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

  But he forgot all about the ball-blasting pain to lumber forward.

  In an instant, Jimmy crashed on top of me and sneered into my face. “I’ve still got enough cojones to give it to you good, Alexandra.”

  Alexandra?

  Shock took me by surprise. I’d never told him my real name, the one given to me at birth.

  Before I could even begin to figure out how he knew, Jimmy completely overpowered me.

  Now I was captive in the back of this grimy van with four assholes who probably wanted to have their nasty way with me. And I was soooo not that desperate.

  I sat up straighter, turning my glare on the ringleader who drove recklessly down the road. “Seriously? Isn’t this a bit extreme just to get into my panties?”

  Jimmy scoffed from the front. “Don’t flatter yourself, babe. Fucking you might’ve been a nice bonus, but I get all the snatch I want. This whole thing is beaucoup bucks bigger than you.”

  “What does that mean?” I glanced at the others, but they were either too dumb to know what was really going on or too busy gawking at my legs to give anything away.

  I’d thought this was just some stupid stunt that had gotten out of control.

  Maybe that wasn’t the case, and I was actually in real danger.

  The van continued to bump along, bouncing me left and right.

  I didn’t even know what exactly had happened at the estate.

  If everyone was okay after the smoke cleared and the dust settled.

  I’d seen Arkady, Grigor, Kirill, Maksim, and the three O’Sullivan brothers but, before I’d been thrust into the van, there’d been no sight of Jo, Lucia, Papa, or Baba.

  That drip-drop of trepidation turned into a more consuming worry. I couldn’t very well just jump from a moving van onto the road in the middle of nowhere, and I couldn’t take on all four of these guys by myself. They might not have been professionals, but they were all armed and probably stupid enough to shoot me.

  I had to hope Maksim would care enough to come after me. He certainly cared enough about something to put the kibosh on any of my potential romantic liaisons.

  No matter how much I detested the man, I knew he was my best chance of getting out of this predicament, and I for sure didn’t relish the idea of finding out what Jimmy meant by saying I was worth a lot of money.

  I was the Zolotov Bratva heiress, and to the other crime syndicates I was the most valuable person to one of the most powerful men in the business.

  I was Yury Zolotov’s only child.

  Still, I thought Jimbo was much too dumb to be caught up in any elaborate plan for my abduction. Jumping me in broad daylight at my father’s house was a sure sign of idiocy.

  Or big balls.

  No matter. Maksim would come.

  Wouldn’t he?

  We turned onto a dirt track that could hardly call itself a road, and the thick woods parted on either side of the van.

  There were two things I knew with absolute certainty about Maksim-my-body man: 1. he was deadly at close range, and 2. he was purely lethal at an even longer distance with his tactical sniper rifle.

  Earlier in the day, when he’d come to zip me into my dress, I’d fallen prey to the danger he exuded but in a seriously different sense. My usual taunts had turned into more womanly teasing when I saw a new light enter his irises that were usually the coldest gray color. His eyes, reflected back to me in the mirror, became richer and darker . . . like hot burning embers.

  Embers that had smoldered right into me and set my belly trembling.

  I’d never felt such a pull toward Maksim before.

  He treated me like a bratty little sister and, in response, I mouthed off at him every chance I got. But during those few heart-poundingly palpable moments—when my control-freak bodyguard voiced his darkly erotic intentions to shred the dress from my body—I’d wanted his punishment.

  He had seemed like a stranger, and I’d been forced to admit that he was every bit of tall, sexy, alpha, and alllll of that.

  For all the years we’d verbally ripped one another apart, it took nothing but the touch of his calloused fingers along my back, his large hands on my bare skin, to be my undoing. I might’ve even gasped or moaned at that first touch of skin on skin.

  If he were any other man, I’d have slid my panties down, pulled my dress up, and invited him into my body.

  But he was Maksim Krasnov and, task accomplished, he quickly stepped back and became taciturn once again. I’d been unwilling to let the moment go. Compelled to fix his tie just as he’d zipped my dress, I almost fumbled beneath his unbearably close scrutiny. The hard planes of his chest warmed the fine fabric of his crisp shirt, and I knotted his tie with a surety I didn’t really feel.

