British Bratva

by Flora Ferrari

  Ridiculous, when I'd spent the last three years of my life proving I didn't need anybody at all. Maybe that was just because until I'd seen him, there wasn't anyone I trusted to keep me safe except myself. One look from him, and I had no doubts he'd do whatever it would take.

  Maxim

  It was a stupid risk to show myself outside her home. Especially after shooting through her window.

  I'd been on edge all night, barely getting any sleep on the narrow cot bed I folded out in the middle of the building site in the mansion block opposite her home. I kept waking up, thinking she'd called the police, that I could hear sirens, or worse, the careful tiptoeing of a CO19 team or an anti-terror squad moving into place, armed to the eyeballs and ready to take me down.

  They'd be so lucky. I was ready for whatever came and I always was. I wasn't planning on going down, and they'd have a fight on their hands while I made my exit.

  The only worry I had was that I'd spooked Elizabeth.

  But come morning there was no sign of any of that and my worries about what she thought seemed unfounded.

  She must have had a plan for that bullet, an idea of what she was going to do, but I was still none the wiser.

  Professionally, I knew that showing my face only gave her a suspect to ID. It should have been the most stupid move to make, but as soon as I saw her, face to face, I knew she wasn't going to do that.

  She'd felt the spark between us, I was sure of it. And that chemistry had power. There was no denying it. The way she let her eyes linger, and the tint to her skin, soft and pale, made my cock harden even though I was doing my best to keep my cool.

  As much as I wanted to, I couldn't march on over and snatch her up, steal her away from everything. Not without her going ballistic.

  But God it was good to know it wasn't all one sided. She looked at me like she wanted me to do my worst and I'd gladly have taken her up on that. I couldn't wrap my head around how she could be so innocent, yet so fierce. She was devastatingly curious and I was more than fascinated. I'd been at her mercy for weeks, it didn't matter that now she had a reason to call the police if she was going to. That wasn't going to hold me back.

  Nothing could have.

  Whatever happened, I needed to meet her. I needed to know for sure that this was more than an obsession stemming from watching her day in and day out.

  I wanted her to recognize me when I made my approach for real. Maybe it shouldn't have, but that mattered to me. When I came up to her, I wanted her to know, bone-deep, that I wasn't just some random stranger. And now, she did.

  Maybe she didn't know I was the guy who'd been looking out for her for weeks. The guy who wanted her stepfather dead for ever touching her. The guy who'd been with her every time she was lonely, every time she cried up in her room, and every time she hung up her punch bag up and hit and hit and hit, until her knuckles were raw instead. But she'd find all that out soon enough.

  As long as I got it right, she was going to fall in love with me the way I'd fallen in love with her. It had to happen. Otherwise my life had no further purpose.

  Granted, it was a lot to ask from a first meeting. I knew it had to be perfect, Valentin didn't understand. All he cared about was the bloody job I was supposed to be doing.

  "Use the stepdaughter, Maxim," Valentin said once more, steepling his fingers as he leaned in closer to the camera on his side of the computer screen. "I am not understanding why you do not approach her yet."

  I gritted my teeth. There was nothing I wanted to do more. That morning I'd nearly walked right up to her. Valentin wouldn't have been egging me on had he known I'd breached protocol. I'd wanted to break cover so badly and that was not the kind of approach he meant at all.

  The night before, I'd watched her pick up the bullet from the sugar bag barely daring to move from the window in case she turned around and saw the curtain twitch, or the streetlight caught the lens of my scope. But God I wanted her to see me. I wanted her to know I was the one protecting her, keeping her safe and I always would.

  "Her name's Elizabeth." My correction slipped out sternly. Valentin raised an eyebrow, but didn't comment.

  I cleared my throat and folded my arms across my chest, trying and mostly failing to cover my hostility at him treating her like just another cog in the machine. "Elizabeth Harrington. She's a member of a boxing gym. I think going there is my best bet."

  "Da. Good." Valentin's frown faded slowly. "Glad to hear it. It is very important Mr Sutherland's list does not get out."

  "I know that, Valentin. Who do you take me for."

  The man raised a hand. "I'm not insulting you, Maxim. I'm saying you need to do this quickly. It transpires our exalted leader has gone and made a deal with the devil."

  I let out a muted grunt, unsurprised and braced for the worst. "What did he do this time?"

  Valentin shared my opinion of Yakov Timoshenko, our longstanding Muscovite overlord. He was losing his grip, and he was out of touch with the modern world. We needed a more dynamic thinker at the helm to navigate the Bratva through the opportunities that were on offer.

  Timoshenko was rooted in the past, still too keen to rule with brute force, and one day it was going to get all of us into trouble. Even I knew it wasn't sustainable to keep making enemies disappear. There had to be more subtlety at some point, especially when all the global leaders wanted their sheen of respectability and the web of connections we wove more often than not tangled them up with things that couldn't come out.

  Corruption was more widespread than anyone outside of Russia liked to think, and by no means was it limited to the motherland.

  My money had been on Valentin to step in as the next Autoritat for a while now. He'd been proactive about handling the brotherhood when Timoshenko's glaring omissions had crept in. He'd been steering me more towards espionage and away from blunt, brutal hits, unless absolutely required. I wasn't entirely displeased with that. Every kill lodged inside you, somewhere, and took its price.

