The Soldier: Bratva Blood Prequel: (A dark mafia romance)

by SR Jones

  We conclude our meeting an hour later, and Margaret leaves my office. She’s taken the staff sheets with her. I can hardly ask her to leave Cassie’s behind without it looking strange, but I’ll go grab it from her office when she leaves for the day.

  My little ray of sunshine has come back into my life, and suddenly, I’m determined to get a whole lot deeper into hers. I tried to walk away; hell, I did walk away. I never went back to the coffee shop, or tried to find out where Cassie was, even though I thought of her often.

  That girl, with her dimpled smile, and her love of literature, is someone I’ve had more real conversations with during the short time I knew her than almost anyone else.

  Seeing her picture made my heart beat faster.

  Seeing her picture made my cock hard.

  As of next week, I’ll be her new boss. I’ll own her ass, and she’ll be mine. I’m determined to make that true in more ways than one. I let her get away once. Not again. Poor little Cassie, she’d almost escaped and got the boring life she so clearly craves. Never mind, I’ll show her a walk on the wild side she’ll never forget.

  The burner phone in my desk goes, and I pick it up. “Yes?”

  “It’s me, boss,” Vasily speaks in our native Russian.

  “Da.”

  “I’ve found something out about what happened to Yulia.”

  My heart stutters, and I grip the receiver so tight I think I might break it. I’d buried this. My father was killed for what he did, horribly and violently by my men, and despite Vasily and others looking into it at the time, we found nothing linking the crime to anyone else.

  “Really? So long after?”

  “Yeah, and this comes from a cast iron source. It seems Kyrylo Voloshin helped your father do what he did.”

  I sit back in my desk and take a deep breath. The name is such a blast from the past it takes me a moment to process what Vasily has said. Kyrylo is dead now, but he wasn’t then.

  Holy fuck, I need a drink. Whenever I think about Yulia’s death it slays me all over again, so most days, I don’t think about it. At all. We never found anyone inside our organization who had helped, and my father didn’t name anyone even under extreme duress, or what some might call torture. Vasily worked him over good and proper, and the only names he got from him were lowlife street thugs. We’d pretty much concluded my father had worked with some level shit to put his plan together.

  “I don’t understand,” I speak my thoughts out loud.

  Kyrylo was a Pakhan, a Bratva boss. In fact, he was the man who ran most of London and the southeast of the UK with an iron fist. He was also on Andrius’ shit list, although Andrius has always sworn he didn’t take the fucker out. I can’t fathom why the bastard would be involved in what happened to Yulia.

  “It makes no fucking sense,” I tell Vasily. “Are you sure this intel is accurate?”

  “Deadly. Basically, when you moved to England, Kyrylo was the boss down there where you are, right? You were a big Bratva man in Moscow… Hell, K, let’s be honest, you’re the fucking king. That’s even what they call you here, King K. You moving to London must have seemed a threat to Kyrylo even though it was for legit business. He’d seen you take out lesser guys in the Moscow territory, and he didn’t want you doing the same there. He killed Yulia to send a warning that you could be reached. Then, like the piece of shit he was, he panicked about it and never sent you the message that it was partly his doing. Of course, he’s dead now, and Boris Popov is in charge, and Popov was the one who did the dirty deed of setting it all up, at Kyrylo’s command.”

  Yeah, and no surprise because he’s as big a piece of shit as his dead boss. More of one, actually. Popov is a fat fucking psycho, and unluckily for him, he’s now number one on my shit list.

  Boris Popov hasn’t managed to keep the same tight lid on things that Kyrylo did. He runs the weapons side of the business, but lost control of everything else. The weapons side of things, he runs with the help of Andrius’ old boss, Allyov. I think there’s also some involvement with the Greeks. This is going to be awful messy.

  Messy isn’t necessarily bad, though. A little bit of chaos can be a good thing now and again. Shake things up, let the dice settle where they may.

  “I can’t let this go unanswered,” I say.

  Vasily sighs. “Boss, it’s a big undertaking. You take out Popov, and you’ll need to either put someone in his stead, or even take over yourself, and you wanted to keep things in the UK legit.”

