THE RUSSIAN THUG: Abducted by the Bratva ~Krasnov Brothers Book 1~

by Warren, Rie

  I recognized him immediately, and my stomach dropped so low it formed an empty pit of despair.

  Oh god.

  Bastiano Leone.

  My dad had already tried me out with him, very recently. He’d delivered me to a hotel room paid for by Bastiano just like I’d been and, when that slimy bastard had suddenly mauled my breasts like they were lumps of dough—his tongue raking grossly into my mouth—I’d stabbed him. I nicked his bicep before bolting from him.

  There was no running now, not when I was surrounded.

  He wasn’t the first of the made men da had introduced me to during the past month either.

  Slick and suave, Bastiano leered at me with his hair greased back so heavily it looked shellacked to his skull.

  In his uniform of black suit and thick gold chain around his neck there was no mistaking him for anything but what he was. Italian mobster looking for a meek wife to do his bidding, breed his babies, and keep her mouth shut.

  Da jerked my chin up and angled my face like I was a prized cow. “Try to be pretty, Jo. Bastiano is actually ready to place a bid on you.”

  I gnashed my teeth, terror spreading like cold ice up my spine.

  “The price is lower now.” The Italian circled around me. “The fight should’ve been broken out of her a long time ago.”

  “He’ll kill you! Kirill will kill all of you for this!” My throat tight, I grew clammy with dread.

  “It’s like that, is it?” Da swiped nicotine stained fingers across my jaw.

  He squeezed my throat. “Maybe that Krasnov will pay for you after all. Or maybe he’ll settle for a share of the profit. But I’m willing to bet you ran off from him just like you always do, and he has no goddamn idea where you even are.”

  He squeezed harder, and breath wheezed from me. “He ain’t coming for you, girl.”

  I hoped that wasn’t true. I had to believe Kirill would find me, but I had run when I told him I wouldn’t.

  I’d betrayed his trust, and that was the most important thing to him.

  He had every right to just cut me off, write me off, be done with me.

  “Can we shut her up?” The man who wanted to purchase me tweaked the ends of my hair.

  One of the guards slapped a length of duct tape over my mouth.

  My nostrils flared, tears suddenly stinging in the corners of my eyes.

  Damion still kept my wrists in a bruising hold.

  And that awful mattress on the floor was the emblem of my horrifying youth.

  “Better.” A sickening smile twisted Bastiano’s mouth. “I want to see the goods first.”

  He was scarier than Kirill had ever been to me, which I would’ve thought was impossible before I’d truly gotten to know the Russian enforcer.

  He had some limits at least.

  Kirill had loyalty to family.

  He might’ve gotten angry with me, but he’d never degraded me in this way.

  Spine stiff and straight, I looked right ahead at nothing but a mold-infested wall when they began shredding my clothes off of me.

  Shirt. Tank top. Boots, socks, jeans.

  My baseball cap was already long gone.

  My bra and panties got torn off too until I was left naked and shivering, but not from the cold. It was pure horrifying humiliation icing over my veins.

  Da’s soldier pigs probably salivated.

  I wouldn’t look not even when the assholes started catcalling at me and someone whistled low. “Ain’t she filled out?”

  “They fattening you up, girl?” Da pinched my waist.

  I didn’t answer.

  I won’t look.

  Stubborn to the end. I just held on, why and for what . . . I no longer knew.

  “I want a piece of that action when you’re done.” Damion’s voice came from behind me, and I shrieked beneath the tape suffocating my mouth when his fingers brutally pinched my butt.

  Bastiano knocked him back, which freed up my wrists. But, before I could hit out, more tape wound all the way from my wrists to my forearms, and I was imprisoned once again.

  “I don’t share my property. And you can take that to the bank.” Bastiano pulled out a gun, and other weapons clicked all around as my da’s soldiers took aim too.

  They all armed up, leaving me helpless in the middle.

  I hoped they’d just shoot each other.

  Shoot me.

  Make it stop. End it forever.

