Burning for the Bratva: A Russian Mafia Romance Novel

by Maura Rose

  “And I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation as to why your brother brutally murdered your father,” Kelly replied. “I’d love to hear it.”

  Ivan could hear the blood roaring in his ears and leaned in. “Don’t you ever—”

  “But that’s personal family business, isn’t it?” Kelly added lightly. “Not really any of my business to know about. So I’ll keep my nose out of it—and you can keep your nose out of my business.”

  Ivan hated that she was kind of right. “I’m investigating who hurt your brothers. You’re not investigating me.”

  “The only reason you’d need to know is—” Kelly paused. Her eyes went wide, then narrowed again. “You little shit. You think I did it!”

  Ivan held his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Hey, you can’t blame me.”

  “I definitely can,” Kelly replied. “You think I arranged to kill my own brothers?”

  “Think about it, Kelly,” Ivan replied. “Look at it from my side of things. You’re the oldest kid but you’re passed over for heir. If your two brothers die, you’re now the next in line. You know everything about the operations and your father clearly trusts you. And who else could so easily find out where your brothers were going to be that night?”

  “I would never,” Kelly said, “I would never hurt them, I would—”

  Ivan saw, to his horror, that tears were standing in her eyes.

  Kelly abruptly stood up. “I should go. This isn’t—this was a stupid idea, on both our parts.”

  She sounded—well, like someone Ivan never expected Kelly to sound like. He hadn’t known her long, but she always spoke with force and confidence. This Kelly looked like she was about to fall apart.

  Ivan felt a little sick.

  He started to get up, started to say something, but she was already turning and heading through the restaurant.

  Chapter Ten

  That son of a bitch.

  That smug stupid pathetic son of a bitch.

  He thought she’d do that to her brothers? That she’d hurt them? That she was honestly the kind of person who would do that to the people she grew up with, loved, called family in every sense of the word—just for power? Just because she was pissed at her father over inheritance?

  Kelly knew she wouldn’t be able to make it out into the street without crying, so she hurried to the restroom. She’d cry in there, compose herself, then call for the car and exit through the kitchen or something.

  Because she was classy that way.

  But hey, running away from a date gone wrong was far from the least dignified thing that she’d done in her life. College, for example, was full of things she’d rather forget doing—and half the time she didn’t even have the benefit of saying she’d had alcohol clouding her judgment.

  She had just reached the door to the restroom, however, when she felt a hand grabbing her wrist, spinning her around.

  Kelly instinctively brought the heel of her hand up, ready to smash it upwards into the guy’s nose—which would have broken it—but stopped herself when she saw who it was.

  Ivan was panting slightly, like he’d had to powerwalk to overtake her. Kelly hadn’t realized how quickly she’d been walking.

  “Wait, wait just two seconds.”

  “Why?” she demanded. “I’m not going to stick around for what was obviously a set up because you think I killed one brother and critically injured the other.”

  “Because I’m sorry,” Ivan said.

  That gave her pause.

  From the moment she’d met him, Ivan had given her this attitude that said he didn’t apologize for anything. His arrogance had oozed out of every pore—and, honestly, had reminded her of every other member of the Russian bratva that she’d ever met. His reputation didn’t help either: reckless, playboy, vodka for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and then the whole thing with his father.

  She never would have expected him to look the way that he did now. He looked… genuinely contrite.

  She wasn’t sure what to do with it.

  “Just… come back to the table, okay?” he asked, his voice low. Kelly still hated how that did things to her insides, made her shiver. “We’ll talk this out, compare what we know, all right?”

  His thumb was brushing back and forth across the inner skin of her wrist—probably subconscious, but it made a thrill race up her spine.

  It had probably just been too long since she’d gotten laid. It didn’t mean anything.

  “Look, I’m sorry, okay, just—I blundered right into that.” Ivan’s gray eyes were soft, earnest. “Let’s go back, and eat something because I don’t know about you but when I’m hungry I turn into an asshole, and you can tell me what you know and we can discuss this like adults.”

