Bratva Beast by B.B. Hamel
Mack
The problem of Fiona’s brother wasn’t going to solve itself.
So I made a few calls.
When you work as long and as intensely as I have in a city like Philadelphia, you tend to make some contacts. I mainly do kills for the Morozovs, but I’ve loaned out my skills to most of the major families over the years, taking on small targets to keep the peace between my Pakhan and the other leaders.
My gun was a sign of respect. Except for when it was trained on you.
Then it was a death sentence.
“Who’s this guy again?” Fiona sat leaning back in her seat and stared out the window.
“His name’s Juan.”
“Doesn’t sound Italian.”
“He’s not. I think he’s Argentinian.”
She frowned a little, but didn’t look at me. “I thought the Lionettis only took in Italians.”
“They’re equal opportunity employers.”
She laughed and drummed her fingers nervously on her knee. “I don’t like this. If he goes back and tells Renzo, they might hurt Connor.”
“You don’t have to worry about Juan.”
“That’s not really making me feel better.”
“He owes me in the same way I owe Evgeni.”
She glanced over. “You saved his life?”
I nodded and slowed down outside of a coffee place tucked into the corner of a gentrifying neighborhood near Fairmount Avenue. “Worked a job together years back. Things went south and he took a bullet in the leg. I could’ve left him, but instead I killed three men and dragged his ass to a doctor. Now he thinks he owes me some sort of blood debt.”
“I hope that’s enough to keep his mouth shut.”
“Don’t worry, it will be.” I parked and killed the engine. If she knew Juan, she wouldn’t be worried. He was a solid guy, even if he did work for the Lionettis. “Juan joined the Lionettis because they pay well and he had nothing else, but he’s not an Italian and never will be, so he’s an outsider in his own family. You can probably guess how they treat him.”
She chewed on her lip. “Probably not well.”
“No, not well. He doesn’t hate them for it, but there’s some resentment. I take advantage of that anger from time to time. If anyone knows about your brother, it’ll be him.”
“I don’t know,” I said nervously shifting in my seat. “If he’s not important—”
“Just trust me.” I reached out suddenly and touched her hair. It was up in a messy bun with little flyaways floating around her pretty face. “Let this down.”
“Excuse me?”
“Your hair. Let it down for me.” I pulled at the bun gently, fingers probing.
“Why?” She reached up to untangle the hair tie, her mouth hanging open.
“I like your hair. I don’t want you to hide it.”
I stared into her eyes and felt a strange leap in my chest as she obeyed. I watched it tumble around her shoulders and a chill touched my skin as I ran my fingers through it. The girl was beautiful, and I felt a sharp possessiveness roll through me in waves, something I’d never experienced before. In my line of work, life was cheap and woman came and went—but Fiona was different. She made me want to burn the city down to keep her safe.
I worshiped her. I didn’t know why—but I did.
“Come on.” I got out of the car and walked toward the coffee place.
She hurried to follow. Inside, the shop was dim, and quiet acoustic guitar music drifted across the tables. The girl behind the counter smiled and I asked for two coffees. She brought them over, and I carried them to a table in the very back where a small guy sat with his legs sprawled out and a half-eaten blueberry muffin crumbling on a plate in front of him.
He had black hair, dark eyes, light brown skin, and a wide, white smile. I shook his hand and grinned back as I sat down. “Good to see you,” I said.
“You too, Mack.” Juan glanced at Fiona. “This the girl you mentioned?”
“Fiona, this is Juan. He’s good people.”
“Hey,” Juan said, nodding.
“Nice to meet you,” she said.
He looked back at me and his smile faltered. I didn’t like the nervous energy I felt rolling off him in waves. “Gotta say, man, you don’t normally call me for a social visit, and you definitely don’t bring some hot Irish chick with you.”
Fiona blushed slightly and I laughed, but my eyes narrowed. “Easy. The girl’s mine.”
“Meant it as a compliment.” Juan held his hands up placatingly.
I leaned toward Juan and took a sip from my hot coffee. I thought of my fingers in Fiona’s hair, my eyes roaming down her body—my possessiveness, my jealousy—and knew that I’d never let another man look at her the way I did. Juan meant well, I knew that much, but this rabid desire to keep the male gaze off Fiona’s creamy skin sent a striking, surging rage through my blood, like fire and thunder.
“I need information from you,” I said quietly, changing the subject to avoid any unpleasantness. I glanced at Fiona and she was giving me an odd look I couldn’t read.
Juan nodded and glanced around. “What sort of information?”
“The Lionettis have a kid hostage right now. I need to know where they’re holding him.”
If Juan could turn pale, he’d be sheet white. He shifted from side to side like a kid in church caught breaking the rules. “Man, I don’t know, I mean, I, uh, I don’t, oh, shit.”
“Juan, what do you know?”
“This is high-level stuff, Mack. How do you even know about—” Then Juan looked at Fiona and groaned. “You’re that fucking girl, aren’t you?”
“Keep your eyes on me,” I said. “What do you know?”
Juan looked back at him and rubbed his face with both his hands. “Nothing officially. I’ve overheard some shit, that’s all.”
“Overheard how?”
“You know how it goes.” He looked down at the muffin and poked it. “They don’t pay attention when I’m around, just point to whatever needs doing and then forget I’m in the room.”
