The Profilers (Born Bratva The Lost Years Book 2)

by Suzanne Steele

  In the end, Rene was all the family he had left. He knew he wouldn’t survive losing her. He also knew she wasn’t going to like it, but he was going to be keeping an even closer eye on her.

  Rene Murphy was an independent woman. She didn’t need a hero. But he was going to be her hero anyway.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Ah, printsessa, Papa loves you with his whole heart. Come, little warrior, and rule the world with me.” Glazov held Roksana close against his chest, nuzzling her neck and inhaling her sweet baby smell. She frowned as she peered over his shoulder. She wriggled in his arms and reached out a chubby hand to grab his ponytail, only to huff indignantly and pout when she couldn’t reach it.

  “Well, you’re an ornery little shit.” His laughter rang through the room and she couldn’t help but giggle when she saw his smile. It was true. His little Roksana was a handful and always would be.

  Kathleen glided over, smiling indulgently. “She has your temperament, you know. Heaven help us all.”

  “She’ll need it. A woman in a Bratva brigade has to be taken seriously, and she won’t be if she’s a lightweight.”

  Nikita scowled as he tugged at Glazov’s slacks. Glazov bent down, picking the boy up with ease. Roksana leaned forward, grabbed her brother’s arm, and cooed. She adored her big brother and was completely smitten with him. She still didn’t hesitate to whomp him upside the head when he made her angry, though. But her father? She thought her father hung the moon and stars and could do no wrong.

  Glazov handed the children off to Irina, who smiled indulgently as she efficiently herded the wriggling duo down the hall to the playroom.

  Of the several nannies in the Glazov household, Irina was the children’s favorite. Some things never change, he thought to himself as he listened to her whisper softly to her young charges in Russian, probably promising them a sweet treat as she used to do with him. The elderly woman had been Glazov’s childhood nanny and it pleased him to know that his children were in her care when he and his wife wanted time alone.

  Irina, of course, swore to anyone who would listen that the Pakhan’s children were absolute angels, but it was well known that they didn’t hesitate to give the other nannies hell when they didn’t get their way. The two Glazov children had already mastered the fine art of tag teaming the staff to advance their personal interests. Perhaps he was a tad biased, but Glazov already saw the early signs of a remarkable intellect in both his children. He could hardly wait to see where it would lead.

  All traces of humor left his face as Glazov lowered himself into a chair with a heavy sigh. His wife approached him, her silk robe swaying behind her. She stood behind him and freed his slightly disheveled hair from the ponytail. Taking her time, she ran her fingers through the silky, pale strands, using her fingertips to massage his scalp before lowering her hands to his tense shoulders.

  Eventually, Glazov crossed his arms and reached for her hands. Kathleen slid her arms around his shoulders and, with his hands clasping her forearms, pressed her cheek to the top of his head.

  “Better?” she asked softly after several minutes of comfortable silence.

  “Much. Thank you.”

  She straightened and gathered his hair into a ponytail once more. When she began to step away, he pulled her onto his lap.

  “You have to let this go, Glazov. Ivan made his decision for the good of us all. You did what you felt was best and so did he. Hindsight is fine but not if it is going to be a distraction. You can’t beat yourself up. It will hinder business if you’re distracted. There’s too much at risk. Somebody’s going to get hurt or killed.”

  The truth of her words hit him in the gut. She was right; a Pakhan who wasn’t on top of his game was of no use to anyone.

  He twisted a lock of her long red hair around his finger and tugged on it, pulling her down toward him. His lips locked on hers, his tongue slipping between her lips. He kissed her long and slow, knowing from experience that the contact was a tangible way of staying connected to the good things in his life.

  She reached down between them and unfastened his pants. He pushed them down and helped her adjust her position until she was straddling his lap and lowering herself onto his thick, hard cock. As she began to move, his head lolled back and he groaned with pleasure. Kathleen had a way of making the world go away until it was just the two of them, and he loved her for it.

