The Heir: (A Dark Mafia Romance) Bratva Blood

by SR Jones

  I glance at Zoey. She shrugs and goes to sit at the table, but I notice her hands clenching and unclenching. She’s nervous. So am I, and it isn’t a feeling I’m used to. I live for this stuff. I don’t give a crap normally. Now, I care, and I know it’s because Zoey is here in the room. If anything happens to her, I’ll give a shit.

  For a moment, I pause to marvel at that. I barely know her. Not really. I don’t know what she likes to read, what her favorite food is, where she likes to go on holiday… For all I know, she might like to eat only jam on bread, and to take holidays in the rain, and watch nothing but soap operas, which would make us virtually incompatible. I don’t think I’d care. So long as she’d let me touch her, and watch her, and fuck her, I don’t think I’d care what weird quirks she has. So long as I could get to watch her blaze her way through life, I’d be happy.

  “You’re making me nervous, Vasily,” Monty says.

  “Yeah, well, your men with the Uzis are making me nervous.”

  “Gents, put the guns down, please.” His men comply.

  I resist the urge to pat my side and feel for my own gun. Damn, if Andrius were here, he’d have drawn by now and shot those two fuckers right between the eyes before either one had the chance to react. Alexei is pretty fast with a knife and a gun too. Me, I’m more of a brawler, as I suspect is Ilya.

  Sitting, I sigh and cock my head as I regard Monty. He looks like a hipster geography teacher, not a killer.

  “Why aren’t we already dead?” Zoey asks bluntly. “I know you, and there’s no way we should still be alive. I’ve taken out two of your men, so why am I still breathing?”

  His beady eyes focus on her. “You took them out? Really?”

  “Yeah,” I say. Let him be a little off balance. Won’t hurt. And anyway, she did take one of them out.

  “How … unexpected. So, you can shoot two of your fellow countrymen, but you can’t shoot a Bratva thug? Or rather, one should state, you cannot shoot a Bratva thug with enough accuracy to end his life? Some might find that rather distasteful.”

  “Why are we alive?” Zoey repeats.

  He wipes his middle finger over his lower lip and smiles. “You’re alive because I need to meet with Mr. Silvanov.”

  I almost choke. “You want to meet with K?” I ask incredulously. This can’t be. “I mean, he wants to meet with you, but I didn’t think you’d be an eager party to the encounter.”

  “Oh, but I am. You see, the people who hired me this time, they are more … unsavory than most we take jobs from, and, well, they’ve ended the contract abruptly, one might say.”

  “Is it just you, or are there more at the top?” I ask him. Damen is getting all the information collated anyway, but I might as well ask.

  “There are three of us, but not the three you know, Zoey. Number One and Number three are mere employees. The other two men I run this with are gone. One of them is already dead, and the other is on his way to somewhere in Africa.”

  “Neither of your partners is one of the men we shot tonight?” I push.

  “No.” He sighs. “They work for me. My partners are two other men. One is dead at the hands of my disappointed clients, and the other is fleeing to Africa.”

  “Why didn’t you run to Africa?” Zoey asks.

  “I don’t like the heat,” he replies. “I have my babies.” He points to the dogs. “And I don’t run away. Never have, never damn well will.”

  “You know Mr. Silvanov is going to pull your foreskin off with tweezers, right?” Ilya asks, making me wince with such a vivid description.

  “Not when I tell him all the ways I can help him and you.” Monty looks remarkably relaxed. “I know who hired me after all. No one else.”

  “Damen will find that out easily enough,” Ilya points out to me, then turns to Monty. “Our friend has more than enough info on you all, so I doubt he will struggle.”

  “We don’t keep records of our clients. It’s all up here.” He taps his head.

  “You’re more scared of who hired you, than you are of us?” I ask, with a sinking feeling in my stomach.

  He grins, but it’s a grim, bitter smile. “Yes, I am. We screwed up. We’ve always been careful who we let hire us. It might not seem that way, but we didn’t let ourselves be bought and paid for by just anyone. Normally we work for governments, legit organizations and powerful business interests. The one or two times we worked for the more illegal side of things, we were careful to make sure they weren’t… How should I put this? Too uncivilized.”

