by SR Jones
The Ghost
by SR Jones
A Bratva Blood Novella
Copyright SR Jones 2020
All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced or copied in any way without the written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Epilogue
This is for my mum!
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank: Silla Webb for her amazing editing and organizing skills and for keeping me on the straight and narrow!
My husband, and amazeballs cover designer, Obeithion Covers.
My beta and proofreader Jessica Fraser.
My beta readers, who are the best!
The whole of the Alpha Addicted ladies because you all rock!
Isa for sprinting and being awesome, and for motivating me with handbag porn!
Wander for the amazing photographs.
There is most likely someone I forgot, so thanks to everyone who has supported me, and to all of course, who read my scribblings.
Prologue
Violet
One Month Ago
The day is another unseasonably warm one. We’re outside, enjoying it while we can. I watch the men toss a ball back and forth. They’re playing rugby, but they aren’t really; they’re just bored and agitated, filling their time.
My husband catches the ball and runs with it, only to be caught around the waist and brought to the ground by Vasily. Konstantin, sitting next to me, chuckles.
“I think you all ought to learn how to play cricket instead,” I shout over as they stand, and Andrius brushes dirt from himself.
“Safer, more sedate,” Cassie says with a wink. “I like it,”
“Those men will never be sedate,” Zoey states.
I give her a smile. Cassie doesn’t. Zoey rarely joins us, and when she does, she’s very quiet.
I feel for her. I also feel stuck between her and Cassie. I like Cassie, a lot. She’s becoming a real friend, and my loyalties lie with her, but I totally understand why Zoey did what she did.
Hugging Eliana closer to me, I kiss the top of her head.
My gaze lifts and cuts across the grass to where Andrius is taking his muddy top off. My heart picks up speed at the sight of him as he wipes his brow with his shirt, slaps Damen on the back, and heads my way.
The men here are all big, dominant, and highly trained. They’re military, or most of them are, and you can see it in their bearing, their build, and most of all in the way they’re super aware of their surroundings. They’re always alert.
I glance at Konstantin, and his gaze sweeps his surroundings. It stalls when it lands on Zoey before moving on again.
Hypervigilance is where I think Konstantin is at right now. Andrius is always there. He rarely lets his guard down, but I believe Konstantin had to a degree. He was in the flush of new love, and he let his guard down and went to the beach.
What Zoey did to him there has torn that away from him. Now he’s back on alert. Never fully relaxing. Thing is, I could hate Zoey for it, but the woman has her own trauma to deal with. She shot him, and she feels terrible about it. It haunts her pretty gaze. She’s trapped really, now. She can’t leave here because outside forces are gathering against us.
Staying, however, is hardly safe for her.
Andrius won’t harm her. I know as much because I begged him to promise me, to swear to me. Once Andrius promises and swears something to me, he will follow that promise to his grave.
He reaches us, and I let my gaze roam the length of his incredible physique. Vasily has also taken his top off and his torso is leaner, covered in ink. Damen saunters up, still wearing his shirt, and cracks me a smile. He bends down to Eliana and kisses the top of her head.
“When are you going to get yourself a family?” Andrius asks.
Damen laughs. “I’d do it tomorrow, but Maya wants to live a little first. She’s younger than me, so I’m cool with that. I think Stamatis would love us to have kids, though. I don’t think Alesso and Stella will ever have kids.”
“Stella’s animals at the shelter are her babies,” I say softly.
I like Stella, a lot. She’s quiet, thoughtful, and kind. We don’t tend to see as much of her, however, as she puts so much work into the shelter.
“Next time you come, bring that prick,” Andrius says, presumably meaning Alesso. “It’s been ages since we’ve seen him.”
He picks up my glass of water and takes a healthy drink. I watch his throat bob. Even amongst these intimidating men, Andrius is the most charismatic of them all. That might be my bias toward my husband, but I don’t think it is. He’s the best shooter, something they all say. He’s focused. Calm and deadly. He never fully lets down his guard, and he won’t stop once he has a goal in his sights. It’s what terrifies me now.
I know something big is coming. Zoey shot Konstantin on the orders of a shadowy British group working for a new mafia grouping. Andrius says they can’t be allowed to cement their power, and that means he’s going to stop them.
The man I love is about to head back into a world he promised me he’d left behind. Andrius is about to break a promise he made, and I don’t know if we can come back from that.
I’ll do all I can to stop him from going, but in the end, it will be futile.
I kiss Eliana again.
It will be futile because Andrius sees us as his to protect, and he doesn’t understand that without him I am nothing.
I sigh and send up a prayer that my husband won’t throw a hand grenade into our world, even as my inner voice tells me he’s just about to do exactly that.
Chapter One
Andrius
I stir and turn onto my side. I can’t sleep. Violet is dreaming next to me, her leg twitching, half-words escaping her lips every now and then.