  The sensual roll of her hips against his was exactly what he needed. His legs began to tense as an orgasm seared a fiery path through his body. The heat of his release gathered at the base of his spine before surging hotly up his shaft to freedom.

  God, but this woman made life worth living. She put things in perspective. And she was right; it was time for the Pakhan to move on.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Novak laid his head against the pillow and interlocked his fingers behind his neck. He closed his eyes and enjoyed the silence, letting go of everything. He owned a small house in Louisville located on five acres of woods and solitude. It was his refuge to get away from the world when life relentlessly rained down bullshit. When he crossed the threshold and closed the door behind him, he left everything outside—everything except the demons he fought, and Novak had more than his share of those.

  He closed his eyes, more in contemplation than fatigue. He was well aware that most people saw him as the smartass, righthand man of Glazov: i.e., second best. What most didn’t realize was that he had made the choices that shaped his life, not fate. He was exactly where he wanted to be, doing exactly what he wanted to do. As he relaxed, he let his mind drift back to the time someone had sorely underestimated him…

  He was sitting at a corner table, drinking vodka. When the college boys came in, all balls and no brains, he could hear their disparaging comments over the loud music.

  “Fuckin’ Bratva. They think they own everything in this city,” the overgrown kid spouted off in a loud voice that was meant to be heard. He was the typical rich kid, probably relying on his looks to make his way in life. Novak grinned, wondering what the little asshole would do when his looks were gone.

  “Yeah, right,” another guffawed. “Born Bratva, my ass. What does that even mean?”

  “It don’t mean shit, that’s what,” the first one ranted. “I could’ve been Bratva, if I’d really wanted to. But a real man strikes out on his own, ya know?”

  Novak felt his muscles tense. This was just the kind of thing he had warned Glazov about. Fist clenching restlessly, he tossed back the last shot. He stood and walked toward the door, determined to avoid unnecessary trouble. He weaved his way between the tables toward the rear door in the hopes of making a discreet exit. No such luck.

  He cocked the collar of his denim jacket against the chill and looked from side to side for any signs of trouble. He stepped onto the pavement and took a few unhurried strides toward his car. Then, sure enough, trouble appeared in the form of two drunks at the far end of the alley. One of them threw a beer bottle in his direction. His fingers slid eagerly around the brass knuckle knife he kept in his pocket. He liked the knife because its grip was a sure thing, even when blood flowing from a victim’s wounds made his hands slippery.

  Okay…there were only two of them. He could handle that. Then a noise behind him drew his attention, and he saw two men step out of the rear entrance. So, four. Okay, that could present a problem.

  Novak took a deep breath. He reached for his trusty Glock. The weight of the gun in his hand had him feeling better about his odds. He was always loaded down with weapons: a knife in his pocket, one in his boot, a Glock, and an ankle holster with a smaller .22. His lips curled in a smirk. Chances were good that these little shits weren’t packing like he was.

  “Hey! You fuckin’ Bratva?” the asshole from the bar asked while weaving on unsteady feet. Novak kept his head down, giving them no warning of his lethal intentions toward them. “Answer me you fuckin’ worthless piece of shit,” the guy drawled as he reached into his shirt pocket an
d pulled out something that glinted in the moonlight. “Hey, I know what you’d like, Bratva boy. Let’s keep this nice and friendly, whaddya say? I bet you this old Russian coin I’ve got that you die tonight.” As the man drew close enough to touch, he held an oversized coin between two fingers. “Mikey, here, catch!” He tossed it to his buddy, who made a show of pretending to toss it back before sliding it into his pocket.

  The adrenaline racing through Novak’s system overrode the effects of the vodka shots he’d had moments earlier. He wasn’t a slave to anyone…or anything. His mind was crystal clear, his reflexes were steady. He easily dodged the broken bottle the first guy sliced through the air in his direction. However, Mikey slammed his fist into Novak’s side, scoring a direct hit over his kidney. That was a different matter altogether. Son of a bitch, that hurt.