  “So who hired you, and why the change?” Zoey asks. The light catches her lips, and I smile at the hint of gloss still there. I must remember to actually buy a pallet of that stuff when all this is over.

  “I’m not saying who until I’m sitting down in a meet with Konstantin and Andrius,” he says. “As for the why? The oldest reason in the world—money. Money turned our heads.” Then he stands abruptly and starts to pace. “No, that’s not fair. I can’t let my colleagues take the blame. I should say, money turned my head. I found myself in a new circumstance in life. I fell in love with a gold digger, and frankly, it screwed me up.” He turns to face us, his cheeks both showing a flush of red. “I’m not proud, but there you go. I suppose it happens to the best of us.”

  “Where is she now?” Ilya asks. “Your downfall?”

  “He, actually,” Monty replies. “And he’s six feet under. When I realized he didn’t love me at all and only wanted me for the money, and worse, was sharing that money with his own boy toy, well, I lost my temper.”

  “So because of your boy toy, you got involved with people worse than us,” Ilya says, making air quotes around the worse than us part. “You got in a mess with them because you lost your focus, made Zoey do something she wasn’t ready or able to do, panicked when she couldn’t do it. Now, the people you shouldn’t have let hire you in the first place have turned on you, and your grand plan to get out of this is to go to the Bratva Pakhan you ordered to be shot and beg for mercy?”

  “Yes.”

  Ilya cracks up. He properly cracks up, bending over and laughing until he’s wiping at his eyes and wheezing. When he finally straightens, he shakes his head, still laughing. “You’re utterly fucked. Andrius will gut you like prime steak while K watches and enjoys every minute of it.”

  “Andrius is a sensible man, so I doubt he’ll do anything of the sort.”

  “You come with us, and you come alone,” I state. “None of your gun-toting heavies are getting on our plane.”

  “It’s not your plane.” Monty laughs at my expression. “What? I do my homework too. It’s not your plane. Reece is about, oh, probably an hour away from picking Esme up, and she’ll meet us all in Corfu. You think I don’t have things in place and if this goes wrong, I can’t reach you? Some of you, at least, and you won’t know which ones I can take out before I go down. I don’t want a war with you. I did what I did because I was paid damn handsomely for it, and it went wrong. I accept responsibility as an adult, and Konstantin can decide whether he wants all the intel he needs to ensure himself, Cassie, and their unborn child is safe. Or whether he wants to take me out and start another war. Last I heard that man is trying to walk away. He can’t walk away from what’s coming for him, neither can Andrius, or any of you. Your choice is whether or not to have me and all I know, on your side or not. I’m not stupid. I always make sure I have a damn good hand before I show it.” He sneers at me.

  Zoey is moving before I can take in what’s happening. Her chair hits the floor with a clatter as she launches herself at the man she hates. The next moment, she has her gun to Monty’s temple, and she jabs it in hard. “Whose phone do you have bugged, you utter fucker? Whose?”

  “Zoey,” I warn.

  She isn’t listening, though. Zoey is in the zone, and not in a good way, but in the homicidal about to blow Monty’s brains out way, and I can’t have that. We need to know what he knows, which means his brains must stay intact.

  “Pu
t the gun down, baby,” I order.

  She doesn’t.

  I glance at Ilya who nods and walks around the table into Zoey’s line of sight. “Hey, Zoey,” he says as if they’ve just bumped into one another outside a coffee shop. “Why don’t you take that gun from his head?”

  “No, I don’t think so.” Her voice is shaky and full of rage.

  “We need to know what he knows, right? For Esme.” I see her gaze flicker at the mention of her daughter, but then she looks at Monty, and it hardens again.

  I quietly walk behind Zoey as Ilya keeps talking to her. Monty doesn’t look at me or do anything to let Zoey know I’m right behind her as she holds the gun to his head. I knock into her, taking her down. A loud boom rings out as she squeezes the trigger when I plow into her. We hit the floor in a tangle of limbs, and I reach for the gun, knocking it out of her hand.

