Held by the Bratva: an Age Gap Mafia Boss Stalker Romance

1. Caterina

CATERINA

It’s two hours to go, and I’m already distracted.

I really should focus on studying. I have my final university exams in just over a week. But I keep thinking about the highlight of my days: seeing my neighbour.

If I leave at ten to six for my shift in the pub I work at, I see him in the foyer of our building. He’s usually rifling through his post from the locker or chatting with the doorman. But he always looks up and sweeps his grey gaze over me as I walk down the last part of the corridor towards the front doors.

And I feel like I’m arriving at a ball each time, or like I’m a catwalk model. A beautiful swan, not a student about to graduate with a mediocre business studies degree and flap into the real world with all the grace of a penguin toppling off a rock. With him watching me, I could take on the universe.

He’s way out of my league.

I don’t even know his name. All I know about my neighbour is that he lives in the penthouse of my building—I rent the ground floor broom closet, sorry “budget accommodation”—and I want to have his babies.

My gorgeous, mysterious neighbour has silver eyes and black hair. He has a dark shadow on his jawline as though he shaves each morning but by the evening when I see him it has grown out to sandpaper.

And while at five-foot-nothing I could say this about many people, he’s tall. He really is. My neighbour towers at least six inches over Steve the doorman who told me once he was five foot ten.

I didn’t ask Steve about him, obviously, because I’m pretty sure I couldn’t without blushing like mad. My crush on an older, serious, sharp suit-wearing man who probably has a wife or a bazillion girlfriends, is silly.

Tragic.

Especially given my non-existent love life.

I’ve never seen him smile. I seriously doubt it’s possible. Would be a natural disaster on the scale of California wildfires and earthquakes if he did. The force needed to make his lips curve would be at least a seven on the Richter scale, and I’m pretty sure the heat from every woman in a five-mile radius spontaneously combusting from desire would cause damage.

Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating.

If he smiled, he’d only get women within sight pregnant on the spot. Maximum fertility blast zone of a quarter of a mile, I reckon.

I wouldn’t mind being within range.

For the three years I’ve lived here while attending university, I’ve been daydreaming about getting my neighbour into my apartment and trying to tempt him to kiss me. As time has gone on, my imaginary excuses have become more detailed. I was thinking of a burst pipe, small cooking fire, dress that I can’t zip up, or a massive sign saying, “I adore you, please take my V-card”.

Because, yeah, after I get him into my lair, I’m assuming he’d guide me. He has that quietly-in-charge vibe. In my daydreams, he’s overcome with desire and then something-something-something, fuzzy nakedness, him filling the aching void inside me, hair stroking, and good girl.

All based on daily interactions with a man who has never even returned my cautious sunny smile. I guess because I am officially the most socially inept person in London. I swear the only reason I’m employed at the bar is that I have a big smile and the music is too loud for anyone to notice my sub-par personality.

And here I am, musing about my hot neighbour who doesn’t know I exist. I’m a scaredy-cat without a plan after my exams. I could continue working at the bar, but the whole point of “investing in myself” by doing my degree is to get a good job.

Ugh. I really should focus on… These black squiggles on my screen.

Maybe I’ll just check my social media account?—

A thudding from my front door jerks my head away from my distraction of a distraction.

I give a careworn sigh and get to my feet. This is not helping my exam prep. Honestly, how can it be that a girl cannot doom scroll and daydream while pretending to work in peace?

At the door, I peer through the peephole. “Hi!”

A man with a grave expression and wearing blue overalls is in the corridor.

“London Water,” he says. “We need to access the pipes in your premises immediately. There’s a bad leak.”

“I haven’t heard anything about this. Can I see some ID?” My parents drilled into me about not opening the door to strangers.

“It’s an emergency, miss. But of course.” He flashes an insincere smile, like he’s annoyed by my question, but raises a card to the peephole.

It clearly says London Water on it, though the name is almost totally illegible, maybe having been rubbed off.

“Steve isn’t here?” I ask. The doorman is usually very diligent about escorting people in and out of the building.

“He said to come straight through.”

Well. That’s unlike Steve…

“Please could we enter before the leak gets any worse?” The man’s voice is urgent and authoritative now, with an air of urgency. “Don’t want it to damage your apartment, or for you to get into trouble for not being cooperative.”

Shit, okay. Good point.

I hurry to unlock the door and the safety latch, and as I open the door, I’m tipped backwards by the man shouldering inside.

“Whoa! What?—”

“Shut up, bitch.” He grips my arm painfully and points a gun at my temple, and another man, this one in a suit, barges in after the first, closing the door carefully behind them. “Or you’re dead.”