Protected and Bred By the Bratva (Bred by the Bratva #15)

Chapter 1

Chapter one

Mikhail

Undefined

"You are quiet," Dmitri says. He stands by the wet bar, pouring vodka like it is water, which to us it might as well be. "Too quiet. You’re brooding. That’s never good for my blood pressure."

"I am not brooding."

"You are staring at your glass like it just stole your last dollar."

I glare at him. Dmitri is my brigadier, my right hand, the man who has held my gun and my secrets for fifteen years. He is also an asshole when the mood strikes him.

"What the fuck is wrong with you tonight?" Viktor asks from the couch. Younger. Hungrier. Still stupid enough to ask questions he does not want answered. "We should be celebrating the Lennox deal, but you look like we’ve just been sentenced to The Black Dolphin."

I quickly knock on the table three times. “Nyet. Never that hellhole.” I shake off a shudder. Those men. Bad, maybe, but still men, reduced to empty husks as they waste away in our worst prison.

"Anton Ismailov sat at the restaurant tonight," I say. My voice comes from far away, disconnected from my chest. "His son on his knee. His wife beside him. He touched the boy's hair, and the boy did not flinch. The boy looked at him like he was..."

"God?" Viktor supplies.

"Immortal."

The room goes quiet except for the settling fire. "You want a family." Dmitri's voice cuts, sharp with accusation, disbelief threading underneath.

"I want what everyone wants."

"A nap? A decent blowjob? More money than God can count?"

"I want to know that when I die, this continues," I say it flat.

Dead. Emotion is a thing I buried in Vladivostok, in the frozen ground behind a fish processing plant, along with my first kill and the last of my childhood.

"The Ismailovs will still be here in fifty years.

Their grandchildren will own the buildings we protected. What will we own? Who comes after us?"

Dmitri exchanges a look with Viktor. Suspicion passes between them. Have I lost my mind? Maybe I have.

"Boss." Viktor chooses his words, each one placed like a stone on a grave. "You are forty-two, not eighty-two. You have time to find a nice Russian girl and fill a nursery."

"A nice Russian girl," I repeat.

They laugh.

Dmitri straightens, vodka forgotten. Viktor sits up. The air snaps, charged and ready.

This is what we do. We don’t sit with sentiment.

I finish my drink. "Back to business, brothers."

***

The warehouse breathes cold. Metal ribs. Concrete skin. It is mine, yet it’s been taken over by someone else. A mistake no one will make again. Dmitri is to my left, Viktor my right. Two others flank the exit. We are shadows until we are not.

Amber light pools on the concrete floor like spilled honey. Like a theater. Like a church.

The women sit in rows of velvet chairs, wearing figure-hugging dresses and holding numbered placards as if they are art pieces to be bid upon.

They are not crying, chained, or beaten. Some are nervous, yes. Hands twisting in laps. Lips bitten. But others smile as if they are at a debutante ball.

Resigned. Willing. What the fuck.

An announcer stands at a podium, adjusting his tie. Mid-level. Soft hands. The auctioneer. Artur. He sees us at the same moment I register him. His face goes slack, bloodless, as if someone pulled a plug. Yes, asshole. I am here.

"Pakhan," he whispers. The microphone catches it. The room freezes. Heads turn and mouths open.

I don’t raise my voice. I don’t need to. When you are the thing that monsters fear, you never need to shout.

"In my warehouse," I say. The words drop like stones into still water. "Behind my back. You have five seconds. Explain."

Artur stammers. His hands flutter. Blood rushes back to his cheeks, hot and desperate. "Mikhail, I—we—this is business. A business opportunity. There are buyers outside, high-profile, very discreet, and the girls volunteered. They are not trafficked—"

"—Which is why your family will live."

His Adam's apple bobs as he swallows hard. "I was going to share the profit with you—"

I gesture. My men sweep the room. Chairs scrape. Women gasp. Some stand. Some weep. Most look relieved as if they have been waiting for someone to tell them the show is over. They are rounded up, herded toward the exits. Gentle hands on their elbows. We are not animals.

Artur is on his knees now, begging and blubbering.

I ignore him. Instead one woman stands apart.

In the back corner. Red braids long enough to wrap around a fist. Skin the color of polished mahogany.

Curves that could make a man of God forget his oath.

She stands with her spine straight, clutching the placard to her chest like a shield. Number 7.

One of my soldiers reaches for it. "Come."

She jerks it back. "Don't touch me."

"Time to go," he says.

"I said don't fucking touch me."

She does not cry. She does not cower. She is furious.

The commotion is small but it draws me. It draws me like a moth to the only flame in a frozen world. I walk over. She stands before I reach her—no, she stands like royalty, all five-foot-five of her—and shoves the placard under my nose.

"Do you have any idea what that just cost me?" she asks, her nostrils flaring.

Nobody dares to move or breathe. No one speaks to me this way. Not soldiers. Not rivals or FBI agents who think they can squeeze me. Certainly not a girl in a cheap satin dress at a backroom auction.

I should have her removed. Or shot. Or both. Instead I ask, "What were you selling?"

She laughs. Rough. Bitter. Alive. "What every man wants," she says, "and no man deserves."

"Specifics."

"Myself. Obviously. This was a virgin auction.

" She jabs a finger into my chest. Hard.

Right over my heart. If I had one that still worked she might have ruptured it.

"I spent three months vetting this auction.

Three months making sure it was safe, that I wouldn't end up in a ditch.

I checked the buyers' backgrounds. I made sure there was an exit clause.

And you—you just waltz in here and blow it up because someone bruised your ego about using your precious warehouse?

I was about to have a future," she shouts.

