Chapter 3
ANDREI
Ipluck the bouquet of seven white roses from the public trash bin where my anghel deposited them in a fit of anger, and give them a good shake. A few petals missing but not too damaged otherwise. Nina Kotov has fire. Passion. The rest of the world doesn’t see it, but I do.
Every bratva clan has its spies. We are enemies as much as we are allies. The Volkov and Kotov families have carved out territory, and we circle one another like a wolf and a feral cat spoiling for a fight.
Rafail Volkov, my pakhan, has ordered me not to start anything. But his father, Dmitri, who is languishing in prison, gave me carte blanche to “Find a way to fix this.”
Before his imprisonment, Dmitri tried to arrange a marriage between his son Rafail and Melor Kotov’s only daughter, Nina. But Rafail had another woman in mind for his bride. He took her—and everyone else—by surprise when he married his own stepsister, Hailey.
Melor interpreted this brush-off as a grave insult. Rafail doesn’t think we need a pissant, reckless faction like the Kotovs, which has only made Melor more brazen. He’s a prideful motherfucker.
Dmitri sent me to clean up the mess. That was how I first saw her. Nina. The golden girl at the center of all this drama, seemingly oblivious to it.
I have permission to claim her any time I want—after a fashion.
I haven’t actually asked Rafail how he would feel about me escalating matters by taking the woman I want.
Melor is a sick man the world could do without.
Granted, a lot of people would say the same thing about Dmitiri, Rafail, and especially me.
But we have lines we don’t cross. Ethics, if you will.
Melor, he’s a snake. He’ll do anything to get what he wants, no matter how underhanded.
I’m standing outside Nina’s house musing about how I’m going to next approach my pretty anghel, when her distinctive car goes flying past me at least thirty miles an hour over the limit.
All other considerations evaporate instantly.
Everyone knows the first rule of evading arrest is that you don’t speed—much less in Baltimore city streets where there will be hundreds of witnesses and you’re liable to break an axle on a bad pothole.
You especially don’t break the law while driving a flashy fucking car.
Something’s wrong.
I stride to the SUV waiting around the corner out of sight and slam into the passenger seat. “Follow her,” I snarl at the driver.
We spot her Mini Cooper weaving frantically through traffic.
Nina blows a stoplight. The thing turns green just in time for my unfazed driver to whip through after her, gaining ground.
She is forced to stop at the next one, held up by two cars ahead of her.
We’ve almost caught up when she does the dumbest fucking thing imaginable and drives up on the sidewalk to cut around the vehicles blocking her path.
“Jesus fuck,” I mutter. “That street is one-way. If you go down the block we can cut her off at the next corner.”
Unless she’s willing to crash her beloved gold mini in her desperation to get away from whatever it is that’s chasing her.
Me. I’m the one chasing after her. But she was running before she saw me, away from…her father’s historic Victorian mansion. She probably thinks we’re Melor’s men. We all drive similar SUVs.
My pulse ticks faster. We have to catch her before the police or Kotov’s men do. Whatever set her off, I don’t need to know details to understand that it’s bad. My driver careens down the parallel street, swerves around a corner, and blocks the cramped one-way Nina was fleeing down.
“Stop,” I mutter under my breath. “Fucking brake, anghel.”
She does, tires screeching. Not quick enough. The Mini T-bones our SUV. Our vehicle skids slightly sideways. Hers crumples. Air bags pop. For a moment, I can’t see if she’s alive or not. Terror races through me.
This is not how I meant to fix things.
I wrench the SUV’s dented door open just as the driver’s side on the Mini pops out.
A disheveled and bloody-nosed Nina’s blue eyes flare wide.
She abandons her car and runs, her short legs pumping, purse banging against her thigh.
She’s fast for such a small woman, carrying a little extra weight in all the right places.
But I’m faster.
I catch her by the jacket. Nina sheds it without breaking pace, shifting her purse to the other hand and sliding right out of the sleeve like she’s some damn spy in a movie.
Unlike a movie villain, I am a real one who doesn’t hesitate to grab her by the hair to bring her up short. “Why in such a hurry, anghel?”
“I’m not your fucking angel,” she snaps, grasping my hand where I’m gripping her long blond braid. The way she says it brings dirty thoughts to my mind. Her full lips parted and those baby blues peering up at me through long lashes while I—
I register the inevitable and inconvenient response from my cock a heartbeat before she clips my crotch with her knee. A direct hit would have floored me. The glancing blow is bad enough.
“You, little hellcat, have made a lot of trouble for one day.” I haul her over my shoulder, kicking and screaming.
