Debase (Elite Bratva Brotherhood Book 1)

by Rachel Van Dyken

  “Last chance before you pass out,” Andrei said in a cold, detached voice.

  “GO TO HELL!” she roared.

  “Already living there. Even have a nice flat screen and king size bed, but your concern—” He grabbed a pack of matches from his pocket and lit a stick. “—is noted.”

  He dropped it.

  Instantly, the floor erupted in flames.

  It was writing.

  Petrov.

  It didn’t touch her body.

  He grabbed another match, lit it, and grabbed a bottle of vodka that was sitting near the bed.

  “Give me a name,” he demanded.

  She stared down at the floor.

  He took a swig of alcohol and blew across the match, lighting her entire right arm on fire.

  Amidst her screaming, he pressed a button, lowering the floor again. He grabbed the bucket filled with blood and salt, then dumped it over her burning flesh.

  Her screams pierced the air.

  It smelled like blood and alcohol.

  Like salt and acid.

  Like the fires of Hell.

  He nodded to her arm. “So, you don’t forget who you’re talking to.”

  And then he pointed to the floor. “So, you never forget who runs this family. I’ll be back tonight.”

  Her teeth chattered and then her eyes rolled to the back of her head as she slumped in her seat.

  She’d passed out from pain.

  Covered in her own blood.

  In salt.

  And still smoking from where he’d set her on fire.

  With a burned inscription on her arm.

  Andrei.

  A sick part of me was glad.

  A sick part of me.

  Was proud.

  Because I would have given anything to be able to do that to my brother for laying his hands on me, for daring touch what wasn’t his.

  I didn’t realize how much I wanted vengeance.

  No… revenge.

  Until Andrei led me back down the hall and into the apartment.

  “You’re shaking,” he whispered. “Good.”

  I nodded.

  “You’re afraid,” he added after another minute. “Even better.”

  “No,” I said quickly.

  “No?” he repeated, hesitating briefly before putting his hands on my shoulders and turning me toward him. “Is this your first lie?”

  “Not scared.” I exhaled roughly and met his gaze. “You gave me his tongue.”

  Andrei nodded slowly.

  “If I asked for his still beating heart?”

  He showed no surprise as he said. “Consider it done.”

  “And if I wanted to do the honors?”

  “I’d hand you the fucking knife.”

  “That would be murder.”

  “No,” he whispered harshly. “That would be justice.”

  I kissed him then, stood up on my tiptoes and crushed my mouth against his. He was warm, every hard part of his body.

  He pulled me into his arms, pressing me against the counter top as he deepened the kiss, digging his hands into my hair, the same hands that had just tortured another human being.

  Maybe I was as depraved as he was.

  Maybe he’d awakened something inside me.

  Because I wasn’t sorry.

  No. I wanted more.

  Because I was on the other side.

  And for once, I was empowered.

  No longer the victim.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Andrei

  The room crackled and hissed around me. It laughed at my pain while she kissed it away.

  She should run.

  I warned Chase’s wife.

  Told her to run.

  Now it was my turn.

  To tell her that she was kissing poison.

  Getting too close.

  I slid my tongue into her mouth. I tasted, I took, I was greedy with each kiss. With blood on my hands, I held her.

  With death in my soul, I drank from her.

  With the devil in my heart, I coveted her.

  I wanted closer.

  More.

  My gloves felt too hot for my hands.

  My hands too big to contain the weeping leather as I pulled away from Alice and stared into her big blue eyes.

  “You don’t want this,” I whispered.

  She bit down on her swollen lip and reached for me, I stood still as her warm hands touched both of my cheeks. “Lie.”

  I let out a hiss of air at her touch. “Walk. Away.”

  “Kiss me again.”

  “I can’t do that.” I needed to stop doing that.

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  I told myself one more kiss, one more touch. I told myself it would be okay, that I was still in control.

  That I was above this.

  That no woman had ever owned me.

  No woman had ever taken everything.

  My chest heaved as I stared at her mouth, unable to move, completely rooted to the floor.

  Alice moved her hands to my jeans and slowly unbuttoned them. I didn’t stop her, I needed to fucking stop her, but it was like I’d drank this paralyzing poison from her lips and couldn’t function, could only watch her as my soul floated above my body, mocking my inaction, telling me that this would be the end of me.

  The very end.

  Letting her in.

  Keeping her there.

  I would give her everything.

  And then I would lose control.

  Lose my mind.

  Lose my heart.

  I would lose.

  So would she.

  “Alice…” My voice cracked. “I wish…” Her hands stilled on my jeans like she was ready to pull them down. “I can’t. I wish I could. I can’t.”

  How could she possibly understand?

  How could I explain the gut-wrenching fear of looking in the mirror and knowing that one choice kept me sane. One choice.

  And that was sex.

  He’d made that choice.

  I wouldn’t.

  I couldn’t.

  I couldn’t trust myself, couldn’t trust it wouldn’t happen to me too, and hurt someone like her.

  Someone so very… perfect.

  Without blinking, Alice gripped my jeans, indecision etched on every pretty part of her face.

