Kostya A Dark Bratva Hate Story Page 2

  Boldly, I press against him. His body molds to mine, and despite the difference in our height, somehow we mold together perfectly like two puzzle pieces sliding into place.

  As one song melts into the next, he seems to forget about everyone else, and his focus narrows until he’s looking only at me. His hard gaze softens, and he looks down at me with sweet, infinite yearning.

  This. This is the moment I’ve hungered for, for so long.

  He bends down, cupping my chin in his hand, and kisses me. His lips are as soft as clouds, his tongue firm and commanding. I surrender completely, my lips parted. I’m damp with arousal as I press up against him, my breasts crushing into his broad, muscular chest.

  The music fades, and he releases me and steps back. Every cell in my body screams in protest. I miss the taste of him already. I’m hungry for more.

  He looks down at me, his face solemn. "That was a mistake, Anya. That can never happen again."

  Oh, yes it will. It suddenly occurs to me that if I must submit to an arranged marriage, I want it to be Kostya.

  And I know he wants me too. It would be perfect. I’m of an acceptable social status for him, and even if he doesn’t love me, at least he would have a wife he found fun and attractive. And if I absolutely must get married, I could do worse than being with a man who makes my heart pound in my chest every time I see him, and who sets my loins on fire. That means at least I’d have a great sex life and lots of orgasms. I think. I’m not an expert in that area.

  And maybe, over time, he’d come to feel more.

  My father is throwing a party at our flat next week, and he has invited all his business partners. Kostya will be there, I know. I’ll make my move on him then. Flirt with him. Charm him. Give him a hard time; he loves it when I do that. We’re the best sparring partners; why is he being such a stubborn ass about this?

  I let him lead me out of the VIP room, smiling at the thought.

  “Let’s go find Pasha,” he says, his voice heavy with resignation. I dance back away from him, grinning.

  “After a kiss like that, you think I’m going to dance with anyone else?” And before he can say a word, I dive into the crowd.

  He tries to follow me, but I'm greased lightning-fast when I want to be. And I have a habit of scoping out any new place I visit, identifying all the exits. My father taught me that, as a kidnapping evasion technique. I make it out the door before Kostya can catch me, and jump in a cab.

  I text my friends as we pull away, telling them that I am leaving early because I don’t feel well, and reminding them to still check in with me hourly and let me know when they get home.

  When I tuck my phone back in my purse, I’m smiling. Next week. I swear, I'll make him fall in love with me.

  Chapter Two

  Three years ago...

  Kostya Mikhailov

  Anya’s father Denis always throws an amazing party. The most decadent food, the prettiest servers, the most expensive liquor. His enormous flat, in the Patriarshiy Prudy district, rivals my family’s in luxury and decadence. Business has been good this year. Denis has all the connections, and he greases palms throughout the world to ensure that nobody looks too closely at his shipping containers.

  In addition to clothing and electronics, they contain weapons and drugs and sometimes people. I try not to think about the frightened, cowering women locked away in containers, their futures stolen from them. There are lines even I don’t want to cross.

  That’s a part of the family business I’m not involved in, for which I’m grateful.

  I push those thoughts from my head. I can’t police the world. My duty is to protect my own family – especially my little sister, Elizaveta, who is twelve. She is safe. She will always be safe. We have money and connections and bodyguards to ensure that she stays that way. She’s across the room right now, with my mother, giggling with Anya.

  My stepfather stands near them, keeping a quietly watchful eye on my mother. She’s still beautiful, and if any man dared to flirt with her, he’d need to kill them immediately. I can’t complain about him, though, not really. He brought me in to the fold, gave me more power and responsibility in the Bratva than he gave to his own son. He has always been kind to my mother, and treats my sister like his own daughter, for the most part. She’s the only father he’s ever known; my mother was pregnant with her when my father was murdered.

  I’m not the only one watching them. Or rather, I’m not the only one watching Anya. All night long, Pasha has been fixated on her. He alternates between following Anya around and annoying her with loud, crude jokes, and flirting with the helpless female servers in an attempt to make her jealous.

  If he weren’t such a thick-headed fool, he’d see that it’s having the opposite effect. The girls cringe and desperately try to smile because they’re afraid of him, and with each passing minute, Anya’s growing more and more disgusted. It shows in the curl of her lip and the tension in her body every time she sees him backing a girl into a corner and leaning over her. Anya’s a little American feminist, all concerned with women’s rights over their own bodies and nonsense like that.

  What Anya doesn’t know is that it doesn’t matter how much she hates Pasha. Her father has already promised my stepfather that she will marry Pasha next year, after she graduates from college. Nobody has consulted her on this, of course; it didn’t even occur to them.

  Nobody consulted me, either.

  I’ve known Anya for years, since she was a skinny, flat-chested little minx with braces. Her family and mine visited each other’s summer homes frequently, and went to all the same parties. She would sneak away from her nursemaid Masha, sending the poor old woman into a tizzy, and come watch me as I lounged by the lake or drank at the poolside bar.

