by Vivian Gray
This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places, events, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.
Scarred: A Russian Mob Romance (Anosov Family Mafia) (Scars and Sins Collection Book 1)
copyright @ 2018 by Vivian Gray. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.
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Contents
Scarred: A Russian Mob Romance (Anosov Family Mafia) (Scars and Sins Collection Book 1)
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Epilogue
Silas: A Bad Boy Motorcycle Club Romance (Death Knells MC)
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Epilogue
Scarred: A Russian Mob Romance (Anosov Family Mafia) (Scars and Sins Collection Book 1)
By Vivian Gray
I screwed her like I owned her – because I did.
I never lose control.
Being a mob boss means keeping a tight rein on my emotions, my body, my business.
But then I saw the fear in her innocent eyes, begging me to let her go…
And I knew I had to make her mine.
ANTON
Buying things has lost its thrill.
No one ever warned me about that particular downside of being a mafia billionaire.
But winning things…
Seizing anything you want from the weaker, the helpless, the cowardly…
That still gets my blood churning.
So, when the girl’s idiot boyfriend wagered her in a desperate final poker hand,
I knew she was meant to be mine.
She thinks I’m joking when I tell her to go wait for me.
But I’ve never been more serious.
And my armed bodyguard convinces her this is the farthest thing from a prank.
Now, when the time is right, I will go back to where she is chained.
I will lift up her pretty chin and stare straight into those gorgeous, helpless eyes.
And I will tell her the sick truth of her frightening new reality:
You belong to me now, kitten.
Chapter One
Bailey
Brendan’s car smelled like rot. I’d kicked aside several containers of decaying fast food just to slip into the front seat, and the seven green pine trees he had hanging from his rearview mirror couldn’t touch the stench.
I felt overdressed. He’d told me we would be going out on a nice date, and despite the series of alarm bells that went off in my head every time he made me any kind of promise, I’d still been a good girlfriend and dressed in my nicest red dress and heels. I’d even spent thirty minutes painstakingly curling my hair. I figured as long as he took me somewhere nicer than his car, I’d be happy.
That was, of course, until he pulled up in front of Temno.
“Temno? What the hell is this?” I asked, turning to him. I’d been trying to suspend my doubts, but the building we’d parked in, complete with a neon outline of a naked woman and a hunk of plywood covering a shattered window, did not look worthy of my outfit.
“Don’t be such a prude,” he barked out. “Don’t forget you aren’t too good for a nightclub.”
I heard the pointed tone of his voice, and my cheeks flamed. “You said it would be a nice restaurant.”
He turned the ignition, killing the sputter of his car’s practically broken-down engine. “If you want a nice restaurant, we have to stop here first.”
What did that even mean? I wanted to ask, but Brendan had already slipped out of the car and was making his way towards the club. So much for opening my car door. I climbed out of the low seat, grateful for my first breath of fresh air in fifteen minutes and followed him. I didn’t really have another choice.
I was surprised to find Brendan waiting for me just inside the front door. The room was dark, illuminated only by red bulbs behind cages along the walls and the spotlights pointed at each of the seven stages spread throughout the room. Only three of the stages were occupied, and the club’s patrons – mostly men in their fifties – crowded around them.
Brendan’s attention caught on one of the girls, a blonde woman with torn fishnets and a red corset that had popped open, revealing the curve of her breasts. The direct spotlight washed out her skin, making her look almost transparent. Still, even I could appreciate her beauty. She looked tired and barely half-committed to her performance as she wrapped a long leg around the pole and spun, her head tilted back, wavy hair fanning out around her, but she was young enough and busty enough that I highly doubted any of the men watching her cared.
A stab of annoyance pierced my stomach, and I grabbed Brendan’s elbow, trying to turn him towards me. “What are we doing here? I don’t want to drink and watch girls dance.”
He looked down at me, his eyes glazing over for a second before he shook his head clear and seemed to take me in. He ran his eyes down my frame, and I wondered whether he was comparing me to the woman on the pole. His face twisted with an emotion I couldn’t pinpoint, and then he smiled until it looked like his skin would tear.
I flinched as he wrapped an arm around me, uncertain what he was doing. But then he pulled me into his side, tucking me into an overwhelming cloud of his cologne.
“This,” he said, gesturing to the blonde woman who had slipped out of her corset, her breasts now fully exposed and bouncing, “is not our final destination.”