  She was beautiful.

  So damn beautiful.

  I gripped her wrists with my hands and pulled them away from the very real temptation of getting completely naked and sinking into her, feeling her clench around me, her tight heat.

  Shit.

  I pulled her into my arms, and she rested her head on my shoulder. Just because I couldn’t let her touch me, couldn’t cross that line, didn’t mean I couldn’t make her happy, I would kill to watch her face in the throes of multiple orgasms.

  I quickly gripped her by the hips and put her up on the cold granite countertop.

  “Andrei what are you doing?” She looked down at me uncertainty in her blue eyes.

  I moved my hands to her ass and pulled down the black leggings she’d been wearing, all the way down to her ankles, right along with a pair of lacy underwear that were bright pink, and perfect.

  “Andrei?”

  “Yes?”

  “Seriously, what are you doing?”

  I gripped her knees with my hands and then spread them wide. “What’s it look like I’m doing?” I smirked. “I’m feasting.”

  Her eyes widened.

  Never underestimate a virgin with an extremely vivid imagination and heightened sexual appetite.

  I wasn’t a fucking monk.

  I would like to think I knew more than most men, because I’d seen it all, watched it, inadvertently studied it.

  If someone gave me a diagram of a woman, I could point out over twenty-two ways to get her off — with my tongue, a feather, my fingers, take your pick.

  “You don’t have to—” She let out a gasp, gripping the edge of the granit
e, turning her hands white.

  I chuckled darkly against her right thigh and bit. “I’m sorry, what was that? I don’t have to?”

  “I’ve never, nobody has ever… done. This.”

  “Tell me,” I asked gently before I dipped my tongue inside her and flicked.

  Her entire body jerked.

  “Tell me he never touched you like this, tell me nobody has ever touched you like this.”

  “Never,” she rasped. “You.” That word was like a gunshot going off in my soul. “Only you, Andrei.”

  “Me.” I flicked my tongue again, and gripped her by the ass, pulling her almost completely off the counter while I sat beneath her and sucked her off in the most primitive aggressive way I knew how.

  With every ounce of energy I had in my physical body.

  With my soul.

  I used every weapon in my arsenal.

  My tongue relaxed her, made her entire body quiver, my fingers splayed her open and teased every pink part of her.

  I breathed her in.

  Inhaled her scent.

  Exhaled a heated breath against her sensitive swollen flesh.

  “This is too much. It’s too much I can’t.” She gripped my hair.

  I pulled back, slowing each stroke, licked her like she was chocolate and vanilla swirl.

  “Oh, God.” She jerked against my face.

  And I fucking drank.

  Quenched my thirst on her orgasm.

  And swore to do it again.

  Her entire body quaked against me, her heartbeat pulsed against my tongue, and when I drew back, when the after effects finally settled… I gazed up at her, wiping my mouth down her thigh to her knee, and locked eyes with her. “I’m not even close to being full.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Alice

  “What if I’m hungry?” I asked innocently, still fully exposed to Andrei with his swollen, wet mouth, his smug as hell mouth.

  He smirked. “I’ll make you dinner.”

  “Not that kind of food.”

  “I’m spicier than you,” he fired back with an amused laugh.

  “What? And I’m cake?”

  “I didn’t get a good enough taste test. I’ll come back to you on that, once I feed you. The only rule is you have to sit on my face. Otherwise… no deal.”

  I almost hid behind my own hands. “You…” I had nothing.

  “Me.” He shrugged. “You like stir fry?”

  I almost smacked him. “You can’t just say things like that out loud and then offer stir fry!”

  “Fine.” He leaned in; his lips moved up my neck. “Steak?”

  “Meat. I could do meat.” I reached for him.

  He dodged me.

  “When are we going to talk about the fact that this isn’t an even playing field?” I asked out loud while he moved around the kitchen island, still so obviously aroused I had trouble not staring.

  The man was… incredible.

  And he still had pants on.

  Unbelievable.

  I wasn’t attracted.

  Was that the lie I was telling myself?

  “It’s cute that you think there’s a chance things will ever be fair between you and me.” He seemed so amused I wanted to smack him.

  “You can’t just do things like that to people and then just offer stir fry and then walk around so aroused you’ll probably poke your own eye out in the next five minutes!”

  He barked out a laugh. “First off, if I was that hung, I’d be a horse. Second, I’m still in possession of both eyes, but it’s good to know you’re concerned.”

  “I’m not.” I gritted my teeth, pulled up my leggings, and jumped off the counter in a final tug to get them to the right spot. “You’re avoiding this discussion.”

  “I’m trying to feed you.” He moved around the kitchen, opened the fridge.

  I slammed the door closed. “I’m not leaving.”

  He sighed. “You think after that I’d let you?”

  “What was your plan? Barring the door and chaining me to your bed?”

  He leaned against the fridge, his eyes scanning me from head to toe. “Close. I was planning on chaining you to your bed and then feeding on you whenever I got edgy…”

  “So, like every five minutes?”

  He leaned in and whispered, “Three.”