  I laughed at her childish crush on me. Half afraid, half fascinated; she was like a cute little puppy. That all changed when I saw little Anya this summer, for the first time in years. She’s all grown up and ripe and lush as a peach. The moment I laid eyes on her, at a luncheon held by my stepfather, my grim black and white world suddenly blazed into glorious color.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t hide my interest well enough. The minute Pasha saw me watching Anya, he became obsessed with her. He told his father that he wanted her, and that was it.

  Pasha covets everything I have – physical strength, the ability to intimidate, the respect of his own father. He was cursed with the pretty face and lithe, slender body of his late mother, a ballerina, rather than the brutal bulk of his father. Because of that, he will never be taken seriously in the Bratva world.

  So when he sees anything that he can actually take from me, he goes for it. There was a one of a kind Bentley that I’d commissioned, and I’ll never forget the gloating look on his face as he pulled up in front of our house a few days before I was due to pick it up – and of course, he was driving the Bentley.

  I didn’t care less about Pasha snatching up the car. I didn’t care about the million dollar watch I bid on at an auction, only to have him send in a ringer to outbid me, or the penthouse apartment I had my eye on, but Anya? That one hurts. Still, I am Bratva to the bone, and when I am given orders by my Avtoritet, they are as commandments from the holy mount.

  I turn my back so I don’t have to look at her anymore, and I feel a twinge in my side, a phantom ache from a bullet long since removed. A chilly cloud of gloom descends on me. Two things I’ve truly wanted in my life: when I was sixteen years old, I wanted to save my father’s life. And this summer, when I first laid my eyes on Anya after not having seen her since she was a little girl, I wanted to claim her for my own.

  Both have been denied to me.

  I head to the bar, and do what I always do to quiet the screaming in my head. I drink, a lot. I refuse all food that’s offered to me; I don’t want to soak up the alcohol. Time starts to blur. At one point my mother lays her hand on my shoulder.

  “Are you all right?” she asks me. Her voice sounds very far away.

&nbs
p; I smile down at her. Her arm is around Elizaveta’s shoulders, hugging her protectively, making my sister squirm a little. My mother always worries about her. It takes a strong woman to survive in this world of ours. My mother is sweet and kind, but not strong. She’s afraid of what the future holds for her daughter.

  “I’m just grand. Are you having fun?” I ask my sister.

  She twirls around, her skirt flaring out around her knees. “I feel like a princess! Anya braided my hair, did you see?”

  As if I pay attention to a little girl’s hairstyle! But to humor her, I peer closer and see that Anya braided a little crown for Elizaveta. That’s Anya, she loves to make people happy. “Yes, how could I not? You look like a Tsarina tonight.” I am rewarded with a smile that could shame the sun.

  She leans in and speaks to me in a lowered voice. “Papa seems like he’s in a good mood. Do you think I could ask him for that chemistry kit?”

  I wince. Being born into a Bratva family, there are certain sacrifices that must be made. My stepfather is old-fashioned, and he doesn’t like the idea of women being involved in “masculine” fields like science.

  “What about a new paint set?” I suggest. “You like painting, right?”

  Her smile wavers a little bit, but she nods. I’m turning her down without actually saying no.

  “Mind your mother now, all right? I need some fresh air.” I reach across the bar, grab an entire bottle of vodka, and make my way through the crowd, out of the room and outside into the private garden. Denis’ flat is on the first floor.

  I slump in a chair in the corner of the garden, hidden from view, and I’m about to drink straight from the bottle when a lyrical voice caresses my ears.

  “Kostya, what’s bothering you?”

  There is Anya, hair piled in a fancy updo, with a lace shawl casually thrown over her shoulders. I should send her away, before my father sees me with her.

  A bitterness swells inside me. We can never have anything more than that dance, that kiss.

  I always find that I weaken in her presence, though. Instead of barking something cruel at her to send her away crying, I just shrug moodily as she settles into the chair next to me. I set the bottle down on the wrought iron table in front of me.

  “Doesn’t matter,” I mumble. “Enjoying the party?”

  She heaves a sigh. “I’m trying to.” I can hear it in her voice, she’s been drinking too, which is unusual for her. She usually has only one or two drinks in an entire evening. I notice such things, like I notice everything about her.

  How her smile lights up a room. How genuinely kind she is to everyone, even beggars on the street. How she draws the glances of every man who lays eyes on her, with her full lips, ripe lush body, and the honey-colored waterfall of her hair – and how she only has eyes for me.

  “My mother got in a huge fight with my father because she caught him making out with one of the maids. She locked herself in her room, and when I tried to talk to her, she just yelled something about how we all hate her and she wished she was dead.” She looks at me, eyes shining with hurt. “And I thought you and I would get to spend some time together tonight. You don’t even seem to want to be on the same planet as me, much less the same room.”

  If only she knew. “We’re sitting two feet apart,” I point out to her, my voice drink-slurred.

  “For now.”

  “So enjoy it, for now.”

  And without thinking, I sling my arm around her, and she leans towards me, her head resting on my shoulder. She feels so right there. Her sweet warmth flows into me, heating the chill in my soul. We sit there for several minutes in silence, staring up at the star-spangled sky, and it feels like no time at all is passing.

