Bratva beast a dark mafi.., p.5
Bratva Beast: A Dark Mafia Romance, page 5
“That was just a stupid accident,” she whispered.
“Accident or not, that’s why I’m here.” Another sound. Footsteps down the hallway. “Why don’t you stay up here for a bit and get comfortable? I’ve got to take care of something downstairs.”
She frowned a little. “I don’t have any of my stuff here.”
“Stay here. Get comfortable.”
Not a request. A command.
She seemed to get it and sank back onto her elbow, then grimaced as she rubbed the massive bruise. “Yeah, okay fine.”
“I’ll be right back.” I shut the door behind me and headed back down the steps, my hand on the gun I had tucked in the small of my back.
I didn’t need it though—German sat in my kitchen, frowning at the two glasses of whiskey.
“You got company?” he asked without looking over.
That was good. He hadn’t heard Fiona talking.
“Might’ve brought home a date.”
“Sorry to interrupt then.” He poured some whiskey into Fiona’s glass and sipped it.
“You shouldn’t have come into my house like this.”
“You shouldn’t have killed Boris. I guess we’re even.”
He turned, but I was faster. I had the gun up and aimed at his face before he could bring his own around at me.
“Relax,” I said, staring at him steadily. If I had to end German, I would, although I didn’t want to. I liked German.
“You killed one of our guys. That’s usually a death sentence.”
“I didn’t realize it was Boris until it was too late. I thought he was someone else attacking her.”
“And you stepped in to help?” He gently placed his gun down on the counter and leaned up against it with his arms cross over his chest. “I get that Boris was a piece of shit and maybe the stupidest man to ever live, but you still shouldn’t have killed him.”
“Like I said, I didn’t realize who it was until after I cracked his skull.” I lowered the gun slightly, but didn’t put it away. “I saw the girl getting attacked, and you know how I am. Nobody takes a kill from me. So I stepped in and stopped it.”
“I find all that hard to believe.”
“What do you think happened then?” I kept my voice perfectly steady. If I showed any sign of weakness, or indicated in any way that I was lying, German would notice it. That bastard was clever and observant, and I couldn’t bluff my way out of this if I weren’t perfect.
“I think half your story’s right. You can’t stand when people take your kills, we all know it. Except you knew it was Boris trying to take the girl out, and you still stepped in and ended him.”
That was good. He believed half my story at least. The other half didn’t matter, so long as he didn’t think I was trying to protect her.
And he didn’t realize she was in the house.
“Doesn’t matter what you think. Someone tried to step between me and a kill, and I don’t let that happen. Boris should’ve known better.”
“We didn’t tell him that you were already assigned to take her out.”
I sighed and tilted my head. “That explains his methods.”
“Boris was dumb, like I said.” German rubbed his face, which was about as much emotion as he ever showed. The man perpetually frowned. “I can sell this to the Pakhan. I think he’ll let you off the hook, but he’s going to send someone else to finish the girl.”
“Tell him that would be a big mistake.”
“Your pride’s going to get you killed.”
“My pride’s what keeps me relevant.” I stepped forward and lowered the gun further. German didn’t even flinch. He continued to watch me coolly, like I wasn’t the one with the gun and the advantage here.
He knew me, knew what kind of man I was, and knew that if I wanted him dead, then he’d be dead.
“I can’t promise the Pakhan will back down, but I’ll tell him what you said, for whatever it’s worth. But Mack, we want that girl dead, and we want it to happen soon. No more delays.”
“I’ll take her when I’m ready.”
“I bet you will.” German raised his hands. “I’m taking my gun and leaving now. You going to shoot me?”
“No, I’m not. Move slow.”
He obeyed, picked up his gun gently, and pushed it back into his waistband. The barrel never drifted in my direction. When the gun was put away, he slipped past me and headed back down the hall.
“Remember what I said. Kill the girl and end this stupid farce.”
“When I’m ready.” He opened the door and stepped outside. “Oh, and German? If you come into my house without knocking first again, I will shoot you next time.”
German only nodded once and shut the door behind him.
I locked the top bolt then looked over at the stairs.
“You can come down now.”
Fiona poked her head around the corner, her eyes wide. “How’d you know I was there?”
“You breathe too loud. You’re lucky German thought I had a guest here already.”
She padded down the steps in her bare feet. “Why do they want me dead so badly?” she asked. “I don’t understand what I did to the Morozov family.”
“I don’t either, but I have some guesses. Could be related to your brother, or maybe the Pakhan’s going to move against the Doyles.”
“I thought there was a citywide truce? I mean, I know the Lionettis are having their little civil war, but still?”
“Truces only matter if the people involved aren’t a bunch of power-hungry, blood-thirsty psychopaths.” I sighed and finally put my gun away. “Come on, I’ll make you something to eat.”
“You cook?” She blinked rapidly and shook her head.
“Only for you, princess.” I put my hand on the small of her back and steered her toward the kitchen. “I hope you like traditional Russian beet stew.”
She made a face. “Are you serious?”
