“Where is she?”

  “Kazak.”

  An hour from here, near one of our brother groups. I feel my brows rise in surprise. So bold.

  He leans against the wall and steps into the room. “If you want, I’ll go.”

  I can see it in his eyes, though. He doesn’t want to go. Maksym is no wilting violet, but he has a code he lives by, and as he’s the most faithful to our brotherhood, I want to honor that code. He will take down our most violent opposition, and in recent months has risen to the top as our most accurate assassin, but when it comes to women…

  When our brother Kazimir abducted a woman named Sadie last year, Maksym cursed out Dimitri and almost resigned. There is typically no real resignation from the Bratva but death. To Maksym, retribution was one thing but abducting innocents was another. He insisted she did nothing to earn how we treated her. And now that Kazimir and Sadie have settled back in the U.S., he keeps regular contact with them like a sort of doting uncle.

  But this woman… what she’s done… she’s earned whatever happens and he knows it.

  Hell, if this were a year ago and Dimitri still ran our organization, he’d murder her with one rapid command, not even bothering to punish her before death. And for a moment I fear being in this position of power has weakened me.

  “Show me her picture.” I drain the bottle of water and drag the towel over my face again. He takes a picture out of a slim folder, and holds it up to me.

  I swear under my breath, shaking my head.

  It’s a grainy picture, but I can tell she’s fucking beautiful. Black hair. High cheekbones, pointed chin, thick, dark eyebrows and lashes over light brown eyes. With her softly rounded, oval face, full lips, and pale complexion, she looks like a little pixie. She could be a model for a high-end fashion company, instead of the ruthless hacker who’s undermined our efforts and taken what doesn’t belong to her.

  “Is she as small as she looks?”

  “As tiny as a child,” he says, frowning. “Just under five feet tall, one hundred pounds.”

  I stare at her picture in silence.

  “Do we know why she’s done what she has? Are there any ties in any way?”

  He shrugs. “Her father and sister were killed in a car accident three years ago, but the papers report it purely accidental.” That means nothing.

  I curse again and throw the empty water bottle toward the trash barrel. It nicks the edge and falls to the ground, bouncing along the floor.

  “And still, she needs to be stopped.” I’m thinking out loud. I could sit back and let others enact our revenge, or I could use this to my advantage. If I take her myself…

  Suddenly, the right course of action seems vividly clear.

  I nod, making up my mind. “I’ll go,” I tell him. “I want to extract her myself, and it’s time I paid our brothers in Kazak a visit.” I haven’t seen them since I’ve taken this position of power. I was only a brother in a line of many before. Now, I’m the pakhan, voted in by my brothers.

  I snort. “Hell, it’s a write-off.”

  He huffs out a laugh in reply.

  “Show me her most recent infractions.”

  Maksym nods, and takes out several printouts. “Her recent history,” he tells me. “There’s been half a million dollars in blocked transfers in the past month but done from multiple accounts and in small batches. Normally, it would be hard to track someone like her, but as I said she left it wide open this time. It would seem either she wants us to come for her, or it’s a fatal mistake.”

  I curse looking over the evidence. If we hadn’t caught on, she could have destroyed one of the most lucrative transactions in decades.

  “And that mistake was?”

  “She made every transaction from the same location. The same room. The same computer.”

  “Someone so brilliant yet so stupid?”

  He shakes his head. “At first we even thought it was a trap. But after further investigation, we found out more about her… It has to be intentional, and there’s no indication she’s affiliated with any of our rivals.”

  I shake my head. “She’ll pay for this, Maksym. Her name?”

  “Calina,” he says. “Calina Brague. And of course she will pay,” he says, but then he looks away, as if he wants to hide what he has to say next. “But there’s something else you need to know.”

  I look at him questioningly. I’ve already decided to go to Kazak and abduct her myself. What else could there be?

  “Tell me,” I order, taking the papers from his hand and reading them over again.

  “Her location, Dem…”

  I’m losing my patience. I raise a brow at him and nod, waiting for him to continue.

