Hunted By The Bratva Beast: A Bratva Stalker/Captive Romance - Jagger Cole (the ebook reader .TXT) 📗

I look down at Nina, and my mouth thins. She’s okay; I know that. I stopped two dozen times on the way here to make sure of it. She’s out, but she’s breathing regularly, and the blood I felt soaking my shirt from her seems to have abated.

I storm across the big, window-walled foreman’s office. Below, the old weaving machines from when this was a garment factory lay still and dusty in the darkness. This is has been my sanctuary since I landed in this city. She’ll be safe here.

On the far side of the huge office, I lay her down on the big bed I brought in weeks ago. After the stone block I slept on for ten years in my frozen gulag hell, a warm bed seemed a luxury I’d never feel again. So did touching the softness of a woman again. Or seeing her at all, for that matter. But here I am, with all of that.

I lay her down. I frown as my eyes sweep over her sleeping form. There’s blood on her clothes. Her pulse is fine, and her breathing steady, but I haven’t had time to examine her—to make sure she’s not wounded too badly from the blast.

I snarl to myself. Once again, whoever is after her almost hurt her. I know it’s the same piece of shit who was in her home, defiling it. I was rushing back to the hospital when my phone alerted me to the blast of the window mortar being tripped. After that, there was no hesitating, only going in hot.

The men I killed tonight were the same ilk from the car crash that put her in that hospital. It’s not like I had time to examine them. But I could see the smattering of random Bratva and other criminal ink. Those men were mercenaries, just like the crash. Half of the men Viktor had watching her are dead. The rest wounded. If I hadn’t been there…

My eyes squeeze shut tightly. I can’t think of that. I can’t allow myself to go there. I spent ten years wondering what became of the angel that saved me. I didn’t just find her now only to lose her. I won’t lose her.

I open my eyes and grab the switchblade from the side table. I lean over her, and bring the knife to her half-shredded, bloody clothes. They cut away easily, and suddenly, she’s bare before me.

A better, good man might look away. But I am not a good man. And there isn’t a force in this world that could stop my eyes from drinking in every inch of her in this moment. I’ve seen her from afar. I’ve watched her strip and seen her touch herself beneath the sheets.

I’ve never seen her like this, though. Not from inches away. Not when I could put my hands on her right now and take her every which way I please. I groan as my gaze sweeps over her utterly perfect nakedness—her soft, full tits, the way her tummy slopes, the curve of her hips, and the plain white, half-transparent hospital panties pulled snug across her cunt.

I growl quietly. But I quell the roar of the beast inside of me. I take a breath, and I reach for the first aid kit. My hands skim her wounds lightly, cleaning and dressing the smattering of cuts and scrapes from the blast. She has a gash on one arm that may require a stitch or two later. But I have neither the tools or small enough hands to do that. I clean and dress it instead, which will suffice.

When I’m done, I go over every inch of her skin once more. I groan, dizzy from the smell of her—lightheaded from the heat of her soft skin and nearness of her.

My jaw clenches. My head sways. I’m… tired. I feel weakened. I raise my head, and I groan. It’s not just her, I am actually light-headed. I stand and look down at myself. The stain on my shirt from her blood have gotten bigger. I frown and peel my shirt off, and then I wince.

Shit. It’s not her blood; it’s mine.

The room sways. I reach for the first aid kit, but it falls out of my grip and onto the floor I go to pick it up, but the floor swings up to smack me in the face. My vision fades. I manage to raise my head up just enough to look at her once more, lying asleep on the bed.

She will live. Just like before, a sacrifice for a greater innocence. A fair trade of broken and bad for good and innocent.

My vision fades out, and I know nothing but blackness.

13

Nina

Moscow, Six Years Ago:

“Yesh’ svoyu yedu!”

Dima glares at me across the tiny kitchen table. “Eat your food,” she snaps again.

The single, bare bulb casts sickly shadows across the crumbling kitchen. I look down and poke at the “food” my foster mother has set out, which might actually be cat food. These days, it’s anyone’s guess what I’m eating, or if I’ll eat at all.

It was bad when Bogdan was still alive, spending all of the government money they received to care for me on alcohol and prostitutes. And yet somehow, it’s gotten worse with him gone. Without the tyranny of her husband constantly belittling and abusing her, Dima has really come into her own.

The only problem is, “her own” is a ruthlessly cold and cruel women with huge addictions to gambling and crack-cocaine.

Watching the stranger break down our door and murder Bogdan with his bare hands should have given me nightmares for life. Instead, it was one of the best days of my life. I still have no idea who he was. And when I try and remember what he even looks like, it’s vague. When we’d wave across the courtyard at each other, he was always blurry. Dima and Bogdan refused to believe I needed glasses, and it’s only been