His Savage Claim (Savage Bratva Brothers Duet #2)

Chapter 1

Gavriil

My sentimental brother is so certain that he knows how this story ends.

Dominik thinks I’ll let him go free in a month once I teach him a lesson in loyalty. He honestly believes that the woman he says he loves will be waiting for him with open arms when I’m finished with her. That she’ll forgive him for killing her brother.

I’m going to enjoy proving him wrong.

“Is it what you imagined?” I ask Alina in English as two of my men lead her into my master bedroom. The open space, the silence—it’s all deliberate, curated the same way everything else in my life is. It’s meant to unsettle, to strip away illusions before the real work begins.

My brother’s downfall slows to a stop, her glassy eyes landing on my pride and joy.

The cage.

I know Dominik warned her about it and all the things those inside suffer through. Dominik has always been dramatic. I intend to make sure this little prisoner lives up to the legend.

I’ll find Alina’s breaking point soon enough and prove to my brother why allowing her to get close enough to cloud his judgment and loyalty was a bad idea.

Alina doesn’t say a word as she stares at the far-left corner of my bedroom where steel rods run from the floor to the ceiling. Her expression doesn’t change until she glances to the right. That’s when her jaw visibly clenches in anger.

“Do you not like it?” I ask, gesturing to the five-foot canvas dominating one of my walls.

It’s a picture of her tied up in a chair, wearing the lingerie I picked out.

Dominik would be furious if he saw the image, even though he was the photographer. She looks so innocent and vulnerable, exactly the way Dominik never wanted anyone else to see her.

Alina finally glances away from the revealing image of herself, her body stiff, mouth drawn in a straight line.

I expect fury. She gives me nothing because she’s most likely still in shock, and that’s no fun.

I slowly walk over to her. When she tilts her head back to gaze up at me, her green eyes collide with mine, and I consider brushing my fingertips along her cheek to feel how soft her flushed skin is. She would probably try to bite me.

Admittedly, that would turn me on.

I love a fiery spirit.

My gaze abruptly drops to the silver chain at her throat, the ruby teardrop resting against her skin.

Dominik’s half of our father’s Pakhan stone.

Look at my brother, the romantic. Did he really think a piece of jewelry, this piece in particular, was going to stop anyone from taking what he thinks is his?

I resist the urge to touch my own ruby hidden underneath my shirt. Instead, I reach out to pinch the gleaming stone hanging around her neck between my fingertips. Alina exhales sharply, but she doesn’t flinch away from me.

“How sweet that he thought you were worthy of wearing the symbol of our family’s legacy.”

I still don’t know what my brother was thinking. Trying to run away, leaving without even saying goodbye for a woman he just fucking met after all I’ve sacrificed for him?

I wrap my fingers around the charm and yank it downward, tearing the necklace free.

Alina lets out a sharp gasp. She lifts her cuffed hands as if she’ll try to stop me from taking what should’ve always been my inheritance. She freezes when I lean closer to her, mere inches separating our faces.

“You are not his,” I remind her through my clenched teeth as I pocket the necklace.

Alina’s expression hardens, and I can only imagine how loud her mind is right now. What does she want? To run to Dominik? To stab me in the face?

What she wants no longer matters, though. She signed that away the moment she agreed to be mine for a month.

“Key,” I say in Russian as I hold my hand out.

The guard on her right, Valentin, places the key to her cuffs in my hand.

I grab the chain between the cuffs and pull her even closer just to try and provoke a reaction. The lock on the cuff clicks as I twist the key inside, freeing her right wrist, then the left.

Will she try to fight her way out of here like she fought off Dominik and his men the night he took her off the street? Will she show me how much she can’t stand me?

A flicker of excitement ignites in my chest as I wait for the explosion I know must be building inside of her.

I watch her face closely, waiting for the fire I know she carries to be unleashed upon me.

It never comes.

Alina only lowers her eyes, staring at my chest instead as she lets her unrestrained arms rest at her sides.

How disappointing.

“Put her inside,” I tell my men in Russian before stepping back. I slip my hands into my pants pockets to watch them open the door.

Alina steps into the cage without resistance, and that earns my frown. She doesn’t even react when the door slams shut behind her.