The room is silent. Artur has stopped begging. Dmitri is staring at me like I've grown a second head. I ignore her. I signal. Two words in Russian. *Otdelit yeyo.* Separate her.

They move. Not roughly—these are my best men—but efficiently.

She struggles, curses in English so filthy it would make a sailor blush, and then she is in the back office.

The one with the frosted glass and the safe that I keep for emergencies.

The same office where I once counted blood money and waited for dawn.

She stands in the center of it, arms crossed, breathing fire.

"Sit," I say upon entering.

"I'll stand."

I step closer. She plants her feet. Her chin lifts. There. Beneath the anger—common, cheap—the cold, desperate math of survival.

"Name," I say.

"Riley."

"Full name."

"Riley Miller. And before you run your background check I'll save you time.

I'm twenty. I aged out of extended foster care seventeen days ago.

I have a cosmetology license and no family.

No address. No safety net. No fucking options.

" She spits out the last word as if she wishes it were a slap instead.

"This auction was my business plan. You want to judge me? Save it. I already know what I am."

“And what are you?”

“I’m a woman willing to do whatever I have to do to survive.”

She doesn't recognize the mirror. My own reflection stares back at me. Would my choices have been any different? Her gaze locks onto mine. Searching. We circle, predator and predator, each seeking the soft underbelly.

"How much," I ask, "did you expect to make?"

She crosses her arms over her chest, drawing herself up to her full height. "No less than seventy-two thousand."

“Very specific.”

"I did the math. I'm going to open a hair salon," she says, reading the question I did not ask. "That gives me two years if I budget right. Sleep in the shop. Build clientele. Hire good people in year two not year one. Scale fast. Become independent."

“You don’t care what you have to sell to make that money?”

“Did you?”

Oh so she does see me. I lock her dark brown gaze when most people look away. She stares with the determination of a person who thinks they have nothing to lose. Foolish girl. There is always more you can lose.

I open the safe. Inside, bundles of cash. I count out five thousand and hold it to her. She looks at it like I've offered her poison.

"Go," I say. "Open your shop. Stay out of my world."

She doesn't reach for it.

"Take it," I order.

She does. And then she crumples the bills in her fist. "This won't even cover a month's rent on a good space," she says. "Not in a neighborhood where clients with money would frequent. Not with deposits and utilities."

Stubborn fucking girl. I should admire her pragmatism. Instead I am furious. Furious that she is right. Furious that I gave her an escape route and she sees it for the dead end it is.

"How much did you expect?" The words grind between my teeth. Behind me, Dmitri sucks in air. Sharp. Shocked. I don't turn.

"Seventy-two. I told you."

I look at Dmitri and extend my hand. “Another five.”

He produces it from the emergency roll he carries. I add it to the first stack and press it into her unwilling palm.

"This is ten thousand," I say. "Get a smaller business. Scale faster. Don’t hire anyone the first year. Wait another five before you move to the fancy neighborhood. You’ll do fine."

She stares at the money. Her jaw works. She wants to throw it in my face. Pride wars with hunger behind those dark eyes. Hunger always wins. It is the only law I have ever trusted.

"I don't want your charity," she says, but her voice cracks.

Dmitri barks a half-laugh. No one sees me as benevolent.

"It’s not charity. You lost your investment tonight through no fault of your own.

" I hold my hand up to halt her protest. "Stop.

" The word is sharp. Final. She snaps her mouth shut, eyes blazing.

"Enough." I say. "I paid ten thousand dollars for a woman and didn’t receive so much as a kiss in return. Be grateful."

She takes the money. Her fingers scratch my hands as she restrains herself from snatching the bills. Her brows are lowered and the beautiful bow of her lips is pulled tighter than a violin string.

Her glare singes me. I wouldn’t hand her a gun right now. I step back. "You have audacity," I say. "Audacity is a weapon. Don’t dull it by pointing it at someone you can’t touch. Save that energy for your business ambitions. Go be someone. And remember what I said: stay out of this world."

For a moment she stares at me. An old killer with bloody hands and a dead soul trying to play saint. She isn't fooled. But she is not entirely unimpressed either.

She doesn’t thank me. Laughter bubbles up in my chest. I crush it.

But I'm too busy admiring the square set of her shoulders and the high loft of her head as she marches out.

Her long braids fall in a crimson veil to the dip of her ass.

I was always an ass man. A sigh escapes. When this girl was still in diapers.

She walks out. The door doesn't slam—too much control—but the sharp click stabs just the same. I stand in the office breathing her air. Jasmine and defiance.

Dmitri moves to my side. We watch through the frosted glass as she crosses the warehouse floor past the velvet chairs and the forgotten placards, past Artur who is still kneeling and weeping, out into the Boston night.

"She'll be dead in a week," Dmitri mutters. "That much cash on a girl like that? She's prey. She doesn't know how to be anything else."

I say nothing. But the memory of that girl—that fury, that hunger, the way she looked at me like I was the obstacle and not the predator—stays under my skin. It burrows. It itches.

I should forget her. Instead I say, “Follow her.” His brows raise but he only nods.

I turn back to the safe, to the money, to the empire that needs bleeding. But when I close my eyes an hour later, standing alone in my penthouse with the city spread out beneath me like an offering, I do not see Artur's begging face. I see hers.

And I know with the certainty of a man who survived by listening to his gut that ten thousand dollars is not enough for a lease. Not enough for a shop. Not enough for safety. It is a start, not a finish.

She walks the streets now. Red braids under streetlights. Shoulders squared against the wind. Counting bills that will never stretch far enough. Has she counted them yet? Realized the trap?

And when she does she will do exactly what I would have done at twenty. She will find a sharper edge and cut herself on it.

The thought stays, cold and quiet, even as dawn breaks over the city.