by Jagger Cole
A smile flashes over his lips. But then it fades with a shadow.
“Not me, little one,” he says quietly. “There is another who hunts you.”
I shiver, my body tightening against his. “The shooting at the party.”
“And the car crash, and the hospital.”
“Someone’s after Viktor,” I say thinly.
Kostya frowns. “Someone is after you, Nina.”
I nod. “Yeah, because of who I am within the Kashenko organization, and my connection to Vik—”
“No, angel,” he growls quietly, shaking his head. “No, someone is after you. Someone besides me has been watching you, following you…” he scowls darkly. “Lusting after you.”
I shiver, suddenly cold. “What?”
Kostya’s jaw clenches, and I feel his hands tighten possessively on me. “Someone was in your apartment.”
I frown. “Yeah, you...”
He shakes his head, and my stomach clenches.
“The day I was in the shower, you were there. You saw me, and you wrote—”
“That wasn’t me.”
I blanche. I feel instantly sick to my stomach and also utterly horrified. My skin crawls as his words sink in.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“They’ve been in there since, as well,” he snarls. “Somehow, they know when I’ve been watching you, and when I’ve been unable to.” His hands tighten even more on me, pulling me close to him. “There is another wolf hunting you, little one,” he hisses. “And now I am hunting for them. My caution in calling your brother…”
“Is wondering who else is listening,” I say quietly.
Kostya nods. “I understand your bother inspires loyally. But the Kashenko organization is large. There are many ears. Many pockets that would be happy to be padded.”
I nod and reach for my phone. I’m still numb and sick from the knowledge that it was someone else that day who wrote on my bathroom mirror. But I do need to let Viktor know I’m okay.
I skip calling and text instead.
Hey, I’m sorry I haven’t reached out sooner. I’m okay. I can’t call right now, but I’m safe. I’m not hurt.
Viktor replies instantly.
You scared the fuck out of me, Nina. Where the hell are you?
I wince.
I’m safe. But until we know what happened at the hospital…
Can you get to the house? I have everyone on lockdown. Our people are combing the city shaking down anyone they can for information. We’re going to find out who’s after us, Nina. And I’m going to hurt them twice as much.
I smile. My brother is nothing short of zealous in his protectiveness of his family and loved ones. But so am I. It makes sense that we’re related.
I can’t just now, but I really am safe. I’m out of harm’s way.
You’re sure?
Positive. Please don’t worry about me.
No promises.
I grin.
Love you. Everyone else safe?
They are. And I love you too, Nina. Do you have protection?
I smile. He means a gun. But when I look up at Kostya, lying back on the bed like some kind of huge, muscled Viking warrior, I blush. Yeah, I sure do.
Yes. I’ll reach out soon.
Be safe, Nina. We’ll find out who did this, and I will destroy them.
I put the phone down and snuggle back against Kostya.
“Your brother cares for you deeply.”
“He’s protective of his family. Zealously.”
“Good,” Kostya growls. “I admire that in him.”
My lips twist. The question I’ve had in the back of my mind for weeks is hovering by the surface. But I’m scared to ask it, because I’m scared of what the answer might be.
“Kostya…”
“You want to know why I was after you to begin with.”
I nod.
“Nina, before the party, when I grabbed you…” he grunts and shakes his head. “I didn’t know who you… I mean…”
“You didn’t know I was the girl from the Moscow tenements.”
“No,” he growls. “You were a child then. And now, you’ve…” he shifts, a low growl rumbling in his chest. “You’ve grown up.”
I grin. “Noticed that, did you?”
His hand slides over my back to cup my ass tightly. He pulls me tight to his body, and I whimper as I feel his cock thicken slightly against me.
“Yes, angel,” he groans. “I have.”
I turn my head, craning up to kiss him slowly. His hands slide over me, but I giggle and pull away.
“Uh-uh, I want to hear this.”
He frowns. “Are you sure?”
I swallow, nodding. “Yes.”