  He’d prowled away directly after, leaving me flushed, flustered, flabbergasted. Something unmistakable and unsettling had transpired between us.

  Then I’d gotten inexplicably jealous—so not my style—when I’d seen him smiling so openly at Valeria. My visceral reaction made me feel petty especially bearing in mind everything Valeria had survived.

  But, damn Maksim.

  And damn me for getting myself caught in this situation.

  Finally, the van shuddered to a stop.

  Jimmy cut the engine and hopped out, calling through, “Petey, get her out and bring her inside. Bobby and Jack, go scout around. Make sure we’re all clear.”

  “All clear from what?” Bobby or Jack talked back. “Ain’t like the robo-dudes know where your pop’s fishing shack is at.”

  Jimmy rolled open the van’s side door and stuck his head inside. “You’re not getting paid unless I do, so stop fuckin’ around.”

  “Whatever you say, boss,” one or other of the bozos snidely replied.

  Meanwhile, I discovered Petey was the leering asshole who seemed to be more interested in getting into my panties than any payday.

  He squished my wrists together and tugged me all the way across the floor of the van like I was common chattel.

  Of course my skirt rode up a little in the process, the backs of my legs scraping along.

  “Do you mind, you mongrel?” I kicked out at him as he stood just outside the open door.

  “Not at all.” Petey smirked, capturing my ankles and yanking me the last few inches out.

  I landed on my ass in a patch of dirt, but a bruised backside was nothing compared to my bruised ego.

  Huffing hair from my face, I popped back to my feet and once again settled my skirts. Jimmy stalked ahead while Petey prodded me from behind.

  I quickly took stock of the heavily wooded area where no other buildings were to be seen. We headed toward a rustic shack—I used the term rustic with a heavy dose of sarcasm—that perched on a small rocky hill above a stream. Birds chirped. Crickets began their evening chatter. It was almost idyllic. But not.

  Petey pushed me up some rickety, half-rotted steps into a dim, musty, one room space.

  I’d never been an outdoorsy sort of girl.

  Ducking beneath an entire drapery of thick cobwebs—the place could definitely use a woman’s touch—I raised my nose in disdain at the scat-covered floorboards.

  Jimbo and Petey took up one corner of the room beneath a sagging ceiling beam, apparently confabbing like they knew what they were doing, when clearly they did not.

  They hadn’t tied me up or even attempted to gag me.

  “Amateurs,” I muttered under my breath, sounding very much like Maksim.

  Petey’s head swiveled around. “What did you say?”

  “You are amateurs.” Standing proudly, I met his challenging glare. “Clearly you know nothing about me or the family you just took me from in plain sight. Idiots.”

  “You bitch.” Petey only had to take two steps to get to me and, when he was close enough, his fist shot out.

  He punched me in the face with crumpling force. My head reeled, legs rocking, a sharp shot of pain searing into the side of my skull.

  “That’ll teach
the little Russian whore.” He chuckled in an ugly tone, turning back to Jimmy who said something, but my ears were ringing too badly to capture the words.

  Bending over, I made sure it looked like I was only cradling my sore head. In fact, that asshat was going to regret hitting a girl—I’d make sure of it. With undetectable motions, I slipped my hand up the back of my right thigh for my well-hidden weapon and—no—it wasn’t my panties.

  Petey was too busy congratulating himself on beating on a chick to see me coming when I suddenly launched up, and Jimbo had just turned his back probably to check if he’d gotten any feeling back in his balls after I’d kicked him.

  Whipping my stiletto blade from the sheath high on my thigh, I plunged the wickedest, thinnest, sharpest dagger into the side of Petey’s throat.

  “What the . . .?” His words died out as blood began drowning his windpipe.

  Jimmy spun around then rushed to Petey’s aid, catching him before he collapsed like a puppet whose strings had been cut. “What the fuck did you do to him?”

  Stilettos-stilettoes. The high heels and my highly polished needle-thin blade—two of my favorite things.

  Unstaunched crimson trails of blood poured out around the dagger’s puncture wound on Petey’s neck.

