Kept By the Bratva

Laura

Maxim Ismailov stands at the edge of Nikolai’s ballroom as the party arranges itself around him—chandelier throwing fractured light, and blue confetti drifting from the ceiling.

Not a sliver of the bright baby blue lands on him.

Even paper knows to avoid him. We're all here to celebrate, but his glower is so deliciously wicked that I can't look away.

As Zara's best friend, I should be reveling in her glowing happiness.

Focusing on her joy—although Nikolai is all over that.

He's terrifying, even more so when you realize he's Bratva.

But seeing how he dotes on his wife and a child who isn't even here yet makes me wonder: would being with a guy from the Bratva be the worst choice in the world?

I look back at Maxim. He’s completely separate from the celebration.

His black suit is clearly made for him, not bought off the rack.

His expression says this room and everyone in it barely warrants his attention.

Unfortunate, because I'd kill for it. I've never been this drawn to a man in my life.

I'm two minutes away from propositioning him and asking him for my first one-night stand.

I sigh. Nothing wrong with fantasies, right?

And if ever there was a walking fantasy, Maxim Ismailov is it.

Zara materializes at my elbow, snagging my attention in a rare moment away from Nikolai. “Stop drooling. I get wanting to dip your toe in the pool, but you don't start at the deep end.”

"You did."

"And I don't regret a thing." She rubs a hand over her belly again for the thousandth time. A pause. “But as crazy as my husband can be, Max is the one he calls when he needs someone even crazier. Believe me, I know.”

His eyes move in a slow arc across the room—unhurried, like a man who has never needed to rush—and land on mine.

The lightest touch and my stomach drops clean through the floor.

Not fear. Heat. An immediate, mortifying flare of it pooling low in my belly before I stop it.

Three seconds of this man’s eyes and every nerve ending fires.

He looks away first.

Of course, he does. I'm not even a blip on his radar. That’s the end of it.

He's the closest I've ever come to a man who made me feel alive and adventurous.

Ready to take risks that other girls my age take all the time.

No guilt. No thinking and overthinking it.

They see someone they want, and they don't let the spark die out.

No, they stoke the fire. And if I'm ever going to burn, then please God, let it be with a man like him.

Twenty minutes later, I follow him out of the ballroom.

Twenty-two years of safe decisions, and I walk out of my best friend’s party behind a dangerous man.

My heels click against marble the whole way down the corridor—every lesson Zara ever gave me about walking in stilettos gone, abandoned somewhere back in the ballroom with my common sense.

The gown swishes with each step, silk announcing me to anyone paying attention.

He stops at the bend in the corridor. His head tilts, barely, and then he turns, and the emergency exit sign paints half his face red, and his dark blue eyes find mine with zero effort—straight to me, like there was never anywhere else to look.

“Okay.” That voice. Deep and level and completely, infuriatingly unhurried. “Who are you and what do you want?”

Every possible explanation dies on contact. “I’m nobody, I’m just Laura. I’m a friend of Zara’s. I was at the party?”

The silence is humiliating. My grip squeezes the clutch until the beads bite into my palm.

“But you’re not at the party now.” He steps closer—one stride, just one—and the corridor shrinks. “Why? Why are you following me?”

“I wasn’t following you, I just—I just left.”

“Do you think I’m a fool?”

Flat. Quiet. Final. Oh shit. His brows are lowered, and his eyes are narrowed to slits. I stare enthralled. Mesmerized. No more able to move than a deer in the proverbial headlights. So stunned that it takes me a minute to realize he's propelling me forward.

“Where are you taking me?”

“To my suite.” His hand closes around my upper arm—iron, absolute, no negotiation in it—but his thumb sweeps the inside of my elbow once. The touch is surprisingly gentle despite his snarly, “If you can’t tell me the truth out here, I know how to get it out of you.”

My next breath comes out audible. Humiliating. His eyes drop to my throat, cataloging every bit of it.

He guides me to the elevator, and I go, which tells me everything I need to know about the state I’m in.

This is real. This is happening. I'm being kidnapped by a dark and dangerous guy straight out of one of my Bratva romance books.

