's a member of a boxing gym. I think going there is my best bet."

  "Da. Good." Valentin's frown faded slowly. "Glad to hear it. It is very important Mr Sutherland's list does not get out."

  "I know that, Valentin. Who do you take me for."

  The man raised a hand. "I'm not insulting you, Maxim. I'm saying you need to do this quickly. It transpires our exalted leader has gone and made a deal with the devil."

  I let out a muted grunt, unsurprised and braced for the worst. "What did he do this time?"

  Valentin shared my opinion of Yakov Timoshenko, our longstanding Muscovite overlord. He was losing his grip, and he was out of touch with the modern world. We needed a more dynamic thinker at the helm to navigate the Bratva through the opportunities that were on offer.

  Timoshenko was rooted in the past, still too keen to rule with brute force, and one day it was going to get all of us into trouble. Even I knew it wasn't sustainable to keep making enemies disappear. There had to be more subtlety at some point, especially when all the global leaders wanted their sheen of respectability and the web of connections we wove more often than not tangled them up with things that couldn't come out.

  Corruption was more widespread than anyone outside of Russia liked to think, and by no means was it limited to the motherland.

  My money had been on Valentin to step in as the next Autoritat for a while now. He'd been proactive about handling the brotherhood when Timoshenko's glaring omissions had crept in. He'd been steering me more towards espionage and away from blunt, brutal hits, unless absolutely required. I wasn't entirely displeased with that. Every kill lodged inside you, somewhere, and took its price.