Stolen & Bred By the Bratva (Bred By The BRATVA #20)

Chapter One

My left heel stuck to a vodka spill under booth six as I leaned in with a tray of martinis. I set the glasses down and kept my smile in place, because the bar was eight tickets behind and a man near the rail waved a black AmEx like a flare.

The amber lights over the velvet booths turned rain on the front windows into crooked gold lines.

Beyond the glass, headlights smeared across the wet street.

Inside The Samovar Room, the air was hot and close.

Steam rolled from the samovar, the fryer snapped in the kitchen, and the place rang with Russian, English, clinking ice, and voices climbing over the music.

“Still waiting on the Beluga,” the man at booth six said.

“I’m checking with the bar now,” I said, and drew the tray away as a woman at the next table waved.

My calves burned. My feet had gone numb an hour ago. Sweat dampened the dark hair pinned at my nape, and a pull tightened low in my spine every time I bent.

At the service station, I slid the tray onto the counter. Tamar Reznik caught my elbow before I could squeeze past. Her dark braid had slipped over one shoulder; the smile she used for tables was gone.

“Gennady Kask just walked in with two men,” she said.

My fingers curled around the tray edge.

I turned toward the front.

Gennady stood near the host stand in a gray suit that shone under his open overcoat, rain beading on the dark wool.

Two men stood behind him with wet shoulders and hard faces.

Heavy rings flashed on his thick fingers.

He didn’t wait to be greeted. He pointed toward the reserved booth beside my station, the one the floor manager kept empty no matter how many paying customers complained.

Of course he did.

The floor manager reached for menus and led them over.

I stacked three cocktail napkins on my tray and crossed to the booth.

Gennady settled against the red velvet and gave me a slow head-to-toe scan.

“Nadia knows how I like to be served,” he said.

The men with him laughed before I could answer.

I put one napkin in front of him, then one in front of each man. My tray stayed tucked against my hip. The booth smelled like wet wool, expensive cologne, and the sour bite of vodka already on someone’s breath.

“What can I get for the table?” I asked.

Gennady smiled without warmth. His teeth were too white under the amber light.

“For the table?” he said. “So formal tonight. You make me feel like a stranger.”

“You have the same menu as everyone else.”

One of his men slouched against the booth and inspected me from my heels to the neckline of my black dress. I kept my eyes on Gennady’s face. If I flinched, he would enjoy that too.

Gennady tapped one ringed finger against the menu. “Two bottles. The good vodka, not what you give tourists. Black bread. Caviar. Pickles. And you come back often.”

“I’ll put that in.”

“Not too fast.” He reached toward the edge of my tray, not touching my hand, only close enough to make me feel the heat of him. “Service is personal here. Isn’t that what your manager tells you?”

“My manager tells me to keep tables from waiting.”

“Then don’t make me wait.” He looked me over again, slow and ugly. “Petya makes me wait. You make me wait. I’m starting to think your family doesn’t understand manners.”

My throat tightened. I lifted the tray half an inch, enough to break the space between his fingers and mine.

“My brother’s business isn’t part of my shift,” I said.

Gennady’s smile widened. “Everything is part of your shift when you owe the right people.”

The music covered the worst of it. The booth behind me burst into laughter over a toast, and someone at the bar shouted for another round.

For one second, I wanted the whole place to go quiet.

I wanted every man with a drink in his hand to hear what Gennady Kask sounded like when the lights were low and no one had to pretend.

But rooms like this didn’t go quiet for women like me.

“I’ll put in your order,” I said.

He let me turn. I felt the permission in it, and it made my skin crawl more than if he’d grabbed me.

At the service station, I punched the order into the screen with fingers that wanted to shake. Tamar slid beside me with a stack of clean rocks glasses.

“Don’t go near him alone,” she said under her breath.

“I’m working beside his booth. That ship sank before it left the dock.”

“I’ll run his food.”

“He asked for me.”

“That doesn’t mean he gets you.”

I swallowed and watched the tickets spitting from the printer. “Around here, people keep confusing those two things.”

Tamar’s expression tightened. “Nadia.”

“I’m fine.”

I picked up two old-fashioneds for a table by the rail, a champagne flute for a woman in a gold dress, and three empty glasses from the server pass.

I knew the route by habit. My feet moved around chairs, coat sleeves, and dropped napkins while my attention stayed fixed on the red velvet booth beside my station.