  “Are you implying I’m not behaving like an adult?” Kelly replied, the sharp comment instinctive.

  “I meant more that I wasn’t,” Ivan admitted.

  Okay, that was a hell of good apology, she had to admit. Kelly sighed. “Fine.”

  His hand slid down to intertwine their fingers. Kelly started to pull away, but he shook his head and held on tighter. “You just stormed over to the bathroom, everyone saw it. We have to play the couple now.”

  Damn it, he was right. Kelly sighed, stepping into him and forcing herself to relax her arm and not look so stiff and like she wanted to pull away. Which she did, she definitely didn’t want to lean into his solid form or anything.

  She kept her head down, playing the placated girlfriend as they walked back to the table, keeping her voice down when they sat once again.

  “Why the hell would you even think that I tried to kill them?” Kelly hissed once they were all settled in again.

  “Because—” Ivan smiled as their waiter came up and they ordered.

  “You don’t even know me,” Kelly pointed out after the waiter had left. “You don’t know anything about my family.”

  “Exactly,” Ivan replied. “That’s why your father asked me to do this instead of taking a cut of my profits. I offered him a ten percent cut for the next five years, Kelly, that’s not a low deal. And he took this. It’s his family at stake, his whole legacy, and he knows that I know it. I can’t screw this up. That means I have to consider everyone and from just the basic information I had you were a likely suspect. Still are, you could just be a very good actress.”

  “I’m not acting,” Kelly replied, but she had to admit, he had a point. From the perspective of an outsider, she was a prime suspect. If this was a crime procedural show, she’d be the first one hauled in for questioning.

  “I’m just saying, see things my way,” Ivan replied. “You’re the oldest kid stiffed out of their inheritance. You’re clearly knowledgeable and talented but you’re not acknowledged for it. People have been messed up enough to take bloody revenge for it.”

  “If I wanted to get power, there are plenty of other ways to do it that don’t include killing my own family. I could marry into a more powerful family, kill my way to the top of their heap. Just for example.”

  Ivan smiled, like he was torn between fear, confusion, and being impressed. “All right then. Fair enough. Do you suspect any particular lieutenants then?”

  “Why aren’t you looking into any other families?” Kelly replied.

  “Because who else would’ve known that your brothers were going to be going to the place that they did, at the time that they did?” Ivan countered. “It wasn’t a place they went to regularly and of course all the people in charge had to be informed of where the heirs are going.”

  “There could be a mole.”

  “Or it could be someone making a power grab while your dad’s on his way out.”

  “My father is fine. He’s going to live for a long time.”

  “That’s not what he told me.”

  Kelly sat back in her chair, swallowing down the things she wanted to say. “He’s doing fine. He’s responding well to treatments. There’s no reason for him to get all maudlin.”


  “But it’s smart of him to be wary and to want things settled just in case the worst happens,” Ivan pointed out. “And it’s a prime opportunity for someone to destabilize things.”

  Kelly sighed. She didn’t want to share this information with a stranger. This was private family history. This wasn’t gossiping about the Italian family two boxes over at the Met, this was her father, damn it.

  But who else could possibly investigate? Father wouldn’t let anyone else in, would he? Who did they have that they could trust now that they couldn’t trust one another?

  And forget the cops, they couldn’t be brought into it, not even the bribed ones. Way too much risk there with the red tape.

  So she was stuck with him.

  “Okay, listen.” She paused, smiling up at the waiter as they were served another round of bread with their drinks. “My father came over from Dublin with my mother to work for his cousin, the former boss of the O’Gills. He’s who Shane is named after.

  “Shane, the cousin Shane I mean, he got lung cancer. He didn’t have any kids, and everyone expected him to name one of the lieutenants as his heir. Father had only been over for a year or two but he was blood family, the only blood family that Shane had over here and I think that mattered more to him than anything else—that it was an actual flesh-and-blood O’Gill leading the family.