  Bullets didn’t spray. Guns didn’t fire off.

  Da cut in between me and the Italian. “Enough. You buy her. You own her. Look her over. Take your time.”

  After holstering his firearm, Bastiano pulled my shoulders up straight and peered into my eyes. I shuddered as he began his cold inspection. I looked off to a corner over his head, pretending to be back with the Bratva, in Kirill’s bed with Boris yipping at us.

  Bastiano turned my face one way then the other before his hands gripped my hips. “Narrow through here. Has she ever birthed before?”

  I had been reduced to livestock.

  “Her ma didn’t have no troubles in that department. Same build. Popped out four bairns.”

  The Italian clicked his tongue. “She looks cleaner this time.”

  “She don’t much care for hygiene. Guess you can train the laziness out of her too once you own her.”

  I bristled, eyes blazing.

  I cared very much about being clean and I was anything but lazy. I’d just never had the opportunity to shower at my leisure with plentiful hot water and all the shampoo and soap and conditioner I wanted.

  I’d never even had new clothes before.

  One of Bastiano’s fingers slid down my belly but, before he could get any lower, I clamped my thighs together.

  He moved behind me, held my upper arms torqued in toward my shoulder blades, and kicked out my feet.

  From that mortifying position, Bastiano ran a finger down the crevice of my ass and through the center of my sex.

  “She’s dry.”

  “You should try her out,” my father offered. “Red hair means they’re the feistiest but most fiery too.”

  The Italian’s finger wiggled around some more.

  I drifted away from the shameful torture. Hard breaths drove in and out of my nose while I tried to send my mind back to my place with Kirill . . . back to the woman I’d been with Kirill.

  I thought I heard a dog barking.

  Distantly.

  It sounded like Boris.

  But that couldn’t possibly be.

  A hand covered my whole breast, and I twitched, repulsed.

  I closed my eyes to shut out what was surely going to happen next.

  I couldn’t, wouldn’t, go back to Kirill dirty and defiled. Not even if he’d still have me, which I doubted.

  I shut my eyes, and finally the tears spilled over my cheeks.

  23

  Kirill

  THE YAKUZA THREAT TAKEN care of once and for all, it was time to dispatch Jo’s dad to the darkest depths of hell where he belonged.

  Time to wrap this shit up.

  Get on with life. One I was beginning to see included Jo more and more.

  I’d gone through some accounts and was about to put in a call to Lucky when Grigor stuck his head in the office door.

  “Someone needs to see you right now, boss.”

  I waved at him to send the visitor through.

  The woman who cleaned my apartment hurried in, hands wringing in front of her and ponytail askew. “Mr. Kirill! She’s gone. That girl who was upstairs. I went back to clean the bedrooms and by the time I finished she’d just up and disappeared.”

  Shooting up from the desk, I towered over the woman. “What do you mean disappeared?”

  Her lips furrowed, and she looked scared out of her wits.

  With good reason—she knew exactly what type of person she was dealing with in me.

  “Answer me.” My voice boomed.

  “I left my keycard in the kitchen. It’s mis
sing.”

  Thrusting the useless scatterbrain into Grigor’s arms, I stomped from the office. “Maksim! Arkady!”

  I made it down the stairs to the main floor of the club, and they came running.

  “Jo got hold of the maid’s keycard, and she says Jo’s not in the apartment.” Nostrils flaring, fists clenching, I tried to keep a tight tether on every unwelcome emotion ripping through me. “Arkady, double check upstairs and grab something of Jo’s. Bring Boris back down with you and report.”

  He sprinted off toward the elevator.

  “Maksim, grab a handful of soldiers and search the club and basement. Now!”

  Blyad! I blamed myself for Joanna taking off.

  If she had the keycard, she definitely could’ve gotten out of the apartment, but how far could she really have gone?

  Almost more pressing was the question why?

  If she’d run the second I’d returned her phone, she’d failed the test.

  And that very idea twisted something deep in my insides.

  My second thought was to call Lucky.