Screaming for help might get me rescued. I bite my lip and don't even squeak.

The penthouse suite opens onto a city blazing thirty floors below.

Floor-to-ceiling windows. Furniture carved from dark wood and money.

A bar along one wall where he pours himself something amber and doesn’t offer to share.

I stop in the middle of the room with my clutch pressed to my chest. “I was at a party, and left. That’s it.

You’re making something out of nothing.”

“You followed me down a long hotel corridor.” He settles into the armchair across from me, legs spread, glass balanced on one knee, eyes moving over me with that same patient attention. “And before that you watched me from across a ballroom for twenty minutes.”

Wait a minute. “I didn’t—how do you know how long I was—”

“Who are you working for? Did someone hire you to take me out?”

A laugh bursts out of me. Then I do a double-take. He's kidding, right? “Are you serious right now? An assassin? I teach first grade.“

“Haven't heard a no.”

“Call Nikolai. Right now. He will tell you exactly who I am.”

His eyes change—not much, and not for long. “I know who you are. Laura. Zara’s friend. Tremont Street, third floor.”

The laugh dies. The air in the room changes. “Standard security,” he says, reading my face. “Everyone at a family event gets run beforehand.”

It’s plausible. I half-believe it. But the way he said it—too quick, too smooth—snags on something I can’t name. “Then you already know I’m not an assassin.”

“I know your address. That’s not the same thing.” He lifts his glass. “Daniil is running a full background. It takes seventy-two hours. You will wait here until it's complete.”

“Seventy-two—“ I stop. Restart. "You’re keeping me here for three days because of a background check?"

“You’re free to go the moment it clears.”

“Then call Nikolai and clear it in thirty seconds.”

“No.”

“Why not?“

He looks at me. Just looks at me, level and steady, and doesn’t answer.

And that’s when it hits me. This isn’t about the check.

The check is the excuse. He knows it’s an excuse.

And I know it’s an excuse. And we’re both going to pretend we don’t know, apparently, while I stand in his penthouse suite with no more than a decorative purse as a weapon and my pulse pounding at the base of my throat.

I've never felt more alive. I've never understood thrill seekers, never wanted to bungee jump or hang glide across a canyon, but this I get.

This adrenaline race in my veins could be addictive. Dangerously so.

“I have school on Monday,” I say, because I need to say something.

“It’s Friday.”

“I have plans on Saturday.“

"They've just changed.” I stare at him. He stares back. Neither of us moves.

“You’re drunk,” I finally say.

His mouth tilts. Not quite a smile. More wicked than one. “A little. Are you?”

“No.” Beat. “A little. One glass of champagne.“

“Sit down, Laura.” He nods at the chair across from him. “We’re going to be here for a while. You might as well be comfortable.”

I don’t sit. Instead, I cross my arms and stay exactly where I am, which is the only thing I have left.

He’s amused. It’s there in the slight shift of his jaw, the quirk of his lips. It’s either patience or entertainment.

“How old are you?” he asks.

“Twenty-two.” He arches his brow. “I’ll be twenty-three next month.”

“Oh.” He sets his glass on the side table. “Old. Ancient.”

I almost laugh. I catch it, barely, but he sees it—sees the almost—and his expression answers it. “Sit down,” he says again. Quieter.

I sit. He pours me a drink without asking. I should decline. I pick it up.

The suite settles around us, the city burning beyond the glass. “Tell me the truth,” he says. "Why did you follow me? If you're not an assassin, why were you stalking me?"

"I was not stalking."

"Then what were you doing, little girl?"

It's the little girl that does it. He doesn't see me as a threat.

He doesn't even see me as a woman. I gulp the alcohol, but it's that thought that burns.

I look at him over the rim of the glass.

"Truth? I saw you and thought you were gorgeous.

Like a tiger, moving with strength and purpose.

Dangerous and aloof. Unobtainable. Confident.

I've never been that sure of myself in my life.

I had questions. I wondered…" I take more of the drink, hoping for courage.

"What would it be like to have the attention of a man like that?

