Bratva’s Innocent Obsession (Obsessed Bratva Bosses #3)

Chapter 1 Kon

KON

My cock is as limp as three-day-old lettuce, despite the amount of skin on show and the eye-watering flexibility of the ballerinas.

Not only are waif-like girls absolutely not my thing—I’m old enough to be their dad—the way they leap and do the splits in mid-air makes my knees ache with secondhand sympathy as they land.

The ballet is just an excuse for the dancers to waft sheer, see-through skirts around, while almost naked.

I’m pretty sure some of the other mafia guys in the small, exclusive audience are wanking.

Subtly, of course, they don’t want to draw the attention of anyone who might cut said appendage off.

This show is meant for titillation, but I’m focused on the ballerinas’ faces.

As usual, I’m bored and restless, but it’s not painfully bad, because I have a job to do. Rescue one of the ballerinas, Taylor Love.

I should go on life-endangering mercy-missions more often.

With a flick of my fingers, I summon a waitress.

I make a show of undressing her with my eyes while I wonder if I can get some Russian candy—or sweets as they’re known in London—to take home from this trip.

I finish my perusal with a dismissive sneer.

I have a weakness for the strawberries and cream ones, and they’re difficult to find in London.

It’s probably too difficult to go to a shop, and then I’d have to choose all the types. Tedious. And possibly fatal if the Volkov bratva are after me when I’ve stolen one of their ballerinas.

“Vodka,” I demand in my rudest voice. I wonder if ordering flavoured vodka would get me killed? Almost tempting to try it.

“Sir,” she replies with a demure nod.

An argument breaks out between the man to my left in the audience for this exclusive ballet performance—it’s only a few dozen men in plush black leather armchairs and the dancers are practically within reach of the front row where I am—and a man behind us.

On my other side, Aleksandr, the Pakhan of the Volk Bratva, notices and narrows his eyes. Not the response I would want from my old boss.

It’s been a long time since I was part of the Volk mafia, but while I hardly left on friendly terms, I wasn’t in Russia to see Aleksandr’s rage.

Ten years later, arriving yesterday with a smile and a proposition for working together was a risk, but so far, it’s been as stable and safe as a peach balanced on a knife blade.

The fight continues, and I study the dancers. Is the girl I’m here to rescue—Taylor Love—one of them? They all look so similar.

Bang!

The slump of the man next to me registers first, then the sound of the gunshot. The panic and yells behind me I notice afterwards, through a haze.

My heart rate spikes, my muscles constrict, my whole body goes into fight or flight. But I remain still and composed as Aleksandr’s laughter echoes, and he holsters his gun.

The ballet has continued without missing a beat.

They’re professionals. And this isn’t the first time someone in the audience has been shot.

“He was very distracting,” I drawl in Russian, folding my arms and leaning back in my chair as everyone settles down. No one dares criticise Aleksandr’s actions.

“Exactly,” Aleksandr replies.

Fuck. That was close.

But I have a twinge of adrenaline, and I like it. I haven’t felt excited for years, bored to tears by the day-to-day threats and money-making of the Harlesden mafia. I keep my breath even, and my expression utterly contained.

Aleksandr sighs as the music ends.

“This is the tedious bit,” he grumbles in Russian. “Yevgeny, the manager of the ballet, insists on some traditional stuff. Says it’s good for the morale of the dancers, and the audiences feel they’ve had the proper tutu experience.”

“What do you like about the ballet?” I ask dryly as classical music starts and the lights dim.

“It makes me money,” he replies with a harsh laugh.

“Repeat attendees?” I grin.

Aleksandr chuckles. “Trafficking,” he corrects me.

Well, I didn’t expect him to be selling apples and giving artistic merit prizes, but that’s disgusting.

The lights rise to reveal half a dozen girls on the stage. They’re all on the floor, their heads bowed, and wearing the cliché of a ballerina outfit, like a white sticky-out skirt and swimsuit. They all have their hair scraped into a severe style.

A spotlight pops on, encircling the middle blonde girl, and they all begin to move. Slow and willowy, and different from the modern style we’ve watched so far.

My gaze snags on a girl near the back. Something about this girl grips my throat as she dances. The focus of the dance is on the central girl, but this brunette…

My blood pumps, and the rest of the world falls away.

I’m compelled. She moves differently, and despite the group dynamics, I can’t take my gaze from her.

I wanted to feel alive, and as it turns out, watching a girl perform ballet, while sitting beside a corpse and exchanging small talk with the head of the Volk Bratva does that.

Then she looks up, and shock ricochets through me as I realise two things.

One, this girl is going to be my obsession on a level I’ve never had before for any woman. Not even back when I was a teenager. There’s a sense of recognition, strong as though a current swirls us in the same direction.

Something about her is magic.

And two, she’s Taylor Love. The girl I’m here to extract as a favour to the London Mafia Syndicate.