  “If I agree to that will you at least take off your gloves when you’re around me?”

  He’d touched me intimately without gloves on.

  And it hadn’t seemed hard.

  Yet I knew it was. I knew it was painful.

  I knew because Phoenix said it was.

  Before I lost the nerve, I reached for his right hand and clutched it in mine.

  He bit back a curse.

  His entire body went stiff.

  When he was in control it didn’t hurt him, that’s what I’d noticed, but when it was forced on him, he reacted.

  I almost gave up then.

  Because I knew that there was no way I could let him take control during sex, could I? I’d spent years being abused by a brother who tried everything under the sun to try to get it up so he could have sex with me, so he could debase me.

  Being at Andrei’s mercy.

  I gulped.

  And yet, the only way this was happening.

  Was if I submitted to a man.

  When I swore never again.

  Andrei stared down at me.

  He was so beautiful. With his fierce blue eyes, chiseled jaw, perfect complexion. My fallen angel.

  I wondered what it would be like to just drop to my knees.

  “You should eat.” He broke the staredown, his jaw flexing as he gripped my hand tighter and then very slowly brought it to his lips and kissed the back of it.

  I almost swooned all over the floor. “I like it when you kiss me.”

  His face softened. “You’re impossible not to kiss.”

  “My dad said I was too tempting, my lips too big, my eyes too wide, he said I tempted men and—”

  Andrei gripped my chin with his left hand, still holding my right. “Listen very carefully to what I’m about to say.”

  His eyes flashed with so much anger I was actually afraid. “Okay.”

  “It’s. Not. Your. Fault.”

  Tears filled my line of vision until finally spilling over onto my cheeks. “It is, they say—”

  “Alice, if you hear nothing else, believe nothing else, believe this. You are precious, and they will burn in Hell for hurting you, for telling you lies. The value you have, your life, your soul, your beauty, your intelligence, never let them make you think it’s worthless. That’s their shame talking, their anger, their bitterness, their jealousy. The truly ugly of this world have one thing in common and one thing only… they want the truly pure and beautiful things to believe they are less than. Don’t let them win.”

  My throat felt tight.

  My tears too hot for my cheeks.

  “Now…” He released my hand and pulled me against his chest, hugging me so tight that I wanted to cry more because it felt so right, so good.

  Devil mine.

  I instantly relaxed.

  “Let me make you food,” he whispered against my hair.

  “As long as it’s not that weird fish with the sharp fin. He was really pretty.”

  He barked out a laugh his body shaking against mine. “We won’t kill Speedy.”

  “Stop.” I jerked away with a smile, wiping my tears from my cheeks. “Please tell me you don’t name all your torturous animals.”

  He just shrugged and said, “The jellyfish’s name is Bob.”

  And just like that, I, Alice De Lange.

  Fell in love with Andrei Petrov.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Andrei

  She promised me she would eat while I went and checked on Elena. The last thing I wanted was to leave that apartment with her scent on my skin, her taste still buzzing across my tongue, numbing my mouth.

 
I jerked open the heavy door to the purple room. The odor of Hell wafted out. Burnt skin, blood, and fear.

  Her clothes were still soaked with blood and salt, and the angry red and pink slashes across her right arm were already starting to swell.

  Good.

  “Names,” I said in a harsh whisper.

  “P-protection.” Her teeth chattered.

  “You’re going into shock.” I made my way toward her, circled her chair, and stopped when I was directly behind her. “It’s normal for your body to shake, for your teeth to gnash against each other in search of relief, relief that won’t ever come.” I ran a finger down the side of her neck.

  She flinched.

  Even her skin felt evil. “Tell me.” I removed my finger. “Is it worth suffering over? Dying over?”

  “I tell you, you don’t protect me, I die.”

  “Fine.” I snapped. “I’ll offer you protection inside these walls, how does that sound?”

  She snorted. “Like a trick.”

  “It’s all you’ll get.”

  “Swear to me!” she screeched “Swear that you’ll protect me here, in these walls.”

  I walked to the door and opened it, then hit the comm button that was on the outside, dialing up Ax.

  “Boss?”

  “Bring in Lennie.”

  “Yup.”

  I walked back into the room and faced her with a calm smile. Mascara ran down her cheeks, her teeth clenched together like she was a feral animal.

  She would be the sort to feed on her own young.

  Hadn’t she tried?

  “Just once, Andrei, he doesn’t have to know! You’re growing up so fast…” Red nails dug into my thigh.

  I shivered.

  She deserved exactly what was coming. “I swear.”

  She hung her head. “It’s Oscar De Lange and his cousin Aldo. Before your father was killed he gave them the contract. Their only job was to bring fresh girls to the clubs, use the same cars, drop ’em off, and do it again. They still had connections with the old prostitution rings.”

  My blood chilled. It would make sense. How Alice’s brother knew about the club, why he visited, why he thought bringing her here would get rid of her.

  Or possibly…

  Distract me.

  I jerked my head toward the door. It opened, and Lennie made his way in, black briefcase in one hand, black plastic gloves in the other.