“I was going to take you that night as vengeance. Retribution. Your family took someone from me. You were the reciprocation.”
My brows knit. “Who—”
“Fyodor Kuznetsov.”
I stiffen. My heart lurches as my mouth thins. “How did you—”
“He raised me.”
I pull away. I sit up on the bed, turning to hug my knees to my chest. I stare at Kostya. I can see the worry on his face—he knows what this means to me to hear. But he also knows it has to be said.
“He what?”
“In Moscow, I was also in the system, like you. My parents left me at a police station, and I was brought to a home for unwanted boys.” His face darkens. “It was… not a good place. But then one day, a man came.”
“Fyodor.”
He nods. “He was a hard man. Cruel, at times. Vicious. But he gave me and another boy a new life; a home, a roof, food. He gave us opportunity.”
“To do what?”
“Become soldiers for him. To fight and to take from this world what we needed.”
I nod. My hand slips into his. “Moscow was a hard life.”
“Da,” he growls quietly. “Yes, it was.”
“So he took you from the orphanage and…” I frown. “Made you soldiers?”
He nods. When I frown and say nothing, his brow furrows. “What?”
“Nothing, it’s just…”
“Speak.”
“Seems a little manipulative. A little cruel?”
He frowns. “Cruel would have been leaving me and Dimitri in the group home, to be turned out on the streets as meat for predators.”
My heart wrenches, and I squeeze his hand. “I’m sorry, Kostya.”
“But you think Fyodor used us.”
I nod. “Yes, I do.”
He looks away. “You didn’t know him.”
“I know his legacy.”
He whips his gaze around to me, frowning. “What?”
“I know the path of destruction and the broken lives he left in his wake, before he even found you and—“
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he snaps angrily. I can see the hurt in his eyes. I see the war behind them—knowing that the man he’s protecting was a cruel one but protecting him because he’s the only family Kostya ever knew.
I know this internal war, because I used to have the same one inside about Bogdan.
“Look, I know what’s going through your head, okay?”
“I doubt that.”
I laugh coldly. “You’re the only one with the broken past and the abusive pseudo-father? Do you have any idea how often I told my teachers at school that I’d tripped, or that it was an accident? How many times I told myself that my foster father really did love me, he just had a lot to deal with?”
Kostya’s mouth thins. “Fyodor was not the man I freed you from.”
“You’re right, he wasn’t,” I snap. “He was worse. At least with Bogdan, the abuse and the bullshit was right there on the surface. Fyodor used you, Kostya. He molded you into a fighter, and a soldier, to—”
“To make me a man!” he growls.
“Or to use you as fucking cannon fodder! As a shield!”
With a snarl, he slides off the bed and stan
ds. He paces the room, glowering, his jaw clenched.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Nina. He was a hard man, but life is hard.” He turns, sneering. “Perhaps you’ve forgotten that in your life of wealth and privilege at the Kashenko banquet table.”
My jaw drops. “Forgotten?” I hiss. “I’ve forgotten how cold and cruel the world is?” I sneer as I turn away from him, standing from the bed. I jerk my thumb over my shoulder at the raised scars crisscrossing my back before I glare at him over my shoulder.
“Does it look like I’ve fucking forgotten, Kostya?! Do you think I could ever fucking forget that?!”
He’s silent. His jaw clenched. His eyes burn into mine. “I am sorry, Nina.”
“Yeah, everyone’s sorry,” I mutter.
“It does not change that Fyodor for all his faults was like a father to me—to me, and to Dimitri. And your family—Nikolai—shot him in the—”
“Nikolai is his son,” I snap.
Kostya freezes. His gaze hardens as his jaw clenches. I swallow, turning to face him.
“You didn’t know that part, did you?”
He says nothing for a minute. “No, he—”
“There was a medical student, moonlighting as a cocktail waitress at a club in Moscow to pay tuition. Fyodor dragged her into a bathroom and assaulted her before beating the shit out of her.” My mouth thins. “She became Nikolai’s mother.”
