Kostya A Dark Bratva Hate Story

by Talbot, Ginger

  He doesn’t take the bait. “I told you I will speak to him. Let’s go out for a drive. Maybe grab some lunch.”

  “Let’s go do what?” I say, shocked.

  “You heard me.”

  “You’re not afraid I’ll try to run?”

  He shakes his head somberly. “You won’t, because then you’d lose any chance you ever have of seeing Raisa again.”

  I look at him, narrow-eyed. “Are you telling me there is a chance? Please don’t lie to me, Kostya.”

  “A slim chance. Maybe.” He avoids looking at me when he says it, though. He doesn’t hold out much hope, in other words. But he’s given me a thread to cling on to.

  “There must be something you could offer your stepfather that would be worth enough that he’d let them go.” Their world is all about doing deals.

  “Maybe. When he gets an idea in his head, though, he’s very stubborn.” Kostya stands up. “Shall we?”

  “I would like to go out,” I muse. “I’ve been cooped up in here so long.”

  “Excuse me, sir?” Aleksandr calls from the doorway. “Can I talk to you for a minute?” He doesn’t look as smug as he did when he left the breakfast table, which is interesting. Could this be something to do with Raisa? God, I pray it is.

  Kostya’s tone is not friendly. “Yes, we do need to speak.”

  Kostya leaves me for a few minutes, but when he’s returned, I can’t read his face.

  “I need to go to my office take care of a couple things and when we can go.”

  “What did Aleksandr say?”

  “Various things. He apologized for overstepping his boundaries.”

  “You’re not worried that he’ll tell your stepfather what’s happening here?”

  “No. I’ve known him for a long time. Took him in off the streets. He’s fiercely loyal to me, even more than he is to the Bratva, and he’s worried about the risks I take by defying my stepfather’s wishes.”

  “And what did you say to him?”

  “I told him that my affairs were my concern. I offered to let him go back to Moscow, no questions asked. He declined. He said, if it comes down to it, he will die by my side, and he assures me that he will not give me any more trouble over you, and will accept whatever decision I make.”

  “And what’s happening with Raisa? He was going to call and check in. And he doesn’t look very happy right now.”

  He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a pretty gold watch with a slim band, which he hands to me. “I’m going to need you to put this watch on. Yes, it has GPS, and yes, I will be notified instantly if you remove it, so please don’t.”

  Ah. The trust only goes so far, and he won’t tell me a damn thing about Raisa.

  I put the watch on, though, because I’m dying to get out of the house. Then he takes me through the house to a garage, where he and I climb in the back of a limo.

  My heart leaps when the garage door slides up and we back out. It’s sunny out. I haven’t been outside in...how long? I’ve lost track of the days. I have no idea how long I’ve been here now.

  The house is ringed in by high stone walls that are topped with sharp spikes. Security cameras glare at us with their unblinking red eyes as we pull out of the house. I bite my lip and resist the temptation to make a snarky remark about picking out the best kind of security system when you need to keep your sex slaves from escaping.

  He’s treating me better. He’s said, sort of, that he’ll try to find a way not to sell me. We’re gliding through the city and he’s actually letting me leave the house. That’s progress.

  We drive for about forty-five minutes, and then we enter an underground garage. From there, we go up a stairway that leads into the back room of a restaurant. We’re never outside, I never would have had the chance to run. Mikhail and Aleksandr are right behind us, breathing down our necks.

  I smile wryly. “And there I thought you’d take me for a walk on the pier.”

  “Sorry,” Kostya says, not sounding very sorry. “I want to take you out somewhere nice, but I must take precautions. This restaurant has excellent food.”

  “Are you the owner?” I guess.

  “It’s family owned,” he says vaguely.

  Of course. Whether he owns it or not, it’s a Bratva restaurant, used to launder money and hold meetings between criminals. He really isn’t taking any chances. I could scream for help, shout that I’m being held prisoner, and nobody would look my way.

  There are clusters of businessmen sitting at tables at the other end of the room. All the tables near us are empty. I’m sure that’s Kostya’s doing too.