Even if it were just for one night. To be the object of that absolute focus… "

“And how is it? You followed me. You found me attractive.” He tilts his head. “That doesn't explain why you’re still here.”

He’s right. I could have left when he confronted me in the corridor. Could have left in the elevator, even. He hadn’t forced me, hadn’t stopped me from turning around. And here I am, sitting in a hotel suite with a dangerous man, drinking his expensive liquor, having an argument I’m losing.

“I’m twenty-two years old,” I say slowly. “I graduated. I have a job I love. I have an apartment that I picked out and decorated myself and—” I stop. “It’s exactly the life I was supposed to want. Every list item checked off. Every right decision done in the right order and in the right time.”

He says nothing. Waits.

“And it’s fine. It’s all fine. And I’ve been fine all my life, and I am so—" The word I want is embarrassing. ”I’m just tired. Of being fine.“

He’s quiet for a moment. “So you're bored. The bored little schoolgirl, looking for a boy toy.”

“No. Ugh. You don't get it. I go to work, and I love it. I come home, I cook dinner, grade papers, go to sleep, and in the morning I do it again. Everyone tells me I have it together. I do have it together.“ I stare at the glass. ”I just—my life has started, but it hasn’t started. You know? Like I can see the life I’m supposed to be building and I’m building it, brick by brick, but it still feels like I’m standing outside of it, looking through a window. “

The words are out, and I want to evaporate. This is not what I planned to say.

“A window,” he repeats.

“I know how it sounds.”

He huffs and rolls his eyes. “It sounds like twenty-two.”

“You say that like—how old are you?”

“Older than you are when I was half your age.”

My mouth opens. Closes. I look at him properly for the first time since I sat down—not at the threat of him, not at the physical fact of him, but at the man inside the suit. His eyes try to keep me at a distance. But I ignore their warning.

“What’s that like for you?” I ask. “Living a full life, no waiting.”

His jaw shifts. A door closing. "We’re not talking about me.”

“You wanted to talk about truth.”

That almost-smile again, barely there. “Touché, little teacher." He leans forward and pins me. ”But you're wrong. I don't want to talk at all. This is probably the most conversation I've had with a woman who wasn't family in years."

"Y-y-you don't want to talk?"

His blue eyes stake mine as he shakes his head.

"No. Although this has been very enlightening.

I don't think I've been a schoolgirl's obsession before.

You've kept me mildly entertained while we wait.

But what's next? How far did you intend to take this?

You said you wanted my attention. You have it. What do you want now?"

I take a sip of the alcohol. It burns clean and expensive.

“I’ve always been the good girl. My whole life.

Every rule, every right choice, every—” I gesture vaguely at Zara’s dress, the clutch, my entire presence here.

“I watched Zara embrace her new life, and I was happy for her. I am happy for her. But watching her made something restless.“ I set the glass down. ”I don’t want to wait for my life to begin. I just don’t know how to start it.“

“And you thought following a strange man through a hotel was a start.”

“I wasn’t thinking.” Honest. Finally, completely honest. “I saw you, and I stopped thinking entirely. I just—walked. Which has never happened to me before. I’ve never done anything without thinking first.”

He’s quiet for a long moment. “And now?” he asks. “Are you thinking now?”

“Not as much as I should be.”

"Not good enough. I don't want to hear that you were tipsy or that I coerced you. You have an itch you want scratched. Fine. But you go into this clear-headed. Any woman with me knows that she's in my bed only for as long as I say. One question. One time. Yes or no? Do you understand?"

I gulp and his eyes narrow. His lips turn down, and his face becomes granite. "Yes. I understand. Y-y-you've been clear. I agree. I'm not drunk. I consent."

What’s on his face is not quite amusement and not quite anything else. I can't read him. “Three days,” he says finally. “When the check clears, Daniil calls you a car. Until then, you belong to me.”

“And if I change my mind.”

“You change your mind when I give you permission.” He finishes his drink. “Now, come here."

“Here? I mean, there?”

“Here.”

He sits in the armchair—jacket off now, tie loosened, like a king on a throne. And for the next three days, I'm his concubine.