  But he was holding off instead of making his move. I imagined that the situation in Moscow was more complex than a brute in a suit like me could comprehend. Valentin was a cut above. All expensive education to match with the clothes and the watches, and the polished accent. Good for him. Good for all of us, if it got us where we needed to be. I knew these things took time.

  "The FSB made an approach and he said we'd get the list back for them so they can avoid embarrassment. We can't afford to let them down, but you know our main concern lies with keeping Roman's name out of it. We can't continue to operate if they freeze our most successful cleaning operation."

  I grimaced. Valentin didn't need to tell me twice. Roman Dvornikov was our financial wizard. Merlin, dragon level stuff, not school boy Harry Potter.

  Money made the world go around, and he was the one spinning the dial, for us, anyway. I'd built my entire career out of enforcement for the Bratva. Seeing funds drying up wasn't in my interests at all. I was too much of a career criminal to turn over to anything legitimate. At least, nothing that would make me the kind of income I'd become accustomed to.

  FSB was KGB, although they pretended it was all brand new. Their involvement was never good for anyone.

  "Tell them to keep their distance and let me get on with it. We don't need any novochock or polonium 10 left lying around. This is one we don't want sitting at Russia's doorstep."

  Valentin gave a short nod. "Agreed." He drew in a breath, shifting slightly. "Listen, Maxim, I can only assume the President has friends on that list as well. We don't want the President to be embarrassed because of our failure."

  "Valentin, really. I don't do failure."

  My friend's smile twitched and he leaned back. "I know this. You are a very reliable man. That is why I really think it's time you talk to your Elizabeth Harrington and get us a way inside."

  CHAPTER 4

  Elizabeth

  Indulgently, I limped up the stairs when I got home, late, again. There was a blister rubbin
g itself raw on my heel because my socks had been slipping down inside my plimsolls all shift. I'd managed to shrink them at the launderette the other day when I realised I was about to run out of clean work clothes.

  Again.

  The idea of being allowed to use the washing machine in the house was some kind of outlandish fantasy by now. I didn't let it bother me. It was of little importance, compared to all the rest of the shit Sutherland put me through.

  Last time I bought bandaids was when I started learning to box. I hoped I still had some left somewhere in the depths of my bedside drawer.

  Finding one in the bottom of the crushed cardboard packet felt like more of a victory than it should have, but I was too dog tired to go in search of an all night store now, and the little strip of adhesive dressing saved me from having to leave the house.

  Friday night was supposed to be for letting off steam, having fun. I was sitting on the end of my bed, taping myself up, thinking about hitting the books. Sometimes it didn't feel like I was only eighteen.

  I let out a sigh and shook it off. People went through worse things every day. I could handle this. It wasn't forever. I was going to be fine.

  I crossed to the window to draw my curtains, pausing before I did to look out across the street. Maybe it was my imagination, but I could have sworn I saw a shadow in the window of the building across the street. Again I thought about that bullet, and the man in the high viz jacket, and my heart skipped a beat.

  Was he there right now, looking back at me? Stupid, but I liked the idea of that. It made me feel less alone.

  How long had he been watching the house? What was his aim? I was too tired to figure it all out now, but damn it, thoughts of him were going to keep me awake all night and far too distracted to revise.

  In the darkness of my bedroom, I rolled the carpet back to get to the boards, and lifted up the section where I kept everything that truly mattered to me.

  I only had a few photographs of Mum and me, and they were getting dogeared and worn from all the times I'd taken them out just to have another look. The picture of Dad with the two of us, me bundled up in so many blankets, small enough for him to cradle in his arms, I kept even more carefully.

  I worried that one day they'd all get too faded. Sometimes in my dreams, the colors in them got darker and darker until the teeth in our smiles were the only point of contrast, and then even they would darken, merging into the background, as all the details disappeared into a useless black mass of nothing.

  Sometimes it felt like my old life had been erased and I was still clinging on even though the universe didn't want me to.

  But I could sit on the floor of my room when the house was still and quiet, and lay the photos out in front of me, side by side. Peering in on the little windows of the past with my flashlight, I remember what it used to be like when it was just the two of us in this house and I could imagine Mum was asleep in her room downstairs, or sitting up in the living room watching the news with a glass of red wine in her hand and her high heels kicked off, complaining that she looked ten pounds heavier in that skirt suit, or the wind had messed up her hair. I used to love seeing her come on screen.

  Sometimes I'd use my laptop to find old footage of her from news clips, and watch them over and over again with the sound muted so that Pierce didn't storm upstairs and take it off me.

  I don't know what she ever saw in him. She was beautiful and intelligent, always asking hard hitting questions when she was interviewing, disarming whoever she had with her behind the camera with an easy smile.

  When I got too sad to think about it all, I hung the heavy punch bag up in the corner of my room. Strapped my hands and went at it for hours.

  Vasyl Lomachenko was my idol.

  From him, I'd learned that anybody could push through anything with enough determination, drive and intelligence.