“Leave us.” I motion for my guards to get out before stepping up to the cage door and pulling a key out of my pocket to lock it.

Alina pauses in front of a thick, red velvet curtain that hangs from metal hooks on the ceiling. Curious, she reaches forward to pull it aside, then draws in a sharp breath at the sight of a toilet with a roll of tissue on the lid.

“Everything you need is in there,” I tell her. I motion to the shower head that looms over her. There’s a drain directly below it so that my bedroom doesn’t get flooded when it’s turned on.

I’m not a total monster. Cleanliness is a necessity.

Alina turns to face me, her fingers slowly curling and uncurling, but she still doesn’t say a single word to me.

I tilt my head at her as I remain in front of the cage, peering through the bars at my new prisoner.

The one I’ve wanted more than any other.

I knew the second I saw her in my brother’s penthouse that she would be a problem.

I let Dominik have his fun, but taking her from him is what he deserves for making idiotic decisions.

Wrapping my fingers around one of the bars, I lean closer, showing her the key in my other hand. “There are only two keys,” I say, lifting it where she can see. “You’ll stay in there unless I say you can come out.”

Alina quietly glances around the cage, her clouded eyes inspecting every corner. Every item within her proximity.

I’ve had half a dozen women in here before, and none of them ever tried to escape. This became the twisted version of heaven that they never saw coming.

It’ll be the same for Alina.

Dominik looked terrified when she agreed to this arrangement because he knows exactly what I am.

Perhaps I’ll have to work a little harder on his wildcat, but all challenges are opportunities. Not roadblocks. Not for me.

“You fit in there perfectly, right where you’ve always belonged,” I say coolly to try and get some sort of reaction from her.

It’s the truth, though.

If my brother had followed my orders, she would’ve discovered my cage the very first night he kidnapped her.

Alina doesn’t so much as blink at my inflammatory statement.

What the hell happened between now and when she was mouthing off at me in the car?

After Dominik actually did as he was told and shot her useless brother, I thought she would be coming apart at the seams with grief. I thought she would lash out. I expected a dramatic reaction, not whatever this is.

“Dominik and his men should be in their cells by now, too,” I tell her, deciding to go after another weak spot.

I can’t help but wonder how she feels about my brother now that he buried a bullet in her brother’s head.

“Write a letter to Dominik. Tell him the truth, that you hate him, that you never want to see him again, and I’ll consider letting him go free based on how convincing it sounds. ”

Alina merely stares back at me, her expression blank. I can’t tell if she’s pissed off or sad. She must be feeling those things if nothing else. Still, she doesn’t even make an effort to accept my offer, to write out a simple lie for Dominik’s freedom.

Is her refusal to punish him or to continue to deny me?

Air puffs out of my nose as my annoyance and amusement collide. How long does she really think she can keep this up? The silent treatment is for bratty children and doomed couples. This isn’t a game I enjoy playing.

I click my tongue at her as I pocket the key. She won’t be providing me any entertainment tonight, but tomorrow is a whole new day. She’ll soon see how things operate here.

“As you can see, I’ll be sleeping nearby,” I tell her as I gesture to the king-sized bed in the middle of the large room.

No one ever sleeps with me in my bed. Two nightstands are merely for aesthetic balance, along with the beige paint on the wall and the two tall windows on the left well covered by red curtains.

Everything has a place and a purpose, even the position of the mirror mounted on the wall to the right of my bed so that I can see the bedroom door behind me in the reflection while I’m getting dressed.

Dominik calls it obsessive. I call it calculated.

That’s why he and his girlfriend are locked up right now on my estate, and I have all the keys.

“I’m a heavy sleeper, though. You don’t have to quiet your crying for my sake,” I tell Alina as I back away from the cage.

There’s the tiniest flicker in her eyes, but the rest of her face doesn’t reflect whatever emotion she’s feeling right now. Such a tease.

“I suggest you get comfortable. You’ll be here for a long time,” I remind her before turning my back to her and walking to the doorway of the bedroom, tension prodding the back of my neck.

Typically, when I have a guest, I feel a little more relaxed. Like everything is as it should be. But right now…things don’t feel as simple and straightforward.

The fact that it doesn’t only makes me want it more.

And wanting something this badly has always been the first step toward losing it.