Prologue Lachlan
fearless entanglement
. . .
Dundee, Scotland
Shouldn’t have left her alone.
Not after what happened.
Not after the ambush.
But the last twelve hours in this God-forsaken hellhole had been our only peace since bullets flew, the sickening crunch of bone, the searing pain of a broken finger.
My sawed-off, severed, and now reattached forefinger. Man, I needed to get my arse and Natasha back to civilization. To a world where the biggest threat involved a fastball to the head, not a bullet to the chest.
“Tasha … Natasha …” My voice was a low rasp in the stale air.
I reached my left, nondominant hand up, the good one, since the right one was wrapped in bloodied gauze.
A dark smear stained the greasy paper bag of street food.
Great. Shouldn’t have clutched the breakfast so tight, despite the cold fury rising in my veins.
Fury born out of our predicament, of why we were hiding out.
The second my knuckles rapped against the paint-peeled door, it pushed ajar.
No lock.
No resistance. Just … open.
The bag dropped to the cracked cement floor with a soft splat. I drew my Glock.
As I pushed through the door, my thunderous heartbeat echoed in the crappy living room. I cleared corners, every shadow a potential threat.
“Tasha?” I called her name again, eyes traveling across the threadbare loveseat. Images flickered: Natasha, full lips pulled into a smirk, a peach glow over her honeyed, clear complexion. Now the couch is not rat-infested, Lach. It’s love-infested.
She’d grinned like she wasn’t the daughter of a Bratva Tsar. Like we weren’t hiding out like fugitives from war.
I shoved the memory away, guilt resurfacing. I’d lived without her long enough. For over two years, she’d allowed Lorenzo Ferri to slither into her life because of the mistakes I’d made. No cheating, just not committed. I hadn’t given her the same space in my heart as baseball.
I started for the bedroom when a shrill ring cut through the silence.
I rushed back to the small kitchen with its two-burner stove, scarred and grimy. On the counter sat coffee mugs we’d filled with cheap whiskey. Natasha’s lipstick, a vibrant slash of life, on a cracked rim.
I zeroed in on an orange ceramic bowl. Dug through the rice. There. My phone. No longer dead.
I answered. “Dad, we need help. Nat—”
“Never been more ashamed of me son,” he said, his voice a raw rasp, laced with a rage that caught me off guard. Sure, he led a Scottish crime syndicate deeply entrenched on the West Coast. But he reserved anger for enemies. Traitors. “Da—”
“You’re at it again. You think this family survives because I’m soft? Do not mistake my silence for weakness! The video—”
“What video?” My mind flitted to Lorenzo. Sniper rifle. Chunks of wood breaking across the— “Listen, Natasha and I need help.”
“You? Nay! She does. I’ve seen more of you and the young lassie than I’d ever need! Natasha is a sweet girl, Lach. But you know her family. Ye will see me entire clan dead because of thinking with your pants. So hotheaded, you put the girl on video.”
A guttural curse ripped from me as my hand swiped against the bowl.
Rice scattered along the warped linoleum floor.
My boots pounded toward the bedroom, the phone clutched to my ear while Dad tore me a new one about footage that included compromising positions. Me. Natasha … Resnova. Bratva Princess.
“I wouldn’t do that to her,” I snarled, the words a desperate defense, as I neared the closed bedroom door. “Someone set us up,” I cut in while he called me every bawbag in the book. “Get the clan together. Call you with more orders soon.” I killed the connection.
At the closed bedroom door, dread settled in my gut. Had Lorenzo seen us last night and captured what we’d cherished? He must have. Had he shared our first time with just my parents? Or the world?
I shouldn’t be surprised by Dad. Not like this hadn’t happened before. When the first video exploded, I was twenty-two—Natasha’s current age. A rookie in the Dodgers, bedding any beautiful woman who crossed my path.
With protection.
Guess I should’ve protected myself by not sleeping with groupies in their hotel rooms. A random hookup had somehow recorded me without my consent and turned my baseball stardom into something I didn’t want. Temptation. More women. More lust. Got tired of that life.
I pushed open the bedroom door and scanned the room in seconds. No hiding spaces. No closet—just a pipe fixed on the wall.
A mattress slumped on the floor. In seconds, I’d searched everywhere and couldn’t find my reason to breathe. Just signs of her. Natasha’s orange Converse All Stars sat kicked off near the wall.
A cross pendant glinted on the floor near the window. I dropped to my knees. She wore it constantly, a too-large gift from Vassili Resnov, her father.
I clutched the cross. My heart wedged in my throat.
And then I saw her.
Outside the window.
Thrown over a man’s shoulder. Shoeless, she kicked. Screamed. Fought. Yet, the neighbors, getting ready for work, simply watched. Another guy with an AK-47 crouched in the back of a van, ready to receive her.
