His Savage Desire: A Dark Russian Mafia Romance (Bad Boy Bratva Book 3), page 1
His Savage Desire
Bad Boy Bratva
Gia Bailey
Copyright © 2021 by Gia Bailey
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Bad Boy Bravta Series
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Epilogue
About the Author
Also by Gia Bailey
Bad Boy Bravta Series
His Dark Desire
His Forbidden Desire
His Savage Desire
Chapter One
Elena
In Russian culture, there are few events in which attendance is expected. Birth, death, and weddings make the list. Not going to my brother’s wedding would raise eyebrows, and for that reason alone, I was sitting on a plane bound for Heathrow, London.
My fiancé sat next to me. I call him that because he tells me to. If I was free to call him what I wanted, it would be my jailor. My warden. I would never say that out loud these days. I’ve learned not to.
A stewardess moved down the aisle, offering champagne for all of us lucky passengers in first class. Igor took three glasses, and said nothing to the polite woman. She didn’t blink, no doubt used to rude, rich people in her cabin.
“Would you care for one miss?” she asked me. I stared at her, my eyes burrowing into hers. It felt so strange to be looked at, after so long. The only person who’d made eye contact with me in years was Igor. My fiancé. My captor.
“Thank you, but no,” I said, finding the English words awkward in my mouth. Igor flashed me a look, and I turned back to the window, but the thrill remained. I had spoken to someone. I had spoken in English… I hadn’t forgotten it, despite not using it in years. It was a relief. I’d need it.
If I was to escape the monster sitting next to me, and escape him I had to, or die trying, it was here. In this new country, where my brother and his powerful bratva lived, I had to find a way to get away from Igor. It was my last chance.
Igor drank his drinks, and sat in stony silence, which would have usually scared me, for what he would do when we got to our hotel. Speaking in English was against his rules. Today, I didn’t care. I had to go to Max’s wedding, or we would risk scrutiny, and Igor wanted to avoid that at all costs. When we did, I would find my escape route. Nothing else mattered.
I stared out the window at the country appearing below us. Lush green, rolling hills and farms dotted the landscape, gradually fading into the huge sprawling mass of London. Freedom beckoned.
Here, in this foreign city, was where I would make my last stand.
Chapter Two
Nik
I picked the job up at the last minute. It wasn’t my usual remit. I was security for hire, ex-army, a veteran whose country repaid his service by only qualifying him for minimum wage gigs. But I had a plan for my own security firm, I just needed capital to set it up. That meant working all the hours I could fit in. When this job came up, I almost turned it down. It was outside the city, an escort at a wedding, of all things. It wasn’t that unusual. There were plenty of extremely wealthy people who not only traveled with their own security but hired locals too, who would know the lay of the land and help them ease their way with any local law enforcement.
I met the rest of the security team early in the morning, they were all Russians, except for the other Brits they’d hired for the day. I was half-Russian and could understand more than the rest of the temporary muscle. A sense of foreboding filled me as I listened to enough of the conversation to get the idea of the incoming man’s job. A super-rich gangster type from Moscow, and his fiancé. Only two people for such a huge security presence was strange enough, and it set off every alarm in me. I didn’t like working with shady types, I was ex-army, after all, and despite the failings of the system, I believed in some of the pillars of that institution. I was about to leave, make an excuse and go, when the car carrying the package, the couple to protect, pulled up, and the window wound down. A man got out, wearing a suit that surely had to cost more than my rent, and started talking in a rapid stream of Russian to his team. You could tell the Russian’s from the Brits. The Russians were bigger, more muscled, and wore the tattoos that I knew would denote their rank in their bratva. The more tattoos, the more jail time and crime committed.
They were deep in conversation, and I took the chance to walk away. This man smelled like trouble, and I had survived a long time, on the streets of East London as a teen, and later, as a soldier in Syria, by gut instinct alone. We were meeting at a private airstrip, with only a small office building for security. The super-rich with private jets came and went as they wanted, with far less interference than anyone believed. They had the money to break any rule they desired.
I passed through the office, and glanced back out the window, confirming that no one had noticed yet that I’d gone. I went by the bathroom on the way out. The door to the disabled toilet was ajar, and two of those Russian bratva thugs stood in the hallway.
A voice called out from inside the bathroom, and the men simply ignored it. It was a woman’s voice and she quickly switched to English. She was muttering to herself, and I couldn’t help but listen.
“She sells seashells by the seashore,” the voice said slowly, as though practicing. “Tak, I’m Elena Volkov, and I claim asylum. Please… don’t make me go back,” she said quietly. That feeling of unease washed over me again, and I shifted, trying to see who it was who suddenly sounded so desperate. “I need asylum, please… help me,” the woman tried again, presumably to the mirror. The security guy nearest me looked me over with warning.