  We have a nice view of a garden, though, and at least I’m finally out of the house.

  Our table is very large, and Mikhail and Aleksandr sit at the far end. A Russian waiter takes our order, speaking only to Kostya. We enjoy a very nice lunch of borscht, pelmeni, and pirozhki. I eat until I’m uncomfortably full, because I don’t completely trust that Kostya won’t go back on his word and return me to my little cell-bedroom and starve me again.

  “I’m going to use the restroom,” Kostya says. “Wait here until I get back.” He goes to the end of the table, briefly speaks to the Mikhail and Aleksandr, and then leaves the room.

  Anger simmers inside me. I don’t want to be left alone with them. Especially Aleksandr. At least Mikhail seems to have a conscience, but Aleksandr’s an abusive bastard, he clearly hates me because he thinks I’m putting his boss in jeopardy, and he openly enjoys hurting women.

  Two men who are dining at the table at the end of the room are watching me, with gloating smirks, and one of them abruptly gets up and walks across the room, heading straight towards me.

  “Nikita! Bad idea!” the other man calls out after him, looking alarmed.

  Nikita ignores him. He comes up to me and stands uncomfortably close. “I saw your video. Nice,” he leers, in thickly accented Russian. He has long, crooked yellow teeth and a receding hairline.

  He saw my video?

  I flash an alarmed look at Aleksandr and Mikhail. Mikhail goes to stand up, but Aleksandr puts his hand on his arm to stop him. The man who was eating with Nikita shoots us a fearful look, gets up and dashes from the room.

  “I’m going to share you with all of my men,” Nikita gloats. “What do you think of that?”

  I struggle for self-control. If we were alone, I’d kick his yellow teeth in. But we’re in a Bratva restaurant and there’s too great a risk that anyone watching us might report back to Yeger if I misbehave. I have to play the part of the cowed, terrified slave.

  “I will do whatever I am ordered to do,” I murmur.

  He leans closer, and his stinking breath makes me gag. “Don’t think that playing the sweet little slave will get you any points. I’ll hurt you just for the fun of it. We’ll take you in every hole. Three men at once.”

  He reaches down and starts playing with a lock of my hair, and I yank my head away from him. Mikhail and Aleksandr leap to their feet and hurry towards us.

  He grabs me by the hair and yanks my head back. “Look at me when I talk to you, bitch! Look at the man who’s going choke you with his dick until your eyes roll back in your head!”

  And with his free hand he grabs my right breast and twists so hard I scream.

  “That’s enough, now! Wait until the auction!” Aleksandr grabs him by the arm and pulls him away as I leap to my feet.

  At the same time, I hear a roar of fury. Kostya is back from the bathroom. He punches the man in the face so hard that he crashes into the table next to us. Then he kicks and stomps him as Nikita flails and makes wet gurgling sounds.

  Mikhail pats my arm awkwardly, trying to comfort me. I jerk away and glare. “How can you work with people who do this?” I demand in a low, furious voice. “Kostya’s being blackmailed into this horrible business, with threats to harm his family if he doesn’t go along with it. What’s your fucking excuse?”

  “I have none,” Mikhail says miserably.

&nbs
p; Aleksandr grabs Kostya from behind, wrapping him in a bear hug and dragging him backward. Nikita lies on the floor moaning. Kostya’s kicked all of Nikita’s teeth out, broken his nose, and his arm hangs at a sickening angle. “Sir. He’s a close friend of Yeger. He’s one of his best customers,” he says urgently. “You made your point. If you kill him, Yeger will be angry at you.”

  He releases Kostya, whose face is flushed red with rage.

  Quickly, Kostya whisks me out of the room, out of the restaurant and back to the garage.

  Then he spins to face Aleksandr and punches him in the stomach so hard that Aleksandr doubles over and pukes.

  “You let him put his hands on her!” he rages.

  “Him?” I shriek. “You’re angry at him? He came up to me and told me he saw my video!”

