Hunted By The Bratva Beast: A Bratva Stalker/Captive Romance by Jagger Cole (books to read in your 20s .txt) 📕

as the meds kick in. But the darker it gets, the more he becomes the only thing I can see.

8 Kostya

Moscow, Thirteen Years Ago:

“Did you get it?”

I hear him, but I can’t answer. The adrenaline is still thudding too hard. I’m still covered with too much blood to think of anything but stripping down and showering to see which blood is mine and which is not.

I wince as I pull my ripped shirt over my head. My shoulder screams in agony as it rotates, and a fresh wave of slick wetness pours down my side. Found the blood that’s mine.

“Kostya!” Fyodor roars from the couch. He twists his head to shout at me again. “Did you fucking get it?!”

“Da,” I mumble. I stagger into the bathroom, peeling the rest of my clothes off. The water is cold, but I don’t really feel it anyways. I lean my head to the wall, letting the water drum down on me and drown out the echoes of the screams.

After a minute, the water starts to spit and smell sour. In this shitty apartment block, it’s not that uncommon. But it also means it’s time to get out. I rub the hand towel over myself, drying as much as I can. I step out of the bathroom, but I instantly hiss as I’m grabbed by the throat and tossed to the floor.

“How dare you!!” Fyodor roars as he lunges over me. He’s got a police baton in his hand, and I flinch as he slams it against my side. I go to deflect, but he cracks my knuckles with it. I hiss, but when he slams it into my bleeding shoulder, I howl in pain.

“How dare you ignore me in my own fucking house, you ungrateful little cur!” He bellows at me. He hits me again, spits at me, and stands upright. “One more time, Kostya. Did you fucking get it?”

“It” is the money the boxing organizer owed him. That’s where I just was; “retrieving it” in the way I do best: with brute force.

“Da, Fyodor!” I grunt. “Yes, I have it.”

“Get it,” he snaps.

I nod and shuffle over to my bloody pants on the floor. I pull the wad of cash out of my pocket and turn to hand it to him.

Fyodor grins when he snatches it. And suddenly, his whole demeanor changes. “Ahh, see, my boy?” He chuckles. “All I ask is a little bit of respect in this house. That is all. You give it, and everything is good, yes?”

“Da, Fyodor,” I nod. “Yes, sir.”

He flips through the wad of bills, counting. Then he grins. “Good boy, Kostya. You did good.”

“There were more of them than we thought.”

“Nothing you couldn’t handle, it seems.”

The office I just crashed into was supposed to have the organizer and two of his guards inside. Instead, there were fifteen armed men. “Were,” past tense. None of them are breathing now.

The door to the apartment opens and Dimitri strolls in with case of beer on his shoulder.

“Ahh! There’s my prize fighter!” Fyodor grins. He turns from me and walks over to embrace Dimitri. “How did it go?”

Dimitri shrugs. “No problem. He paid what he owed in full, while weeping.”

Fyodor chuckles. “Good. Good. And you have it?”

“Da, of course.” Dimitri grins his winning smile and winks at me. He yanks a wad of cash out of his jacket pocket and passes it to Fyodor.

“Very good work, my boy.”

“Nyet problem.” Dimitri shrugs. “I broke his jaw anyways though, to teach him a lesson in timelines.”

Fyodor cackles as my older “brother” opens the case of beer and takes two out. He opens one for Fyodor and then for himself before he turns to see me standing there, still wet from the shower and bleeding.

“Why the fuck are you naked, Kostya?”

Fyodor laughs. “Baby boy over here had some trouble with his assignment.”

I scowl. Dimitri laughs. “It’s just a collection run, Kostya. You didn’t have to fuck them.”

I roll my eyes as he and Fyodor chuckle.

“It was messier than we thought, that’s all,” I grunt.

Dimitri smirks. “Had to get your hands dirty, little brother? Have you forgotten how to fight?”

“There were fifteen of them,” I growl.

But the both of them are already heading over to the couch with the money and the beer. I take a breath and let the anger seep out of me. They’re just teasing me, that is all. This is what families do. This is what it means to be part of one. It’s just teasing, that’s all. I know Fyodor cares that I came home, alive. I know his disinterest in the narrow miss I had today is to harden me—to make me stronger. So that the next time there’s twelve extra men and a dozen more guns behind the next door, I’ll be even more prepared.

Without him, I’d be dead. So I take the teasing for what it is, and I move on.

I head into the room Dimitri and I share. I pull on some clothes. But then something catches my eye. I turn and peer through the window across the courtyard, to the next apartment block over. I frown when I see him raise his hand up. When it comes down, I snarl.

I don’t know the small girl who lives across from me. But I understand cruelty when I see it. She screams and dives into the corner of her room. But through the window, I can see the man—her father, perhaps—storm towards her, belt in hand. I can’t hear the hits, but I can almost feel them myself.

I flinch when he hits her over and over. My jaw grinds harder and tighter, until I can taste blood. Finally, the man stops. He yells something else at the little girl and then staggers drunk out of the room, leaving her shaking in the corner.

But when he’s gone, she slowly gets to her feet. She shuffles to the window and looks out. I look back, across the wide, empty courtyard. Her eyes drift