For the next hour, The Samovar Room kept swallowing me whole.

I carried drinks until my shoulder burned.

I smiled at men who snapped their fingers, apologized for delays the bar created, wiped condensation rings from lacquered surfaces, and stepped over the same vodka spill twice because no one had time to mop it.

The air grew hotter as the rain thickened against the windows.

Coats piled over chairs. A woman near the mirrored bar laughed with her head tipped back, diamonds shaking at her ears.

Somewhere behind me, Gennady’s voice rolled low and pleased.

Every time I passed his booth, he asked for something.

He sent me for more ice, cleaner glasses, another fork, and a fresh dish because one pickle had touched the caviar spoon.

He didn’t want any of it. He wanted me bending, reaching, returning. He wanted me reminded that Petya’s debt sat in that booth with him, fat and smiling and ordering by the bottle.

When I brought the vodka, Gennady watched me set it down.

“Careful,” he said. “That bottle costs more than your week.”

I kept my hand steady. “Then you’ll want me to pour slowly.”

His men laughed again.

“See?” Gennady said. “She can be sweet when she remembers who pays.”

“You pay the house,” I said. “Not me.”

He tilted his head. “Not yet.”

The word landed between the glasses.

I poured three measures, set the bottle down, and stepped away. “Enjoy.”

His hand closed around my wrist.

He didn’t squeeze hard enough to bruise in front of witnesses, but he used exactly enough pressure.

My tray pressed against my thigh. The service floor kept moving around us.

Gennady’s thumb shifted once over the inside of my wrist. “You feel that? A small thing. A man doesn’t need to raise his voice to stop you.”

I checked his hand, then his face. “Let go of me.”

The two men with him went quiet.

Gennady held for another breath. Then he released me with a little shove, as if I’d been the one lingering.

“Better,” he said. “You’re learning to ask.”

My wrist burned where his fingers had been. I turned before my face could betray me and walked to the bar with my tray tucked tight to my body.

The bartender glanced at me. “You okay?”

“I need booth six’s Beluga and a club soda for the rail.”

He glanced past my shoulder. “That booth giving you trouble?”

“That booth always gives trouble.”

He started the order. I flexed my fingers once below the counter, then stopped. Gennady had eyes everywhere in this place when he wanted them. Fear was one more thing a man like him could spend.

By the time the floor manager cut me, it was after one.

My dress clung to my skin. My feet hurt so badly each step felt bright and sharp.

The dining floor had thinned, but Gennady remained in the reserved booth with one man left beside him and half a bottle on the cloth.

He hadn’t eaten most of the food. It sat there shining under the lamps, more money abandoned in caviar and bread than I had in my coat pocket.

I took my tips to the back and counted quickly in the staff room.

The total wasn’t enough. It was never enough.

Cash flattened under my palm. A five with a torn corner.

Three twenties. A stack of singles damp from someone’s drink.

Rent had already eaten most of last week.

The gas bill was late. Petya’s mistake had teeth.

Tamar came in while I was shoving the bills into the pocket inside my bag. She shut the staff-room door behind her and kept her voice low.

“He’s waiting near the rear exit,” she said.

My fingers went still on the zipper.

“Of course he is.”

“Use the front.”

“The floor manager will stop me if I go through the dining floor with my coat on.”

“I’ll walk with you.”

“No.” I pulled my coat from the hook. “I’m not giving him two women to corner.”

Tamar checked the door, then me. “Nadia, listen to me. If this is about Petya’s debt and you need real money fast, there are people who arrange private contracts.”

The air seemed to drop a few degrees.

“What kind of contracts?”

Her face tightened. “The kind no one says out loud at work.”

“Tamar, I need you to say it.”

“I’m not telling you to do it. I’m telling you because Gennady isn’t the only monster with money, and some monsters pay with witnesses instead of dragging girls into offices.”

My stomach turned. “That’s supposed to be better?”

“No. It’s supposed to be less hidden.” She reached into her apron and pulled out a folded receipt. A number was written across the paper in black pen. “A girl I knew used this contact when her father owed. She left Brooklyn after. I don’t know where she went, and I don’t know if she was okay.”

I stared at the receipt.

Tamar’s lower lip trembled once before she pressed it flat. “Throw it away if you can. I hope you can.”

I took it because not taking it felt like pretending I still had clean choices.