The Pakhan’s Pregnant Bride (West Coast Bratva Pakhans #7)

Chapter 1 - Anton

The keys clang loudly against the glass table when I drop them on my way through the foyer of my Detroit mansion.

A man follows close behind me into my home.

He is patient as I gesture for him to go into the living room.

I’ve only just arrived home, and he has been waiting for me for twenty minutes already.

“I’ll be a minute; I just want to grab a drink. Can I get you something?”

“Water, thanks.”

He stands rigid and stern with his hands shoved into his pockets and his shoulders pushed back.

I leave him looking out the patio doors to the garden area. Yaroslav is one of the very few people I’ve allowed into my home over the past few months.

I’ve been in some kind of hiding. Sort of. Which is unusual for me, seeing as I have hardly anyone I fear. But this shit with Josiah Belov forming an alliance with the West Coast Pakhans…it’s got me on edge. And it’s seriously pissed me off.

Not even one of them made any effort to contact me or include me in any way, which makes me think—because what else should I be assuming?—that they are slowly working towards overthrowing me from my key position in Detroit.

But if they want my kingdom and my power, I swear I will make them fight very fucking hard for it.

This is my city. I own it and everything in it. I won’t let those arrogant assholes walk all over me in my own territory.

Josiah hasn’t even made any attempts to hide his animosity towards me.

Which is all the more reason for me to strike back and show him I am actually someone he should have respected from the start.

In the kitchen, I pour myself a glass of soda. Leaning my back against the kitchen counter, I take a minute to quiet my thoughts. This morning has been a rush—one of those days that speeds by in a blur of too many people, too many meetings and too much information.

I drink half the glass, then top it up and pour Yaroslav a glass of cold water.

He’s still standing at the patio doors when I come back into the living room.

“This snow is getting so thick, it’s like a blanket of white that blocks out everything else. Nothing but white,” he remarks thoughtfully. I glance briefly at my garden, which is, in fact, just white, a foot deep in snow already.

I hand him the water.

“Oh, thank you,” he says, taking it.

I sit heavily down on the sofa.

“Right, so you’ve been investigating. How is it going?” I ask.

Yaroslav is a very skilled spy and private investigator who has worked with me for many years. He’s been working on a very specific plan with me lately, gathering the information I need to put it in motion.

“Yes, you wanted to know which member of the Belov family was most vulnerable,” he says, sitting down in the chair opposite me.

“Yes, I want the perfect target,” I agree enthusiastically. "Whoever can be reached the easiest will be the one I take. His sister. His brother. His wife. I don’t care who it is; I want someone close to Josiah Belov. I want someone in his inner circle. Someone it would break him to lose.”

“That’s the problem, sir, no one is easy to get to,” Yaroslav shrugs apologetically.

“Oh, come on. Doesn’t the sister go to Pilates or yoga or some shit? Surely her guards don’t follow her everywhere?”

“But they do. They literally do,” he argues.

“Fuck, okay, well, I can’t just accept that as a dead end. There still has to be—”

“There is the other girl,” Yaroslav interrupts.

“What girl?”

“The wife’s best friend. Her name is Izabel.

She recently moved here, relocated from California, but she is originally from Milwaukee.

She is at their home all the time. They treat her like family, so it’s obvious she means a lot to them.

If you take her, you will break the wife, and if you break the wife, you will break the husband. ”

I sit back, pondering his suggestion. The idea isn’t bad. In fact, the indirect punch at Josiah via his wife might even be more effective.

“This girl, where does she stay? What kind of security does she have?” I ask, latching onto the idea.

“She stays in an apartment in Chicago, not too far from their place. Josiah has provided her with security, but she's a lot more relaxed and doesn’t always use them.”

“Does she know who Josiah is?” I ask, wondering if she is somehow linked to the Bratva or just an innocent bystander sucked into his world.