  I massage my temples with one hand as I think. If Vasily found this out, others know, and if not yet, they will. Me not retaliating makes me look weak. Very weak. On the other hand, if I do retaliate, I upset a very finely balanced apple cart.

  Most of us Bratva focus on weapons, leaving the drugs to the Italians, and the girls… Well no one admits to running the girls, but I know for a fucking fact that Allyov doesn’t, or Andrius would kill him. That fucker has a strong moral core when it comes to that shit. I don’t run women and never have. I doubt Popov does. It’s a complicated game, trading in flesh, and you need a lot of connections, legitimate connections, who will look the other way. Popov doesn’t have those so far as I’m aware.

  I could do with finding out for sure.

  So yes, it’s a mess. We all play in the same sandbox, and none of us harms anyone else in that sandbox. I run things in the Western US. Allyov runs the North of England and parts of the Eastern US, and Popov has loose control over the South of England. I have Moscow, or most of it under the command of Vasily, and Ilya has St. Petersburg.

  It’s a finely balanced house of cards, and I’m about to pull one of the cards out.

  “Let me call you back,” I tell him.

  I dial a number I know off by heart, not sure if I’ll get an answer. This is the burner number Andrius and I used to communicate on, back when he was in the game, and these days, he allegedly isn’t.

  He picks it up on the fourth ring.

  “What?” He sounds worried.

  “Didn’t think you’d answer,” I say.

  “I’m in my office, and the old burners are too. If I’d been elsewhere in the house I wouldn’t have.”

  “I’d have called you on your normal phone.”

  “That important, huh?”

  “Yes. How’s fatherhood?” I ask him.

  “Fucking beautiful, my friend. Now, I don’t think you called me to chat about my family life.”

  “No.” I blow out a breath. “How badly would Allyov take it if I … got rid of Boris Popov.”

  “Got rid of as in permanently?” Andrius laughs loudly at the question, and I think there’s still plenty of the psychopath left in him, despite his wife, the lovely Violet mellowing him.

  “Yes.”

  He’s silent for a moment. “Honestly? I don’t know. Allyov needs Popov for some of the arms shit he’s doing. That’s the same sort of shit you do now in the US, correct?”

  I grunt.

  “So you get rid of Popov and leave a vacuum… I doubt Allyov will be happy. Who knows who would fill the spot, or if they’d be amenable to working with Allyov and his men? I warned Allyov a while ago that the Italians were wanting in on that territory, and they probably won’t want to work with a Russian;⁰ you know how it goes? You get rid of Popov, take over, and work with Allyov, I doubt he’d give a shit. He’s got no love for Popov at all. You leave a dead space, and I doubt he’ll be happy.”

  “I don’t really want to step into Popov’s clown shoes, Andrius. London is meant to be legit for me.” I don’t add the other thoughts ricocheting around my mind. Thoughts such as, my stepson has knocked up one of the Italian mafia’s bona fide princesses and maybe, just maybe, I can kill three birds with one stone if I play my cards right.

  He chuckles darkly. “You can’t take him out if you’re not willing to step up or, at least, not if you want your name on the hit because then you will have an issue with Allyov. You’ve either got to get rid of Popov on the down low, or get
rid of him and step into his shoes. Nature, after all, abhors a vacuum.”

  “Very philosophical. I need the world, as in our world, to know I did it.”

  “Why?”

  “Voloshin was responsible for Yulia’s death, and Popov helped.”

  “Motherfucker.” Andrius spits the word out. He has his own very personal reasons to hate Voloshin because the man attacked Andrius’ family. He also has reason to hate Popov.

  “I might be able to persuade the Italians that it would be mutually beneficial for them and Allyov to work together in the event of Popov’s unfortunate demise,” I say, deciding to not hold all my cards too close to my chest.

  “You have an in with the Italians?” Andrius sounds surprised.

  “Maybe, I said might, but yeah enough of an in, I can talk to them. And maybe I’d be willing to run things in the meantime, until an accommodation can be found.”

  “Okay, that might change things. Listen, let me talk to some people,” Andrius says. “Let me discuss this with the Greeks. They are involved in this too, and they have a lot of firepower, and just general power. They control whole shipping lanes. I’ll go talk with Stamatis Kantos. If you’re willing to step up or put someone in place to run things in London, then I think he’ll be okay with you getting rid of Popov. Allyov, I don’t know, but if you and he end up on opposing sides, I’m not Allyov’s henchman anymore. You remember that.”