  She’d go to him to get away from me.

  And she’d goddamn live to regret it.

  As soon as he answered, I blasted out, “Did she call you?”

  Suspicion about her true loyalties sliced through me. Maybe she didn’t want her dad dead after all, but that didn’t gel.

  “Jo?” Lucky asked. “No.”

  “Did you text her or something?”

  “What the fuck for? You confiscated her phone.”

  My teeth grinded together. “I gave it back to her this morning.”

  “Why the hell would you do that? You know she’s cagey.”

  “Great. Thanks. I unwisely wanted to gain her trust.”

  Both Arkady and Maksim reappeared, and with them, Yury. My brothers shook their heads in the negative. She wasn’t on the premises.

  Pacing, I dropped my voice. “Did you want me to keep your sister under lock and key forever?”

  “Preferably. With our Da and who knows who else out for her. A dungeon would be a damn good place to stow her for starters instead of your fucking penthouse!” Lucky shouted.

  “Blyad! None of this matters right now. She’s gone.”

  “Kirill, she’s not here. I swear to fuck she’s not.” Panic edged her brother’s voice.

  And that was even worse than the idea that she’d run to them, because now I had no clue as to what had motivated her to leave.

  There was only one way she could escape. She’d been paying attention that night I’d spanked her ass cherry red in the dungeon. She’d have figured out there was another exit from the tunnels.

  Worry and concern battled with stone cold fury inside of me.

  I quickly rewound the footage on the security cameras and brought all streams up onto the monitor.

  Sure enough, I caught her. Slinking toward escape through the tunnels.

  My jaw clenched so hard my teeth ached.

  “Goddammit!” My infuriated shout rang all the way to Lucky. “She got out through the basement.”

  “Fecking hell,” Lucky muttered.

  “Da.”

  “You’re tracking the phone though, right?”

  “Of course I am!” I just hadn’t thought I’d needed to with her.

  I’d wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt for a change, especially after all that had transpired between us the night before.

  “Where the hell is my sister?”

  I quickly pinned her location and pinged it over to Lucky.

  He swore. “I know exactly where that is. It’s our da. His old stomping grounds. Time to mobilize.”

  I cursed too. “And end this.”

  Then I was going to take a fucking strap to Joanna’s ass.

  If she was alive.

  And she goddamn better be alive.

  “It’s really not about money or cutting a deal over her anymore, is it?” Lucky asked.

  “No.” I ended the call, then yelled out for our soldiers to prepare to fight.

  I checked my KA-BAR, pistols, and picked up a semi-auto too.

  Maksim and Arkady armed up as well.

  Yury didn’t speak a word, but his silent drawn-low look said everything. He was pissed I’d let my hostage—the woman I might be grooming—to escape.

  Well I was pissed too.

  And I was the only one who knew what had been done to her in the past because of her disgusting fucker of a father.

  I might’ve abducted Jo against her will, but I’d had her willingly.

  Those other men—her father’s soldiers—raped, beat, took.

  They would not take what I had claimed.

  Climbing into my SUV with Grigor joining me and my brothers, we sped out of the compound.

  Behind us, three more bulletproof, tank-like trucks snaked along just as fast.

  Arkady drove, which was good.

  I was busy planning all the goriest ways to murder Robbie O’Sullivan.

  Before Joanna, I had no interest in anything but keeping the Bratva firmly in place and expanding Yury Zolotov’s legacy the way he wanted.

  Because one day Arkady would become pakhan. I’d be underboss. Maksim wouldn’t have to stand guard over Sasha anymore.

  And this would be the Krasnov Bratva.

  It had been easier that way anyway. No distractions. No annoying emotional entanglements or attachments.

  Until Jo came along.

  When—not if—I caught up with her, the consequences were going to be severe.

  We slowed and then parked just before the entrance of the derelict compound so as not to alert Jo’s dad and his soldiers to our presence.

