The Very Rude Boys Next Door by Chloe Kent

Chapter Twelve

 

Callum and his brothers had tried to live their lives avoiding violence wherever they could. But when they’d discovered that she had been taken, the rage that exploded under their skin had them seeing nothing but red.

Boris Yveltin’s blood dripping from their fingertips.

To the people in Lakeside Banter, they were known as Callum, Ben, and Kane Smith. But to inner and darker underground circles they were known as the Smith-Cohens—the very nucleus of the American Mafia.

Their mother had known that when they got to a certain age their father was going to initiate them into the Mafia. She knew she had no choice, but she had made them promise on her deathbed, that they would come back to Lakeside Banter, where she had lived all her life, where she had met and secretly married their father, that they would return once a year to the community and give them their help.

She made them promise not to throw their money around. That was not what she wanted. She wanted them to use their bare hands to help, fix things, offer a kind solution, make sure the people of the community were happy. They didn’t need much. They were happy with what they had.

She wanted them to never forget their roots which she believed made them the men they were today.

It had been nothing but a coincidence that the girl who had moved in next door just happened to be a stunning Russian Mafia princess.

With one phone call, they had everything on her before they saw her for the second time. They had known about her uncle, Fedor Koltov, who had treated her badly and finally sold her to be married to the prick shitting his pants right now, little Boris Yveltin.

And they had known about the Koltov matriarch’s will that left everything to Anastasia, including controlling interest over the Koltov company, long before she asked them to get her pregnant so she could inherit, leaving out no detail. At that moment they had found her honesty as sexy as her tight body.

As soon as they had learned that Fedor Koltov was in the States because he had found her, they had taken the time to make sure that her uncle understood she was under their protection now, and he had backed off immediately.

They could have made him magically disappear from the face of the earth within a breath, naturally, but they wanted her to be the one who crushed him, when she told him she was the Koltov in charge now once her inheritance kicked in. And they would be standing right behind her when she had her moment as her bodyguards and nothing more, making sure she was safe and that no one stood in her way.

That was where they had been once they learned Fedor was in New York. They had put on their signature clothes, black suits, the type they wore every day except when they were in Lakeside Banter.

They had startled Fedor when he found them waiting in his hotel room when he came from the shower, and they had delivered their message in no uncertain terms.

But Fedor had failed to keep his partner, Boris, in check, who decided the American Mafia was a myth, didn’t exist, because they had hidden it so well.

It was okay that Boris had sent his goons after them, thinking they were mere civilians, which they were far from, and his goons soon learned it the hard way.

But throughout it all, they had repeatedly told her to stay in Lakeside Banter, not to leave the gates, because Lakeside Banter was their sacred property, and no man with any knowledge, no matter how vague, about them would have stepped into their domain to do harm. And never to something they had claimed as their own.

Strangely, even though Boris had believed they didn’t exist, it didn’t take his men long to figure out their boss was wrong, which also explained why they had waited for her just outside Lakeside Banter to take her.

They couldn’t even comprehend what they would have done if Boris had already killed her. The world would not have been a safe place for anyone, then. And fuck, all she had to do, their stubborn Russian beauty, was to follow their order to remain in their bed, in Lakeside Banter.

They covered everything to find her. Had called on their friends, men they had enjoyed doing legitimate business with over the years, which saw them accumulate more money than all the most prestigious Bratvas in Russia, including the Koltovs and the money that Anastasia had inherited from her matriarch. The Bolshov, Baskin, Semonov, and Damov Bratva had covered the whole of Russia for them, if Boris brought her there, they were ready to take her back. And even though they had worked methodically, coldly, snapping necks and peeling fingernails off to get to her location, they had been raging with fear inside them.

They never expected a woman to have that hold on them. Didn’t understand the true depths inside them she would reach with her beauty, her heart. Yet instantly they had known they had met their one weakness, and with that came the realization that they could no longer behave in a clandestine manner.

No. Now they had to own up to their legacy. They had to make their kills known, their territories openly marked, so no man, or Mafi would dare enter. They had to reclaim the Smith-Cohen name publicly and ruthlessly so the entire world would know who she belonged to.

They would have burned down the world to find her and they would have done so without a second thought. But lucky for the world, they had found her.

Boris had thought he was being clever by letting everyone think he had taken her to Russia when instead they found him in a deserted farmhouse, and it didn’t take his men long to give up that prized information after getting a taste of the methods in extracting information.

But seeing her face bruised, her eyes shimmering with an ocean of tears increased their fury at the man they had now hauled off her and flung into a chair. Yet the relief of seeing that same beautiful face of hers flooded through them like light to their thundering darkness that they had learned to keep dormant. Not anymore.

“It can’t be,” he stammered.

“It is, and for every mark you left on her...” Ben said.

“We’re going to take a limb of yours,” Callum finished.