“Of course not. Sit down, I’ll make you some pasta.”
She sighed, but she listened, and kicked her feet up on the chair next to her. She watched as I bustled around the kitchen, rustling up a meal from my meager groceries. I’d have to go shopping soon.
It was strange, feeling this domestic urge to take care of her. I’d never experienced this before in all my time living here. Women came and went, but I never gave a shit if they were hungry or tired or whatever, so long as I got what I wanted from them and they left without a fight.
With Fiona though, it was different.
I wanted to spoil her. I wanted to dote on her like a love-obsessed puppy.
It felt good, and it was disgusting.
But at least I knew she’d give me what I wanted, sooner or later—no matter how much she pretended, how much she resisted, her lips told me the truth, and her pussy was all the convincing I needed.
She was mine. Only she didn’t realize it yet.
6
Fiona
I slept fitfully, caught somewhere between waking and dreaming.
It was like he stood at the end of my bed, watching me all night. I’d open my eyes—but he’d be gone.
There was some part of me that was terrified he’d sneak into my room and do something terrible to me while I slept.
And another part that wanted exactly that.
So I drifted between the two, suspended in perpetual anxiety until the morning sun spilled through the blinds. I got up, rinsed off in the shower—he had clean towels in the closet, which was shocking, I didn’t think hitmen were the type to have extra clean towels—then put on my same clothes.
Downstairs, I made coffee, then rifled through all his drawers.
It wasn’t like I was snooping—well, okay, I was snooping. His kitchen seemed normal and was filled with regular kitchen stuff, although he didn’t have much food in the refrigerator. I moved on to the living room and found mostly junk in the junk drawers. Nothing in the hallway table, nothing in the powder room, nothing under the sink or down in the basement except for an ancient water heater and the furnace.
His house was shockingly boring.
There were no personal items or pictures. I didn’t know anything about this guy—where he was from, who he was friends with, what his parents were like, nothing. That set me on edge a bit, and I hoped I might find out something by looking around at his things.
With most people, their personality existed in the objects they surrounded themselves with. Their living space was a reflection of their brain, mostly.
Except with him, there was nothing, only a blank slate. I didn’t know what that meant.
I sat back down at the kitchen table and drank coffee. He came downstairs a little while later wearing a pair of gym shorts and nothing else. I stared at his muscular body and the tattoos covering his skin and wondered what I did to deserve any of this.
It would’ve been so easy if he weren’t so freaking gorgeous.
“Morning,” he said, sipping his coffee and leaning up against the island.
“Morning.” I spun my phone on the table. “I have a shift later today.”
“All right. And I figure you’ll want to stop at home and get clothes.”
“Ideally, yeah.” I didn’t meet his gaze for a second. “I’ve been thinking about what that guy said last night.”
“About German?”
“Yeah. Your family’s going to keep sending people to kill me, right?”
“They might.” He sounded almost amused. “Though I sort of doubt many people will want to take the job after what happened to Boris.”
“They’ll still come sooner or later, and you’ll be in the middle of it.” I tapped my finger against the coffee mug. This part had been bothering me the most. “How do you plan on handling that? When someone else comes, I mean.”
“I’ll kill him if I have to.”
He said that like it was no big deal.
I sighed and leaned my head back. “I can’t keep asking you to kill for me.”
“You’re not asking me. I don’t murder on command.”
“Except for when your gang leader tells you to do it, I guess.” I looked back at him, frowning a little, head tilted. I didn’t know how a hitman for a mob could possibly say he didn’t kill on command.
That was his entire job.
He smiled and sipped his coffee. “How much do you know about the Morozov family?”
“Not a lot. You’re a bunch of Russians. There are a lot of you, I think. And it’s all run by some guy you call the Pakhan.”
“Pakhan is like the Don in Russian. Our leader’s name is Evgeni, and when I was twelve years old, he saved my life.”
I shifted in my chair and tucked one leg underneath me. “What happened?”
“It’s not a nice story.” He leaned toward me, eyes dark as hate. “Are you sure you want to hear it?”
I should’ve said no, walked away, forgotten about the whole thing. When he looked at me like that, I could remember what he was: a monster, a killer, a beast.
“Tell me,” I whispered.
“When I was ten, my mother died.” He paused for a second, looked away, his gaze tunneling deep into the past where I couldn’t reach him. “Things were bad for a while. My father wasn’t a nice man and he turned his rage on me.” Another pause. He closed his eyes then opened them again. “One afternoon I came home from school and found my front door standing open. My father sat in the living room with a gunshot wound to his gut. Blood everywhere, gushing out of him in slow waves, like his body had a tide. He told me to get towels but I just stood there, staring at him, until another man came out from the kitchen smoking a cigar.
“That was Evgeni. He looked at me with this stare I’d never forget then shot my dad in the face. I remember screaming, clawing at Evgeni, cursing him, trying to kill him, then nothing. I woke up in a room in the back of an unfamiliar house, and ever since then I’ve been a ward of the Morozov family.” He stopped speaking, and I let the horror of that moment sink in.