  Novak gripped the brass knuckles of the knife he’d pulled from his pocket. The hiss of the blade got the frat boy’s attention and he backed away, leaving the fight to his friends. Sadly, Mikey must have thought life was pretty cheap. He rushed at Novak, who merely smiled as his opponent lost his footing momentarily, distracted by the moonlight glinting off the blade.

  Driven by pure rage, Novak plunged the knife into the neck of his assailant. Blood sprayed from his carotid artery onto the walls of the alley, and he dropped like a stone. Okay, one down. The two guys from the other end of the alley joined the fray, with one leaping onto Novak’s back. Novak flipped him onto the ground and seized the opportunity to plunge the knife between his ribs and pierce his heart. Two down.

  Novak spun around, his arm arcing through the air as he aimed the Glock with perfect precision. He squeezed the trigger and nailed the third guy in the chest. Three down.

  His eyes wild with a primordial bloodlust, Novak turned in a circle with the gun at the ready as he searched the perimeter for his final prize. But the frat boy with the big mouth was nowhere in sight. Novak lowered his gun, his disappointment muted by the fact that, sometimes, letting a witness live could be a good thing. The coward may have gotten away, but he would spread the word far and wide that Novak was not a man to be fucked with and that Bratva was to be respected.

  Novak didn’t care what people thought of him. He knew who he was and that was all that mattered. With no time to waste, Novak searched the men’s pockets for clues to the identities of his attackers. Novak relieved Mikey of the coin, tossing it into the air and testing its weight when he caught it. It felt good in his hand. He slipped the coin into his pocket to be explored in more detail later and made haste out of the alley.

  The soft lamplight glinted off the coin as it rolled smoothly between Novak’s fingertips in a move that Glazov usually found annoying and little Roksana seemed to think was pure magic. As Novak watched the coin’s hypnotic progress, he pondered the lesson he’d learned that night so long ago: sometimes hate was borne of jealousy, simple as that. And jealousy was a weak man’s downfall.

  Novak hadn’t known the man mouthing off in the bar that night, but one thing had been obvious: the man had known enough about Bratva to be jealous of Novak’s position, and been just foolish enough to think he could do something about it.

  Perhaps being the so-called second best wasn’t so bad after all. Novak had no ulterior motives, no secret ambitions. His loyalty to his Pakhan was unwavering. He had no room for a woman in his life, although he was happy enough for Glazov and his growing family. No, he’d leave such complications to Glazov and Kathleen to figure out.

  Being Glazov’s righthand man was his life’s highest purpose, and Novak was fine with that. He had helped Glazov wrench power away from Mikhael Krill, Glazov’s father. It was an unprecedented move that had established Glazov as a force to be reckoned with. But Novak was nobody’s fool. There was an order to things. He wasn’t about to leave his future in fate’s hands. He was a man who made things happen and chose his destiny. Yes…he was exactly where he wanted to be.

  Glazov would be the first to admit he needed Novak. Novak filled a role in Glazov’s inner circle that no one else could. The Pakhan counted on him to be blunt and honest, no matter what. Others were so scared of Glazov that they just told him what he wanted to hear. Novak told him what he needed to hear: the truth. Novak was an unwavering ally—and a necessary evil—in the scheme of all things Born Bratva.

  Chapter Eighteen

  He sat in the shadows of the parking lot, looking up at Tee’s apartment window. Harper was inside. She was sexy and sentient and sure knew how to move. She would be perfect. Not like Tee, who had been so drugged at first and unprepared in general that he was losing interest. He’d had no choice but to delay her audition. He was very unhappy about it. He didn’t appreciate her wasting his time like that.

  He made a point of studying the women he took. Stalking was considered such a dirty word anymore, but it was one of his favorite aspects of the job. You could learn a lot about people when they didn’t know they were being observed. It was important to him to select women who could perform up to his exacting standards. His work wasn’t so much a job as a calling; a divine purpose of sorts.

