Taken By the Bratva Boss by Sarina Hart

Chapter Twenty-Five

Olivia

I’m ashamed I didn’t recognize the man in front of me. He isn’t Leon. The differences aren’t only distracting, they’re startling. Leon, despite being a man who has and will again kill, there’s a kindness in his eyes. I’ve seen it when he looks at Anna. When he looks at me.

He stands straighter. When he walks into a room, women stare not only because he’s beautiful, but because he’s confident and strong, charismatic. This clown might look like Leon, but he is less than half the man.

He’s also less honorable, and I have no doubt he would kill me if he didn’t need me to lure Leon to this place.

The house is empty, but there is nary a dust bunny to be seen. Someone has kept this place up.

He’s tied my hands together with a zip tie and then put me on a chair in the center of what was probably the living room.

“Your boyfriend is coming for you.” He has his back to me, but I continue cataloging the differences between him and Leon. The voice. The more severe edge of his haircut. The scar on the back of his neck that seems to come from somewhere under his shirt on his back. “I’m sorry I’ll have to kill him.”

His sincerity is lacking. “If he doesn’t get you first.”

He laughs and the sound makes my stomach roll. Very real chance I’m going to throw up on his shoes if he comes toward me.

“Do you know how long I’ve been planning my revenge?” He sighs. “Years. Fucking years, and I had to pretend to be dead. Grow a beard. Do you know how itchy it is?” If he wants to talk skin irritation, I’m fine with it. The more he talks, the longer I have to live.

I make a non-committal sound because I want him to know I’m listening. Hearing, at least.

“Did Leon ever tell you about our cousin, Nickolai?” He glances over his shoulder at me, and I shake my head. He’s standing at a window. Looking out, as normal looking as if he belongs here. “When we were young, we played in this living room. Leon, Nickolai, and I.” He turns to look at me. “Equals. Friends. Brothers. Family.” He smiles. “Nickolai was like brother to me.”

Sometimes, he leaves off words that make his accent more apparent. “More than Leon. Leon was too commanding, too obsessed with the rules and the Bratva laws, trying to learn how to become true Pakhan. Such boredom. Nickolai was much more fun.”

If I’m supposed to react, I don’t. I sit.

“When I faked my death”—his grin splits his face as he bobbles his head from side to side before staring at me again—“Nickolai almost ended his own life in his sorrow, we were so close. I stopped him, of course, because I knew I was going to need his help to pull off my little ruse. So when I needed to “kill” the imposter – he willingly died for me in that car accident. He gave life so I could get what I deserved. Now that is the mark of true loyalty.”

“Is that how you burned your hand? Trying to arrange the imposter’s death in that car?” I know that’s not possible. The mark was there before he tried to kill his own cousin, who I’m sure did not die willingly for the sake of this evil psycho and rapist. But he doesn’t know that I’m aware of it.

He scowls deeper. “No, it was not. I burn hand faking my own death, years ago. After my father banned me from the Bratva and chose Leon to run our empire. I swore revenge. Why couldn’t he see that I, not Leon, would’ve made the Krilov name stronger than ever?”

I have to continue this conversation. Igor is a man who likes to hear himself talk. Likes his excuses, too. He truly believes he’s the real king of the Bratva and that his crown was snatched from him. He probably also thinks he is a charming guy and all those women he raped were begging him to fuck them. Talking to him is the only way to keep him distracted from starting to hurt me.

“So, you used Nickolai? That’s what you’re saying?” I’m not naïve. He’s going to kill Leon and me. Probably me first, so Leon can watch. Even though I had heard him tell Leon he was going to keep me alive so he could kill me and the baby sometime in the future. I don’t really believe him.

If they weren’t twins, his plan wouldn’t work. But he’s got genetics on his side. Only one of them is living through this day. But no matter which one, Leon Krilov will be the one who walks out of this house. And it won’t matter if he is burned or smooth. He will be Leon Krilov.

“Nickolai was a warrior, a soldier for my family. He hated Leon, didn’t understand how my father picked him over me. He never agreed with me being banned from the Bratva only because I liked to enjoy life more than my stick-in-the-ass twin brother. Leon likes discipline, I like fun. He does not hurt women, I love to force them to pleasure me. So what? This is what we true alphas do. We take things by force. We bend people to our wills. We thrive on violence and pain. I love it and I have no boundaries, that’s why I’m stronger than Leon. I am the born leader, not him. I was supposed to be my father’s first choice.” He shrugs like it doesn’t matter. But his eyes betray him. Just speaking about it hurts him.

“But you were not.”

He moves from the window, stalks toward me, and twists his hand into my hair, uses it to yank my head back. “You shut your mouth. You know nothing about Leon, about Igor. About Irish hands that killed my mother.”

If I have my way, female American hands desperately in need of a manicure are going to kill him. “And you think she would want you to kill Leon?” Logic isn’t going to bring him around, but I want him distracted.

“She would want her death avenged.” He spits onto the hardwood floor, and my eyes are drawn to a small crack that looks out of place somehow. My mind has no time to process it, though. I’m too busy trying to struggle.

“My father and my brother did nothing,” Igor continued. “Made deals with Irishmen. Kept peace while my mother rotted in her grave.”

“She was cremated.”

I turn, heart erratic and breath stuttering. Leon. Dressed in the same color and style shirt as Igor. Another reason I hadn’t really thought Igor could’ve been anyone but Leon.