My eyebrows pulled together. “Then where are we going?”
Rather than answering me, Brendan led me to a back corner of the room. I didn’t see the black door until we were standing directly in front of it. The color perfectly matched the surrounding wall and the door didn’t have a handle. I only knew it was a door because Brendan lifted his fist and knocked on it five times, leaving a long space between the first two knocks and doing the last three in quick succession.
I looked up at him, unsure which of the thousand questions running through my mind I should ask first, but before I could say anything, the door slid open a crack, and a voice asked for the password. Brendan leaned forward and whispered something I couldn’t hear. There were a few seconds
where I felt certain the mysterious stranger behind the door would turn us away.
Brendan worked as a tire salesman. He didn’t exactly seem the type to hang out in secret clubs and remember passwords. He couldn’t even remember the code to his own garage. However, much to my surprise, the door opened up enough for us to slip inside. Brendan grabbed my arm and pulled me in.
I’m ashamed to say I expected there to be an elaborately eloquent dinner arranged in the back room of the strip club. Somehow, despite everything I knew to be true about Brendan Jacobs, I thought he had somehow managed to sneak us into a super exclusive restaurant. So, when we walked through the door, and I saw the poker table with all manner of gruff and grizzled men sitting around it, disappointment overwhelmed me.
“A poker game?” I whispered. My feet stopped moving, but Brendan dragged me along behind him, a smile plastered on his face.
“Chill,” he hissed out between his teeth, the smile never leaving his lips. His arm around my waist was meant to look casual and romantic, but he was squeezing me too tight. It felt like I couldn’t breathe.
“We don’t have any money,” I said, though my voice trailed off as I spoke. Brendan was shooting daggers at me. If looks could kill, I would have been dead ten times over. I zipped my lips together.
“No, you don’t have any money,” he corrected.
He turned back to the room and waved to the men at the table, who gave him only the most cursory of glances before looking elsewhere. I hated that Brendan was right. I’d been out of work for almost a month, and he rarely let me forget it. When I first lost my job as a waitress, he had offered to let me move in with him, and I thought maybe it would be a turning point in our relationship.
The first few days we cooked together and had sex in every room of the house. It felt like when we’d first started dating. He told me how happy he was to have me living with him. But then one night I’d been too tired to have sex.
“I don’t feel like it tonight,” I’d said.
And Brendan snapped.
“You ungrateful bitch. I let you live with me. The least you can do is give it up.”
We had sex just to make the yelling stop, but from there, things had gone steadily downhill. I would have left if I had anywhere else to go, but Brendan was my only lifeline.
“Back again, Brendan?” one of the men asked, laughing in a way that made it clear he was laughing at Brendan, not with him. He had a pockmarked face and leathery cheeks that were not helped by his greasy, slicked back hairstyle. It was impossible to tell how old he was. He could have been anywhere between thirty and seventy, but his thick shoulders and barrel chest kept me from staring at him long enough to find out.
Brendan released a nervous sound that could have been laughter, but also could have been a whimper. “I’m feeling lucky tonight.” He pulled me harder into his side and kissed the top of my head.
“You brought a good luck charm?” the man asked, eyeing me hungrily. I half-expected him to lick his lips and begin to salivate. Suddenly, I didn’t mind being tucked so far into Brendan’s side.
“I sure hope so.” Brendan laughed. “If she ends up not being lucky, perhaps I’ll give her to one of you.”
A few men laughed, and I knew it was supposed to be a joke, but it didn’t strike me as particularly funny. Each of the men sitting around the table looked as though they knew of at least twenty different ways to dispose of a body. I swallowed and did my best to remain emotionless and neutral.
The room had more lights than the club did, but they were congregated in the center of the room, casting the corners in inky darkness. So, I practically jumped out of my skin when a man emerged from the shadows to my left, his eyes trained on me.
He didn’t look like the rest of the men in the room. He appeared to be younger, only five or so years older than me, and where everyone else wore dark suits like they were going to a funeral, his was navy blue and impeccably tailored. It hugged his lean, strong body, showing off his muscled thighs. I’d never been attracted to a man’s thighs before. His dark black hair looked crisp with gel, but it had a natural wave in it that he hadn’t tried to comb out. I wanted to reach out and run my fingers through it, but before the idea could make it from my brain to my hand, Brendan tightened his grip on me.
“Anton,” he said, nodding to the man.
