The Russian Bodyguard: A Dark Mafia Romance (Krasnov Brothers Book 3) Read online

  THE RUSSIAN BODYGUARD

  Dark Mafia Romance ~Krasnov Brothers Book 3~

  Rie Warren

  Contents

  1. Maksim

  2. Sasha

  3. Sasha Part Two

  4. Maksim

  5. Sasha

  6. Maksim

  7. Sasha

  8. Maksim

  9. Sasha

  10. Maksim

  11. Sasha

  12. Maksim

  13. Sasha

  14. Maksim

  15. Sasha

  16. Maksim

  17. Sasha

  18. Maksim

  19. Sasha

  20. Maksim

  21. Sasha

  22. Sasha Part Two

  23. Maksim

  24. Sasha

  25. Maksim

  26. Sasha

  27. Maksim

  Books By Rie Warren

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  About Rie

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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  The Russian Bodyguard

  Copyright © 2020 by Rie Warren

  Excerpt from Chrome copyright © 2015 by Rie Warren

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations.

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  https://www.riewarren.com

  * * *

  Warren, Rie.

  The Russian Bodyguard / Rie Warren – 1st ed

  1.Contemporary Romance—Fiction. 2. Crime Fiction—Fiction. 3. Abduction Seduction—Fiction. 4. Suspense—Fiction. 5. Thriller—Fiction. 6. Mystery, Thriller, & Suspense—Fiction. 7. Romantic Suspense—Fiction. 8. Dominant Male Romance Possessive—Fiction. 9. Enemies to Lovers Romance Kindle Unlimited—Fiction 10. Organized Crime—Fiction 11. Heist—Fiction 12. Action & Adventure—Fiction 13. Possessive Alpha Male Romance—Fiction 14. Dark Bratva Romance—Fiction 15. Mafia Romance—Fiction 16. Possessive Bratva Romance—Fiction. 17. Dark Romance Enemy—Fiction 18. Dark Romance New Releases—Fiction 19. Dark Romance Prime Reading—Fiction I. Title

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  ASIN

  B08LCB4DZP

  Created with Vellum

  1

  Maksim

  “MAKSIM, CAN YOU HELP me?”

  Upon hearing Sasha’s voice, my brow fell to a heavy scowl. I ignored the printsessa and smoothed out the shoulders of my lightweight suit jacket.

  “I know you can hear me,” she wheedled in a smoky voice laced in sugary sweetness.

  Grumble, frown, scowl some more.

  I flipped my tie around my neck, popped up the collar of my shirt, peered into the mirror.

  “I need you to zip up the back of my dress,” she called out to me again. “Pretty please?”

  Not only was Sasha a pain in the ass, she was persistent. I knew she would not stop needling me until I at least answered her.

  Stalking from my room, I stuck my head around her doorway to see the twenty-three-year-old Bratva heiress in a state of undress. Her dress hung off her rounded shoulders, open all the way down her back to the point where I could make out the twin indents at the base of her spine just above the curve of her ass.

  Sasha Zolotov had a very plump ass.

  I snapped my eyes away to catch her gaze in the full-length mirror she faced.

  She shimmied her hips a little, purring out, “Come on. I won’t bite. Promise.”

  My teeth ground together like I was trying to pulverize my molars to dust. “I am not your personal dresser, Sashenka.”

  Her pale blue eyes flared in the reflection as her shoulders stiffened.

  No. I wasn’t her personal dresser. And she was not a sexual object to be ogled. Sasha was the brat I had to babysit twenty-four hours a day because that was my pakhan’s—her father’s—decree.

  “Fine then.” With a flip of her wavy hair, she pivoted to face me.

  Her dress slipped lower, revealing the upper mounds of her breasts.

  “I’ll just go hunt down Lucky and get his help.” Sasha taunted me yet again, and my blood grew hot.

  Before she could take a step toward the door, I yanked her to me, and none too fucking gently at that.

  A gasp fell from her lips—a much more pleasing sound than her constant bitching—and I held her clasped to my front.

  Our hearts pounded in sync for one tumultuous moment. Then I spun her around and pushed her a pace away.

  Sasha teetered on her impractically high heels that made her legs look a mile long. Not that I was looking.

  I cursed myself for answering her call for help in the first place, but ignoring the woman was impossible due to the proximity of our rooms at the pakhan’s mansion. Yury would have me glued to his only daughter’s back if such a thing were possible.

  He had no sons. Only my brothers and me, the three street criminals he’d taken out of the Moscow slums when I was just a kid.

  Sasha’s suite of rooms was larger than mine as befitting the printsessa, but I did not need much. In most ways, my room here was monastic, a cell to sleep in. One bed large enough for my long frame. A desk. A chair. A very large collection of vodka I kept chilled in my one luxury, the small refrigerator beneath an unadorned window.

  What the fuck did I care if anyone got a gander of me through the curtainless panes of glass?

  Living at the mansion had become a trial over the years. The place was a good thirty minutes from the heart of Boston’s darker side, which I preferred over this rural retreat. No bars. No clubs. No danger unless it tried to come knocking down the door—good fucking luck with that what with the security across the entire perimeter of the extensive grounds.