“I’m with the new detail,” I told him in rusty as hell Russian. He stared a moment longer before nodding and looking away. “Why’s the door open?” I asked the man, hardly expecting an answer, but too curious not to ask.
“I’m not allowed any locked doors. Your boss doesn’t care for them,” her voice answered instead, in accented English, strong but clear as a bell. My reaction to that alarming statement was lost, as the woman finally stepped out of the room, and blew every other thought out of my head.
I’d never seen such loveliness in person.
It wasn’t just that she was beautiful, of course, she was, the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. It was the eyes. They were pale, a silvery blue, and she stared at me as though she might see into my soul. She stared intently into my eyes, as though drinking me in. I felt seen in every way under that stare. She was wearing a sparkling evening dress that hugged her slim body perfectly. She showed no skin, and yet, cut the most provocative, striking figure I’d ever seen. The fancy dress looked out of place in the small, shabby office hallway. She raised an eyebrow at me and spoke in that beautiful voice.
“You are a new face,” she said, “you don’t know the rules yet.”
“What rules?” I asked, trying to collect my scattered thoughts, and my body, which was extremely interested in getting closer to this beautiful ethereal creature.
“Igor’s rules. No eye contact, or contact at all,” she said quietly. I looked to the security guards and found both sets of their eyes lowered.
“I’m not great at following rules. I used to do it for a living, and I don’t care for it anymore,” I told her, shifting closer. I wanted to touch her.
“Hmm, sounds nice,” she said. I was struck by her dry humor. There was darkness lying just beneath her casual tone, a careful watchfulness in her eyes. “I’m not allowed to speak English either.”
“But you were doing such a good job,” I told her honestly. She was clearly Russian, but her English was excellent. Her phrasing once again rang alarm bells for me. Allowed to speak? Pride shone in her eyes at my compliment, before she looked away toward the window of the hall, where the men on the airstrip were moving.
“I haven’t forgotten it then, in all this time,” she mused, as one of the security guys straightened off the wall, and jerked his head toward the exit. “Time’s up. Keep my secret and I won’t tell Igor that you looked me in the eye.”
“I don’t care if you do, it’s not a crime,” I countered. Something flared in the depths of her pale gaze.
“You don’t know the Orlov family yet. But if you stick around, you will. I wouldn’t want your first day to be your last.” Her voice had dropped to a murmur as she drew abreast of me. I was caught once more in her gaze.
“Won’t these guys tell on you?” I asked, jerking my head to the side. She turned to look at her bodyguards, and her shoulders bunched for a moment, and then she shrugged.
“If you do tell on me, they will be punished for not stopping it too,” she said in Russian then, the words flowing over me like honey. Her watchers were silent, but I felt like her reminder to them worked well, as they both looked away, as though they hadn’t seen or heard anything.
She gave me a smile, one full of secrets, and
“You weren’t leaving, were you?” she asked, pausing on the threshold to the airstrip. The early morning sun touched the sequins on her dress, and I fancied for a moment that she looked like an otherworldly being, standing there in the half-light. At that moment, I would have followed her anywhere.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
We drove out to Hertfordshire. A crumbling pile of a manor estate that had been lovingly restored. If I’d been in any doubt about the type of people whose wedding it was, that was dispelled at the sight of the security inside, wandering the grounds with machine guns and sharp suits. Today, someone important was getting married, and I should be a lot more worried than I was that I was involved in it.
To be honest, it was difficult to keep my mind on the reality of the job, when I couldn’t get the client from my head.
“Shit looks high-end,” Steve, another new recruit whispered beside me. His story was similar to mine, except he hailed from the Navy and had three kids to feed at home, and I was already planning how I would recruit him when I got my own private security company up and running.
“Do you know whose wedding it is?” I wondered. Steve was the type to strike up a conversation with even the most reluctant partners, and the taciturn men who’d arrived with the Orlovs were the very definition of remote.
“A banker I heard. Volkov, meant to be a big deal in The City. The woman with us, I heard she’s his sister,” Steve murmured, his eyes lighting up at being able to pass on his hard-won info.
“Volkov,” I repeated, though the name wasn’t directly familiar, it did ring a distant bell in my mind. “Won’t the banker types think it’s a little odd to come to a wedding that requires machine guns on the lawn?” I wondered aloud.
“No way, everyone wants to kill bankers. They’re probably used to it,” Steve muttered.
A rich banker’s sister, practicing how to claim asylum in Britain. When I took into consideration Orlov’s rules, and the security detail on her, it seemed there was a whole lot more going on with the woman I’d met earlier. The one I couldn’t get out of my mind. I didn’t know what it was exactly yet, but I was determined to find out.
Chapter Three
Nik
The car I was in drew up outside the mansion, and security surged out. Orlov’s car was a bulletproof Bentley, and we flanked each side waiting for the client to emerge. Igor Orlov was a pale, mean-looking man, with a permanent sneer. I couldn’t picture him as fiancé to the vibrant woman he was with. Maybe he’d been handsome once, without the sneer and the general air of contempt. But it couldn’t only be contempt that Igor Orlov felt today. Today, he was afraid. I could smell it. When you’d spent as much time around fearful, weak men as I had, you could scent it in the air around them. Orlov barked an order into the car, and a long leg emerged.
