Taken By the Bratva Boss by Sarina Hart

Chapter Four

Olivia

Never in my life have I acted more out of character, stepped further out of my comfort zone, taken more chances with my own life than I have since this son of a bitch killed Denice. It’s like I’ve snapped, and the Olivia I knew is gone.

And it’s all his fault. So, I climbed out of the car. Hearing the little girl’s name through the speaker on his phone was dumb luck and I had the one chance to use it as an opportunity. Now, it’s all a matter of seeing how it plays out.

He’ll either kill me for it—and he’s probably going to kill me anyway—or the kid will stop him.

She’s adorable. Has his eyes. His smile. No denying her parentage, that’s for sure.

And now, she’s running inside like behind the front door is a toy store she can’t wait to get to. I hold my breath until my lungs burn and he turns back to me. Two other cars have arrived and men—the ones from my apartment building—step out.

Big men.

Giants.

One nods to Leon. One greets him in Russian and the others stand silent. Probably mute. Killing people doesn’t take a lot of words.

I glance at the house. It’s a mansion. Big enough to fit in my apartment building and the one next to it. Stone façade. A flower bed that runs the length of the front of the house to the door on each side and then turns the corner and runs along the north wall as far as I can see from where I’m standing.

There are twelve windows on the front of the house—probably bulletproof—and a garage big enough for a fleet of vehicles. Minus the flowerbed, this is exactly the kind of place I imagined a crime boss would live.

He’s glaring again. I don’t want to make my situation worse, but every time he uses the mean look, it gets less effective, and I want to tell him. But opening my mouth would require courage I’m not sure I can summon right now.

When the little girl is inside and his men are crowded around me, he steps closer and curls his fingers into my arm, draws me near until I am almost pressed into his side. “You don’t speak to Anna.” He shoves me away and blows out a breath through his parted lips.

I’m not stupid enough to argue. Definitely not stupid enough to tell him the little girl is starved for attention. Instead, I nod. Quickly. Once.

I watch his Adam’s apple as he swallows because I’m afraid to look into his eyes. He’s scary on a whole other level, and I’ve already crossed him enough for a death sentence. And since there isn’t anything I can say to save myself now, I remain silent. Trembling, but silent.

“Take her to the basement but use the back entrance. I don’t want Anna to see.”

More than the steel in his voice, I concentrate on the words. Basement. Shit. Every mafia death in every movie I’ve ever seen happens in the basement or in an Italian restaurant. After they torture the victim.

I’m not prepared to be the lead news story at eleven. And I sure as hell don’t want to die in a Russian mobster’s basement.

This is bad.

Our driver, the bastard who’d shoved me in the car, follows Leon into the house while two of the other brutes half-drag/half yank me around the house, along the line of flowers.

Because I’m not a damsel and there isn’t anyone to save me anyway, I struggle, wiggle, jerk my body in any direction I can—it’s not a lot but I’m not going down there the easy way.

The big guy on my left—he has slicked back hair, a pungent cologne that tingles my nose, and big meaty hands—pulls me with extra force and I stumble so the goon on the other side has to steady me. We go like this around the house. I’m pushed and pulled, scared to death, but never so much as when they open the walk-out door and try to force me inside.

When I scream, one of the men slaps his hand over my mouth hard and pain bursts through my lip. I taste blood and want to spit but I’m still twisting and squirming, because I’m not ready to die. If this is going to be my last fight, I want it to be a good one.

For one second, I get an arm free, and I strike out, swinging wildly until my hand connects with muscle and bone.

“Bitch!” The voice is loud and harsh and now there’s a hand on my hair, jerking my head back. “You broke my fucking nose.”

I still have a hand over my mouth, or I would spit on him because I am out of options. The only thing I can do is make my death swift, maybe they will grant me the mercy of killing me quick.

Tears, some from the sting where he’s still pulling my hair as they haul me down the stairs, some from knowing these will be the last moments of my life, stream down my cheeks now.

“Would you stop it?” The guy I hadn’t hit is trying to pull me down the last stairs while the bastard with his hand in my hair gives it another painful twist.

Finally, we’re at the bottom of the stairs where Leon and Adrian are already in a wide-open area with two chairs—one empty, presumably where they’ll murder me. And we aren’t alone.

Another man is seated in the not-empty chair. Correction, tied to the chair. Blood is trickling down his face from a cut over his eye, and his nose is going to take plastic surgery to repair.

He’s familiar because I’ve seen him recently on the news. Callum McKenzie. Irish mob enforcer. Man on the run. Person of interest sought by police for questioning in connection to a shooting at Manzini’s Eatery—an Italian restaurant where five members of the Rigazzi family were executed two weeks ago.

Apparently, and in a less than satisfactory turn of events for McKenzie, Leon found him first.

