Taken By the Bratva Boss by Sarina Hart

Chapter Two

Olivia

Well, the internet is not now, nor has it ever been my friend. Not email, not social media, and certainly not the news app that tells me Leon Krilov is out of jail. Not just out of jail, but free, without charges pending, without bailment, without one damned thing to stop him from killing me.

I’ve had oh-shit moments before, some what-the-hell-have-I-done bits of time—more than I care to count, honestly—but this time, I’m not just in awe of my own stupidity, I’m shaken by it.

Shaken because he’s a murderer and I know it. And he’s going to find me because it’s what Leon Krilov, the kind of bad boy even the crime world is scared of, does. He shoots first and doesn’t worry about it later.

Before I have completely processed the information, dealt with the fear, or thought to check flights out of Chicago, Jacob’s face appears on my phone screen. I answer because he’ll understand my fear. He’s probably the only one.

“Jacob.” His name is a relief. He’s also the only person I’ll be able to talk to about this. “He’s out.”

“I know.” His voice is a comfort. I’ve known him since I was a kid, since I met Denice. He’s a little younger, twenty-two to my twenty-four, but I trust him. Partly because I don’t have a choice and partly because we share a common goal—to make as big a red mark on Leon Krilov’s life as we can. Annihilate him, if possible.

“If Veronica tells him”—and she would—“he’ll kill me.”

“Yeah. I’m coming to get you right now. Pack a bag and get ready.” I’m urgent. He’s urgent. And my death is probably imminent. It isn’t fair to involve him. But he’s involved himself. And I can’t make him stop. I need him.

“Okay.” Pack a bag. My head swims with the thought. I have a cat. Technically, the fire escape has a cat it shares with the alley, but I leave food out for it. And my plants. Someone has to water my plants.

What’s going to happen to all my stuff? The album collection I’ve been cultivating since I was ten. The slow cooker I just bought or the pots and pans I hardly ever use. The blankets folded in the chest I use as a coffee table. The curtains, the bathroom towels, the little gold butterflies on sticks in the plant beside the stereo system.

Tears pool in my eyes and one slides down my cheek unbidden. I flick the second away.

“I know it sucks, Liv.” The compassion in his voice only stirs more tears. “Just get ready and I’ll be there in a few.”

I sniff. “All right.” Before I commence full breakdown, I hang up. It isn’t Jacob’s fault. Every bit of this is Leon Krilov’s fault. He’s the one who raped Denice. The man with the money to hire the lawyer to stay out of jail and fight the Miller’s wrongful death suit. When he won, Denice couldn’t take it.

I’ll never forget the day I found her body. The blue lips. The stark white skin. My mission in life is to make him pay. It’s why the Millers, Jacob, and I pooled our money to give Veronica Blair two-hundred grand to seduce Leon, to video him, to take a beating.

Now, after only two weeks, Leon’s out of jail. A free man. He has more power, more connections than I thought.

I glance down at my phone. Shit. If Veronica didn’t give me up, I’m safe. All she had was my number. But she had my number. A way for Leon to track me. To hunt me down.

My breath comes in short pants. I’m beyond screwed. He’s going to kill me because it’s what he does. Guys like Leon Krilov don’t get to where they are without some murder and mayhem.

I’m about to be a part of the mayhem that comes just before the murder. Shit.

I don’t pack anything. I don’t even bother with a fresh shirt. No time.

I manage to snag a hoodie—black—and slip it on as I walk out the door, down the narrow stairwell to the foyer.

As I’m about to walk out of the building and away from my life, the exit door whooshes open, and a hoard of large men walk in one after another. And then the man himself strolls in like he owns the place.

I give him a glance and another, and both times, he’s looking at me.

I’m fucked.

There are four other men with him. Four men to get one tiny girl. Not really tiny, but by comparison, I’m a speck.

Like a fool who has no sense of self-protection, I wait a second for him to turn. To seize me and drag me to his lair where he’ll torture and kill me, send me to meet my maker.

But he continues walking so I burst outside, to the sidewalk. Jacob has had plenty of time to get here. But the street in front of my building is populated by black SUVs.

One of Leon’s men—I recognize him from his presence at the courthouse during the civil suit—is on the phone, lounging against the one nearest me.

“In black?” He doesn’t have the hint of accent Leon has, but if they aren’t brothers, they’re related somehow. The coloring is different, but the cut of their jaws, the roundness of their eyes, the build, is all the same. “Got her.”

As I’m turning to walk the opposite direction—check that, run in the other direction—he pushes off the front of the Escalade, his footsteps sure and steady behind me.

Why there aren’t people on the sidewalk or cars moving up and down the street is a mystery, one that’s going to end with my death.

I’ve made it two more steps when one arm wraps around me, lifting me off my feet, and the other clamps over my mouth. And he’s strong, squeezing me while he backs up and turns.

It is only a matter of seconds I have to make a move.

And then it’s too late. He throws me inside the closest vehicle—not the one he’d been leaning against—and slams the door shut as the other side opens and Leon slides in.

Up close, he’s beautiful. Smells good, too. But he’s a rapist and a killer, a man with no conscience and no moral compass. A bastard by any other name, no matter how good he looks or smells, is still a bastard.

For a second, I’m not afraid because I’m so angry. I hate him and everything he did. Everything he does. Everything he is. The hate is powerful and useless.

Then the fear seeps in. Deep. Even the marrow in my bones is affected. Weakened by it. And now, I hate myself.

He’s staring like I’m the enigma. “Olivia Hudson. Do I know you?” His voice is steel, his body is tense beside me. Leon Krilov laces his fingers through mine, uses his thumb to stroke my palm for a full five seconds before he squeezes my fingers with vice-like force.

I shake my head. And it’s true. He doesn’t know me. But I know him. All about him. More than I want to know. And I want him dead for it.

More, I want to be the one who kills him, but our current situation isn’t in my favor. He’s the one with his fingers curled around mine with his grip so hard I can feel my bones rubbing together.

“Why do you want to hurt me?”

My brain wiring is off because the bit of accent he has is curling my toes. I’ll be cutting those traitorous digits off later.

I don’t answer him, and he gives me a harder, more painful squeeze. “Who do you work for then?”

He’s pretty, but he’s stupid. Just because I’m a woman doesn’t mean I work for anyone. Women can hate him just as easily as his male enemies.

“I don’t work for anyone.” It’s true and there’s so much more to say, I sputter, trying to organize my thoughts. “I’m Denice’s friend. You remember Denice? You raped her.”

His eyes flash once. He knows what he did. But here comes the big denial. “Denice.” Instead of denying, he nods, and it’s all the proof I need. He’s the bastard who killed my friend. My best friend.

“You raped her and then she killed herself.” And for the rest of my life, however short it might be, I’ll never get over it, never forgive him, never let him forget what he did. “You killed my friend.”

He glances down at me. “Where is your proof? Without it, you have nothing. Not even a reason to hate me.” With the force of a man who believes the shit he’s saying even though we both know it’s shit, he adds, “Where is your fucking proof?”

Well, I don’t have any except my dead best friend’s word.

“If I was the kind of guy who hurt women”—I assume he doesn’t consider rape as hurting a woman—“you’d be dead by now.”

This I don’t doubt. Neither is it comforting.