Preview
UNbrOKEN: A DARK MAFIA SINGLE DAD ROMANCE
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CHAPTER 1
VADKA
An empty bottle rolls across the floor, glinting in sunlight—sunlight?
Shit, it’s daybreak. Have I been up all night?
The bottle stops against the toe of my boot.
I don’t move.
My knuckles ache, bruised and split beneath crusted blood that isn’t all mine. I stare down at it. Hell, I think most of it isn’t mine.
Jesus. My head is killing me.
I don’t remember how many men I killed.
The air wreaks of body odor and whiskey. In the corner of the room, a woman’s scuffed shoe lay, broken and crooked, shadowed by the doorway. My eyes catch on it and for a moment, something lethal twists inside.
Memory grips me. A carefree night on the town. Mariah’s hand on my arm to stop herself from keeling over. Her tinkling laugh and squeal when her heel broke and she almost fell headfirst into the street. My wife, in my arms, her eyes twinkling at me. A little tipsy. Carefree.
So full of life.
I shove the memory down, out of sight, buried beneath too many feelings to name.
The Irish took my wife from me. And every last motherfucker will pay.
“Vadim.”
Rafail’s voice is low and rough. He hardly ever calls me my christened name. Everyone calls me Vadka, even him, when he’s not pissed or serious, which is most of the time.
I don’t look at him. I stare straight ahead, at nothing. Just me, here with my ghosts and demons.
“You have to stop this.” Rafail’s shadowy form steps in front of me, careful not to slip on the fucking gore that surrounds us. Dressed in a suit at the ass crack of dawn, he’s either catching an international flight or hasn’t gone to bed yet. “You have to fucking stop this,” he repeats.
He crouches in front of me, serious eyes meeting mine. The eldest of his family, Rafail Kopolov only celebrated his thirtieth birthday a few years back. The youngest reigning pakhan in Europe, but one of the most feared. He’s my pakhan. And my best friend.
“You’re going to bring devastation I can’t hold back, Vadka,” Rafail says. His tone barely softens, but the fact that he’s using my nickname means he’s trying.
“They killed her.” My voice is ragged. It never gets easier saying this out loud. Never. My eyes finally lift to Rafail’s, my voice ragged and raw. “They killed my wife, Rafail.”
His jaw flexes. “And what happens when you burn down every fucking city from here to Belfast? You think you’ll find Mariah on the other side?”
The pain hits like a knife to my chest, so sharp and visceral I can’t breathe at first.
“I don’t fucking care,” I manage to grind out. My chest heaves. “We’ll find them.”
“They’re already coming,” he snaps. “The Irish want war. Matvei is working on decoding the fucking flash drive we captured. They want blood for blood, brother, but you’ve given them every excuse.” He leans in. “How many more innocents have to die?”
My mouth twists bitterly and I shake my head. “They want war? Good. And I haven’t killed one innocent, Rafail.” I scratch at my chest to distract myself from the undeniable thirst for a drink. My voice is hoarse. “Not one.”
“Not yet,” he says softly.
Silence stretches between us. Rafail drags a hand through his hair and pushes himself to his feet, pacing. I almost feel badly for putting him in this position. I didn’t want war. I never wanted to shed more blood than I had to.
But that was then. This is now.
They pulled the trigger and sounded the battle cry when they killed my wife.
My wife.
Rafail’s gaze travels to the broken shoe on the floor. He swallows hard. This is when he tells me about the innocent lives at stake, how hard we’ve worked for peace, reminds me of our limited sources. He might even pull rank.
But this time, he doesn’t say any of those things. No. A flicker of genuine fear seems to run through his words when he says in a hoarse whisper, “Think of Luka.”
The words hit harder than his fist would. My breath stops cold.
Luka. My boy. My miracle, asleep and safe.
Rafail presses harder. “Do you think Mariah died so you could abandon him? Or bring harm to him through your own recklessness?”
“Don’t, Rafail.” I drag a hand across my brow as a well of pain pushes at my chest, making it hard to breathe. “Don’t. ”
“I have to. I can’t let you destroy everything we’ve built and everything we hope for because of revenge. I can’t.”
I yank my hand away from my face and stare at him. “As if you wouldn’t raze the fucking earth if someone killed Polina.”
He flinches as if I slapped him. His jaw clenches, and he looks away. We both know the truth. He’d like to tell himself that he’d make decisions that would benefit the rest of his family and our Bratva. He likes to think he wouldn’t cave to the temptation to murder the entire bloodline of any motherfucker who harmed a hair on her head. But we both know the truth.
He’d lose his fucking shit. The Rafail we all know and love would be gone and buried forever.
Just like me.
Just like me, when I lost Mariah—my last link to sanity. Without her, the world blurs and ceases to have meaning.
“I won’t abandon Luka,” I tell him, my voice cracking. “I will cleanse this city of every trace of the Irish before they get within breathing distance of him.”
“Then pull yourself out of this fucking quagmire and act like it,” Rafail snaps, his limited patience fraying. “Because right now, brother, you’re drowning. And you’re dragging the rest of us under with you.”
He turns to go. The empty bottle rolls and hits my foot. I’m seized with blinding, irrational rage. Without a second thought, I grab the bottle and hurtle it across the room. Rafail watches, implacable.
The sound of glass shattering doesn’t do what I hope I would. It only makes what’s broken feel irreparable.
I rise slowly, my gaze on Rafail. My breath still heaves with the effort of breaking the bottle. With the effort of not falling apart.
“Maybe we fucking drown them first .”
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