  Two more vehicles stopped beside ours—the O’Sullivan brothers and a handful of their men. The ones I assumed could be trusted because the rest were probably already beating Jo, raping Jo, or worse.

  I swallowed down a mouthful of bile then whistled to Boris.

  He jumped from the SUV to land at my side.

  Dex paused from checking his sidearm. “What is this?”

  “Boris.” My hand held out, I caught the shirt Arkady flung to me, the one Jo had been wearing yesterday.

  I pushed the top under Boris’s nose so he could get a good sniff of her scent.

  “Find Jo,” I ordered.

  Like a dart, he was off. The dog raced across a parking lot where three vehicles parked haphazardly. He sniffed over all of them before growling at the back door of a pickup.

  From there, nose down to the ground, Boris followed her scent into the ugly deserted place and quickly up a flight of crumbling stairs.

  He loved the Irish woman with a fierce loyalty whereas he’d had nothing but snarls and barks for any other female I’d lain with.

  Those snarls returned with foaming intensity when we all heard a muffled high-pitched scream from a room down on the left.

  He started to run in that direction, but I pulled back on his collar.

  Boris’s head careened, and he almost bit me in his fury to get to Jo.

  I knew that feeling.

  Another scream made hairs raise on my arms.

  Passing the dog over to Maksim, I stealthily made my way to the door, everyone else flanking behind me.

  And then I saw one thing only, and my blood coursed violent red at the sight.

  Jo stood shivering and completely naked, her mouth taped shut, her eyes cranked closed as fat tears seeped out over her cheeks.

  About a dozen fuckers and even her dad leered at her while some greasy Italian motherfucker ran his hands all over her like he owned her body and that was his right.

  He’d be a grisly puddle on the floor by the time I was through with him.

  One look around the dingy room with the stained mattress on the floor, and I could tell exactly what this was—a place for the sole purpose of using Jo.

  Letting out a roar to rival Boris’s feral growls, I busted in.

  Pandemonium erupted in my wake.


  Shouts.

  Gunfire.

  Curses and insults and threats of death.

  I knocked the slimy fuck away from Jo, dimly aware of Boris snatching the bastard’s leg in his maw.

  The greaseball’s pained squawk was music to my ears, but I only had eyes for Jo in that moment.

  Her eyes opened—the beautiful hazel depths wide with shock and fear.

  As I carefully lifted the tape from her lips and unrolled the thick layers from her bound arms, an upheaval of emotions jabbed through me. Emotions I had no time to consider except for the uppermost, which was to make sure she remained always, always safe.

  Quickly shedding my shirt, I folded it around her.

  I pushed her into a corner and made her crouch down.

  Hauling Boris off the Cosa Nostra asshole, I had to grip his collar again to stop him from snapping his teeth. I pointed him toward Jo, and he whimpered then rushed over to cover her.

  Pulling out my blade I advanced.

  None of the other bloody mayhem registered.

  Grunts.

  Groans.

  More gunshots.

  I hauled the foul bastard who’d had his hands all over my woman up to his feet.

  Boris had just about sliced right through his calf muscle.

  Good.

  My fist primed, I bashed him across the cheek.

  His head lashed back, another bleated scream boiling out from his throat.

  “I paid for her,” he rasped.

  “She is not for sale.” Drawing my KA-BAR up so the steel glinted like a sinister metal smile, I attacked.

  My kills had always been about business, impersonal. Not this time though. The rush of violence met the primacy of possessiveness.

  I roared like a beast, giving full rein to every vicious urge.

  His hands on her breasts.

  I sliced into his chest.

  His fingers between her legs.

  I stabbed at the flesh of his groin.

  The gurgle of his shouts and the sound of him drowning in his own blood spurred me on.

  Every lethal wound I inflicted made the beast bellow louder inside of me.

  The would-be rapist twitched, spasmed, collapsed, convulsed, bled.

  When I stopped and stood, he lay like a twisted pile of gore at my feet, and sweat dripped from my forehead.

  I glanced around from beneath drawn brows, wiping my blade clean.