  She screams and punches me in the damn eye with her fist. Pain explodes in the socket, and I curse as I get on top of her, and with one hand wrapped around her throat, I hold her down.

  “Don’t fucking move,” I growl. Shit, she’s hit me on the same side that Andrius did with the gun.

  “Are you trying to give me a damn concussion, woman?” I snarl.

  “He deserves to die.”

  “No can do, cupcake. You know it makes sense to keep him alive, and you aren’t being rational.”

  I see the moment those words register, and it’s like a red cape to a bull. She fights me, really fights me, kicking at me and rolling her body under me. I love it, and if it weren’t for the fact we have an audience, I’d probably just about kiss her right now. As it is, I don’t want Monty knowing any more than he needs to about us.

  “Zoey, cut it out, or I’ll tell Reece not to bring Esme.”

  The moment the words are out, I regret them. She stops fighting but when she turns her face to me, I see something there I haven’t before. It’s a cold, dead look in her eyes as she regards me, and I know using her daughter this way is a bad, bad move. I was all out of ideas, though. I haul her to her feet, and keeping hold of her arm, drag her to a chair and push her into it.

  “Stay,” I order, and she does, but still she’s giving me that dead look.

  “Okay, you’re coming to Corfu,” I tell Monty. “You won’t be offended if we search you before you get on the plane and cuff you onboard, I’m sure?”

  “Not at all,” he drawls, all upper-class British superiority. I get Zoey putting a gun to his head; I’d do the same if it weren’t for the fact we need to know what’s inside that head. We need to know ASAP.

  By the time we have Monty in the back of the car, sandwiched between me and Ilya as Zoey drives, my nerves are shot. We reach the hotel, and I call up to Alexei, telling him to gather everyone’s shit, all of it, and get to the car in ten minutes. He makes it in five.

  When he slides into the passenger seat, a pungent, perfumed scent hits the interior of the car.

  “Jesus, are you wearing women’s perfume?” I ask.

  “Nah,” he laughs. “Hooked up with a fuck-buddy, and she’d drowned herself in the stuff.”

  “You were fucking when you were meant to be keeping yourself safe to go get Esme if needed?” Zoey shoots him a disgusted glare.

  “I wasn’t in any danger from Mari,” he says with a chuckle. “And I was ready to go anytime any of you called, as proven by my timely appearance. Okay?”

  He juts his jaw at her, but she grinds her teeth, puts the car into gear, and ignores him as she pulls out smoothly into the flow of traffic.

  Two hours later, and we’re airborne. Zoey isn’t speaking to me, and I find I care a lot more than I should. I have a deadly viper onboard, handcuffed he may be, but he’s not to be messed with. I need to call Andrius, and a headache of monumental proportions is building.

  I wave over the female steward, who hasn’t even batted an eye at the motley crew that makes up our merry little gang. “Get me a whiskey sour, will you, sweetheart?” I add the sweetheart and the flirty smile without even thinking, but a disgruntled noise from Zoey has me looking her way.

  Oh, she hates me, but she’s still invested enough to be jealous, is she? When the steward brings the drink, I sip at it gratefully and flash another smile, just to wind up Zoey some more.

  I sip away at my drink, play mindless games on my phone, and put off calling Andrius until I can’t any longer. Not looking at Zoey, I take my phone and head to the back of the plane. I pull the curtain closed and call Andrius. He picks up on the fourth ring.

  “Da.”

  “Got some news.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah. K told me I better bring him the people who ordered his assassination, and I have. I have one of the fuckers with me now. Thing is, he came willingly.”

  There’s a long pause.

  “What?”

  “Yep. Came willingly. Practically begged me to bring him to you guys.”

  “I swear to fuck, Vasily, if this piece of shit does anything to endanger Violet or our child, you’re dead, okay? Why would you bring him here if he wanted to come?”

  “He isn’t armed, and he’s handcuffed right now. Says he has info. Says the threat is against all of us, him included now since Zoey failed, and it’s massive. I think he’s maybe involved with some government, you know?”

  He snorts. “What like … the British government are paying to have us all taken out?”