She looked up, and wild, fearful eyes locked onto mine.
My name tore through her lips. The gunman in the cargo space kicked up the weapon.
A barrage shattered the silence. I dove.
Glass exploded. Rained over my head. I scrambled to my feet in the hallway and ran down the stairs toward the apartment’s main entrance.
I barreled out of the building. Glock up. No men.
No gunfire. Lorenzo Ferri hadn’t sent anyone to finish me off. Not yet.
I sprinted to the motorcycle parallel parked behind a box truck on the opposite curb—stolen last night, still hot-wired, waiting.
I slammed a foot and moved slowly around the truck that wasn’t there minutes ago.
I twisted the throttle. The engine roared.
The second I sped around the truck, a forearm, thick as a tree trunk, came out of nowhere.
Someone stood in front of the truck, a silent, immovable force. Impact hit like a stone.
Air gone, my body flew backward, the bike sliding without me. I hit the asphalt hard while pain detonated through my spine.
A shadow crouched beside me.
Vassili Resnov. His moist eyes, cold and calculating, darkened into molten steel and heartbreak. “I just want my daughter.” His accent was heavier than usual; his voice shredded with grief. “Will you do me this solid favor, Lachlan MacKenzie? Give me moya doch’!”
As I lay begging God to help me reach Natasha, another figure approached.
“No father should utter that question. Much less, my brother’s mouth.
” Simeon Resnov was a bullet in a tailored suit.
He slipped behind me, wrapped an arm around my throat, and pulled me into a seated position on the ground.
You’ve lost sight of who we are, Gospodin MacKenzie.
You should fear us more than you desire my niece. ”
I struggled against his hold and the pain that radiated through my body. “T-Tash is in trouble.”
“Lies,” Simeon hissed, cutting off my air again.
“Where is moya doch’?” Vassili growled for his daughter, a thread of anger bleeding through the restraint that would otherwise have me trembling with fear. My fear was that she …
That she would piss off Lorenzo again and he’d—
Footsteps came like a swarm, closing in around me.
Vassili lifted his gaze, eyes sweeping over the surrounding flats. “Check every room, every corner.”
I gasped through taut lips. What would he do to his enforcers when they returned without her?
I struggled against Simeon’s hold, the light of the world fading. Nae. It faded the second Natasha screamed my name as Lorenzo had her taken.
“Sim,” Vassili said. “I want to grant him mercy.”
A snort came from Simeon as he placed cold steel to my forehead. “Be honest now, Lach. For your soul’s sake”
Simeon lessened his grip enough for me to struggle the words out. “Mr. Resnov, I-I love your daughter. Just as much as she loves me.”
My woman’s father shook his head, profound sadness in his eyes. “I don’t have the capacity for lies. Natasha is my only little girl. I almost lost her to leukemia. She was a little g?rl. If I could’ve taken her struggle, I would’ve. She’s too sweet.”
“Too, too sweet,” Simeon agreed. “I remember when you told me you found out that students bullied her.”
“Cancer girl?” Vassili tore the words to shreds through clenched teeth, a flash of the monster he could be.
“She wouldn’t allow me to retaliate against any of them.
Of course, they were high schoolers, but I applied a certain level of grace”—he slid the smooth side of a sharp knife along my cheek—“in reprisal. She’s too good for us. A true blessing.”
“Da,” Simeon murmured.
Vassili sighed, staring at the building as if he’d end me once someone brought him his child.
“She. Is. Gone. Lorenzo took her.” I wrestled my arm away. With a surge of desperate strength, I slammed my fist into the side of Simeon’s face. I was a dead man, anyway.
He spat blood, a dark spray against the pavement, but otherwise seemed unfazed as he placed the gun back at my head.
Vassili pondered for a moment. “I don’t know this name—Lorenzo—and if you can’t tell, my restraint is wavering, Lach. I am, however, familiar with your entire family. Every single MacKenzie.”
A growl ripped through my lips. “Don’t—”
Simeon chuckled, nudging the tip of my nose with the gun. “See? That’s the real him, Vassili. Not this golden boy, superstar LA Dodger, who keeps his hillbilly, shotgun-slinging family at arm’s length.”
“She is part of my hillbilly shotgun family.” I snarled. “Natasha is my wife! We just got married. I gotta find—”
A blow landed to my stomach. Vomit surged up my throat.
I choked it back as Vassili snarled, “Enough! I will no longer tolerate lies!”
When he stood to his full height, he exhaled, turning his attention to the lieutenant who hadn’t gone to search the flats. “It’s time the MacKenzies became intimate with the Resnov credo: ‘Touch what’s mine and the funeral home becomes rich.’ ”
I clawed at Simeon’s forearm. “Wait. Wa—”
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