  I declined to answer his buddy. I mean . . . what I’d done seemed pretty obvious if you asked me. Especially since I still held the weapon clasped in my hand.

  Jimmy leaped up, knocking away the blade that dripped dark red to send it clattering across the floor.

  He hurried back to Petey and rolled him onto his uninjured side, but that wouldn’t do much good.

  “I could break your fucking neck, Alexandra.” Jimmy held both his hands over Petey’s pumping artery, and his eyes narrowed. “This wasn’t even my fuckin’ idea. It was that rich-ass Russian’s. If I had my way, I’d use you, screw you, then kill you for this.”

  Russians?

  No way.

  No one who knew my papa’s gulag reputation from the old days would start a war like this.

  I skewered a glare at the dumbass I couldn’t believe I’d ever been vaguely attracted to. “You’re just errand boys? I knew you were pathetic.”

  “Goddamn bitch!” He pulled one hand off Petey’s wound, pointing a finger at me as a bigger bloody fountain spewed out, sending its iron tang to the murky air.

  I could have helped. Emergency first aid was my gig after all.

  Bullet holes, stitching injuries, even that time Arkady had been wired up to a car battery and electrocuted.

  This time, with this crew, I wasn’t much inclined to volunteer my services. I hadn’t taken that pesky little physician’s oath to first do no harm so . . . bye-bye Petey.

  As Petey gasped, likely drowning on his own blood, Bobby or Jack or Jake called out from near the shanty, “Yo, Jimbo! You ever see that Oleg dude on a motorcycle when you met up with him?”

  A few seconds later, when Jimmy didn’t answer, one of the numbnuts appeared in the doorway.

  He took one glance at Petey and the growing pool of blood then aimed a horrified look at Jimmy. “What the fuck happened to him?”

  “Get back on patrol,” Jimmy snapped. “That sure as shit ain’t Oleg so I need to know who’s out there!”

  His hands now covered in slick, slippery red, he darted his gaze from his dying buddy to the one who was supposed to be guarding the place.

  “Wait, wait, wait. She stabbed Petey?” Still the lackey lingered.

  Jumping to his feet, Jimmy marched to the doorway. He jammed a blood smeared finger at his friend’s chest, snarling. “I’ll kill you myself unless you do what I say. Now get!”

  When the flunky finally slunk away, Jimmy turned to me. “You better hope to hell whoever’s on the bike is one of Oleg’s guys or I’m gonna friggin’ rape you with that goddamn blade.”

  More than his scary threat, this second mention of the man called Oleg held my attention.

  Who was this Oleg . . . the Russian?

  I didn’t discount Jimmy at this point either though. He was just rabid enough over Petey’s almost-corpse that I wouldn’t put it past him to make good on his chilling promise.

  I just needed him a little more distracted so I could get my stiletto back and stab him too.

  “Jimmy . . .” Petey wheezed out, and Jimmy rushed to him.

  It was strange watching a man die. I hadn’t been shielded from the Bratva life like many women were in the mafia world, but I hadn’t seen anyone die right before my eyes either.

  I’d also never taken a life myself.

  A curious coldness seeped into my heart at being the cause of Petey’s death. Curious because I was completely unmoved to find myself a killer for the first time.

  With Jimbo hunkered over his pal who surely had only a few moments left, I furtively made my way toward my discarded knife.

  Then I heard it.

  I heard him before I saw him.

  Maksim.

  There weren’t any screams. No wild shouts or shrill threats. Just the near silent whump of a sniper rifle and the thud of dead bodies—one then two somewhere outside of the cabin. And Jimmy had no clue about the devil that was about to descend because he didn’t know what to listen for.

  Then Maksim was there. In the doorway. So broad in the shoulders and tall of height he blotted out the light from the setting sun.

  He was a massive silhouette, menacing as a dark angel, and my heart jumped in my chest.

  The silence continued—dense and unbroken—until Maksim moved soundlessly across the cabin and his large shadow fell over Jimmy.

  Poor, poor Jimmy. Not.

  He glanced up then popped to his feet, the whites of his eyes almost all I could see in the growing darkness. “What the fuck?”

  “Da. What the fuck.” Maksim’s fists had balled, forming behemoth-sized blocks.