  And before I can stop myself, I slap Kostya so hard that my hand stings. He grabs me, but instead of punishing me, he pulls me into his arms and holds me tight.

  “I’m sorry,” Kostya says, pulling me into his arms. His voice is thick with emotion. “Fuck, I’m sorry. Yes, about twenty prospective bidders have been shown your video.”

  “That video exists forever!” I spit at him, tears pouring down my cheeks.

  He leans in and murmurs in my ear. “No, it doesn’t. You don’t have to worry. It’s a video of you with your dyed, dark, straight hair. We can dye your hair again, make it wavy, do your makeup. Disguise you. And the video self destructs immediately after these men watch it, and my stepfather has a way of making sure that they can’t record it. He’s extremely paranoid about digital evidence existing. Nobody else will ever see it.”

  “I fucking hate you!” I was defending him to Mikhail earlier, but all of my emotions are swelling up inside me and I’m crying so hard I’m shaking. I feel horribly exposed at the thought of all those men seeing me naked, in the most intimate of acts.

  “I know.” He chokes on the words. “I’m going to find a way to save you, Anya, but not because I want to make you love me. It’s because I love you, no matter how you feel about me.”

  I stare at him bitterly. “Once I would have died to hear you say that. And now it’s too late.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Kostya

  When we get home, I tell Anya to wait for me in my bedroom. She’s angry and withdrawn, and I don’t blame her. The fact that so many men have seen the video of her being violated is sickening.

  I hurry to my office and find that there’s an email from my men in Italy, asking me to contact them. When I call them back, they have good news. They’ve dug up some very interesting information about Joe Esposito, and his mysterious lack of contact with his family back in Sicily. I tell them to keep digging.

  Then, I put in a video call to my stepfather. Aleksandr joins me, standing next to me as we face the screen. I’m hoping his presence will help appease Yeger, because Yeger has always liked Aleksandr. He appreciates how brutal Aleksandr is with the girls.

  It’s late enough that I almost considered waiting until morning to contact him, because it will be the middle of the night there, which won’t help his mood any. I’m trying to get ahead of the situation with Nikita, though; I want him to get my side of the story first. Unfortunately, he’s already heard, and he’s mad as hell.

  “Nikita knew he was overstepping his bounds. He waited until I left the room, because he wouldn’t have dared to touch her while I was there,” I point out. “He acted with enormous disrespect. Nobody puts their hands on our merchandise like that.”

  Yeger, hair disheveled, bags under his eyes, stifles a yawn of exhaustion and glowers at me. “I’m hearing that he’ll be laid up for months. He’s going to be wearing dentures for the rest of his life, he’ll need extensive reconstructive surgery on his face, and he may never regain use of his right arm. And he was right-handed. He may have been a little over-enthusiastic, but he was a valued customer.”

  “All the more reason to make our point,” I say. “By putting him in his place, we deliver the message that nobody, even our best customers, can step over the line like that. I mean, imagine if you showed a man a pound of cocaine, asked him to place a bid on it, and instead he grabbed it and started cutting lines for himself. This is no different.”

  His thick brows draw together, and he narrows his dark eyes. “The other possibility is that your emotional attachment to Anya is so strong that you can’t bear to have another man put his hands on her.”

  “Sir!” I protest. “You know that’s not true! I sent you that video. I forced her to submit to another man. I stood there and supervised as he punished and fucked her.”

  “Yes, and when I saw it I was very impressed. I thought you were finally putting duty before your own selfish personal feelings.” He lets out a martyred sigh. “Now I’m not so sure.”

  “I can send you another video. I’ll line up a group of men and have them take her, one by one,” I say desperately. I’m not even sure if Carmelo can achieve that level of video wizardry, but I need to stall for time.

  My mind is racing. This is total bullshit. If it were any other woman than Anya, my stepfather would have lost his shit over how Nikita behaved. Waiting until I left the room so he could sneak over and maul one of our girls, for free? Yeger’s literally had men killed for groping women before purchase – which is exactly what Nikita did.