Her.
She got out of the car. Igor didn’t help. She kept her head lowered, and the curtain of her shining dark hair hid her expression from me. The fear from her was softer, less on the surface, but I could see her hands trembling and her step faltering as she followed behind Igor.
Followed, because he strode ahead of her. My fists tightened into balls of anger at the rudeness, at the sheer audacity of such a pig ignoring the shining jewel of a woman behind him. It was almost purposeful, the way he showed his lack of regard. I wished I had asked her name, so I might label this goddess in my mind, as something other than the banker’s sister. The group started up the stairs and my mystery woman had to lift her dress away from her feet and struggled to keep pace with Igor.
When she was abreast of me the group stopped for a moment, while Igor spoke to a man at the door who was more terrifying than anything I’d seen in ten years of military service.
“That’s Ivan Volkov,” Steve muttered beside me.
“Wait, another sibling?” I wondered.
“He’s a brother alright, but not the kind you’re thinking of. Ivan’s a bratva brother… you know… mafia, the Russian mob,” Steve muttered, clearly excited by the elicit company we were keeping. “No one fucks with Ivan Volkov, no one. The man’s an underworld legend.”
Ivan’s stoic face was hard, completely unreadable as he looked at Igor, then his eyes strayed to the woman just behind him, and there was a pure ripple of emotion. He knew her, I was sure of it. Not only did he know her, but he cared about her.
“Elena?” Ivan the legend said, in a voice like gravel. She jerked, as though waking from a dream. She hadn’t looked up yet, and this close, I could see every detail of her face. Her upturned nose, and full lips. I could see the pulse point in her long neck pounding with anxious blood. Her calm expression was a façade. She was either afraid or excited, and I couldn’t begin to guess which. She slowly raised her head and met Ivan’s gaze.
“Vanya, it’s good to see you,” she said in Russian, inclining her head like a queen. Ivan narrowed his eyes at her.
“It has been a very long time. Too long,” he said. Igor laughed. It sounded like oil dripping across a surface.
“I’m afraid I’ve kept my fiancé awfully occupied in Moscow, you know how nearly-weds are,” Igor said. An annoyed, strangely possessive feeling stirred in my chest at the idea that this woman, Elena, was marrying Igor. Anyone at all, really.
What happened next, happened all at once. Ivan nodded Igor inside, and the group started forward. Elena jerked onward and forgot to pick her long skirts up. I saw the moment she lost her balance only because I had been so closely observing her. She started to fall. My arm shot through a gap in security faster than a speeding bullet, and my hand fastened around the top of her arm. The sudden grip changed her trajectory, and she swung right into me, the closest security guard jumping back in confusion. I felt her body collide with mine. I didn’t move, barely even swayed as I absorbed the gentle impact her slight form made as she landed against my chest. I heard Elena gasp, her eyes shooting just over my shoulder and I knew without a doubt that there was a gun to the back of my head at that very moment.
“No guns on Volkov property,” Ivan intoned in a lethal voice, his words in Russian, for many guests didn’t speak English.
“Come on, Vanya, we both know every single man here has a weapon,” Igor soothed.
“I don’t,” Ivan said dismissively, and then gave Igor a grin that would turn any man’s blood cold. “I don’t need one to kill you,” he said. The staring match between the two faded away as I realized that I was holding Elena Volkov in my arms, and she was looking up at me. Her silvery grey eyes were ringed by thick, dark lashes, and she blinked at me in recognition, the smallest smile played around her lips.
“Are you alright?” I asked her, my voice low and urgent. She swallowed, and she opened her mouth to speak.
“Elena doesn’t speak English,” Igor snapped at me in Russian. I ignored him and continued to hold her. I was surprised by how right she felt in my hands. Her eyes fell, disappointment filling her gaze.
“Are you alright?” I repeated in Russian. I suddenly became aware of being watched. The whole security detail, Ivan and Igor himself were focused on Elena. I forced myself to breathe, and let her go. Getting shot in the back of the head an hour into a job wasn’t a great start.
“Of course, she isn’t glass. She doesn’t break easily, believe me,” Igor sneered. Ivan reached out a hand as though to grab the man, but then seemed to gather himself. He pulled back and nodded them through. Just before they moved, Elena’s gaze fastened on mine, and I felt a pull to her like nothing I’ve ever felt before. There was so much in that look, it stopped my heart a moment. I had to force myself to stay still, as they swept inside, taking her along with them. I met Ivan’s eyes after and found his strong jaw clenched like granite, and his hands in fists that would smash Igor’s head with one punch, then he turned and strode after them.