  “That pissed off the lieutenants when my father was named heir. Three of them are still lieutenants under my father.”

  “The others?”

  “Dead.”

  “Are the deaths suspicious?”

  “Trust me, I thought of that, and no. One in a shootout with the Reillys, one of a heart attack, the other had Parkinson’s.”

  “And the three that are remaining—”

  “I’ll get you the paperwork tomorrow,” Kelly promised him, rolling her eyes. “Tell me, did your mother never teach you patience?”

  “You don’t exactly seem the patient type yourself,” Ivan replied with a smirk.

  Kelly told herself it wasn’t attractive. “Look, it’s the mob. Let’s be honest here. You name me one person in your organization who isn’t power hungry or hasn’t been wronged in some way.”

  Ivan opened his mouth, then closed it again. Kelly grinned triumphantly. “See? Let’s not pretend that we’re good people here, Ivan. This isn’t a pretty world we live in. If you want to start examining who could’ve done this, you’ve got a list a mile long.”

  “And what do you propose?” Ivan shot back. “That we just stick a bunch of names on a wall, blindfold ourselves and throw darts at them?”

  “I’m just saying don’t make assumptions about who it might me,” Kelly replied, feeling her irritation rise again. “Someone could’ve found a way to bug my brothers’ phones, someone could’ve been tailing them—don’t be so certain about who your perpetrator is before you’ve even properly begun the investigation.”

  “Fine.”

  “Fine.”

  They stared at one another as their meals were set down in front of them.

  “So, you take all your dates here?” Kelly asked, just for the sake of something to say.

  Ivan glared at her. “No.”

  “Ah, didn’t even bother with that, did you?”

  “At least I didn’t scare everyone away with my attitude. Tell me, when was the last time you got laid?”

  “I will kill you with my steak knife.”

  “Too many witnesses.”

  Oh, he was infuriating. She’d like to find a way to shut him up and wipe that smug smile off his face. The fact that a part of her liked this, liked this sparring with him, liked finding someone who was an equal and didn’t just kowtow to her because she was the boss’s daughter.

  Especially when he thought he’d gotten one up on her and was looking at her over the rim of his wine glass, eyebrows raised, eyes dancing in amusement.

  …she was not attracted to Ivan Sokolov.

  Fuck.

  Chapter Eleven

  Oh, no, hell no, he was not going to be attracted to Kelly O’Gill.

  So what if she could actually hold her own and so what if she was smart and looked gorgeous when she laughed at him? He had plenty of other women that he could date. Women who didn’t threaten to kill him.

  All right, so that had been a joke, but it was only partly a joke. There’d been an edge of seriousness in her voice. Ivan had no doubt that while she might be smaller than he was, she’d be ruthless in a fight.

  That idea really shouldn’t be a turn on.

  Kelly continued to fill him in on the lieutenants as they ate, stopping every so often to snipe at him over something he’d said.

  “Jesus, is everything I say going to piss you off?”

  “I don’t know, depends on if you keep saying it in that condescending tone of voice.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, at least my accent doesn’t make it impossible to understand me.”

  “No, it just makes you sound like the villain in a bad James Bond film.”

  Ivan snorted. “I’ll have you know women find my accent attractive.”

  “Oh? And they’ve told you this?”

  “Yes, on several occasions.” He didn’t really like to go around bragging about his one night stands. He figured his actions spoke for themselves—and others could do the talking for him. But he was going to make an exception if Kelly kept needling him about his accent.

  Never mind that he’d started it by needling her about hers. Her accent actually wasn’t that bad, just a trace of brogue. It was kind of beautiful.

  Stop it. Bad thoughts, bad.

  Kelly leaned in, a conspiratorial look on her face. “Then they were lying.”

  Ivan let a smirk slide over his face. “I promise you, they weren’t.”