  “I’d rather have you punish her right now, to my satisfaction,” my stepfather says. “After all, she was rude to a potential buyer. She should have fallen to the floor and kissed his feet. Instead, apparently, she still thinks she is a person, rather than a piece of property to be used as we see fit. This does not speak well to your training, and you’ve had more than enough time. Aleksandr, go set up a live video feed in your photography studio, and bring her in there. I want to watch. Kostya, you can wait in here until he’s got everything set up.” He looks at me sharply. “Unless you have a problem with that.”

  “No, sir. Not at all.” I feel sick to my stomach.

  Aleksandr grins happily as he hurries from the room. Worry chews at me. I can’t tell him to go easy on Anya, not with my stepfather watching the screen. And I don’t have the opportunity to warn Anya.

  So I sit there, stewing, as Pasha comes to join my stepfather, standing next to him with an enormous smirk on his face.

  “I’m re-thinking the whole science camp thing,” my stepfather muses. “I might bring her back home tomorrow. No reason to give the girl ideas. I already have a match in mind for her, and it’s not a man who wants an over-educated harpy who’ll talk back to him.”

  Fucking hell. My stepfather used to at least be subtle about this shit. He’s openly threatening my family now. If only my mother wasn’t walled up in that mansion of his, I’d snatch my sister from camp and bring both of them to safety, and mow the bastard down – fuck the consequences.

  “I’m sure you’ll make whatever decision is best, sir,” I say, keeping my tone respectful.

  He shrugs, looking irritable. “Maybe I’ll give it another week or so,” he shrugs. “Maybe not.” His dark eyes glitter with malice.

  I still have plenty of people loyal to me in Moscow. When my sister went to camp, I instructed a few of them to stay at an apartment nearby, in case of emergency. I’m not ready to have them grab her, though. That level of defiance would be like signing my mother’s death warrant.

  “The Italians have a good line on some religious icons at a museum in New York,” I say, to distract him, and also hoping to score points. My stepfather likes to collect Russian art, and Claudio has connections in the museum industry. In the past, Claudio has secured some excellent pieces for us.

  “Fuck the Italians,” my stepfather snarls. “I’m going to call Joe Esposito tomorrow and tell him what’s what. They’re going to start doing things our way, or we’ll teach them the cost of disrespecting the Bratva.”

  “Yeah, it’s about time!” Pasha chimes in. “Now that we dealt with the Chechens, it’s time to finish this shit up with
the Mafia once and for all.”

  Great. Things are going from bad to worse.

  My phone beeps. I glance down at it. Text message from Aleksandr. “She’s ready.” He didn’t come in here to tell me himself; if he had, then as we walked down the hallway, I would have warned him that he’d better fucking pull his punches.

  My stomach is churning as I hurry to the studio. Anya has been stripped down to her panties, and she’s dangling from a chain that Aleksandr has strung up to a hook on the ceiling. Her toes are brushing the floor. Her eyes are wild and panicked.

  On the wall is a large TV screen, and Aleksandr’s switched over the feed so that my stepfather and Pasha can watch. Aleksandr’s got a single-tail whip in his hand, and a horrifying grin on his face.

  “Don’t permanently damage her,” I order him. With my back to the camera, I try to catch his eye, but he’s deliberately avoiding my gaze. Aleksandr doesn’t just love to hurt women, he craves it. It’s a sickness with him, and I suddenly realize that it’s an actual need on his part, an addiction like my drinking problem.

  “What did you just say?” Pasha yells. “We give the orders around here!”

  “I give the orders around here,” Yeger corrects him angrily. Pasha’s face bunches up sullenly, and he scowls at the camera.

  “What the fuck’s taking so long?” he whines. “Get to it! I want to see the bitch scream!”

  “Sir,” I appeal to Yeger. “We have sent out pictures of her, we have advertised her and promoted her sale to our most important buyers. If she shows up at the auction mutilated and scarred, not only will she be worth next to nothing, but we will look like liars, trying to pass off damaged goods.”