The man whose name was apparently Anton nodded back. “Brendan.”
He knew Brendan? By name? I looked up at Brendan, at his patchy beard that had been in need of a shave for a few weeks, his mess of tousled blond hair, his wide jaw and soft chin. He didn’t look like the kind of man Anton would waste his time getting to know, though to be fair, I didn’t know Anton at all. Perhaps he didn’t always wear expensive suits and gel his hair, though I couldn’t imagine him ever looking as slovenly as Brendan.
The two men looked at one another, each waiting for the other to make their move. I felt tense like I was watching an animal documentary. The two males are each vying for the position of alpha. It seemed clear to me Anton wouldn’t budge. He looked me up and down lazily, taking his time. His blue eyes ran up my legs, pausing at the exposed skin between the hem of my dress and my knee, and thoroughly explored the cleavage busting out of the dress that, if I was being honest with myself, was at least one size too small.
When he finally made it to my face, our eyes met, and I couldn’t look away. It felt like I was being sucked into his gaze. I had half a mind to unpeel Brendan’s sweaty arm from around my waist and sidle up next to Anton. Before I could, however, Brendan let out a nervous laugh and pulled me towards the table.
“I suppose we should claim our seat,” he said.
Anton smirked at me, though I couldn’t tell whether the smile had been meant for me or whether it was because he’d been able to make Brendan uncomfortable enough with his stare to back down. Either way, it sent a swarm of butterflies flitting around my stomach. By the time we sat down at the table, I was grateful for the chair. My knees felt weak.
Anton took the seat directly across from me, and I made it my mission not to look at him again. I needed to focus. Brendan had a habit of being reckless, and I couldn’t sit by and let him be reckless with the little bit of money he had. That money was the only thing that stood between me and living on the streets. And I wouldn’t do that again. Not if I could help it.
Everyone quieted as the game began, and the fake smile Brendan had been wearing for the past few minutes suddenly turned to stony concentration. He tipped the edges of his cards up as soon as they were placed in front of them, and then he dropped them back to the table. His jaw tightened.
Anton began the betting with four white chips. I knew nothing about poker or what everything stood for, and when I leaned over to ask Brendan, he bristled and nudged me away with his shoulder.
“Check.” He pushed four white chips into the center.
More cards were dealt, and again, Anton raised his bet, putting in another four chips. A few men folded, dropping their cards and shoving away from the table. Brendan hesitated for half a second before matching Anton’s bet.
“Can you win?” I whispered.
The man next to us overheard me, and he raised an eyebrow. Brendan looked at him and rolled his eyes. He wrapped his arm around me and responded loudly, so everyone could hear, “No one bets this much money without thinking they can win.”
This much money? How much was he betting? I wanted to ask, but the bow-tied man flipped the fifth and final card in the center of the table, and Anton immediately pushed three blue chips to the center. I wanted Brendan to fold. I didn’t know anything about poker, but I could tell by the slant of his shoulders and the tightness of his jaw that he was nervous.
He pulled me to his side and kissed my forehead again. “I’ll call.”
I allowed myself to sneak a glance at Anton. He smiled, his white teeth sparkling in the bright glow of the bulb above the table as he showed his cards. Before Brendan could even flip his, I knew he’d l
ost. Air pushed out of his chest like he’d been kicked by a horse.
The man in the bow tie slid the chips across the green felt towards Anton, and the game began again.
“How much money did you just lose?” I whispered.
Brendan waved me away and stared at his cards.
Anton folded as soon as the three cards were placed in the center of the table, but once again, Brendan matched every bet. And once again, he lost. The chips went to the greasy-haired man we’d talked to at the start of the game.
In the third round, Brendan finally folded after calling the first two bets, though I couldn’t help but notice how few chips sat in front of him compared to everyone else. Did he know what he was doing? Everyone had recognized him and known his name, so it seemed likely he played poker often enough, but then why was he so bad at it?
“When are we going to go to dinner?” I asked, my stomach rumbling with hunger and nerves.
Brendan placed his hand on my thigh, forcing the hem of my dress even further up my legs, and squeezed hard. “Be patient.”
Anton looked up at me from beneath his long lashes, and I saw his gaze flick to the bruise on my leg. I moved quickly to hide it beneath my arm. He looked back to his cards, but his lips pulled into a straight line, and I wondered if he understood what he’d seen.