Our daughter is sleeping too, if the silence from the baby monitor is any indication. She spends the nights when she’s unsettled in her cot in our room, by the bed so either Violet or I can reach her to soothe her. Recently, though, she’s been sleeping better, and we get to have a little space back.
Violet is tired, and she needs the sleep. I’m tired too, but in a bone weary, world sick way. Tomorrow, I need to tell Violet that Vasily and I will be heading to Berlin and may be gone some time.
She’s going to hate it, maybe hate me. I swore to her when she came here to Greece with me that I’d leave that world behind for good. The past few weeks, however, I’ve been plotting with K’s men and my own how to reenter it. Violet is going to try to stop me, but she can’t. I must protect her and Eliana from what I know is a serious threat.
I sigh and throw an arm over my face. Fuck this shit. I want it to end. It feels as if God is punishing me for the things I did for Allyov by sending a never-ending wave of threats my way. My family’s way.
Violet moves again, and her ass sticks into my groin as she curls into a ball, the t-shirt she’s wearing riding up. I reach out and stroke a hand up her thigh to her smooth ass cheek. She isn’t wearing panties.
I curl around her, wanting her warmth, and hold her tight, my hand splayed on her belly. She gives a quiet moan and snuggles further into my embrace.
My dick stirs at the scent of her hair and her soft, warm skin under my hand. I don’t know if I’ll ever get
bored of her. I want her as much now as I did when I first fell for her.
Violet thinks I’m a good man. I’m not. She says she had a choice in what happened between us, and I never stepped over the boundary until I was clear she wanted me.
Technically, she’s correct. I’m not stupid, though. She was my prisoner, scared and alone. She had no one. I was older, more experienced, and I took advantage of that. She was a gift, and I kept her. It was wrong, but I’d do it all over again. I’d do anything to have Violet in my life.
I love her with a fierceness bordering on obsession. I think it would scare her if she knew how possessive I am of her. How much I need her where I can keep her safe and know where she is. I understand all too well it isn’t healthy, but it’s how I feel. In some ways, we’re an abomination. The daughter of the man who raped and killed my sister, and me, her captor. In other ways we’re perfect and each other’s salvation.
“You going to spend the rest of the night all up in your head, or are you going to do something with that big thing sticking in my ass?”
I snort at her words, and she giggles.
“I thought you were asleep,” I say with a kiss to her neck.
“I was until you poked me with that monster.”
“Do you really want to be poked?” I joke with her, but she wriggles again, making my blood heat.
“Hhhhmm, sounds like fun.”
Her voice is soft, and her words sleep slurred. I want her ready for me, so I scoot down between her legs, pushing her onto her back, and I part her folds. I lick her right on her clit and she bucks up into my mouth.
Violet is softly spoken, sweet, and kind. People think it means she’s weak. She’s not. She’s one of the strongest people I know, and she’s also deep. Strong and murky currents swim under her innocent shell. There’s a dark side to her that matches my own.
“God, Andrius,” she whispers.
We have to be quiet because we have guests. Cassie and K are both staying with us, and soon Reece and his partner will be visiting too. I don’t want her to be quiet. I want to make her scream, and then cover it with my palm, letting her bite me to stop the sounds she needs to make.
I work her clit the way I know she likes, inserting two fingers inside her rough and hard.
“Yes,” she hisses.
Violet likes it a little bit rough and a whole lot dirty. She loves being spanked, having her hair pulled, and in return she likes to scratch up my back and mark me with love bites on my chest. One day, a few months ago in summer, I went for a swim, and Justina told me I looked like I’d been tortured. I don’t care, I love wearing my wife’s marks.
Her legs are trembling now, and I want her to come on my cock, not my fingers, so I stop and kiss my way up her stomach. Pushing her t-shirt up with one hand, I suck a ripe nipple between my teeth and bite down. She arches her back, and her fingers thread into my hair, nails scraping my scalp.
I position myself at her entrance and surge up her body as I thrust inside.
Holy shit, she’s perfect. Every single time, it’s like coming home. It’s too much and never enough.
Violet isn’t normally a screamer. She has this breathy, soft, moaning sigh when she comes, but if I hit her g-spot right and get a finger in her ass, then she screams. I angle myself the right way, trying to focus, but already losing myself in the sensation of being inside her.
When I hit her spot just right, she gives a gasp, and I bite her ear.
She gets herself so worked up when I hit her g-spot this way, and it always turns me on beyond belief. Her head turns to one side, then the other, and her cheeks are flushed in the light spilling in the open curtains.
I stick two fingers in her mouth. “Make them nice and wet, baby.”
She whimpers as she does so, and when I withdraw them, she whines, “No, not that, Andrius.”
“You love it,” I tell her.
“You know it makes me … lose it; we have guests.”
“Fuck them. This is our house.”
“I’ll die of mortification.”
“Then you better be quiet, hadn’t you?”
She narrows her eyes at me, and I grin at her as I give an extra deep thrust. Those angry eyes flutter closed, and her neck strains. “Oh, God.”