Leon stands over him as his goons shove me onto a chair to the side but facing the other man.

I focus on the basement itself. The floor is concrete, and the walls are that washable paneling—probably easy to wipe blood off. A couple of closed doors to the left and right of the main room. A worktable probably stocked with their instruments of torture. It isn’t a good day to be me.

One of his goons stands over me and the others stand beside me on opposite sides, close, armed, and dangerous. Staring at me like they’re daring me to try to get away. There are five of them plus Leon and Adrian. One of me, and I’m a foot shorter than every single one.

The guy bleeding and roped to the only other chair in the place is probably in better shape post-beating to run than I am. Fighting my way out is as likely as Leon turning to me and professing his undying love.

He towers over the man in the chair, his mouth thin and his eyes narrow. “McKenzie, all you have to do is tell me what Connor has planned.” His voice is calm, controlled, like his stance, his expression. I doubt there’s much that makes Leon Krilov lose control and that worries me on so many levels my breath hitches before I look back at the man in the chair.

He is probably minutes from death after the beating he’s taken, but McKenzie smiles, and his teeth are red with blood. “Connor who?”

Leon backhands McKenzie hard enough his head twists almost far enough around he can look behind him.

I’m staring, wide-eyed. I would’ve thought while so many of his men stood around him, Leon wouldn’t get his own hands dirty, but now his white shirt is spattered with blood, and he’s cut his knuckle on McKenzie’s face. Blood drips down his hand, but he ignores it or isn’t bothered enough by it to do anything about it.

“You’re making it hard on yourself.” He smiles. “I have you and you’re not walking out of here until I know what I want to know.” His voice is so matter of fact, they could be talking about the Bulls or the Cubs. “Or maybe I’ll let you go and put the word on the street you’re talking. Maybe I’ll tell them you’re a snitch for the government.”

McKenzie glares. “Do what you must, boy.” His brogue is thick, and his eyes are narrow, and he’s just called Leon Krilov—a younger man but most definitely not a child—a boy. But he ignores the sneer Leon is pointing at him. “Connor will never believe I turned on him.”

But there’s a flicker even I can see. He’s a worried man, and his confidence is not true.

Leon is the opposite. He exudes certainty. A coolness. Something raw and powerful and undeniably dangerous.

McKenzie doesn’t see it. His mistake.

Leon stares at him, nostrils flaring. “What is Connor’s game plan?” Like he’s done it a thousand time, he pulls a gun from his waistband low on his back, pulls back the slide and pressed the metal against McKenzie’s head. “I’m counting to three, then I’ll kill you. And when I’m done, I’m going to pay your wife, Louise, and your son, Ian, a visit. One…two…”

McKenzie jerked his head to the side. “Wait. If I tell you, Connor is going to kill me.”

Leon smiled and the gun was no longer the deadliest thing in the room.

“If you don’t tell me, I’ll kill you.” He tilts his head as if the outcome doesn’t matter to him one way or the other.

“He’s going to kill my family.” A sheen of sweat broke out on McKenzie’s forehead.

“Not if I get to them first.” And whether or not McKenzie believes him, I do.

McKenzie sighs, closes his eyes, and shakes his head. “I was sent here to capture Anna Krilov.”

As soon as the words are out of his mouth, Leon lifts the pistol and shoots McKenzie in the forehead. Blood and brain matter spatter behind him and blow back onto Leon who turns to me, face spattered and a piece of bone on his shirt.

I want to throw up and cry and curl my body into a ball. But I remain upright. Terror burning in my blood. I don’t want to the be the next thing he turns his attention to. Not until he puts the gun away, anyway.

His men move to take the body away then he nods at Adrian who is still standing at the edge of the steps. Adrian turns, disappears into another room and now it’s just Leon, me, and the remaining blood and brain matter of Callum McKenzie.

I’m shaking. A man was shot to death inches from me by a man so ruthless there’s no doubt now that he raped Denice. Violence is his nature. His business. His life.

It’s a minute, but Adrian returns with a shirt for Leon who has moved to a utility sink to wash the blood and other bits from his face and arms.

He strips off his shirt and…

Oh. And by oh, I mean, woah!

This guy is the devil. Or has made some bargain with him for a body like that. The laughter in my head is maniacal, my shocked reaction to watching death happen and still finding the murderer’s body attractive in a way I’ve never found anyone else.

There’s a place in hell for someone like me. Hopefully not too close to Leon’s spot.

Dammit. I have to get it together before he turns, hides his tattooed arms in sleeves, the corded muscles of his back in a shirt.

He has the gun beside him, and another tucked in his waistband when he slips into the shirt Adrian handed him. When he turns, the shirt is mostly open and if he wasn’t a murderer, I would be impressed by the abs and pecs and all that smooth skin.