“She worked with his wife before the wife met Josiah. She isn’t involved in the Bratva side of things with Josiah at all. I’ve never seen her connect to any of it. Not the business, not anything.”

“Mm,” I ponder, rubbing my hand over my jaw and feeling the rough texture of my unshaven skin. “I like her for this,” I confirm. “It’s better than nothing, and it’ll certainly cause shit for Josiah, which is my goal, after all.”

Yaroslav stands, setting his half-finished water down on the coffee table between us. “Shall I put together an information package on her for you? I can go to Chicago and further my investigation, focusing directly on the girl,” he says, getting ready to leave.

“Just put together what you know about her so far. I’m going to Chicago myself.”

While I trust Yaroslav, I want this to go without incident. It has to be perfect. She appears to be my only shot at making this work, which means I can’t leave this up to chance. I will do it all myself from here on out.

***

I could have flown. It would’ve been a lot faster. But the drive was more incognito than announcing my arrival with the touchdown of my private jet. Attracting attention to myself before I’ve even set foot in Chicago would not be smart.

On the passenger seat of my black Audi is a folder.

It’s closed, but there is a photograph sitting on top of it—a photograph that could have been pulled from the pages of a magazine.

The girl is fucking gorgeous. She’s twenty-three, according to Yaroslav’s information.

Long, honey blonde hair that looks like silk hangs over her shoulder in a messy braid.

She has warm, bright brown eyes that catch the light and look almost golden.

Her lips are peach, full and soft. She’s smiling in the photo, and there are dimples in her cheeks, her eyes crinkling at the corners.

I’ve studied this photo for hours already.

Hours, while I plotted hunting her down and finding her in Chicago.

This photo, in particular, has captivated me in strange ways.

It’s a candid moment caught by my private investigator, a silly smile and a carefree expression.

She wasn’t posing. She wasn’t even aware of the camera.

And all of her natural beauty is shining in full radiance.

I’m parked outside a local gym. She went in there over an hour ago, and I’ve been patiently waiting for her to come out.

It’s my third day in Chicago and my third day following her around.

Yesterday, I sat at a coffee shop watching her from the back of the small space as she sat by the window sipping hot chocolate and reading a book.

The Count of Monte Cristo. Finding her reading Alexandre Dumas was a surprise, but it wasn't the first thing about her that's caught me off guard so far.

She’s an intriguing little creature, and I find myself eager to know more about her.

Outside the coffee shop window, soft flakes of snow fell, and she kept getting distracted from her book to look at it. And every single time she looked, she smiled.

And every time she smiled, my heart seemed to move inside me.

This morning, her first stop was the gym. She left her car parked on the side of the road and jogged across the street in an oversized black hoodie which swam around her, making her look even smaller and cuter, especially with her bright pink leggings showing off her slender, well-toned legs.

Her hair is pulled up in a bun on top of her head, neat and beautiful.

From where I’m parked, I can see her lifting weights in the upper level of the gym.

She isn’t wearing her hoodie inside, and she has a gorgeous body.

The tight gym gear leaves nothing to the imagination as her subtly toned abs show through the open space between her leggings and matching long-sleeve crop top.

She looks strong and fierce, and the fact that she didn’t go into the downstairs yoga class or one of the spinning classes, but the weights area, impresses me.

Time doesn’t seem to exist when I’m watching her. Hours can go by without me glancing at my watch. I have become entirely captivated by everything she does.

When she leaves the gym, her high bun is a mess. Soft strands of escaped hair are now falling around her face, framing it. She smiles and says thanks with a gesture of her hand to a car that slowed to let her cross the road.

Those dimples are too cute.

I chuckle to myself as she opens the trunk of her car and tosses her gym bag into it, bending over to throw the strap inside. My body ripples with a current of desire. Damn, that is a fine specimen of a girl.

She climbs into her two-door Jeep Rubicon, a cute car for a cute girl, and as I follow her through town, I wonder how an innocent civilian got wrapped up in Josiah’s Bratva world.