Kostya’s face pales, the lines growing deeper. “That’s not—”
“Yes, it is,” I whisper hoarsely. “Fyodor was Lev’s father too. Did you know that?”
The huge Russian blinks, and he wavers on his feet. He staggers back a step before sinking heavily onto a chair.
“I…” he frowns. “No, he—”
“Yes, he was,” I whisper softly. “Until he kicked Lev out onto the streets of St. Petersburg when he was eleven. I think if you do the math, you’ll find that wasn’t too long before he showed up in Moscow looking for some new young boys to turn into thugs for his own personal gain.”
Kostya says nothing. But his jaw grinds and clenches furiously. His eyes burn hotly into the floor.
“I am sorry you lost someone who meant something to you, Kostya,” I say gently. “I am. But I knew that man through the wreckage he left—through the torn lives he left with people I care about.”
Kostya breathes slowly, clenching his fists.
“How did you end up in prison?”
He looks up at me sharply. “Careful, Nina,” he growls.
“Tell me.”
He looks away. “A job went bad.”
“A job Fyodor set up.”
“Yes,” he snaps. “He, and Dimitri and I. There was a post office full of blank money orders. Except it fell apart, and…”
His face scrunches up, and he snarls at the floor. I take a step towards him.
“What happened to Dimitri?” I say gently.
“He’s dead.” Kostya throat constricts. I see the battle raging behind his eyes—the war between loyalty and reality. I’ve had this war. I’ve fought these battles. I still fight these battles, long after Bogdan’s death.
“How?”
“The post office job,” he snaps. “He was shot, and he died.”
I swallow. “And Fyodor? How did you get caught and he—”
“Because that is what family does!!” he roars. His eyes snap up to mine. Fury and pain and agony blaze like fire behind his face. The mental anguish of a life spent in suffering and abuse.
I can see it plain as day, because I see it in the mirror every fucking time I look in one.
I keep walking towards him, biting my lip. “Kostya—”
“No, Nina,” he snarls, standing abruptly. He shakes his head. “No…”
“Dimitri wasn’t your fault, Kostya,” I whisper.
“Stop it.”
“Fyodor played you. He played off of the fact that you had no father, that you were desperate for family—”
“You know nothing about what you’re talking—!”
“The fuck I don’t!!” I scream back. “The fuck I don’t!”
Kostya’s shoulders heave. His chest rises and falls as he sucks in air through clenched teeth. His eyes are furious, but they’re also so full of pain. And when he looks at me, I can see the cracks shattering through the armor.
“Nina…”
“The job went bad, and the man who you call father sold you the fuck out, Kostya. To save himself. He let you give up your life, so he could stay free.”
His eyes squeeze shut. His teeth clench tightly.
“Do you know what happened to Fyodor after you went to jail?”
Digging deep is half my job working for my brother. And after what happened with Fyodor, that’s exactly what I did. I never got as far back as learning about Dimitri and Kostya. But I know about Anatoly and Kiril.
“Nina…”
“He found two more boys, at another orphanage.”
Kostya’s hand closes to a fist.
“Anatoly and Kiril. They were big, like you. Fyodor trained them to fight in boxing matches.”
When I see his face fall, I know I’ve hit a nerve. I know how painful this is, and it’s like that knife is cutting me too as I do this. But he has to know. He needs to understand, like I finally understood about Bogdan.
“Kiril died in one of those fights. He was eleven, Kostya. Eleven.”
“Please,” he hisses.
“Anatoly turned himself in for a shooting he wasn’t even in Moscow during. But it’s Moscow, so the police didn’t give a shit. He went to prison, and he died in a riot.”
I step closer to Kostya, who’s shaking, his jaw clenched so hard I’m worried for his teeth.