  He had always known he was a killer. It had all started with the neighbor’s dog and escalated from there. When he was a boy, his parents asked the neighbors to do something about their barking dog. When they didn’t listen, he took care of it.

  It hadn’t been a gory death; just a simple matter of antifreeze and a piece of meat. One hell of a last meal, if he did say so himself. He hid the dog’s carcass in the woods. But he couldn’t stop thinking about it, so he went back every day after school to see how much the body had decayed.

  First, the bugs had come, then the wild animals. Eventually the body decayed down to bones, teeth, and a few scraps of fur. The best part, though, had been hearing the neighbors calling out the dog’s name day after day, until one day they just stopped. Finally, it had been truly quiet.

  When the dog was little more than a pile of bones, he’d bagged it all up and took it home. He waited until the neighbors were at work and dumped the bag of bones on their front porch. Of course, some bones were missing but he improvised. Working quickly, he arranged the remaining bones in perfect order until they resembled the shape of the dearly departed family pet.

  He had watched from his bedroom window while he waited for the couple to come home. They had been laughing together as they walked up the sidewalk to the front steps. Then the woman had shrieked in horror. He had watched, entranced, as she collapsed to her knees. Her husband pulled her close, shielding her as he hustled her inside and called the police. The police had come, of course, but there was nothing anyone could do.

  Because he had been smarter than all of them.

  He’d only been a child but he had fixed the problem. There would be no more sleepless nights because of that mangy mutt. His other neighbors never said as much, but he knew that, deep down, they were grateful. How could they not be?

  The woman in the window was pretty and she was a dancer. He knew the two women were roommates. That was why he’d had such high hopes for Tee. She lived with a dancer, after all. He’d watched Harper from the shadows in the club many times, admiring how she rocked her hips erotically to the beat of the music; the way she slithered so sinuously up and down the pole, mimicking a nice, slow fuck. She knew how to project emotions from the stage, too, frowning and grimacing sensually at just the right moment so that a lot of the men in the audience thought she really was coming while she fucked that pole and fantasized about them. She enjoyed teasing the customers, he could tell. She was special.

  He could have picked Harper right away, and in hindsight probably should have, but he had wanted a challenge. Tee had presented that challenge because she wasn’t a dancer. To take a woman who didn’t know how to work her body and teach her? Now, that would be an achievement. To instill fear in her, just like he had with his neighbors when he was just a kid; that had been special. They never got another dog, either, and they moved away months later. He’d overheard
the neighbor woman telling his mother that she couldn’t bear to live there anymore. She was scared of whoever had killed her dog. Scared that maybe they were still watching them. The bones on the porch had made it excruciatingly personal. Ever since, he had wondered what it would be like to do that with a human body.

  Tee really was a disappointment. Her two days were up. Time to see what she had to offer. Maybe he would kill her after all, keep her around while she decomposed, then leave her bones perfectly arranged on Harper’s doorstep. He smiled. And wouldn’t the press have a field day with that.

  ~~~

  The disco ball twirled, sending a mosaic of twinkling lights across the wall and ceiling. The silence was broken by a barrage of melodies from the speakers. The sensory overload was Tee’s warning that her abductor had returned. Her heart slammed against her ribs and thudded in her ears, making her wonder if her heartbeat might be even louder than the music.

  She watched in horror as a very naked Benzo came dancing into the room waving a knife above his head. He paused long enough to appreciate the sight of her supple, naked curves as she tugged at her restraints. Even though she knew it was irrational, she twisted her torso away from him in a pointless effort to cover her body. There was nowhere to hide, and no way to avoid whatever he was going to do to her.

  He resumed his frolicking entrance, slicing the blade through the air in a rhythmic arc that kept time with the beat of the music. Tee had hoped he wouldn’t turn out to be a complete psycho, but things weren’t looking good on that front. And when she was wrong, she admitted it. Okay, it had only taken a few days for all the crazy to come to the surface.

  When she winced with discomfort and tried to turn away from him, he snarled and pierced her skin over her ribcage with the knife, just deep enough to draw blood.