Hunted By The Bratva Beast: A Bratva Stalker/Captive Romance, Jagger Cole [good books to read for 12 year olds .txt] 📗

goodness. There’s softness and beauty. It’s just that they’re all new things for me, after a life of desperation and pain. I turn and kiss her hair as I feel her start to fall asleep. Then, I close my eyes and follow her there.

It’s hours later when something rattles me from sleep. It’s pitch dark in the room. But my senses twitch. Something’s wrong. Someone…

I whirl to reach for the gun on the bedside table. But the gun barrel jabs into my neck before I can get there. I freeze as I hear a low, deep chuckle in the darkness.

“You were always bigger, Kostya.”

My heart stops.

“But I was always faster.”

It can’t be. It’s not possible. But suddenly, the lights turn on, and I’m looking up into the face of a ghost. A dead man. An impossibility.

“You’re…”

Dimitri grins darkly down at me through a scared, grim face. “Hello, brother.”

Nina wakes and starts to scream as Dimitri brings his gun up and then slams it down on the side of my head. It all blinks to darkness.

17

Nina

When his eyes flutter open, I breathe a sigh of relief. Across from where I’m tied to a chair—bound by the wrists and ankles—Kostya slowly shifts his head, rolling from one shoulder to the other. But then he sinks back into a sleep as my heart thuds in my chest.

The man standing between us chuckles. He turns to me, leering at me lecherously. I was dressed in a t-shirt in bed, thank God. But sitting here tied to the chair, the hem is edging up much higher than I’d like.

The man’s eyes keep dropping to my bare legs. I squirm, trying to clench them tighter. He just chuckles again.

“Close them all you want. If I want a taste…” he shrugs, grinning. “Then I will have a taste. Believe me.”

I glare at him, gritting my teeth. “Touch me and you’re dead.”

He roars with laughter. “Sil’nyye slova, malen’kaya devochka.” Strong words, little girl.

I glance over at Kostya, then I narrow my eyes at the other man. “Who the hell are you?”

“I am just like you, Nina. Just like Kostya here. Another broken soul from a broken system.”

“I’m not broken,” I spit. “And neither is he.”

He laughs. “Listen to yourself. You think just because Viktor Komarov made you his fucking secretary, you are any less fucked up?” He grins. “Nina, we come from the same world. You and I are the same.”

“We are nothing the same,” I spit.

He shrugs. “So you’re healed, da? Your childhood in hell is all mended now? That’s why you fuck broken, delusional motherfucker like this man?”

He turns and shakes Kostya violently. “Hey! Wake up, Kostya! Wake up!” He slaps him, and I surge at the binds holding me back.

“Leave him the fuck alone!”

The man chuckles. He glances back at me. “Ahhh, so it’s more than just fucking him, da? You have feelings for the man who tried to kill your family? Who tried to kidnap you as a sort of vengeance?” He glares at me. “Do you ever ask yourself what his plans were for you? The night he was going to take you before you so nicely shot him in the chest?”

I swallow, paling.

“How do you—”

“Do you wonder where he’d have taken you? What he’d have… done to you?” He leers cruelly, his lips curling into a lecherous smile. “Or does wondering how he’d have made you his little whore get you so wet that you fuck him anyways?”

I shake my head slowly in disgust at him. “Who are you?”

“Dimitri.”

Behind the man, Kostya slowly raises his head. His eyes blink open. They quickly dart to me with worry filling them. But when I smile weakly at him, he seems to relax slightly. His gaze drags to the man standing between us with the gun in his hands.

“You’re dead,” he growls. “I watched you die, Dimitri.”

My jaw falls open. I stare at the man with the gun in disbelief. This is Dimitri? This is the other boy Fyodor trained and molded and abused. This is the one who “died” in the robbery that went sideways—the one that sent Kostya to prison.

But clear, he isn’t dead. There are horrible scars on his arms, and another on his face that slopes it slightly. And he walks with a crooked gait. But he’s very much alive.

“Surprise, little brother,” he hisses quietly.

“How—”

“Because I am strong, Kostya,” he growls. “I’m strong because our father made us strong—strong enough to survive anything.”

Kostya’s eyes narrow. “He wasn’t our father, Dimitri.”

“Yes, he was,” Dimitri snaps back. “He raised us, Kostya! He fed and housed us. He made us men!”

“He manipulated us, Dimitri,” Kostya growls back. “He used us. We were cannon fodder—”

“We were family!” he roars. “He was hard, yes. He pushed us, Kostya. But that is what family does! Just like family avenges each other!”

He narrows his eyes at Kostya, shaking his head. “I had hopes for you, Kostya. When I heard you’d broken out and were coming here after those motherfuckers murdered our father, I was overjoyed. I followed you, to share in your triumph.”

His face darkens as he shakes his head slowly.

“But you failed, Kostya. You failed me. You failed Fyodor. You failed yourself. You were weak. You hesitated, just like he told you to never do!”

He whirls and points his gun at me. “You had them! I was there, Kostya, watching you! You had the gun right on Viktor and that cunt Nikolai. You were going to kill them—”

My eyes snap to Kostya. He’s looking right at me, his face pained.

“I didn’t know who you were, Nina,” he says softly. “I didn’t know who I was. I had hate in my heart—”

“Save us the contrite confession, Kostya,” Dimitri laughs. “And stop pretending you aren’t the killer I know you are. The Beast! Kostya, you are a legend back home! A monster! And yet, you see this little whore, and you go soft!”

“Watch your mouth,” Kostya snarls.

Dimitri laughs. “Ten years, Kostya. I get it. You saw some