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

in the last two years that a teacher at school went out and bought a pair for me.

Even the night he freed me, I can’t really put his face together in my mind. It being streaked with blood, dirt, and sweat doesn’t help things. But the blinding fear and emotion of rushing between him and the police with guns blurs it even more.

Whoever he is, though, I know he’s gone forever. But I’ll always remember what he did for me—or at least what he tried to do for me.

I’m not getting beaten and threatened with worse from Bogdan every day anymore. That’s a serious improvement. But life hasn’t exactly turned into a fairytale since that day. We’re even more poor now than we were then, with Dima spending all of our money on drugs and dog racing.

Worse, in the last year and a half, she’s started “seeing people”—men who come to our apartment at night, cash in hand, and disappear into her room with her for small periods of time.

I’m not an idiot. I’m young, but I understand what she’s doing. She’s not doing it for survival, though—not for food or to better our lives. She’s doing it to supplement her drug habit and pay off the constant debts to the dog tracks.

I block it out as best I can. But in the last few months, as I’ve started to grow up, the men have started to get… curious. Eyes wander, looks linger longer than they should. Eyebrows raise in a subtle question as they hesitate to give their money to Dima.

Or worse, the question isn’t subtle at all.

I spend all day, every day, even the weekends, at school or in the library. At night, I hide behind the bedroom door I fixed myself, which locks from the inside with a chain and a padlock I stole from a store.

I’m still in hell. But one day, I’m getting the fuck out of here. For myself, yes. But also because I owe it to the man who sacrificed himself to save me from Bogdan.

“Nina!” Dima snaps. “Eat your fucking food—”

A knock at the door interrupts her. She grins—another Pavlovian response. A knock at night means she has a man visiting. That means cash, and that means she can run down to the corner for a fix as soon as she gets this part over with.

She rushes to the door and swings it open.

“Da?”

“Skol’ko?” How much, the man grunts.

I quickly stand from the table and turn to go hide in my room.

“Five-thousand rubles,” Dima tosses back. I do the currency conversion in my head, from what I’ve been reading about in the financial books at the library. It’s about sixty US dollars.

The man scoffs. “Nyet, nyet. Three-thousand.”

“Four.”

He grunts and pushes Dima inside. “Da, okay.”

I start to scurry down the hall to my room. But then I hear him speak again.

“Wait.”

I don’t, though I can tell he’s talking to me.

“You! Girl!” he barks. “How much for you?”

I just shake my head as I dart into my room. I’m fumbling for the lock when I hear him storm down the hall towards me. Dima yells at him to hurry up and come with her.

“Ya bol’she ne khochu babusku!” He snaps back, clearly drunk. I don’t want a grandmother anymore.

My hands tremble, but I manage to click the lock shut just as he slams against my door.

“Hey!” He grunts. “Malen’kaya shlyukha!” Little whore.

I grit my teeth. “I’m not a whore.”

He chuckles. “No? So I will be your first, da?”

“Go away!”

I hear him snarl. Then I gasp and jump as he slams against the door.

“Open this!” he slurs. “Open this and open your legs for me, whore!”

He slams into the door again. The nails holding the chain to the wall begin to creak. I pale and back away. He slams into the door once again, and one of the nails pops free. In a panic, my eyes search the room for something—a weapon, anything. But suddenly, the door smashes in entirely.

I scream and back away as the mean-looking man grins and lurches into the room.

“Don’t worry, I will pay.”

“Stay away from me.”

“I do not think I will be able to, malen’kaya shlyukha,” he chuckles.

Suddenly, I hear the smashing sound of the door to the apartment breaking in. I hear Dima scream and yell, and then a man’s deep, thunderous voice telling her to stay back.

“Gde ona?” He barks at my foster mother. Where is she?

My heart sinks. Horror creeps over my skin. I hear him stomping down the hall, and I cringe as the first man turns in frustration.

“Otva ‘li!” He snarls through the doorway. “Fuck off, asshole!”

He goes to shut the half-broken door to my bedroom. But suddenly, it slams in, crashing off its hinges and almost smashing into the first man. I gasp as a tall, built, handsome and wealthy looking man in a suit storms in. He scans the room with deep blue eyes, and they lock on to me.

“You are Nina?” he says in Russian-accented English.

I nod, wide-eyed. “Da,” I whisper.

The first man hisses and saunters up to the new one. “Who the fuck are—”

“None of your business.” The new man shoves the first aside with one hand, sending him sprawling to the floor.

“Nina, I—”

“Suck a dick, motherfucker!” The first man jumps up from the floor and throws a wild fist. But the tall handsome man easily dodges him, grips his shirt collar, and sends him tumbling across the floor again.

“Do not interrupt me,” he snarls. Then he frowns and turns back to me. His face softens, though his eyes stay piercing. He walks towards me, but for some reason, I’m not terrified. Somehow, I know I can trust him—that he’s a friend.

He slowly sinks to a knee in front of me, and he smiles. But then his brow furrows. He reaches out and pushes a strand of my hair aside. He scowls at the bruise on my temple—a present from Dima last week when I accidentally threw a betting stub from