Poor girl has no idea about the truth of who she's spending her time with and the risks that come with it. Like me. Risks like me.

The image of her as helpless prey and me as the hunter flickers through my mind. The many ways I would toy with her.

My thoughts get carried away, and there is a dark smile on lips when she pulls over near the beach. Driving past her, I park further up the road so as not to make things too obvious.

She climbs out of her car and walks straight over to a small food truck.

I stand behind her and admire how carefree she is.

She isn’t aware of her surroundings or paying any attention to the fact that if she just glanced in my direction, she might recognize me, considering that I've been following her for days now.

And I am getting a little bolder each day, moving closer and closer as the desire to get in her space increases.

“Hi Tim Tim,” she grins up at the guy in the food truck. Steam rises from her lips as her hot breath meets the cold morning air. I watch her lips curl into a beautiful smile and wonder again what it would be like to feel them.

“Good morning, beautiful. The usual, coming right up. How was gym?” he replies with a grin.

Who the fuck is this guy? Why is he so familiar with her? My mind snarls in anger as I glare death at him.

“It was great. I got a new PR on the leg press today! So, I’m going to celebrate and add one of those little caramel tart cups to my order, too,” she giggles.

“Oh, definitely! And they’re freshly made this morning,” Tim says.

He glances up at me and smiles, wide and friendly.

“Good morning, I’ll be right with you. Great day for the beach, isn’t it?

” he says, as chatty as the annoying cashier I encountered at the truck stop on the drive to Chicago when all I wanted was a fucking Coke, and she wouldn’t stop talking about her kid and how well he was doing in kindergarten. Like I give a fuck. I glare at Tim.

“How long is this going to take?” I growl.

The darkness in my voice has Izabel turning to steal a quick glance at me.

I look away, pretending to scout the beach area, which is mostly empty apart from a few brave or very stupid people who are facing the cold and strolling along the sand.

She turns back to Tim, rolling her eyes at my rudeness.

“It won’t even take five minutes,” Tim says with a smile, unfazed by my impatience.

That was close, Anton. Stop taking stupid risks. You aren’t even supposed to be this up close and personal with her. The whole reason you came to Chicago yourself was to avoid any fuck-ups, and now you’re standing behind her in line at a food truck.

Patience, man. Patience and sticking to the plan. The right time and the right place.

My eyes graze over her back, down her toned legs.

She has her hoodie back on. It’s one of those old, well-worn, very loved hoodies. There are worn-down holes that she’s either put there or developed over the years for her to push her thumbs through to keep her sleeves pulled down and her hands warm.

She’s also let her hair down at some point on the drive, and it’s hanging loose over her back and shoulders beneath a fluffy white beanie.

Tim hands her a coffee and two small takeaway bags. I smell something meaty. It smells great, actually, and my stomach growls.

“Thanks, Tim. See you tomorrow,” she chimes, turning away from me.

“Don’t get too cold!” Tim calls out.

“You know I like the cold, Tim Tim,” she laughs back without turning around.

I’m torn between immediately following her or placing an order.

I don’t want to lose sight of her, but I don’t want to draw even more attention to myself by telling Tim I’ve changed my mind and don’t want anything.

“What can I get for you?” he asks expectantly. His brows are raised as he looks down at me from the truck.

“The same,” I answer without thinking, still watching Izabel.

Lucky for me, Izabel doesn’t go far. She finds a seat on a bench looking towards the beach and the ocean.

Sitting there, she pulls her legs up and crosses them beneath her.

It’s freezing outside, but there she is, breathing billows of steam and snacking down on a hashbrown breakfast burger.

Her ass must be so cold on that bench, and probably damp. Why would she sit there?

For some reason, her not giving a damn about the cold or the wet has me even more intrigued by her. She’s so spirited and carefree that nothing seems to hold her back from doing whatever the hell she wants.

Oh, darling, I am going to enjoy breaking you in.