  Somehow though, Sasha found a way to sneak pathetic assholes into the heavily armed fortress. On more than one occasion, I’d stormed her suite to chase boys from her bed.

  Putting the fear of the almighty into those pretty boy pizdas who had almost gotten into her panties was one small consolation for putting up with her biting tongue instead of taking a belt to her bare ass.

  Those nights when I squashed her hookups invariably ended with Sasha slamming all the doors and shouting to the rooftops, not that anybody could hear.

  Too fucking bad, printsessa. Sexual frustration happened to us all.

  And I was her human chastity belt.

  Thankfully, I at least had my own lair now. The space hadn’t come without some hard bargaining with Papa on my part. I had earned my time away from Sasha, the bratty bane of my existence.

  I’d earned the luxury of my own little fuck-pad in the city.

  But here, in this room, I still had to contend with Sasha.

  She remained speechless, a first, as I marched her back toward the mirror.

  She almost toppled over again but braced her hands on the sides of the antique piece, glaring back at me as if she could shoot poison from her eyes if not from her mouth.

  Not for the first time I wanted to tie her up.

  Gag her at the very least to prolong the silence.

  Perhaps even blindfold her and take my wrath out on her voluptuous body . . .

  Aside from whipping her ass ruby red, such thoughts were not to be entertained.

  “Head forward, Sashenka,” I ordered in a harsh tone.

  �
�I hate it when you call me that!”

  Ah. It seemed she’d found her scathing tongue again.

  With my hands gripping her waist, I rumbled at her ear, “And if you so much as look at Lucky O’Sullivan today, I will buy you side-by-side plots and bury you both alive.”

  “You wouldn’t dare!”

  “Try me.” Sneering down at her, I almost chuckled when she turned her head to face forward.

  Then I startled when I realized my fingers had slid inside her dress along her waist. The softness of her skin burned my digits, and I quickly grasped both gaping sides of her dress in clenched fists.

  I leaned closer again to deliver a deadly whisper. “Or I could shred this thing off you and make you miss the wedding—and Lucky—altogether.”

  Her hot gasp jolted something dark and greedy within me.

  “Don’t,” she pleaded so sweetly she suddenly made my balls ache. “It’s couture, you animal.”

  “Hmm.” My low murmur thundered from my chest, and I scanned the back of her dress again.

  The way the fragile lace panels overlaid nearly sheer material on the little confection highlighted her curvaceous figure that would turn any man’s head.

  Not mine.

  Taking a pace away from her, I glanced at her face in the mirrored reflection. I was surprised to see her head lowered in a demure manner so unlike her usual impudence.

  Perhaps I had gotten through to her for a change, but I doubted that.

  For once, at least, her dress went all the way to the tops of her knees. Da, we were both decked out for another fucking wedding at Yury’s personal dacha, this time Arkady and Lucia’s June nuptials.

  As the eldest Krasnov brother, it had probably been expected that he’d marry first, but Kirill—the middle child among us—had beaten him out by tying the knot with Joanna last summer.

  I didn’t imagine following in my brothers’ footsteps anytime soon.

  In fact, the very idea that Arkady—a Russian from a prime syndicate—was getting hitched to Lucia Leone—a Sicilian mafia heiress—would have been unthinkable a year ago.

  Same thing with Kirill losing his coolheaded ways over Jo, the girl who came from the Irish O’Sullivan crime family.

  During the months since Arkady had abducted Lucia then somehow fallen in love with her—causing a war we’d won against the Italians she’d been promised to—there hadn’t been any Sicilian blowback. Which was surprising considering we’d killed two dons, including Lucia’s father.

  There’d barely been any trouble for the Bratva at all.

  The winter had been entirely too boring for my liking. On the other hand, I had enough fucking trouble on my hands making sure Sasha didn’t fall into bed with every sucker who crossed her path.

  That included Jo’s oldest brother, Lucky O’Sullivan, who’d definitely be attending the wedding today.

  Sashenka irked my very existence.

  Not to mention my older brothers who continually tempted death traps. They thought as youngest I was least qualified among them in the Zolotov Bratva. The truth was, I was most hardened because I remembered nothing soft about my life at all.

  “Ahem. Are you done zoning out back there or is my unrivaled beauty just so overwhelming?” Sasha glanced over her shoulder at me.

  Brought back to the present and the annoying task at hand, I hastily zipped her into the dress. I tried not to think about the lilac-colored lace of her bra that my fingers brushed or the way her ass formed a perfect swell within the dress now that she was fully sheathed.

  I started to step away and, for some reason, my hands trembled a little.

  I always had steady hands. Had to. My preferred firearm was a sniper rifle. Nothing but frigid ice ran through my veins like the glacier blue of Sasha’s irises.

  My hands did not tremble at the merest exposure to female flesh.

  “Not so fast.” Turning, Sasha stopped me with a palm placed on my chest.

  Before I could move from her unlikely touch, she reached for the ends of my tie, and something definitely coy and very unfamiliar entered her eyes that she tilted up at me.