  His jaw was hard, his lips thinned.

  I said nothing, standing across from the two with one dying if not already dead body between them. Maksim had barely glanced at me on entering, and he didn’t look at me now.

  “How the fuck did you find us out here?” Jimbo didn’t know when to shut his mouth or cut his losses.

  “Oh. I guess I forgot to tell you about the tracker I wear at all times.” I shook the big bejeweled bangle on my arm.

  Diamonds really are a girl’s best friend. The bracelet was only the decoy device. Jimbo never would’ve found the other one, even if he’d had a clue to begin with.

  “You . . . you . . .” Jimmy sputtered in the face of the much scarier man.

  “Da. Me,” Maksim interrupted in his usual monosyllabic way.

  Then he blasted my captor with no warning at all. I watched in what felt like slow-mo as Maksim’s wicked blow slammed into Jimmy’s gut with such impact the smaller man sailed across the cabin.

  He hit a rotting wall with so much force that boards caved in, but it wasn’t his impact with the wall that halted his trajectory.

  A guttural scream rent the air, and a nasty grin pulled at Maksim’s beautifully formed lips when we both saw Jimmy impaled through the midsection by a broken copper pipe jutting from the innards of the cabin.

  I looked on with satisfaction too.

  Jimmy hung there like a stuck pig, making the same squealing sounds. Blood bloomed outward from the pipe’s jagged end to stain his shirt.

  Then all of Maksim’s silver-gazed intensity landed on me and, after all my bravado, I almost quailed.

  Meeting his blazing eyes, I stepped forward. “You came alone?”

  “Yes.” Breaking the unsettling trance-like hold of his gaze, he scanned around the small interior of the shack.

  He kicked over Petey’s body, inspecting the stab wound and the blood congealing on the dirty floor in a murky crimson puddle.

  One of his brows lifted as he regarded me. “You did this?”

  “Yes,” I answered, proud of my work.

  I wasn’t sure if Maksim approved or not, but he picke
d up my fallen blade and carefully, almost considerately, cleaned it off.

  He handed the stiletto back, watching through narrowed eyes as I deliberately raised my skirt to re-sheath the weapon.

  Then Jimmy coughed a thick, wet sound, reminding us the human kabob was not yet dead.

  “He’s still coming,” Jimmy gasped out in a reedy pained voice. “Oleg . . . supposed to be here already.”

  That was several times I’d heard the name, not to mention Jimmy had implied a third party had hired him as errand boy to abduct me.

  Something unrecognizable flared across Maksim’s eyes, and he stepped closer to the skewered dude. “Spasibo for the warning, suka.”

  He said nothing else. He simply struck fast, grasping both sides of Jimmy’s face and snapping his neck in one harsh move.

  Composed. Cold. Controlled.

  But pure rage seemed to light him up from inside when he returned to me.

  He took my shoulders in both his hands, restrained power vibrating from him. “How could you lead the enemy straight into your fucking bed?”

  “I—”

  He slapped a palm over my mouth, fingers digging into the bruised side of my face. “I should kill you for this.” His voice lowered sinisterly. “For you of all people, Yury Zolotov’s daughter, to be so fucking naïve.”

  I swallowed in the face of his unshackled fury.

  “How did that cunt gain access to the mansion in the first place?” He slid his hand back to my shoulder, and I took a ragged breath.

  “I . . .” Glancing away, I couldn’t look at him as I admitted, “I showed him the tunnel ways.”

  Much like the catacombs beneath The Cat and the Sickle club, a system of passageways ran beneath Papa’s mansion and beyond for security purposes.

  “Blyad.” The force of Maksim’s curse cleaved straight through me and, worse than that, his clear disappointment gouged at me.

  “Who is Oleg?” He shook me so hard I thought my teeth would rattle right out of my head.

  “I don’t know. I’d never heard of him until Jimmy kept mentioning him today.” That was the truth.

  Sure, I’d flirted online, met a few men in person, gotten laid on the rare occasion I could escape Maksim’s clutches. But no one named Oleg had ever approached me or even tried to catfish me. I definitely hadn’t come into contact with any other Russian factions.