  “She’s a resident at Saint Andrews Hospital,” he says. “It’s a… mental institution.”

  I swear under my breath and mask the cold sweep of anger that sweeps over me.

  “Does she work there?” I ask, already knowing the answer to my question.

  “No, Dem.” He shakes his head and doesn’t meet my eyes. “She’s a patient.”

  Christ.

  Read more

  Preview The Bratva’s Captive

  Maksym

  I stretch my legs out, ignoring the ever-present pain I get even now. Yesterday, during my physical therapy session, the therapist pushed me harder than he ever has, and I feel it today.

  But I want him to push me. I want to train my muscles and optimize my strength. I want this recovery more than anything, so I allow him to push me. I move past the pain. Sometimes, it even helps the constant anger I carry abate for a time.

  I lift weights, heavier than I ever have, longer than I've ever sustained. I'm shredding my body and strengthening my mind and intellect.

  Training to be the vicious killer I need to be. Training to avenge Taya.

  In the past two months, I've convinced Demyan to give me another job in the Bratva. Until now, I've played the role of extractor, which helped hone my skills for what I do now.

  We all pay tribute to our leader Demyan, the pakhan, but I've assumed the role as head Brodyaga. I'm the group heavy, the strike force of the Bratva. In our case, that means I'm executioner. I convinced myself that if I became the one who executed our enemies, I would grow immune to the weight of taking the life of another.

  I was not wrong.

  One week ago, we discovered the owner of one of our warehouses where we oversee arms dealing had pilfered several million dollars' worth of weapons. Demyan wanted him punished for his theft. I offered to do the job.

  I've learned to move unseen. I've learned to exact retribution without regret. I've learned to snuff out the life of those who deserve death as easily as blowing out a candle.

  I will find the people responsible for Taya's death. I will find them, and I will end them.

  My dreams have begun to shift. I'm so consumed with the goal of avenging Taya's death that I'm no longer the prisoner but the tormentor.

  I don't wake any more rested than before I go to sleep, because it's only a dream. The ones responsible for Taya's death still roam free.

  They're still fucking free.

  But I will find them.

  The reports say it was a random incident. She was hijacked after a shift at the hospital where she worked. Knifed, her wallet emptied.

  But a man in my position learns to trust his instincts, and my instincts say this was not accidental.

  How could my enemies have found her? We keep the whereabouts of our loved ones a secret, sharing only the bare minimum details even among brothers, and I trust my brothers with my life. They are the ones who rescued me. Every one of us would die for one another. I know that both Filip and Vladek are single, Demyan the only one of our inner circle who has a woman. But Demyan and Larissa live on the first floor of our compound, and she's not allowed out of his sight.

  "Report on the actions of The Thieves," Demyan orders, sitting back in an appearance of rest, but he's ever-alert. He doesn't trust them since my rescue and has been biding his time plotting retaliation, but my revenge for the torture I sustained is secondary to finding the men who killed my Taya.

  "All quiet, Dem," Filip, our resident computer hacker, says.

  "Mostly quiet," Larissa contradicts. According to Demyan, his wife Larissa was the one who traced my whereabouts. Her hacking skills are far superior to anyone else's, which is the only reason she's allowed to any of our meetings, and the reason why she has a three-man-detail on her whenever she's out of arm's reach of her husband. She jokes that she can't use the bathroom without a detail, and she's right.

  Demyan sits up straighter. "What did you find, moya lyubov'?"

  My love. Something hits me in the chest at once, a pang so hard it's almost physical.

  My love.

  It was the last thing Taya said to me before I left for the States, and I'd give anything to come back to that moment. I would refuse to leave her. I would lay and wait for that night and ambush whoever took her from me.

  Larissa shoots me a look before she responds to Demyan, her eyes wide and apprehensive. My body goes tight.

  She found something involving Taya.

  "What is it?" I spit out. Demyan shoots me a warning look, but I ignore him. I don't fucking care if she's his. She has information I need, and I'll have it.

  "I've been digging around for information about The Thieves."