“I know the war in your heart, Kostya,” I whisper. “I know the gaslighting, and the bullshit, and the lies, and the feeling that you need to hang on to something rotten, because ’that’s what family does.’ And that is bullshit,” I hiss. “I have a family now. I know what it means to love and be loved; to respect and be respected back. Family isn’t fear—”
“Nina—”
“It’s not threats.”
“Goddamnit, Nina…”
I step right into him. I reach up and cup his cheek. He’s shaking, his shoulders heaving up and down.
“Family catches you and saves you. Family pulls you back from the edge,” I choke, my voice breaking. “It doesn’t push you over the side.”
“Nina…”
“I’m right here.”
He crashes into me, his huge arms enveloping me so tight my breath catches. But I grab him back. I hold him as he buries his face in my neck and roars like a lion.
We stand like that, just holding each other, for I don’t even know how long. But it doesn’t matter.
Like I said, I’ve fought this battle. I’ve fought it every day since Viktor pulled me out of hell and brought me to a life I’d never even let myself dream about. No one ever pulled Kostya out of his own hell. But I can.
When he pulls back, his eyes are hard. But there’s an urgency in them as he pulls me into his chest. His mouth lowers to mine, and I moan as our lips come together. It’s just a kiss at first. But then, it’s a lot more.
His grip on me tightens. His kiss becomes deeper, hungrier. The ache in me turns to desire—the broken parts of me melting with the heat throbbing in my core. I feel him grow hard and thick against me. His huge cock swells between my thighs, and I whimper as I reach down for him.
“Nina,” he groans.
“You have me.”
He growls into my lips, and I whimper as he suddenly lifts me up into him. I moan as he spins us, slamming my back into the wall as I hungrily kiss his mouth. His hands grip my ass, and my legs wrap around his waist.
I can feel his thick head slip against my opening. With a snarl, he pushes inside, taking my breath away. I moan, gasping into his lips. My arms wrap around his neck, my fingers threading into his hair.
Kostya groans and th
rusts into me. I cry out as his whole length buries to the hilt in my eager heat. He pulls back but then pounds into me again, like he’s fucking me into the wall at my back. My nails claw at him eagerly. My nipples rake across his chest. And I kiss him desperately and deeply.
He groans my name into my mouth as he fucks me hard, pounding into me over and over. I scream into his lips as I come hard, but he keeps going. His fingers dig into my skin. His heavy balls slap my ass, and he ruts into me like a demon.
I come again, and again. I lose track after that until his mouth bruises to mine. He groans as he buries himself balls-deep. I moan and follow him into the orgasm as I feel him explode inside of me. His hot cum spills deep, filling me as I squeeze around him and cling to him tightly.
His lips press hotly to mine. They stay right there as he wraps his arms around me and gently carries me to the bed. We lay down across it, but he never pulls out of me. And his lips never leave mine.
16
Kostya
Siberia, Four Years Ago:
I wake to the sound of a baton banging on the metal bars of my cell. I crack my eyes open, seeing mostly darkness, save for the single bare bulb down the hall.
“Vstavay ublyudok!” Wake up, motherfucker.
Some men in here try and learn the guards’ names—to sway them, to befriend them. To pass the information outside the walls for leverage within. I don’t, and I don’t give a shit to try. To me, they are all the same. And they all see me as everyone else in this place sees me.
If we’re in hell, then I am the devil.
It’s my size, mostly. I’ve got at least a foot and maybe fifty pounds of muscle on most of the men in here. Even the big ones. For a while, that made me a target. It still does, but only to the truly crazy, or the one’s hellbent on proving something to who the fuck knows who.
The guard outside my cell bangs on the bars again with a grin. “Vstavay!” He yells at me again. Wake up.
Again, my bruised and swollen eyes crack open to glare at him. It might be morning, it might not be. I’ve been in solitary for a week, after the last fight. There were six of them, and I still have no fucking idea what their issue with me was. I also don’t care. Whatever that issue was, it isn’t one anymore. Not with all six of them dead.