  “You did me. I’ll do you,” she said.

  I repressed a chuckle at her phrasing, certain she knew exactly how inappropriate her words sounded.

  Sasha Zolotov was a consummate flirt. I’d witnessed—and shut down—her seductive efforts on numerous occasions. I’d just never been on the receiving end, and I didn’t like the feeling as my stomach tightened and something warmed even lower.

  Taking no notice of my stiffness, she executed a perfect knot in my tie then cinched the silk beneath my collar with practiced skill. Her ease with the tie-tying made me wonder just who the hell she’d been performing such an intimate gesture on, and did I need to kill someone else?

  After brushing two hands along my shoulders then down my arms, she gazed at me from head to toe.

  Then she shrugged. “Meh. You’ll do.”

  And she was due for an ass whipping.

  Jaw clenched, I stalked from her room, her bold feminine perfume trailing after me.

  I had to get away from her before I tossed her over my knee, yanked up that sexy dress, and popped two dozen smacks across her bottom.

  But, even downstairs and outside and waiting for the nuptial ceremony to begin, she was always in my sights once she made her appearance.

  She had to be.

  That was my job.

  I snagged a glass of chilled vodka, downed it, then grabbed another before spotting Kirill and Jo among the celebrants. It was easy enough to locate the pair, Jo’s flame red hair unmistakable even from a distance and her gigantic belly like a landmark. Not that I’d say any such thing to her face.

  The soon-to-be-mama had a tongue that could slice a man in two. Kirill also allowed her to carry her own gun and switchblade as if she needed the extra protection.

  They were not a conventional couple in terms of the mafia world.

  “All right?” Kirill asked, slapping a hand on my shoulder.

  I grumbled something in response then drank more vodka.

  “Da. So it’s Sasha putting that grimace on your face,” he commented.

  I aimed that grimace at my middle brother, eyes narrowing at his grin.

  The asshole’s smile grew even wider. “You should have—”

  “Fucked her when you had the chance.” Jo cut in, squinting up at me.

  “Fuck her? I’d rather kill her.”

  “Don’t think so.” Ringing her arm around Kirill’s waist, Jo smirked. “I mean I’m like eight thousand months pregnant—”

  “Eight months.” My brother fondly rubbed her enormous belly.

  “And I still do Kirill about three times a day,” she finished.

  “You do me?” he asked her.

  Which reminded me of those teasing words Sasha had said . . . you do me, and I’ll do you.

  That unusual jolt returned when I caught sight of the woman in question prancing right up to Lucky as if I hadn’t threatened her with punishment for such brazen actions.

  I’d take it out on her later. Ruin another of her ill-planned assignations.

  I didn’t aspire to be like my brothers anyway. I’d rather marry the enemy of my enemy—not the actual enemy. But who even knew who that was anymore? We’d crossed paths, knives, and bullets with the Yakuza, the Irish, the Italians, and a few cartels along the way to becoming the kings of the Boston underworld.

  We’d started feuds and ended them in streets bathed with blood.

  We’d created a black-market gun empire and negotiated for a cut in the O’Sullivan’s cocaine trade.

  And we ran everything through a prestigious nightclub, The Cat and the Sickle, with another venue on the way.

  One would never know we lived such a perilous existence glancing around Yury’s countryside estate. The landscaped grounds and massive mansion gave the feeling of wealth, luxury, and leisure.

  Then again, soldiers patrolled out in the open, the
security ramped up for this event. And high stone walls surrounded the dacha. The only thing missing was machine guns on turrets, but there were still plenty of automatic rifles if you looked hard enough.

  Wedding day or not, I was armed. Not the rifle, but my concealed handgun.

  I knew my brothers were too.

  Yury finally ambled forth from inside, hopefully a sign that this time-waster was about to get underway. The former gulag gang leader still cut a formidable figure and was not one to be messed with. The self-made head of his own Zolotov Bratva, he was pakhan, papa, and the most powerful man I’d ever come across.

  Strangely, Yury had a certain fondness for both Lucia and Jo, whom he considered his daughters-in-law by proxy. I’d briefly wondered if he was getting soft in his old age—retiring to the countryside, allowing both Sasha and Lucia to have a hand in the new nightclub. Then he’d come out in the field with Arkady, Kirill, and me in order to track down Lucia’s whereabouts when she’d been stolen from my brother.

  The beat down he put on Lucia’s father could have caused brain death.

  He had referred to the bloodbath as a boy’s night out.

  After stubbing out his perpetual cigar, he bellowed loudly in Russian for all of us to take our places around the elaborately decorated altar out in the formal gardens.

  Wearing a broad grin, Arkady appeared next to the priest, and the rest of us assembled on two sides of a marked aisle. Yury’s mama, affectionately known to all as Baba, clapped her hands before clasping them to her chest. Sasha’s lips opened in an oval when the music started, and Lucia appeared at the top of the lush gardens. Valeria dashed at tears beneath her eyes. Saved from the Sicilian’s enslavement by Lucia, the young Russian woman resided at the mansion too.