  “No, not the Brits obviously. But you know, a less major player? Maybe a less, legitimate government. Why not? Whoever it is, they must have resources because I genuinely think he’s scared of them. I’m good at reading people, and I think he’s taking this risk because he sees us as the lesser of two evils. He’s shitting it, Andrius. He’s scared. The fact is, we need to all work together because we have bigger fish to fry.”

  “How convenient for you. Let’s all bury the hatchet and work together now, huh? No matter that your piece-of-shit wife tried to murder K. Yeah, we brush it all under the rug, carry on as if nothing happened.”

  “You pistol whipped me into oblivion. I wouldn’t be surprised if I didn’t have a concussion or something going on. My head is splitting. I could bust a clot and die tomorrow, but I’m not trying to keep some stupid fight going between us. What’s going on with you? This isn’t you. You’re normally rational.”

  “I’m not rational at all where Violet or our baby girl are concerned, and you brought danger to us all with this pathetic stunt of marrying that psycho.”

  I pinch the bridge of my nose and try to stop my heart from going tachycardic on me. “Listen. I married her for numerous reasons, none of which are your concern. None of it is. She’s mine now, and that’s all you need to know. K is the one she shot. Not you. You don’t get to decide what happens to her, okay? She hates me, and so marrying me is hardly a walk in the park for her.”

  “She doesn’t hate you,” he says.

  “Yeah, she does. Maybe I hate her too.”

  “Neither of you hate one another. You’re fucked up, the pair of you. You’re in love with one another.”

  I’m about to laugh out loud, but he isn’t done.

  “I don’t mean the healthy kind of love either. Not the kind Violet and I have which grew over time. No, you two? You’re obsessed. Sick with it. You’ll probably be like Antony and Cleopatra. Tragic. Take each other down in flames, but that’s your problem not mine. You keep telling yourself you hate one another, though. One day, maybe one day soon, you probably will.”

  “Or, oh mighty sage,” I say, lacing my words with sarcasm to cover up the fact he’s hit too close to the bone. “It’s simply lust.”

  “Yes, of course, my bad. We all marry women we simply lust after. See you soon.”

  He hangs up, and I swear I can still hear his dark chuckle even though the call is disconnected. Andrius is a total fucker, but he’s also extremely perceptive. Do I love Zoey in some fucked up, too intense way?

  If so, what am I going to do about it
?

  Chapter Eighteen

  Andrius

  I walk out of the living room and climb the stairs. It’s dark and quiet. The whole house is resting. Except for me. I can’t sleep.

  Vasily’s call has made sleep even less likely. Who the hell is behind this hit?

  My brain is running all the possibilities, and I’m coming up with the most likely and unsavory options. One is the Armenians. We didn’t take out enough of those fuckers, and they’ve re-grouped and are coming back for more.

  Two is some group we don’t know about. Hell, half of the organized crime in Europe is run by gangs from places like South America, Armenia, and the like. It could be some outside threat we’ve never even thought about properly.

  Third, is the Albanians.

  I guess there’s always the possibility that it is someone closer to home. Someone like Allyov? Hell, worst-case scenario, even Stamatis, who might want to take over territory and make sure there’s no one to challenge him.

  I doubt it’s Stamatis. So far as you can have loyalty and friendships in this life, Damen and Alesso are friends to me, and we have something that goes beyond this life. We all served, and we have that fraternity. I don’t think they’d go against me or Konstantin. So that leaves the other options. The most likely one is some faction of the Albanian mob.

  I shiver. Those guys are insane, criminally insane, and they don’t care who knows it.

  I got into this life with a means to an end. I never saw myself as true Bratva. I did this to find my revenge, and in the end, I found something so much better. Somehow, along the way, I came to be friends with real Bratva like K, and then Damen and Alesso got into the life with Stamatis, and I became more embroiled. When I found Violet, I tried to walk away.

  I don’t want the thug life, and I never have. I’m not like Vasily, and maybe he sees me wanting to retire from all that shit and build something new as weakness. It’s a fatal mistake for him, if so. I’d put a bullet in him as soon as I take my next breath if it keeps my family safe.