Cruel Russian King (Safin Bratva #3)

Chapter 1 - Artyom

“Do we have any more information on the ghost enemy that's been fucking with our factions?” Lev Safin, the Bratva leader of one of the Philadelphia factions and my brother-in-law by default, asked over the phone.

About two years ago, Katya, his wife, the bastard child from my father, was kidnapped. While being held hostage, she overheard a conversation about plans to take down both the Rykovs, my faction, and the Safins.

Since then, we've been under fire from this fucking ghost enemy.

At first, they sent mercenaries, hired guns who could belong to anyone: syndicates, cartels, mobs, all aiming to wipe us off the map.

But they fucked up.

Jaroslav, Lev's younger brother and his underboss, captured and interrogated two of the men held with the mercenaries after an attack. Both carried the Bratva star on their shoulders, but neither gave up anything useful.

It wasn’t unheard of for Bratva to turn on Bratva, the Rykovs and Safins had been enemies for decades. What didn’t make sense was why our factions were being targeted now.

Both sides had been digging through every channel, tracking movement, intercepting comms, but ever since Jaroslav disposed of that last Bratva fuck, it’s been dead silence.

“We've got nothing new on this end. It means whoever is fucking with us is very high up on the food chain. And has the means to hide in plain sight.”

I suspected they wanted us to know they were Bratva, or at least Bratva-affiliated, just to mess with our heads. Not only to create distrust among our alliances but for us to question every new Bratva alliance we attempted to create.

But I didn’t trust anyone to begin with.

I always had a contingency plan for every handshake, every deal, every fake smile. If they crossed me, I’d take blood.

Lev switched the topic from business to personal.

“Katya wanted to know if you'll be coming to dinner on Sunday.”

I rubbed my temples. Fuck, I hated those. No trace of annoyance was in my tone as I responded, “I'll be there. How is Alexi?”

Alexi, Katya and Lev’s one-year-old, had come down with the flu, and as the doting uncle I wanted them to believe I was, it only made sense to ask.

“He's a lot better. He actually slept through the night last night.”

“If you need me to come over and watch him while Katya gets some shut-eye, let me know. Having a sick toddler can't be an easy task.”

“Thanks, I'll let you know.”

I didn’t want to stay on the line longer than I had to, so I gave myself an easy out.

“Lev, I've gotta run, I have a meeting in fifteen.”

“See you on Sunday.”

“You too.”

The line went dead.

“Fucking Safin bastard,” I muttered.

I wanted nothing more than to burn their entire faction to the ground and watch every last piece of it wither to ashes.

Everything had gone to shit the moment Lev married Katya. He blamed Vera for backing out of the alliance which was his reasoning for marrying Katya, claiming Vera was the problem. And they eventually got her to believe that shit too!

But it was Lev who ruined everything.

That marriage was supposed to secure me access to their Eastern Europe smuggling route. Ten million dollars already invested, deals already inked, alliances lined up.

And then that bastard didn’t show for the wedding.

He left me hanging, making me look like an idiot. Him backing out of our deal cost me partners and power. The very damn thing that made Bratva what it is today.

And what made it worse?

Katya looked exactly like Vera, like it was all one big fucking joke at my expense.

The resemblance between Vera and Katya was fucking uncanny.

And through Lev, I found out why. Katya was my half-sister, my father’s bastard.

As head of the Rykovs, that meant I was obligated to protect her. No matter how little I gave a damn about her.

Then Lev had the audacity to reach out, saying he wanted to annul his marriage to Katya…and marry Vera instead. I agreed, giving him the opportunity to fix his mistake.

But what does that spineless bastard do?

He knocked Katya up.

From that moment, I declared them enemies. No second chances…no peace talks…just fucking war.

It was a statement, that I wasn’t someone you crossed, and I sure as hell wasn’t someone you played.

But of course, shit got a fucking thousand times worse!

Jaroslav and Vera decided their brilliant solution was to get married, thinking that would end the bloodshed.

As far as I was concerned, Vera was a traitor. Whatever happened to her in the Safin faction was her damn fault.

Then she dropped the next bomb, she was pregnant for Jaroslav.

That’s when I realized something: raining fire and brimstone on the Safins wasn’t getting me the revenge I wanted.

Especially not when my own fucking younger brothers, Yegor and Zahkar, had aided the enemy.

They helped those Safin bastards more than once just to protect their precious sisters, defying me in broad daylight.

It had cost them. I had them tied at a damn tree and whipped their asses like they fucking stole something.

Knocked out, but not defeated, I did what needed to be done.

We came to a settlement, and I signed a peace treaty.