  I laugh. “Andrius, you’re my brother, in many ways. Time doesn’t erase that. I have to kill Popov, though; you understand, yes?”

  “This puts me in a bad fucking position, brother. But, yes, I understand. Don’t do anything that could ever put Violet in harm’s way, and we’re good. If it weren’t for the fact I have a babe in my arms here and a very tired and sore wife, I’d hop on a plane and help you put the bullet in him. If it can wait a few weeks, I’ll come help.”

  I’m sure he would. Popov shot Andrius in the leg, leaving him with a severe injury and an uphill battle for recovery. Andrius only walked away in order to keep Violet safe.

  “Tell you what,” I say. “I’ll try to wait, and if I can’t I’ll shoot him in the knees first, make him suffer.”

  “Thank you,” Andrius says, deadly serious. “Tell him it is from me.”

  “Done. And before I remove him from this earth, I am going to take apart every facet of that fucking rotten empire those backward Siberian-spawned fucks built here in London. Every facet, that is, except for the part Allyov relies on, and that I will take over … for now. Long term, who knows. So, my friend, thanks for speaking to the Greeks. Keep things quiet for now from Allyov because I don’t want him to know. He might try to stop me, and that won’t do. Once it’s a done deal, I will level with him and make an offer. And consider this part vengeance for what Kyrylo did to your family, and what Popov did to you. I won’t let Allyov know we talked, and I won’t put you in danger.”

  “Zav to yoha, zda rhovya.” Andrius says.

  He’s saying cheers to my health basically. I tell him to get back to his wife and child, and hang up.

  For a long moment, I stare at my desk.

  I need information. Information on Popov and how far and deep his tentacles go, and information on the Italians running things down here. Both business and personal, so I can decide whether or not it would be a good thing for Michael to marry the girl he’s knocked up. Also, who knows what I might turn up. I’m not above blackmail if it gets me what I want.

  I’m not above anything much, if it gets me my way.

  What was it Margaret said about Cassie? She’s got hacking skills?

  Fuck.

  Serendipity is a beautiful bitch.

  I get up, march out of my office, down the corridor, and into Margaret’s now empty workspace. I unlock the top drawer of her filing cabinet, where I know she’ll have put the files for Bridge Tech, and sure enough there it is.

  I take out the page I want and head back to my own office.

  Closing my door, I pour a glass of brandy from the decanter on the sideboard and sip at it as I contemplate all the ways I can make Popov’s death as painful as possible.

  It seems my few years acting as a legitimate businessman in this country are about to end abruptly. I stare at the picture of Cassie and wonder just how deep she hacked into those government systems? A girl who could do that could certainly get into Popov’s business, of that I’m sure.

  I rub my pointer finger over her pouty, downturned mouth. It seems Cassie might have more than one thing I want. She’s unlucky in many ways. Things would have gone better for her if I’d never noticed her, but I did, and now she’s back on my radar, and it can’t be anything but fate.

  Little miss sunshine isn’t going to want to do what I need from her, but I can be very persuasive. As I stare at her, something long dead inside me roars to life. Something primitive, possessive, and vicious.

  I tried to pretend I was a civilized man. An ordinary man, but I am nothing of the sort.

  My inner demon is snapping at my skin, demanding to be let free, and I’m in just the mood to let him out.

  I’m going to war again, and every warrior wants his spoils. Cassie is about to become mine.

  I need a hacker, and I want my blonde barista. I’m determined to have both.

  I’m not above simply taking her and making her mine. She’ll fight me at first, but I can be very persuasive, and she wants me. She wanted me when she was engaged, and now, she’s all alone.

  All alone, and full of things I need in my life. All alone and vulnerable. She’s been careless, not kept herself safe. One might even say that what’s about to happen is her fault.

  They call me King K, and every king needs his queen. Will Cassie be mine?

  My little miss sunshine has no idea what’s about to hit her.

  **

  Thank you so much for reading.

  Continue Konstantin and Cassie’s journey in THE KING [Bratva Blood Book I]. It is free in KU.