Witnesses will be calling this in. We need to disappear, and fast. I stride to the SUV and throw her into the back seat, locking the doors.
“Put up the partition,” I tell the driver, but the bulletproof glass is already rising when I get into the passenger side. “Get us out of here.”
“What about her car?” he asks.
“Let Melor deal with it.” I have his daughter now. The problem is what to do with her.
Fuck her senseless.
Unlikely. Nina is crumpled in a ball in the corner of the back seat farthest from me, glaring daggers. I twist and point to the glass barrier. “If I put this down, will you bite?”
She snaps her teeth. I grin. Her glower is that of a tiny kitten’s. She’s hell-bent on murder, yet all I can picture is her butt twitching, ready to pounce.
“Where to?” the driver interrupts our flirting.
“The garage. We have to get out of sight and get the car fixed.” There will be an interrogation room I can use to find out what sent my untouchable bratva princess fleeing from her gilded cage.
Fifteen minutes later, the car is in a nondescript autobody shop and I’m opening the SUV’s door for Nina with the roses in one hand like I’m some kind of demented prom date. She scoots across the bench seat and steps down, ignoring my gift a second time.
“You’re not my secret admirer,” she says.
“You understood my meaning.” I grin. Immediately, it fades when she snatches the roses and breaks them over her knee, then throws the flowers in my face. Petals stick to my lips, my cheek, my neck.
“I am not an idiot, and you are not nearly as smart as you think you are. Whoever you are.”
“You wound me.” I clutch my heart. I don’t know where she got the reputation of being a cold fish or a shy little mouse. She is such a firebrand. “This way—wait!”
The instant she sees the patch of grass beyond the garage door, she runs, still clutching that stupid purse banging against her thigh. I catch her easily. Pick her up and put her over my shoulder a second time. She kicks and struggles but it’s no use. I’m a barbarian and we both know it.
I carry her into the interrogation room for a little privacy, where I place her gorgeous butt in a metal chair bolted to the floor.
It sits above a drain that’s stained with old blood.
I snap the cuffs welded to each arm around her wrists.
She stares blankly at the restraints for a long minute and then does the worst thing possible.
Nina starts to cry.
Tears roll down her round cheeks to drip from her delicate pointed chin. “Kill me quickly. Please.”
I flinch. “Kill you?”
She nods. “Get it over with. Don’t make me suffer. I’ll do anything. Pay anything.”
“I don’t want money, anghel.” I’m confused. Fear I understand—she is locked to a chair where I have made grown men sob before ending them, that’s natural—but why does she think I want to kill her?
“Wh-what do you want?” she stutters in a hoarse whisper. I dare to cup her cheek and wipe away the streak of hot tears, half expecting her to bite me. Instead, she goes perfectly still.
“Allow me to start from the beginning. I am Andrei Volkov. I have been sent to deal with your father.”
“You’ve been following me for years,” she says accusatorily. “Andrei.”
I shrug. It’s the truth. Why deny it? Nina shakes a strand of hair away from her face.
“What will you do with me?” Her eyes turn pleading. Her makeup has smudged from the wet droplets trailing down her cheeks.
Use you as a bargaining chip until I can take down your vile sire. My cock stirs again, lengthening. Despite her tears—maybe because of them—my blood heats. “Tell me why you were running away from home.”
Her brows knit. She hates being talked to like a naughty child, but damn, she’s so young.
Just twenty-one as of today. I have made it my business to learn everything about her.
She’s smart. Quiet. Capable of far more than anyone believes.
She might be a captive mafia princess but she has been biding her time for years—and I just thwarted her attempt to flee.
The question is, what sent her fleeing into the streets of Baltimore?
“If I tell you, will you help me escape?” she says.
“Maybe,” I hedge. A lie. Now that I have her, I’m never letting her go.
I uncross my arms and stretch one hand down to cup her chin.
I erase the damp trail from the curve of her cheek with the pad of my thumb.
That touch sparks upward, coursing through me like the first flame in a wildfire. “Convince me.”
Nina’s pupils dilate suddenly. Her gaze dips to my crotch where my thick cock presses against the seam of my dark jeans.
Immediately, she jerks her eyes back up to mine and says the one thing that could make me send her back into the arms of Melor Kolkov, for she hands me the key to his destruction.
She sighs despondently. “My father plans to sell me at auction at that sleazy strip club he owns. Tonight. Whomever wins will marry me on the spot. He’ll make the winner his second-in-command, and my son, his heir.”
Fuck me if that isn’t the perfect solution for how to take over a rival bratva faction without sparking a violent all-out war. Just like Dmitri wanted.