I felt nothing when examining photos of her from years ago. I felt neutral when I memorised the features of her sisters. But in real life, slight and fragile and stronger in motion than she looks caught in stasis in a photo, she’s amazing.

“ … And there’s that too.”

I realise with a start that Aleksandr said something to me, but I was so focused on this girl that I didn’t hear.

Fuck. The sort of mistake that could be fatal.

“Lucrative?” I tear my gaze from the girl on the stage. I need to keep my attention on remaining alive and rescuing Taylor, not mooning over her.

“The blonde in the centre,” Aleksandr confides, “has made a lot of men very happy.”

Stones land in my stomach as I follow his gesture.

It’s exactly as I anticipated. Despite the outfits and elegant performance, this is a high-class brothel.

“I’m interested in the blonde,” I say, a bit louder than necessary. If they hear me, and I think they do, the dancers don’t react. “Looks like she’d take it well. What do you want for her?”

“Yevgeny, what’s her nightly rate?” Aleksandr says without turning.

A man steps from the shadows. He has a thin face and a cunning look like a fox.

His hair is slicked back. I don’t recognise him from my years with Volk.

He’s wearing a suit with a fussy waistcoat.

“Highly skilled, Michelle. In demand.” Yevgeny names a figure most people reserve for the annual salary they wish they had.

I nod.

I can’t stop staring at Taylor.

This is deeply inconvenient.

My cock keeps rising, despite my attempt to think of other things or look at the other ballerinas. Not her.

This is supposed to be a high-adrenaline mission that is risky in Moscow, not a problem when I get back to London. Because the kingpins of Greenwich and Beckenham were very clear. If I fuck around with their sister-in-law, it won’t matter if I’m the one who brought her home. They’ll string me up.

The fact that Taylor has probably been through worse than my perverted mind could inflict is beside the point. It’s some sort of London Mafia Syndicate bro code.

“How much for the brunette at the back?” I ask, and hopefully I sound unconcerned, as if I were choosing dinner. “The one with the little pout.”

I gesture at the girl, who I’m sure is Taylor Love. She’s glowering at me. Subtly. Out of the corner of her eye as she dances, but it’s a brand on my skin.

“Ahhh. Taylor.”

Good.

“Five times more.”

“A lot of money.” I snort. “For that scrawny thing?”

Taylor shoots me a look of pure venom. Interesting.

“She’s a virgin,” Yevgeny replies with relish.

Oh fuck. Static goes off in my head. Well, that makes everything worse. I… Of course I didn’t have any illusions about what was going on here, but Taylor is a virgin?

“You don’t expect me to believe that.” I arch a sceptical eyebrow. “You sell her that way every night?”

Would I really be her first?

A base instinct is triggered in me.

“She gets inquiries, but no one wants to pay her price,” Yevgeny says with a touch of pride.

“You’ve overpriced her,” replies Aleksandr without emotion.

“It’s not a candy bar you can eat twice.

” Yevgeny spreads his hands expressively.

“Believe what you want. She arrived with us at sixteen, and no one has ever paid her virgin price. The girls help set their value, and that was what she decided on.” He shrugs.

“It’s high because she was so young, but everyone wants the blondes, anyway. ”

I don’t want a blonde. I want Taylor Love.

“A novelty.” I smirk. “I’ll have her.”

Aleksandr laughs. “You really need this deal.”

“She’s pretty,” I comment indifferently.

It’s better to leave a mystery about my exact intentions.

There’s a fine line. They could think I’m indirectly paying for the business deal that’s the excuse for me to be here, that I have a virgin fetish, or I think she’s beautiful. All of those assumptions are okay.

What they can’t know is that Taylor specifically is important to me.

And she is. She’s the only reason I’m here at all, and I fear she might be a lot more.

“You’ll have to tame her yourself,” Yevgeny says, and I manage not to punch his lights out.

“That won’t be an issue.” I smooth my hand over my clenched fist, and pause. “What about pregnancy? That would ruin their dancing. Do I have to—”

“No need for concern,” Yevgeny interrupts me. “We deal with any consequences afterwards. You pay, you do what you like. There are no rules here.”

Aleksandr nods approvingly.

What I like will be spiriting this girl away from under their noses.

“You never wanted what everyone else wanted, Konstantin,” Aleksandr observes, and he’s not wrong. “Yevgeny, have her brought to our guest after the show. But first, business.”

Aleksandr turns away from the dancers and I force myself to, though my every instinct is to stare at Taylor. She’ll be mine for the night, and never again.

The girl who, I suspect, will own my heart forever.

And the thing that terrifies me more than the setup here, or the danger I’m about to put myself in by rescuing Taylor, or even the likelihood that Taylor will hate me, is that I’ve never felt this way about anyone.

Protective.

Possessive.

Taylor Love doesn’t know it yet, but I don’t think I’ll be able to let her go. She’s mine.