He was just a child, a little boy still. His mother was gone, and then he had to watch his father get murdered in front of him. I couldn’t begin to fathom what that did to person.
Let alone living with the man that pulled the trigger.
No wonder he was so broken and strange. No wonder when he looked at me, it was like nothing stared out from those beautiful eyes—nothing but hunger.
There were versions of that story in the Doyle family. There were cousins that thought Cormac was the next coming of Jesus himself. They all craved his attention and his approval, and he was stingy with it, probably to keep them hooked on the drug of his loyalty and respect.
Young Mack must’ve been the same—addicted to that feeling of being special and a part of something.
Except none of them were.
The whole thing was a fraud.
I saw through it when I was a little girl. The families chewed up these young, troubled men. It gave them an outlet for their anger and aggression, paid them pretty well, took care of them in a lot of ways, but it also threw them into a world of danger and violence and death.
I saw with my own eyes what my family really thought of their children. The sound of a belt against bare skin echoed in my mine. The screams of my brother as he struggled in the back room.
My helpless tears as I hid in my closet.
Young Mack might not have grown up into a professional murderer if Evgeni hadn’t shown up that day.
He would’ve been scarred. Ruined, even. Maybe dead.
But he wouldn’t be the man sitting across from me now.
Jaded, dark, and ripped to shreds.
“Thanks for sharing that with me,” I said softly. “I was just sitting here wondering who the hell you were.”
“I’m nobody,” he said and put his coffee down. “I’m a boy from the neighborhood. I’m like any number of men struggling on these streets.”
“But none of them are killers like you.”
“No, they aren’t.” He watched me carefully, and it felt like his eyes peeled me open and looked down deep into my core. “I’ll go get a shirt on then we’ll head to your place.”
“Right, yeah. You go get a shirt on.”
“Unless you’d rather I didn’t.”
“I think I’m good.”
He smiled tightly and disappeared upstairs. I watched him go, still trying to digest that story.
Nobody watched their father get murdered at twelve years old and managed to walk away unscathed. Nobody grew up in a mafia around the men that crumpled his world like a piece of trash and still managed to keep himself together.
And yet he managed to survive.
When I was twelve, I only cared about boy bands and learning how to wear makeup.
He was busy learning how to kill.
I couldn’t imagine what life must’ve been like for him afterwards. His whole existence was dedicated to that family—and yet he went against them to save my life.
He even murdered one of his own.
I didn’t understand it, but I wanted to.
* * *
He dropped me off a few blocks from work hours later. I had a suitcase packed full of anything I might need in the trunk of his car.
“I’ll be nearby,” he said through the window.
“You can take a break if you want.”
“And have someone come in here and kill you? No, I think I’ll hang around.” He rolled up the window and drove off.
I watched him go, not sure what to make of it.
At least work was quiet. I tended bar with my usual enthusiasm, which is to say, not a whole lot. A couple of the family’s cousins came through and I made a good show of smiling and saying hello and even put a round on my own tab. I figured, they’d go back to Cormac and all the others and say how Cousin Fiona was being a ‘very good girl’ or something stupid like that.
Meanwhile, I thought about Mack.
I didn’t understand why he’d seemingly sacrifice everything for me.
His family would come after him if they knew he was working to protect me. They’d rip him to pieces if they thought he was a traitor.
The mafia families didn’t mess around with loyalty.
And yet I needed him. Even if this whole thing might drag him down into the mud and destroy him, I couldn’t walk away.
My little brother was in danger and every day that I delayed was another day he spent in Lionetti custody.
Mack was my only chance at getting him back in one piece.
I wasn’t stupid. I understood what would happen when the Lionettis got tired of me. There was no way they’d ever send Connor home, not after keeping him captive for so long—that would only spark a horrible war. Cormac wouldn’t be able to keep the Doyle family out of it, and the whole city would be ripped into pieces. Bad enough the Lionettis were battling themselves, but it would be even worse if everyone were involved.
Maybe that was why the Morozovs wanted me dead. Maybe they somehow knew—
But no, if they knew, none of this would be happening.
My mind was in a thousand different places, but at least bartending helped keep me focused. It was a boring job but it forced me to concentrate and use my hands, and I couldn’t spend too much time lost in the dark, black labyrinth that was my brain.
The night ended and the regulars drifted out. Two in the morning felt so much later when you were sober.
“One for the road?” Tom asked, the other bartender working that night. He was a young guy, blond hair, bushy beard.
“I think I’m just heading out.” I closed my register and gathered my tips. I shoved them into my pocket.
“Yeah, all right.” He grinned at me. “Sneaking out the back again, I guess.”
“Don’t take it personally.” I threw him my best smile.
He only waved as I slipped out and headed down the back hallway. He’d finish closing without me—I knew Mack was out there waiting, and I didn’t want him sitting alone in that car all night.
I reached the back door and stepped out into the dark, dim alleyway. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust, and I spotted a person standing not far away.
For one second, I thought it was Mack.