  "Larissa," Demyan warns. He's told her to stay away from them, to focus on the tasks he gives her, but she's feisty and brilliant. She can't help herself.

  "Just listen," she pleads. "It's important."

  Demyan releases a breath. "Go on."

  "So, you all obviously know that all of you organized crime guys descended from the original Thieves of Law? The ones who formed this militaristic group after the fall of Stalin?" Larissa looks at Nicolai, the youngest recruit of our group. He sits by Demyan, who's a mentor to him, his arms crossed on his chest, wearing a scowl. With his hair shaved short and heavily tattooed, he looks older than his twenty-five years.

  “Of course,” Nicolai finally says. “Our American brothers tell the same story.” Though Russian-born, Nicolai now hails from our American brotherhood, the most prominent Bratva in America, recruited by Demyan. Former spetsnaz, his special forces training has served him well.

  “Go on,” he tells Larissa. Though he’s young, he is a commanding, formidable addition to The Bratva, and I’m pleased he’s joined forces with us.

  "Alrighty then," Larissa says. "So, The Thieves like to think they're the original Bratva, even though you guys have a deeper history of origin with Dimitri than they do."

  "Go on," Demyan tells her, growing impatient.

  "You know that about twenty years ago, the deeper international affiliations of The Thieves became more well-known, at the same time you guys grew in numbers. You were more careful with your alliances, but they were not, which resulted in the apprehension of their pakhan. Because of the time he spent in jail, there's significant footage I was able to obtain."

  We sit in silence while Larissa pulls up pictures on her laptop and enlarges them. I don't know where she's going with this, but she's piqued my interest.

  Demyan nods. "Get to your point, Larissa."

  "I'm getting there," she says. "I promise."

  "Do you realize the risk you put us in while you investigate The Thieves?" Filip glares at her. Until Larissa, this was his job, and he's not pleased she's one-upped him. Again.

  She glares right back. "There is no risk," she says tightly. "I've used state-of-the-art encryption and hidden my tracks well. I'm hardly using my iPhone in a casual search at a fucking coffee shop."

  Demyan's lips quirk up at the way she schools Filip, and he looks at Filip like a stern father might an errant son.

  "Scolding Larissa is my job," he reminds him. "Not yours."

  Filip just sits back and glares. The rest of us watch in silence.

  Larissa straightens in her chair. "As I was saying," she continues. "There's a small tattoo no one knows about, that seems to identify every one of The Thieves." Zooming in, she pulls up a bare-chested picture of a prisoner doing pull-ups in a prison gym. A black, six-pointed star shows right under his arm, above his obliques, only visible when he lifts his arm above his head. "We have no facial footage of the man who killed Taya," she says. "He was masked, and it appeared random. Until recently, I didn't know we could even obtain security footage."

  "How did you get it?" Filip snaps.

  She waves her hand. "It involved overriding governmental protocol, but if you know anything at all about hacking, you'd know that, wouldn't you? This footage was archived prematurely which in and of itself is a concern."

  Her voice drops while she pulls up another video clip and enlarges it, but before she pushes the button, she looks to me.

  "I don't know if you want to see this, Maksym," she whispers, sympathy in her gaze. I look in surprise when her normally fiery eyes fill with tears. "It's actual footage of Taya's..." her voice trails off. She can't bring herself to say it.

  "Show me," I order. I'm on my feet, my hands fisted by my side, and in an instant, Demyan's beside me, standing between me and Larissa.

  "You don't have to see it," she continues.

  "Fucking show me!" I scream.

  Demyan's hands are on my shoulders and he's pushing me to sit. "Sit down, Maksym. I won't prevent you from seeing this, but she was right to check with you before she showed you." He leans in and plants his hands on either side of my chair, his mouth to my ear. "But if you yell at her again, I'll dismiss you for the night. I don't want to do that, brother. Don't make me."

  I breathe in deeply through my nose and exhale through my mouth. I give him one quick nod and meet the eyes of Nicolai, who holds my gaze in solidarity. He lost his sister in a gang fight before he was inducted into our brotherhood. He knows the pain that burns in my chest like a torch, the way fire ignites my veins at the mere mention of her death. He gives me a nod. He knows what I feel, but we both know I have to calm myself or I'm useless.

