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

I watch her move to her bedroom and turn the lights on. I hiss quietly as she drops the towel, and my pulse thuds.

I’ve been watching her through my entire healing process. It’s not the first time I’ve seen her undressed. But every time feels like the first time I’m drinking her in. Seeing her bare for me is… enticing. It’s what I hunger for, daily. It’s what I dream about, every night.

She slips into pajamas, hiding herself from me. But still, I throb for her. My lust surges between my legs, thick and hard and needy. The urge to unzip and release myself grips me. It won’t be the first time I’ve relieved the pressure that watching her fills me with.

But movement catches my eye. I turn, tensing as I scan the roof of the building next to hers. I quietly raise the rifle in my hands, training it on the shadows. My pulse slows, and I breath. But soon enough, I see that there is no threat; just a plastic bag twisting in the night breeze.

I might be watching her now. But I’m watching around her, too. My plans changed the night I tried to take her. When I realized who she was, my world fell apart. When I realized the danger she was in, my resolve hardened.

I want her. I crave her. My lust and desire for her is eternal and overwhelming. But the need to protect the one who once protected me is even stronger—strong enough to stay my hand from actually taking her again. Not yet, at least. Not until I understand the danger and the threat.

She could have been hurt that night—a stray bullet, anything. I can tell myself that’s why I watch her, but that is not the whole truth. She is why I watch her. I watch her to protect her, yes. But I also watch her because she has become my obsession.

Slowly, Nina walks over to the glass door of her balcony, in pajamas and a robe. She slides the door open and steps onto the patio. She’s still carrying that gun, and I smirk.

Smart girl.

She hugs the robe close to her as the wind picks up. Her long dark hair twists and blows in the breeze, and she brings a hand up to quietly push it from her face.

Ten years ago, she saved me from death. Now, it is my turn to protect her.

She turns to go back inside, locking the door behind her, and checking it. Good girl, I think. She slips out of the robe and hangs it on her bathroom door. She pads barefoot to the bed, siding her pajama pants down and kicking them off as she walks.

I groan as my eyes sweep over her—t-shirt and panties, looking like a goddamn meal I want to devour whole. She slips under the covers and turns out the light. I switch to night visions as I settle in for the night of keeping watch on the roof across from her.

Soon, little one, I growl to myself.

Soon, I will take you. I will keep you. And I will make you mine.

4 Nina

Moscow, Thirteen Years Ago:

The front door to the apartment slams shut. I wince as if I’ve been stuck. Maybe it’s Pavlovian at this point—the slammed door means he’s drunk. Drunk means he’s angry. Angry means I’m going to get hurt.

When I hear nothing else though—not him screaming at Dima, my foster mother, or opening more alcohol, I exhale. Maybe I’m lucky tonight. Maybe this is one of those rare nights where he comes home drunk and furious and merely passes out on the floor.

As the silence goes on, I let myself sink back onto the hard, threadbare mattress. Bogdan and Dima have money from the government to take care of me—I know that’s part of how the foster system works because I read it in an article at school. But either the money doesn’t come to this apartment, or else Bogdan is drinking it before it can be used for silly things like food, clothes without holes in them, or bedsheets.

But when I think of school, my lips curl into a smile. I like school. I know other kids dread it or skip it daily. But I love the excitement of going to learn something new every day. And if nothing else, it’s a sigh of relief. A breath of fresh air. A sanctuary from this hell.

Plus, I’m smart. I’m actually very smart. One of my teachers called me “gifted” two years ago and moved me up a couple of grades. I’m ten, but I’ve just started in an eighth-grade classroom.

School is where I just learned about Pavlovian responses. The scientist, Ivan Pavlov, a Russian, researched things called conditioning and reflex actions. He saw that dogs could be trained to react to a signal, expecting a treat.

In a way, I am those dogs. Except it’s twisted in my world. When I hear or see the signal, I know what’s coming. And it is not a treat.

By now, Bogdan is almost certainly asleep on the sofa or the floor. I start to close my eyes. But suddenly, the footsteps thunder down the hall. My heart lurches, and I yank the thin sheet up over my face as if that may hide me—as if I am a toddler who thinks not seeing means you cannot be seen.

There’s no door on my room for him to kick down—that was months ago, and it’s still sitting propped up against the wall. But when Bogdan comes lurching into the room, hell and thunder come with him. I can smell him even before he yanks the sheet away from me. I scream and curl into a ball as the first crack of the belt whips across my back, cutting me through my shirt.

“Eto byl ty?!” He roars. Was it you?

I don’t know what he’s talking about, and I shake my head quickly. “Nyet! Nyet!”

“Do not lie to me!” he bellows. “You