  I had watched every fight that I could find. Up in my bedroom, I went over footage of the Ukranian boxer obsessively, like if I stared long enough at the screen I'd be able to pick up all his secrets. I wanted to understand exactly what it was he did when he was in the ring - how he could take down fighters who had so much more experience under their belts.

  I watched for the ways he dodged and danced around them, finding openings, creating them. Watching his fists fly fast and skillfully, playing with his opponent like he was running the choreography and their gloves grazed off him. He could have been a god. He had to be supernatural. Leading them where he wanted them, with a touch of his glove to the back of their necks turning the tables, quite literally.

  I watched him jab and probe, finding weakness and filing it away. I saw him open up offers for somewhere to hit him, only to power through double time with a swinging knock out blow they had no time to brace for. He'd invite punches, then head them off with a change of direction and an uppercut that left them disorientated and reeling.

  I saw champions refuse to go the full twelve rounds, knowing they didn't have the endurance to push through and find the cracks in his defence. I wasn't sure he had any.

  And I wanted to learn how to be like that.

  He said his secret was being prepared for pain, learning not to panic through it, knowing how to go beyond it. He used breath training, so I'd read - held a lungful of air underwater in the pool. Then let it out, letting his body sit with the panic and the scream in his lungs while his animal brain tried to force him to open his mouth.

  I practiced in the bath, dunking my head under, marking the time with the timer on my cell phone on top of my bath towel on the floor. Half drowning myself should have been nothing when I had so little that was good in my life to hold onto anyway, but I always panicked, always had to come up.

  And I guess that meant maybe I still cared too much for what happened to me. Maybe that was a good thing after all but it wasn't going to help me get my revenge any faster.

  For the hundredth time since I'd gotten it, I unrolled the ragged gym towelling and set the solid, stubby revolver down on the carpet with a sigh. The Smith and Wesson logo on the side, and a number that was scrubbed off, and I'd picked it up so many times, loaded bullets into the chambers and pictured shooting it.

  CHAPTER 5

  Elizabeth

  It had rained while I was on the bus the next morning, and the pavement was glistening black with it. The traffic kicked up dirty droplets of water everywhere.

  This was a thousand miles from Chelsea. A side of London I never knew before I'd had to seek it out. I'd known shiny black cabs and brightly coloured cashmere jumpers, salad lunches on the Kings Road after trailing through the shops, traipsing through Hyde Park's picnickers on endless summer days that burned the grass brown, or braving the tube to go and look at the hats in Fenwicks.

  Cassie's family was Irish, and her cousin was some big deal in boxing in Dublin. I didn't know all that much about it back then, but it meant her brother Mitch had enough credentials to make a living bringing fighters through to the circuit. And their successes built his name big enough that he was enough of a draw as a coach to finance the small gym he set up on the dodgier side of Hammersmith, underneath the flyover.

  I didn't know much about being on the shady side of the law, but all I did know was tangled up with them.

  It was Cassie who handed me a leaflet advertising one of their amateur bouts and gave me the night off so I could go and see it. That was just after my sixteenth birthday. She must have known what she was doing, because once I was in there, I knew why she'd sent me. In the ring, the fighters didn't show weakness. They defended themselves and they moved to get out of the way, and when they got angry, they kept it controlled until they had their opponent up against the ropes and they could really dig into them.

  My t-shirt was drenched from a round on the jump rope, already damp with humidity when I came in, after half an hour, I was sticky with sweat.

  In the ring, though, it was different. Hands strapped up and chalky, jabbing at pads, or with gloves on going a round
, I knew exactly where I was and what I wanted, and each landed punch was catharsis.

  Footwork, drills. It didn't matter what. I could switch off in the rhythm of my fists making contact. It made me feel alive and in control, and like my anger had a purpose. It only worked for me when I breathed enough to control it, and think my plan through.

  Better still, sometimes I could hit someone for real, though big beefy Joe hardly ever let me fight for real. The only girl, I grew into the only woman here, and try as I might, I couldn't grow the muscle even the guys younger than me had.

  They paired the younger kids with me to spar, strapping on pads until I knew the combinations with every part of my body. I went home dancing footwork and feeling the pull of muscles through me with every jab and swing. When I closed my eyes, I was boxing in my sleep.

  The rocking hit of the punchbag and the crunching sting of my knuckles of a punch landed awkwardly, or solidly and true hummed in my body memory when I was at my desk in class, or mixing Old Fashioneds at the bar. That escape was the only thing that got me through.

  And now that the end was in sight, boxing was going to be my only constant.

  It was a sport of calculation and decision making as well as technique and stamina and I was going to need all of those things to carry out the plan I'd hatched on the morning Pierce signed the consent form to switch my mother's life support off.

  I hadn't looked back since Cassie had sent me here.

  Two years on, the scent of the mats, the chalk, the leather of the gloves and so much stale, male sweat made the tension in my shoulders drop.

  I knew I could be myself in here, with my hands strapped up and my gloves on. I could throw combinations at a bag for hours, or spar with one of the kids. Sometimes Mitch even paid me pocket-money rates to come in and assist with the younger kids on the weekends or on school holidays. He didn't have to. I would have done it anyway.