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

I turn to him. And slowly, though my heart breaks, I nod.

Present:

The scent of her engulfs me. When I step into her apartment, it’s like I’m burying my face in her long, dark hair. The door closes silently behind me, and I breathe Nina in.

She’s not home, of course. She’s still at the hospital, being cared for. But the only reason I’ve left her there is that the men her brother has watching her are actually some of his best. Plus, he’s got some of his paid-for cops patrolling the hall too. To add to it, I’ve wired the ledges outside her windows with mortars, should anyone but me try and slip in that way.

And she’s going to be okay. That’s really the biggest reason I was okay leaving her there. I slipped into her doctor’s office while he was with a patient to read her chart. She’ll be fine. No lasting damage, no concussion. But that doesn’t mean I’m not still seeing red that someone out there wants to harm her.

I walk silently through Nina’s apartment to the windows, in darkness. I came through the front door in case her windows are being watched. And there’s a good chance they are. I was watching them. Others might be, too.

I slowly close the blinds before moving to a lamp for some light. I turn, surveying her bedroom. I can’t help but grow harder being in here.

I’ve watched her undress in here. I watched her touch herself in the darkness, through night-visions lenses. And after last night? Listening to her come for me on the phone? I groan. If I close my eyes, I can almost imagine how sweet her little cunt must taste. How she’d moan for me as my tongue slid through her lips.

I move to her bed. My hand touches her pillow, my fingers tracing where she lays at night. I want to bury my face in her pillow and inhale her scent. But I remind myself that isn’t why I’m here.

The reason for my visit isn’t to creep through her apartment. I’m here to do a sweep—to see if anyone else has been monitoring her. My mind flashes back to Erik mentioning the “other Russian with the Bratva ink.”

There are two wolves prowling these nights. It’s my job now to find and destroy the other one before he does the same to me. Or more importantly, to her.

I pull a piece of hardware out of my jacket pocket. The bug-sweeper will detect any listening devices or hidden cameras in here. Slowly, I sweep it over her walls, her light fixtures, her plumbing hardware, appliances, the clothes in her closets—everything. I go drawer-by-drawer through her clothes bureau. But still, I find nothing.

The top and final drawer slides out. I growl when my eyes fall upon her tantalizing, lacy lingerie. She would drive me wild under any circumstances. But after ten years in the cold hell of the Siberian gulag, the sea of see-through panties, lace edges, delicate bras, and tiny little thongs has me snarling in lust.

My cock surges, thickening to steel in my jeans. I reach down to cup myself. I do a last sweep with the bug finder. But when it comes back clean, I turn it off and slip it back into my jacket.

My eyes sweep across her lingerie. I groan, consumed with lust for her. I push my hand into the drawer, running my fingers over the silk and lace and—

I freeze. My fingers run across a streak of something tacky and sticky, like it’s been dripped over the top of the open drawer of lingerie. I frown, pulling my hand away and bringing it to my nose. When I sniff, horror, disgust, and fury explode inside of me.

“Fuck!”

I roar and turn to bolt into the bathroom. I dry heave as I crank the sink water on hot and shove my hands under it. I pump soap all over my fingers and rub it vigorously before shoving them back under the water.

It’s cum. There’s fucking cum in her pantry drawer.

My disgust melts away under the hot water. Instead, it hardens into something dangerous, and furious.

Someone was here. A man was here. He was in her home, touching her intimates, and he fucking came on them. My mind whirls, and I start to page through the notes I have in my head on the people in her life.

She has no ex-boyfriends. There are a few men she knows peripherally who sniff around her too close for my liking. But I’ve followed all of them; none of them are capable of this level of depravity.

I snarl, gripping the edge of the bathroom sink and glaring at the water slowly steaming up the room. There’s only one explanation: he was here. The other wolf. The other apex predator prowling and hunting through this city.

I wanted to kill him before, for almost hurting her. Now, I want to do it slowly. I want to pull him apart piece by piece until he’s begging for mercy.

I yank my phone out and pull up the feed to the cameras. I’ve set up a few small ones—one across the street from the hospital, trained on her window. And two more hidden in her room. My pulse races, but when I open the live stream, I breathe.

She’s safe. A nurse is in the room with her, along with Fiona, Zoey, and… I frown when I lay eyes on the man. Nikolai, the man who killed Fyodor. I glare at him, and yet, the fury and hatred I once felt looking through the scope of a gun at him isn’t there anymore. Or at least, it’s diluted. It’s taking a second seat to making my angel is safe.

But she is. At least, for now, there in that hospital. But someone’s stepped into the sanctuary of her home. Someone aside from me, that is. Someone’s defiled her apartment. And