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

My heart wrenches, and I squeeze his hand. “I’m sorry, Kostya.”

“But you think Fyodor used us.”

I nod. “Yes, I do.”

He looks away. “You didn’t know him.”

“I know his legacy.”

He whips his gaze around to me, frowning. “What?”

“I know the path of destruction and the broken lives he left in his wake, before he even found you and—“

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he snaps angrily. I can see the hurt in his eyes. I see the war behind them—knowing that the man he’s protecting was a cruel one but protecting him because he’s the only family Kostya ever knew.

I know this internal war, because I used to have the same one inside about Bogdan.

“Look, I know what’s going through your head, okay?”

“I doubt that.”

I laugh coldly. “You’re the only one with the broken past and the abusive pseudo-father? Do you have any idea how often I told my teachers at school that I’d tripped, or that it was an accident? How many times I told myself that my foster father really did love me, he just had a lot to deal with?”

Kostya’s mouth thins. “Fyodor was not the man I freed you from.”

“You’re right, he wasn’t,” I snap. “He was worse. At least with Bogdan, the abuse and the bullshit was right there on the surface. Fyodor used you, Kostya. He molded you into a fighter, and a soldier, to—”

“To make me a man!” he growls.

“Or to use you as fucking cannon fodder! As a shield!”

With a snarl, he slides off the bed and stands. He paces the room, glowering, his jaw clenched.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Nina. He was a hard man, but life is hard.” He turns, sneering. “Perhaps you’ve forgotten that in your life of wealth and privilege at the Kashenko banquet table.”

My jaw drops. “Forgotten?” I hiss. “I’ve forgotten how cold and cruel the world is?” I sneer as I turn away from him, standing from the bed. I jerk my thumb over my shoulder at the raised scars crisscrossing my back before I glare at him over my shoulder.

“Does it look like I’ve fucking forgotten, Kostya?! Do you think I could ever fucking forget that?!”

He’s silent. His jaw clenched. His eyes burn into mine. “I am sorry, Nina.”

“Yeah, everyone’s sorry,” I mutter.

“It does not change that Fyodor for all his faults was like a father to me—to me, and to Dimitri. And your family—Nikolai—shot him in the—”

“Nikolai is his son,” I snap.

Kostya freezes. His gaze hardens as his jaw clenches. I swallow, turning to face him.

“You didn’t know that part, did you?”

He says nothing for a minute. “No, he—”

“There was a medical student, moonlighting as a cocktail waitress at a club in Moscow to pay tuition. Fyodor dragged her into a bathroom and assaulted her before beating the shit out of her.” My mouth thins. “She became Nikolai’s mother.”

Kostya’s face pales, the lines growing deeper. “That’s not—”

“Yes, it is,” I whisper hoarsely. “Fyodor was Lev’s father too. Did you know that?”

The huge Russian blinks, and he wavers on his feet. He staggers back a step before sinking heavily onto a chair.

“I…” he frowns. “No, he—”

“Yes, he was,” I whisper softly. “Until he kicked Lev out onto the streets of St. Petersburg when he was eleven. I think if you do the math, you’ll find that wasn’t too long before he showed up in Moscow looking for some new young boys to turn into thugs for his own personal gain.”

Kostya says nothing. But his jaw grinds and clenches furiously. His eyes burn hotly into the floor.

“I am sorry you lost someone who meant something to you, Kostya,” I say gently. “I am. But I knew that man through the wreckage he left—through the torn lives he left with people I care about.”

Kostya breathes slowly, clenching his fists.

“How did you end up in prison?”

He looks up at me sharply. “Careful, Nina,” he growls.

“Tell me.”

He looks away. “A job went bad.”

“A job Fyodor set up.”

“Yes,” he snaps. “He, and Dimitri and I. There was a post office full of blank money orders. Except it fell apart, and…”

His face scrunches up, and he snarls at the floor. I take a step towards him.

“What happened to Dimitri?” I say gently.

“He’s dead.” Kostya throat constricts. I see the battle raging behind his eyes—the war between loyalty and reality. I’ve had this war. I’ve fought these battles. I still fight these battles, long after Bogdan’s death.

“How?”

“The post office job,” he snaps. “He was shot, and he died.”

I swallow. “And Fyodor? How did you get caught and he—”

“Because that is what family does!!” he roars. His eyes snap up to mine. Fury and pain and agony blaze like fire behind his face. The mental anguish of a life spent in suffering and abuse.

I can see it plain as day, because I see it in the mirror every fucking time I look in one.

I keep walking towards him, biting my lip. “Kostya—”

“No, Nina,” he snarls, standing abruptly. He shakes his head. “No…”

“Dimitri wasn’t your fault, Kostya,” I whisper.

“Stop it.”

“Fyodor played you. He played off of the fact that you had no father, that you were desperate for family—”

“You know nothing about what you’re talking—!”

“The fuck I don’t!!” I scream back. “The fuck I don’t!”

Kostya’s shoulders heave. His chest rises and falls as he sucks in air through clenched teeth. His eyes are furious, but they’re also so full of pain. And when he looks at me, I can see the cracks shattering through the armor.

“Nina…”

“The job went bad, and the man who you call father sold you the fuck out, Kostya. To save himself. He let you give up your life, so he could stay free.”

His eyes squeeze shut. His teeth clench tightly.

“Do you know what happened to Fyodor after you went to jail?”

Digging deep is half my job working for my brother. And after what happened with Fyodor, that’s exactly what I did. I never got as far back as learning about Dimitri and Kostya. But I know about