Was it what I wanted? Hell no.

But did it get me closer to them? Let me inside their walls? Give me a way to dismantle their empire from within?

It did.

And best of all? I wouldn't break the treaty.

Which made my plan all the more perfect.

I made sure not to change overnight, that would've raised suspicion. Instead, I let them think I was softening, bit by bit. All the while, I was hunting for the perfect fucking way to exploit them. And it didn’t take long to find it.

Her name was Ninel Safin. At twenty-three, she was the youngest of the seven Safin siblings.

She looked like a porcelain doll with her pale skin, wavy black hair down to her waist, and those silver fucking eyes that could hold you in a trance if she wanted to.

I’d been tracking her for months. My intel team had her mapped: cameras, locations, habits. Since the Safin men took my sisters, Ninel was fair game.

And marrying her wouldn’t raise suspicion among the other faction leaders, not when those bastards already claimed two of my blood. To them, it would look like balance, a natural selection of sorts.

She finished college a year ago. She and her sister Mariya ran a foundation, the Hearth: a soup kitchen and clothing drive. I had it blown to hell during the war I waged on them.

Sadly, neither of them died.

After the war ended, they rebuilt it. That’s where Ninel spent most of her time. The rest she split between painting, shopping and the clubs.

I’d watched her from the shadows, night after night. The way her slender hips moved with the music. The sound of her laughter cutting through the noise like a drug.

Any man who had touched her in the club? Didn’t walk the face of this earth again.

Unlike me, the Safin men spoiled their sisters rotten. Sure, we shared the same protectiveness, but for very different reasons.

I saw my sisters as assets…property. That’s what women in the Bratva were good for. The Safin brothers, on the other hand, let Mariya and Ninel sit in on meetings, taught them the business, even treated their opinions like they mattered.

I wasn’t built for this new-age bullshit.

Did I send my sisters to college? Yes. It kept them out of trouble and gave them something to do.

But if a man came along with the right offer, half the deal would've already been sealed. Their husbands could’ve pulled them out mid-semester and I wouldn’t have batted an eye. That’s just how things were done.

I’m old school. In Bratva, a woman knew her place. She served her husband, stayed quiet, gave him sons, and kept his house. End of story.

My phone pinged with a notification, and when I opened it, an image of Ninel popped up.

She was stepping off the subway all the way on the other side of town.

Today, she wore a black coat that stopped mid-thigh and a soft pink beret perched on her head.

My cock twitched at the sight, and then I frowned.

What the hell was she doing way out there?

Grabbing my keys, I made my way to the garage and slid into one of the Jaguars parked inside.

I might not have been at war with the Safin anymore, but that didn’t mean they, or she, didn’t have enemies.

And then, being in a peace treaty with them, made my enemies theirs as well.

I needed to get to her before anyone else did.

Because if they did my entire plan would go to shit.

As I backed out of the garage, another message came through, letting me know she was supposed to meet up with some guy named Scott, someone she’d met in college.

I sent back a quick reply: Send a classy escort his way, to keep him thoroughly distracted. Make sure he takes the bait and get footage.

Once I got confirmation that it was done, I tossed my phone into the console between the seats and hit the gas.

After months of shadowing her, I was more than ready to advance to the next stage of my plan.

I’d laughed at their jokes at family gatherings, played with Alexi, and even with Vera and Jaroslav’s three month old daughter, Evie. I showed up at their club to hang out with the other siblings, Avit, Marten, and Pyotr, pretending I cared.

I even smiled through Kira’s birthday at the mansion, the youngest of the Rykov siblings, surrounded by all of them.

My siblings had bought into the idea of peace, since their sisters were married to the Safin men. And according to them, they were “good” husbands.

To my siblings who I took care of when our parents were fucking assassinated, when I had turned twenty-five, bygones were fucking bygones. Their loyalties had shifted. But as a leader, and their brother, I couldn’t let it go.

I knew the price I had to fucking pay for the Safin betrayals.

My siblings humiliated me one too many times, made me look weak in front of Bratva and underworld bosses alike. And no one does business with a man who can’t control his own house.

Now that the plan was unfolding without a hitch, it was time to make them suffer, to make them crumble from the inside out. It was time to tie her to me; to show them what it looked like to be married to a real Bratva leader. I was ready to take what was rightfully mine.

But before all hell broke loose, I needed time with her, alone, away from prying eyes.

To gaze over her perfect body, to smell that soft floral perfume that she used, to watch her lips as she spoke.

And if I could get her number?

That meant she trusted me. And once she trusted me, it was time to move in.