  "I'm sorry, Larissa," I say while Demyan sits beside me.

  She waves her hand. "Eh, I'm used to you testosterone monsters," she says. "Now as I was saying, I found this footage. Your girl was a fighter, Maksym. She took this man down before he got her. And look..."

  My body stills at the grainy shot of my Taya, still dressed in hospital scrubs. She's on the ground on her back and a man holds her down, but she's already ripped the t-shirt from his body. I'm on my feet again before I realize I'm standing, my vision blurring with rage. I will find this man. I will find him, and I will make every nerve in his body scream in pain while he begs for mercy I will not give. I will find him, and he will die a slow, torturous death.

  Demyan watches me, but I get no closer to Larissa.

  "Look," Larissa says softly, pointing to the screen. I step closer to her and Demyan's beside me, but I wave him off.

  "I won't hurt her," I tell Demyan. "Please, Dem."

  Demyan lets me get closer. It's blurry, but the mark is unmistakable: the six-pointed star beneath the man's armpit.

  "It was a Thief," Larissa whispers.

  Jesus Fucking Christ.

  "How do you know he didn't go rogue?" Filip asks with a frown. "If we take on The Thieves, we go to war."

  I could wring his scrawny neck for suggesting we don't kill the motherfuckers. Instead, I focus on Larissa.

  "Do we know if this was sanctioned by Yuri?" I ask. My skin crawls at the mere mention of his name.

  "This is also what I needed to show you."

  At first, she doesn't respond, but pulls up footage of a car several yards behind the scene in front of us. A long, black car with a license plate I can barely read. But she zooms in.

  "This is Yuri's car," she says.

  Demyan curses.

  "Tell me everything you know about Yuri," I tell her. I can hardly hear my own voice with the blood pounding in my ears. I'm almost lightheaded with fury, so consumed with hot, molten rage, I can barely think straight. "Does he have a wife? A daughter?"

  Larissa's hands tremble on her laptop. "Maksym," she whispers. Larissa was originally kidnapped by our men for the crimes we thought she committed. She has become one of us, and loves Demyan, her husband. But she hasn't forgotten the fear of being held captive. She knows what we're capable of.

  "Maksym," Demyan warns.

  I round on him. "Don't you fucking warn me," I tell him, knowing I'm crossing a line. Demyan is my brother, but he's the pakhan, and he tolerates no disrespect from anyone.

  "How would you feel if that was Larissa?" I ask, gesturing to the screen. "If you just watched a man hold her down before he slit her throat?"

  Demyan's jaw clenches but he doesn't speak. "You weren't there," I tell him. "You weren't strapped to the floor and beaten, held prisoner by a gang of ruthless criminals who promised to find whoever you loved and rape them raw unless you caved. It wasn't you. You don't fucking know what that was like."

  Demyan puts his hand on my shoulder. "I wasn't, brother."

  "I loved her, Demyan." It's all I need to say, and I can't speak anymore anyway, because my throat is so tight I can hardly breathe. I will not shed a tear in front of my brothers. I will not show my weakness.

  Demyan squeezes my shoulder and turns to Larissa. He holds her gaze, and his voice goes hard when he orders her. "Tell him."

  "I—oh, God," she whispers, her voice tremulous. "Demyan," she pleads.

  "Tell him."

  "He has no wife," she says in a whisper. "She died years ago. But he has a daughter."

  "Her name," I manage to rasp out.

  "Olena," she says. "She's a college student and has only been in this country the past five years. She lived in America with his wife until she died, and then came to live with her father after her mother's death."

  "Go on."

  "She lives near campus," she continues. "Works at the cafe. That's all I know." She closes her eyes. "It's all I want to know."

  But she suspected I would want this from her, so she was prepared to answer my questions. She's already figured out my plan.

  "Which college?"

  "Moscow University," she whispers.

 

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