  “Okay,” Kelly said, shrugging placatingly. “They weren’t.”

  Ivan leaned in this time, lowering his voice. “Say what you will about French or Italian, but nothing gets a girl hotter than a guy whispering Russian in her ear while he fucks her.”

  “Oh? And what does your incomprehensible language have on the languages that are literally named ‘Romantic’?”

  “Because if a girl wanted romantic, she’d go for a French or Italian guy. If she wants to feel like a bad girl, she comes to me.” Ivan winked at her.

  Kelly flushed, just a little, and he awarded himself a mental point. “Too bad you can’t use your dick to solve this mystery, then, or it’d already be settled by now wouldn’t it? Looks like we’ve just got to make do with your brain.”

  “You think you’re real cute, don’t you?” He was starting to think she might be a bit cute, though, and that was the problem.

  The waiter stopped by the present the check. “Any dessert for the lovely couple?”

  “No, we’re good, but thank you,” Ivan said quickly, catching the glint of murder in Kelly’s eyes.

  After he paid, they started to exit, but Ivan froze. “Oh, shit.”

  Kelly nearly bumped into him. “What?”

  “You know the Caparellis?”

  “Who doesn’t?”

  “Yeah, you know how the don’s younger brother has five daughters?”

  Kelly’s eyes narrowed. “You didn’t.”

  “Yeah, well he’s walking in the door right now so how about we just go out the side entrance?”

  Kelly rolled her eyes but crossed quickly through the restaurant with him, going out the side and around, texting her ride to pick her up down the street.

  “I cannot believe you did that. All five? And none of them noticed?”

  Ivan shrugged. “It was years ago, but you know how a Caparelli is. They hold grudges for decades.”

  Kelly had to know this—their kind of people all had a dark sense of humor. It was kind of inevitable, growing up with parents and friends who arranged for smuggling, theft, and murder to happen on a daily basis. One of the long-running jokes among the mafia families was that of the Caparelli family temper.

>   Sure enough she snorted. “Yeah, I’m well aware. I remember my mom telling me never to date a Caparelli boy, I’d break his heart and then he’d murder Shane in an honor duel and where would we all be then?”

  Yup. Typical mob humor.

  Ivan took her by the elbow and led her around the block to wait for her car. “Did your mom ever say anything about Russian boys?”

  “She did mention that the eldest Sokolov boy was a piece of work,” Kelly said, obviously teasing.

  “Oh, weird, ‘cause my mom told me the O’Gill girl was a real psycho.”

  Kelly laughed. “You want the god’s honest truth, my dad suggested I see about marrying you.”

  “Wait, really?” That was irony for you. “No shit, my lieutenant, the one you met at lunch, Pavel—he told me I should date you. Acted like I’d be an idiot if I didn’t.”

  “Hmm.” Kelly pretended to think about that. “Is he single? Can I have his number?”

  To Ivan’s own surprise he found himself tightening his hold on her arm, just the slightest bit, a swoop of jealousy passing through his stomach. “Hey, can’t have you stealing my best lieutenant.”

  “Also your only lieutenant, currently, unless you went through the shortlist and promoted everyone already.”

  Ivan shook his head, not sure what to do with this woman who just didn’t seem to be able to stop giving him quips. “You think you’re real funny, don’t you?”

  “Not as funny as your face.”

  “Okay, that wasn’t your best.”

  Kelly made a face. “True. What can I say, I’ve been besting you all night, I had to run out of good jokes at some point.”

  She winked at him, and maybe it was the night air, or the fact that she was still sassing him two hours into this pseudo-date, or maybe it was the fact that he was lonely and hadn’t had a date in months. Or maybe it was just that she looked beautiful.

  Maybe it was something else altogether—something comprised of all of those things, and none of those things.

  Whatever the reason, though, Ivan saw the moment that Kelly started to feel it, too. The smile faded slightly from her face, and her eyes widened.