Leon walks in, gun drawn, and circles his brother. “You okay?”

I nod because I can’t speak. A lump of fear has lodged in my throat and I can barely breathe past it.

“Before I kill you, I’m going to make you watch me fuck her.” Igor yanks my hair again and says the words with his face so close to mine I can see flecks of gray in his eyes.

“I’m going to kill you before you touch her.”

I wait for the shot, but it doesn’t come. Igor has my head jerked back so all I can see is ceiling. Before he lets go, he smashes his mouth against mine, hard, bruising. He pulls back and laughs, lets me go, and I can see now why he isn’t a dead man with his blood seeping between the hardwoods.

A man I didn’t even know was here has a gun pointed at Leon and another has his arm around Leon’s throat, holding him as Leon struggles to get free, murder in his eyes.

“Well, brother, it looks like you won’t be the one doing any killing here today.” And he kisses me again, harder than the first time, and this time shoves his tongue in my mouth while he yanks my shirt open.

Leon roars and struggles, and I hope with every fiber of my being that he murders this bastard.

Igor pulls back, looks down at my bra and flicks the front clasp so it opens. “Much better.” Then he turns to Leon. “She’s nice, but her friend Denice had a set of tits I almost cut off to keep for myself.”

“You sick son of a bitch!”

Leon goes wild, fighting, struggling, hissing threats against Igor’s men.

The guy with the gun hits Leon hard across the jaw with the butt of his gun. Leon falls to his knees then crumbles to the ground, and for a second, I think they’ve killed him. But he lifts his head to spit. “I’ll kill you.”

I taste blood but I’m fine. I keep an eye on the guy with the gun. But it is Igor giving orders. “Tie him. Legs and wrists. And sit him up. I don’t want him to miss a minute.”

His grin is aimed at Leon as he pulls a knife from a sheath on his belt, runs his finger along the blade, then turns and holds it against my neck. Makes a small cut that stings enough I cry out. I hate myself for it, but it really hurts. “Move and I’ll slice her open.”

He stands with a blade pressed against my throat, supervising while his men shuffle Leon back and forth. And blood runs from my throat down my chest.

“You can’t fight him fair?” Taunting the guy holding the knife to my throat probably isn’t a winning move, but he’s going to kill me anyway.

“I’m not here to fight him. I’m here to become him. King of the Bratva!” He winks and swirls a finger in the blood on my skin.

“You’ll never be Leon.”

“And that’s why you don’t get to live to see it.” Now he fondles my breast, pinches the nipple hard enough I cry out again. “Nice. But I need a minute with my brother first. Then I’ll get to you.”

My lifespan is shorter by years, days, hours, and minutes. I look at Leon, beaten and bloody, his eyelids flutter closed as Igor crouches in front of him, probably checking the knots.

He stares for a minute, then stands and looks at his men. “Get out. I need a minute with my brother.”

He towers over Leon, kicks him once in the stomach so that he tumbles sideways, but still faces forward. Then he moves to stand with one leg on each side of my chair, his crotch in my face.

“Now that I have your attention…” He flicks his belt open. “Let’s put that pretty mouth of yours to use.”

But before he can open his zipper, Leon is on his feet and drives his head into Igor’s nose. In a flicker of a moment, Leon’s tackled Igor to the ground. I stare in amazement, and I wonder just how the hell did this happen?

Igor’s knife is already in Leon’s hands and he cuts the ropes on his wrists. But when he bends to cut the rope at his ankles, Igor stands and drives his knee into the side of Leon’s head. When Leon topples, the knife falls from his hand, and I kick it away from Igor.

“Bitch!”

He slaps the top of my head and knocks the hair clip I’m wearing free.

The hairclip Leon gave me.

The one with the knife in the end.

I’m tied to the chair, but when the clip falls, it lands so I could grab onto it with one hand and activate the blade, then wait in the hopes I might be able to use it. Now I appreciate Leon’s present even better.

I wonder if Leon was planning to use this secret weapon when he came here to save me. But as I watch them trading blows, back and forth, I’m not sure Leon needed any weapon at all. He’s a much better fighter than Igor or any of his gorillas. He is power and grace. Igor is chaos and madness. How could I get them confused? Nothing in my life has ever been more apparent.

Leon knocks Igor backward, and I flinch as his body topples down on top of me. The blade in my hand is quite short, but I’m certain it left a painful wound in Igor’s backside before he’s suddenly yanked onto his feet again.

Leon is holding him by the shirt when the first gunshots ring out. Zing past. Leon punches his brother in the gut.

He stares, eyes wide, mouth agape. Leon moves over him and plunges the dagger he just retrieved from the ground into Igor’s stomach, rips it upward. Igor looks down, watching as Leon finishes him.

Leon stands over him, Igor’s body sliding down, his back scraping my knees as he folds into himself. “You will never be me, brother.”

Leon shoves Igor’s head, and his body falls away from me as Adrian bursts through the front door. Igor’s men are dead. Igor is dead. We’re safe.

“Remind me to bring a bigger knife next time,” I mutter as Leon pulls my shirt closed, then lifts me, cradles me in his arms as he walks to the car.

“I love you, Olivia.”

His words are distorted by the swelling in his face, but to me, he’s perfect.

To me he’s a hero who saved our family.

To me he is the world.