But he’s a killer. Fact.

I’m next on his list. Fact.

I don’t want to die. Fact.

I also don’t want to whimper when he walks close but it’s one-hundred percent fear-driven and out of my control. He stands in front of me and stares down. “Your hair is red.”

I nod. There isn’t much point in denying yet another fact.

“Maybe Adrian was right about you.” I’m not privy to Adrian’s thoughts, so I wait for him to continue. “Maybe you work for the Irish.”

“I don’t.” After what happened to the last Irish guy in this basement, no way do I want to be associated with them.

“How do I know?” His voice is soft now, and he’s tilted my chin up so I’m staring at his face.

I don’t give a shit if he knows anything. He’s a murderer, and now that I’ve seen it up close and personal, no way can he deny what he did to Denice.

He’s also staring at me, waiting for an answer. “I don’t even know who the Irish are.” Which isn’t the biggest lie I’ve ever told. I do know but only because of the television and newspapers, rumors of associations, witnesses at the civil suit trial.

“McShane. McGrath. McKenzie.” His smile isn’t one of mirth and it doesn’t give me comfort.

“Remind me not to eat at McDonalds.” I’m trying for levity because I’m scared and he’s too close, too real, too here.

He moves back and it’s easier to breathe, easier to stop the shaking, or at least tamp it down a bit. I clench my fingers around the arms of the chair. “Who are you, Olivia Hudson?” I don’t answer and he stops to stare at me. “I saw you at the trial. I know you found Denice Miller’s body. What I don’t know is why you think I killed her.”

Of course, he knows. It was all laid out at the trial. Every detail. Every moment of her life exposed, picked apart, judged.

“Bullshit!”

His eyebrows go up and he cocks his head. “Miss Hudson, I didn’t kill your friend.” He shakes his head. “I’ve never killed a woman, and I certainly didn’t rape her.”

He walks closer, maybe sizing me up, maybe checking me out. I don’t care, but his eyes burn a path up my body.

“You’re a liar.” Had I said it with a bit of conviction his grin might not have spread, but it’s wide and confident, cocky and terrifying.

“I don’t lie unless there’s a reason. You are not a reason to lie.” His tone is matter of fact and easy, almost enough I don’t flinch when he moves closer, but fear balls in my stomach.

This is the man who raped Denice. Who held her down and forced himself on her. Gorgeous or not gorgeous, he’s scum. A criminal on every plane a man could be.

“What is a reason to lie?” I honestly don’t know if it’s fear, stupidity, or curiosity forcing that question out of me, but when I speak it, he moves in, close enough I can feel his breath on my hair.

“Situational.” He speaks quickly. Not like it’s a practiced answer, but like it’s one he’s considered before.

“I’m not a situation?” He’s close, and I smell his cologne, the soap he washed McKenzie’s brains off his body with, so my tone is higher pitched then normal, breathy, slight.

“No. You are an intrigue.” He curls his finger under my chin and forces me to look up at him. He has sharp blue eyes and one small dimple in his cheek, and God help me, the accent makes every lie he tells sound like the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. “And I admire you.”

Bullshit. Of the two of us, I was the least admirable in the room. And he was a rapist and murderer. “I don’t need your admiration.”

“Your spirit is…” Instead of supplying the missing adjective, he shakes his head. “You’ve chosen a powerful enemy.”

“I didn’t choose you as my enemy. You made the decision for me when you raped my friend.” I swallow the fear working its way up my throat, trying to weaken me with a gasp.

His eyes flash then go blank like he’s closed the curtain on his emotions. “I don’t hurt women.”

But he’s the one who is standing over me, staring like I’m the enigma while the gun tucked in his waistband is at eye level. I’m not tied.

I’ve moved past scared through terror right into calm. My mind is too busy calculating the ways what I’m planning could go wrong for me to be able to do much more than think them up and discard them.

I don’t look at him because my face will give me away, but then he brushes a curl behind my ear, and his touch almost has me rethinking what I’m about to do. Electricity vibrates between us. Must be the rage.

But I steel myself. I can be tough. I can save my own ass.

His eyes, though, are the color of the ocean—a hundred shades of blue and teal—and piercing. My soul isn’t my own when he’s staring at me. And I give myself a few ticks of the clock before I give the mental shake I need to focus on what I need to do.

I have one second to decide, to pull the gun from his waist and aim it at him. I work it out in my head while his finger brushes against my cheek.

But once I can see it in my mind, I do it. One fluid movement and I’m the one in control. My hands are shaking and I’m none too steady when I shove the chair back with my legs and stand, but my tone is all brute force and angry woman. “Back the fuck up.”

And that’s all I manage to say.