Owned By The Bratva King by Jagger Cole

18

River

The bedroom is dark,and I’m physically, mentally, and emotionally drained from the horrors of the last few hours. But I can’t sleep. Or, I won’t sleep. I can’t close my eyes without reliving the gunshot that ripped away the only man I ever loved. I can’t shut them without hearing that dead splash of his body hitting the water. Or seeing the eruption of the yacht exploding into flames.

Tears trickle down the corners of my eyes. Somehow, I still have the capacity to cry more of them. Inside, my heart feels wrenched and run over—broken in a million charred little pieces.

Yuri, I think quietly to myself. I sob as I turn to press my face to the pillow. The bed is hard, the sheets too stiff. Earlier, a stern, grim-faced older woman who brusquely introduced herself as “Mr. Belsky’s housekeeper” made me change out of my robe and put on the lacy, semi-transparent matching pajama tops and bottoms I’m wearing. They’re awful. And it’s made worse knowing that it’s Semyon who picked these out, imagining me wearing them.

But even worse, while she was in here, she took my measurements. “For the dress,” she’d snapped in her heavy accent.

I start to cry harder into the pillow. The man I love is dead. The escape I thought I had, burned to the ground. Now, the horrible piece of shit responsible for destroying everything has me as his prisoner. And tomorrow, he’s going to make me marry him.

I suddenly hear the door to the room creak open.

My heart skips as I whirl, my eyes piercing the darkness. I say nothing, but I know someone’s there. I hear footsteps, and then suddenly see a shape emerging from the shadows. When Maksim’s face suddenly appears, I start to scream in rage.

But instantly, he’s on me, clamping a hand over my mouth.

“Do not scream,” he growls quietly into my ear. I scream anyways, though his huge hand muffles it entirely. I thrash and kick and punch at him. But he just takes it. I mean the man is a giant, built like a football linebacker. I’m not going to hurt him. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to try until it kills me.

I roar into his hand, kicking and hitting with everything I have left in me. I want to tear him apart with my bare hands—this traitor. This complete piece of shit who betrayed Yuri for a price.

“Stop it,” he grunts. But when I don’t, he sighs heavily. “I am sorry for this.”

He yanks out a length of fabric and starts to stuff it into my mouth. I’m screaming at him, hurling swears and calling him a coward and a betrayer. But he doesn’t hear me. He stuffs the fabric into my mouth and then wraps a bandana around my head, gagging me entirely. I sob as he uses another length of fabric to tie my hands together in front of me. Then, he hauls me to my feet.

I’m screaming at him as he drapes a trench-coat around me. He deftly closes and ties it at the front and then takes my arm.

“Let’s go.”

I dig my heels in. Fuck this. If he wants to hurt me or bring me to Semyon so he can hurt me, I’m sure as hell not going to go willingly. Maskim turns to me, his brow furrowing.

“Ms. Finn—”

I hurt a string of muffled swears at him. When I tense again when he tries to pull me, Maksim sighs.

“Sorry, but we need to go.”

He grabs me, throwing me over his shoulder and turning to storm from the room. I scream, but no one can hear me. And even if they could, so what?

Maksim moves like a wraith, quickly stepping from shadow to shadow down the dark halls of Semyon’s mansion. We take a winding, gilded staircase down past huge oil-paintings of Russian aristocrats. Then down another hallway lined with various old firearms mounted on plaques on the wall.

Down another staircase, we exit out into an underground garage. Maksim marches over to black Mercedes SUV with dark tinted windows. When he opens the back, my heart lurches. I scream and yell, but he deftly puts me inside on a blanket in the back and shuts the trunk. I hear him get into the driver’s seat and start the engine. Then we’re off.

We stop almost right away, and even with it being in Russian, I can tell we’re at the front gates, or a guard post or something. I almost scream. But again, what’s the point? Maksim says something and chuckles, and the guards laugh too. He’s probably telling them that he’s bringing me out to the woods to kill me—that Semyon’s decided he doesn’t want me after Yuri.

The SUV rumbles away, down a gravel road. Then I can feel the smoothness of tarmac. We drive for a long time. I lose all track of it, but it feels like hours and hours have gone by when I feel Maksim pulling off the main road. In fact, it’s light out. We’ve driven through the whole night.

The SUV rumbles over gravel again. Through the heavily tinted back window, I can sort of make out trees, like we’re in a forest. The car stops, and I hear his window roll down. I hear beeps, like he’s punching in a security code. Then the window rolls up, and the car keeps driving over the gravel.

And then, a minute later, the SUV stops, and the engine turns off. Maksim’s door opens and closes. I hear the crunch of his boots before he opens the trunk. We’re in the middle of the woods. And suddenly, I know I’m not going out without a fight.

I scream and scream through the gag. I lash at him, kicking and fighting. But Maksim isn’t phased by my assault. He reaches for me and pulls me out of the trunk. He sets me on my feet. But when I see the glint of a knife, I quaver. He brings it up, but suddenly, he cuts off the tie on my wrists. He reaches up and pulls the gag off, and the fabric from my mouth

“You asshole!!” I scream as I lurch at him. My fists rain down on him as the tears stream hot down my face. Fuck this. If Maksim is going to kill me in the fucking woods, I’m going to fight until my last goddamn breath before he does.

“You fucker!” I roar. “You killed him! You fucking killed—”

“Ms. Finn, please,” he growls. He reaches for me, but I punch his arm away.

“Fuck you!”

“Ms. Finn!!” He roars suddenly. His hands lunge out, grab my shoulders, and turn me around. I gasp as I look up at the huge, stone, castle-like mansion in the middle of a small clearing in the heavy dark woods—like a hunting lodge for a Tsar.

“What is this place?!” I scream, whirling on him. I snarl as I jab a finger at him. “You couldn’t just kill me at Semyon’s—”

“I did not bring you here to kill you,” he says gently. He smiles quietly, which infuriates me.

“Then why?!” I roar. “Then why the fuck am I—”

“Kiska.”

My heart lurches. My very soul jars and stutters. Everything goes quiet at the sound of his voice behind me. I don’t want to believe it, because I can’t. It can’t be real, because I watched him die. But slowly, my heart thudding, I turn.

And right there, walking down the huge front stairs of the forest mansion, is Yuri.

Real or not, I can’t hold back. With a choking sob, I lurch for him, running across the clearing. He groans as he rushes down the last steps and storms towards me. I crash into him hard, slamming into his arms as I sob into his chest. He’s real. He’s alive. I can touch him and smell him.

I cry hard, ugly tears into his chest. I cling to him like he might blow away. His huge arms encircle me, his hands stroking my back as I hold him tightly.

“I’m here, kiska,” he murmurs softly, holding me in his arms. “I am here.”

“You—I saw you…”

“I had to, River,” he growls quietly. “For Semyon to believe it, I had to.”

My heart clenches as I raise my eyes to stare at him in horror. “You…” I balk. “That was a setup?!”

His face is grim as he gently nods. With a sob, I suddenly slap him, hard. But when his eyes hold mine, I collapse into him. I grip his shirt in a white-knuckle grip, sobbing into his chest again. Then I raise my face to his. He groans, and suddenly, his lips are crushing to mind.

I just hold him, for what might be forever. I hold him, and I kiss him with all of my heart.