Slowly, I push my middle finger into her tight ass, and she shivers and moans. Violet loves this. Being fucked up the ass, not so much. Says it’s just too much, too overwhelming, but a finger or two and she goes crazy.
“Andrius,” she whispers.
There are goose bumps breaking out over her upper arms, and her breathing increases as I fuck her deep and play with her ass. “Stroke yourself,” I tell her.
Shy still, even after all the times we’ve done this, she does as I say, her eyes sliding away from me.
“Give me your gaze,” I demand.
She does, and we watch one another as we work our way toward the cliff together.
It doesn’t take long before her gasps are getting louder, and I add an extra finger as she moans, and her thighs tense.
She’s going to come, and it’s going to be explosive. I need this. Need her to fall apart under me, so I can carry the memory of it through whatever is about to unfold.
I put my free hand over her mouth as her moans heighten. “Bite my hand, baby. Bite it as hard as you need to. Scratch my back, do what you need to, but come for me. I want you to soak my cock.”
She locks her eyes on mine as her whole body freezes for a moment. She pulses against me, and her eyes roll back in her head as she grips my cock in a vise.
A muffled scream breaks out behind my hand, and she bites down.
Yes. I want her to bite me so hard it leaves a mark. Her perfect little teeth imprinted onto my palm for me to see every time I miss her. One hand is still playing furiously with her clit, but the other rakes my shoulder. Nails cut deep, and I love the pain mixing with the pleasure.
I lose myself in it all, in her, and come so hard I see stars.
We haven’t fucked like this in a long time. It’s been gentler since she gave birth to our daughter, and this feels like coming home to the dark beating heart of us.
I’m saying shit to her, mindless filthy shit about taking it all like a good girl, and she’s still coming. It’s glorious, and I want it to never end, but of course it does.
When it’s over, I pull her into me, withdrawing carefully, and wrapping her in my arms. We should probably get cleaned up, but all I want to do right now is keep her tight and safe next to me.
She sighs, and her breath hitches. I pull back and look at her, shocked to see tears in her eyes.
“You’re leaving, aren’t you?” she whispers.
I freeze; even the air in my lungs doesn’t move for a moment.
Tomorrow. This conversation wasn’t supposed to happen until tomorrow.
“What?” I play for time, but I need to be truthful with her.
“I don’t mean for good, but you’re going to go and get these people, aren’t you? I hear you men talking, plotting.”
“You’re not safe, zaika.”
“Don’t call me that, not when you’re telling me you’re leaving.” She pushes at me, trying to push me away, but I hold on tighter.
“You and Eli, you’re all that matters to me, Violet.”
“And you and Eli are all that matters to me.” She pushes me again, hard on my chest.
“We have a daughter now, and we must make sure she’s safe, Vi.”
“Don’t use Eliana against me,” she says in a seething whisper.
Oh, boy, she’s going to lose her temper any moment. The thing about my Violet is she’s soft and kind, until she isn’t, and then she has a fierce temper and even fiercer will.
“You promised.” She crumples, and instead of fire, I get water as she starts to cry.
This is worse than rage. I hate seeing her tears. It cuts me deep every time.
“Violet, zaika, please. You know I can’t let those men come here and
take you. It’s the worst fate I could ever imagine, knowing they had you. Do you know what they do?”
“They can’t get to us here, if we all bunker down and stay in the perimeter.”
I sit up a little and rake a hand through my hair. “Become prisoners? In our own home? No more swimming at the beach? No more going to visit our friends in Athens?”
“Those things aren’t important. We have everything we need here. We have our daughter and each other, a beautiful home, land. God, Andrius, the place across the way you’ve bought is huge. We could ride there, build a huge pool to swim in, go for runs, and never have to leave.”
“Do you know how they killed the head of the Kazak mafia?”
She shakes her head.
“They poisoned him and his family. Injected it into watermelons they delivered to the house. It took two weeks for his wife to die. She was in agony. He died after only two days. He ate more of the watermelon.”
Her huge eyes widen further, as I tell the now legendary tale.
“That’s not true.” She huffs out an annoyed breath.
I shrug. “Thing is, baby, no one knows if it’s true or not. Is it possible? Yes, it is. Do we hire a taster like the kings of old? No one can live under siege forever. We need to eliminate the threat, and the only way to do that is to kill enough of those at the head that the snake collapses.”
“You could die,” she says on a sob.
“Zaika, listen to me; you’re not being logical. Konstantin almost died at the beach here. They came to us. We aren’t safe. I’m as likely to die sitting around the pool because some sniper fucker gets a shot in. We. Are. Not. Safe.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know. This particular trip, I’ll be going to Berlin first, with Vasily and Alexei, then to London. I’ll come home after, and we’ll discuss what to do next.”
“Can’t you wait until Konstantin is recovered? He can help.”
“I don’t want to wait. The second in command in the Starz Allianz is in Berlin right now, and they aren’t as organized out there. They’re weak, and we need to strike while they’re still trying to recalibrate things.”