“Where were you when you overheard this?”
He stopped fiddling with the muffin. “Man, Mack, you’re really killing me here.”
“If I wanted you dead, I would’ve left you with that hole in your leg and let you bleed out. You owe me.”
Juan’s face tightened like I’d elbowed him in the throat. “It’s a safe house up in Northern Liberties. Nice neighborhood, actually.”
“Is that where they’re keeping him?”
Juan nodded once. “Tied up in the basement. I think they move him around, but I’m not sure. They brought me in to clean up some blood and give the kid some food.” He glanced over at Fiona. “Sorry.”
Her face was pale white and her hands shook. She tried to smile, but it faltered and fell away. “How much blood?” she whispered.
“Not a lot. They didn’t hurt him too bad. I mean, a little bit, but you know.”
Fiona let out a strangled sob and looked away. Juan’s face fell then he looked at me and held up his hands like he was trying to apologize, and I only shook my head and put a hand on Fiona’s thigh.
She brushed it away and suddenly stopped crying. She sucked in a breath and let it out between a pair of puckered lips. It was almost creepy, the way she went from upset—to nothing.
Dead stare, no feelings.
The girl knew how to shut herself down.
Very interesting. A skill like that would come in handy in a family like the Doyles.
I learned something similar a long time ago, back before I was taken in by Evgeni, right around the time my mother died.
Right around the day I walked into her bedroom and found a belt wrapped around her neck—
I learned fast how to quiet the screaming in my head.
“Is he going to live?” she asked. “Are they going to kill him?”
“I don’t know,” Juan said. “They didn’t talk about that, only that they’re keeping the kid until he’s not useful anymore. They were complaining that he’s a pain in the ass to feed and, you know, to clean and stuff.”
“Thank you for telling me.” Fiona’s tone was flat.
“What’s the address of the house?”
Juan gave it to me and I typed it into my phone. “They’re not fucking around with this kid though, Mack. They’ve got lots of guards around the place all day and night.”
“I figured. He’s important.”
“Not just that. They’re planning something, but I don’t know what.”
“You think the kid’s involved?”
He only shrugged. “I don’t know, man. Only it sounded like they got some shit cooking but they wouldn’t tell me what.”
I tapped my fingers on the table, trying to think. I didn’t know what the Lionettis were playing at, stealing this Doyle kid and using Fiona to spy on her people. They were busy trying to kill each other, it didn’t make any sense that they’d want to go after another family.
Unless Park saw something that I didn’t.
That bastard could be crafty. I only knew him by reputation, but if what everyone said was true, the man was formidable.
Or maybe I was overthinking. Could be that the Lionettis simply wanted to extract as much blood and treasure from the Doyles while they had an advantage.
Blackmail was their specialty, after all.
I stood up and nodded down at Juan. “I appreciate the help.”
“Just don’t bring my name into this shit, all right? Whatever you’re doing with the Lionettis, just leave me out of it.”
“Far as I’m concerned, we never met.” I walked from the table with Fiona on my heels.
Outside, she paused as we walked back to my car and leaned up against a tree. I watched several emotions bounce across her face: anger, sadness, devastation.
“They’re never going to send him home.” The words came out like a strangled whisper.
“Probably not.”
She winced like I’d slapped her in the face.
“You love this, don’t you? Now you know you really do own me.”
I tilted my head. “The thought occurred to me.”
Her eyes narrowed as she glared at me. Pretty girl, so filled with rage. I wondered how she’d survived for so long.
“What’s your game, you asshole? What are you getting out of all this?”
“I’m not sure yet.”
She snorted dismissively. “You said you were brought up by Evgeni. He’s the leader of your family, right? You don’t seem like the kind of man that would betray your father figure over nothing. So why the hell are you doing all this? What do you want from me?”
I stepped closer, thinking back to the night she kissed me, back to the feeling of her pussy slick with arousal, the moans that wrenched themselves from her throat as she came in incredible ecstasy, and I wanted to explain how that moment was revelatory for me, how I still thought about it and felt my cock stiffen almost instantly, how ever since tasting her, I couldn’t get her from my mind.
But she’d never believe it.
And I couldn’t blame her.
I was a killer, a thug, a beast—and she knew my type.
She was smart enough to think I was full of shit.
Except for once in my life, I wasn’t, and I didn’t know how I could make her see it.
And I didn’t know if I should.
Everyone that’d ever been important to me ended up dead. My mother, my father. Friends from the early days in the family, dead on the street. Corpses stretched back for years.
Corpses, bodies, blood and worse.
Men begging for their lives. Women pleading for one more chance.
And all of them gone.
Ruthless and wrong.
Why the hell was I helping her?
“You know what I want from you.” I stared at her and felt the hunger roil in my chest. I felt it force my cock to strain against my boxer briefs.
“You can’t have that.” She whispered the words like they hurt. She forced them out like puking on a cold tile floor. “Maybe you own me, but you can’t have me. Don’t you get it? There’s nothing to have.”
“I’ll be the judge of that. Now come on, we shouldn’t linger on the street. There’s no telling who’s watching.”
I turned away and began to walk back to the truck. After a moment, she hurried and caught up. Her arms wrapped around her, hugging tight, and we didn’t speak as we drove back to my place.