“No, you don’t exist,” he said, yet his gaze was fixed on their rings, indisputable proof they were very much not myths. He tried to escape, but Kane shoved him back down.

“We do, motherfucker,” Kane said and fisted his hand, then promptly knocked the daylights out of him, making sure that when he was done, the imprint of his ring, the one they all wore with the Smith-Cohen crest of a wolf engraved in gold, marked Boris’s forehead.

They weren’t done with him yet—no. That was going to be a long, slow process and one she didn’t need to see.

As soon as they released her, they took her into their arms, kissing her gently, making sure she wasn’t hurt anywhere else and thinking up new ways to finish off the men that dared touch what was theirs and only theirs.

She sobbed against their chests, clinging to them, refusing to leave their sides. But they still had business to deal with, and they finally got her to agree to go home with one of their most trusted men.

 

***~~~***

 

Anastasia tried to understand what had happened to her during the last few hours. She ran through the facts meticulously, but they seemed so farfetched, so she tried again. In the end, she accepted the bruises on her face proved what really happened.

And she was here, back home in their house in Lakeside Banter, their mother’s house and a heavily armed man, who had smiled at her kindly and called them sir, had driven her here.

A nurse had been brought in quietly and attended her bruises. And the man who had brought her home stood guard outside the door, giving her privacy around the whole house.

She stopped pacing and tried to think of the facts again.

Boris had kidnapped her; he had drugged her, and he had intended to near kill her, if his threats were anything to go by. She had stopped living when he told her he'd had the Smith brothers killed, and she had believed him because she had thought they didn’t belong in her world.

But then they came to her rescue, like dark knights in their dark suits, like sleek predators, fearless, utterly stunning to look at. She had thought she was dreaming.

She had never seen this side of them, this deadly side.

Was what Boris said, in fact, the direct opposite? They were the American Mafia?

But at that point she didn’t care. She just wanted to see them again and had pleaded with the man who brought her home to take her back to the farmhouse where they had left them. But his only reply was that these were his bosses’ orders.

Just when she thought she was going to go permanently insane, the door opened, and they entered the house.

She flung herself against them. Kissing them. Feeling for their heartbeats over and over again. But it wasn’t enough. She had to feel them move inside her, and stripped off the clothes she had changed into, pressing her body into theirs until she was picked up and carried to the bedroom, where they made love to her with agonizing gentleness, and desperation that seemed so unlike them.

All she wanted was for them to bruise her, to leave their marks on her body, so she could erase the ones Boris had left on her, the one her uncle had left in her head.

And it was only when they filled her up, all three of their cocks sliding into her, and they came, bathing her with their essence, did she allow herself a moment of peace.

They had cradled her in their arms, taking turns like they always did as they told her who their father had been. That while they ran their father’s colossal empire, they hadn’t lost the feel for the kind of blood that ran through their veins. They were after all their father’s sons. But it was their mother who had kept them grounded.

"Perfect," she said softly. They were perfect in her eyes.

“I love you,” she whispered. “I love you all three with all my heart, my soul, my body. And the baby that is growing inside me.”

She had shocked them, because they all took a moment too long to look at her, before their gazes became flooded with fierce adoration, protectiveness, and a love only she would understand because she could feel it.

They worshiped her then, kissing her belly with such profoundness and wonder in their expressions, she couldn’t help but smile. They called her their world, their light, the love of their lives, and there was no one they wouldn’t hurt, maim, or kill who so much as threatened a hair on her head.

To think she had worried herself sick about unwittingly dragging them into her violent world, exposing them to the likes of Boris when these men before her, could wage war on the world and win. To think she was trying to protect them by leaving when she found out she was pregnant and yet they were the ones who came to her rescue and would now protect her for the rest of her life.

“We meant to come clean, tonight actually,” Kane said. “That’s why we’re wearing suits, well that and also we had some nasty Bratva business to take care of.”

She had no idea what they had done to Boris, but she knew the world was a bit of a better place without him.

“We were going to come home and tell you everything. Who we are. Why you had to stay here in Lakeside Banter while she made it known to the world you belong to us so no one would dare touch you.”

“We were going to give you this…” Callum said and suddenly the three of them went down on one knee and from each of their palms they offered her a small velvet box.

“Will you marry us, Anastasia and become the Mrs. Smith-Cohen?”

Tears clouded her vision. Words failed her but she nodded, laughing and crying at the same time.

As they slipped the three rings onto her finger she was mesmerized as the interlocking pieces fitted together to make wolf out of glittering diamonds. They female version of the rings they each wore.

She sobbed non-stop and every time they thought she got a handle on it, she looked at the ring and cried again. So they took her back to bed instead so they could make her cry for orgasms at least.

Of course, there was still the matter of her punishment for leaving Lakeside Banter when she realized she was pregnant. She had broken a rule, and they were going to make sure she understood the consequences of it, but they were giving her nine months to come up with a better apology before they spanked her again.