  Other women want me to entertain them, to tell them how hot they are, how much I want to fuck them. Silence makes them nervous and squirmy. With Anya, we can just sit there quietly, and I feel no pressure, just a sense of peace.

  The old guilt curdles inside me. I don’t deserve this feeling of rightness. She needs to know what kind of man I really am.

  “I killed my father,” I say, my words slicing through the warm night air. I mean for my words to be a brutal blow, as hard as a punch. I need to push her away, before I do something stupid. “And I broke my mother’s heart. I put my own father in the grave.”

  She sits up, her eyes widening. “What? No, you didn’t. I heard something about a betrayal, his own bodyguards taking him out.”

  “Yes. I was there. And I failed to save him.” I grab the bottle from the table and take a long, hard pull, shuddering at the burn.

  “How old were you?”

  “What does it matter? Sixteen.”

  “It matters a lot. How could you have stopped adult, trained killers? Multiple killers?”

  I’ve worn my guilt so long, it’s like an old familiar garment, and I don’t know what I’d do without it. “The odds weren’t important. The only thing that matters is results. My father died in front of me.”

  I take another long swallow. “My stepfather was his best friend. At first I thought that maybe he was behind it. I did some investigating. I had connections even at that age, and I was satisfied he had nothing to do with it. It was a rival family. Yeger actually hunted down the men responsible, and...” I trail off. I’ve already told her too much. I won’t reveal that Yeger took me to his torture room where the men were being held, and invited me to punish them. Those were my first kills. Yeger taught me things that day. Techniques to make it last longer.

  That was the first time I found out that a righteous kill can bring deep satisfaction.

  For this, for his kindness to my mother, and his protection of my sister, I owe him everything. My life is not my own, and it never will be.

  Anya shoots me an impatient look. “Ok, so what if you did fail?”

  I set the bottle down and stare at her. “What did you just say to me?”

  “Newsflash, you didn’t fail. But you’re determined to believe you did, so let’s just go with that. You failed, and your father died. What are you going to do with that piece of information? Drink yourself into a coma, until you’re useless to everyone, including your family? Or put it behind you and live your life?”

  I stare at her for a long moment, then burst into laughter. “Holy hell. Nobody else would dare to speak to me like this.”

  “Maybe nobody else cares enough about you to risk it,” she says, her lips twisting in a sad smile. “But it’s a one-way street. I get that. I’d always hoped for more, but you’ve made it very clear you’re not interested. I hope you find your peace, Kostya.”

  Her face is so sad as she moves to stand up, tears beading on her lashes. I grab her by the wrist. “Stay with me.” I blurt the words out. I’m such a fucking idiot. I should have kept my mouth shut and just let her walk away, but I’m so drunk I don’t care anymore. At least, that’s what I tell myself. Apparently I’ll seize any excuse to spend more time with her.

  And she sinks back into her chair, her eyes huge and shining with something that looks like love. Why the fuck am I doing this to her? To myself?

  Silently, she reaches over and takes my hand in hers. Five more minutes, I promise myself. Five more minutes, and I will send her delightful little ass away, and never let her get close to me again.

  Chapter Three

  Anya

  How can the world change so quickly?

  Ten days ago, at my father’s party, I thought that Kostya had finally let me in. I saw a bright future before me, with the man who I’d already walked down the aisle with a thousand times in my dreams.

  The next day, I woke up to a pounding hangover, and a nightmare. It started with Masha, who actually slapped my face because I’d disappeared during the party and she was worried I’d ruin my reputation.

  Then, Kostya, who’d crashed in one of the guest bedrooms, glared at me when I went in and offered him coffee. He ordered me out of his room, and stalked out of the house a few minutes later, as if he di
dn’t remember a single thing we’d said to each other the night before.

  Half an hour after he left, I was sitting in the dining room trying to sop up my hangover with a big, greasy breakfast made by Masha, who felt bad for slapping me. And then we heard my father, in his bedroom, yelling for his bodyguards.

  Masha tried to grab my arm, but I ran towards their room, still in slippers and pajamas.

  I got there in time to hear my father order his bodyguards to break down the door to his bathroom. And then I heard my father’s howl of pain, a sound that stabbed me through the heart.

  My mother had killed herself the night before. While the guests partied and danced and drank, while I let myself believe that Kostya could love me, my mother climbed into her bathtub and slit her wrists.

  I feel as if I’ve been flattened by a speeding truck. We’d never been close. I’d always hoped to get to know her better, to find the person beneath the thick shell of disappointment and spite, and now I never will.

  I can’t even grieve for her properly. I’m not mourning a person, I’m mourning the possibility of what could have been.

  Her funeral was last week. Kostya didn’t call, didn’t send flowers, didn’t attend; Pasha did, and for once he was respectful and kind. Yeger and his wife and Elizaveta came too. My father just stood there, stiff and angry, as if my mother’s death was a personal insult to him.

  I was numb for days, and I wish I’d stayed that way. Now I’m angry and hurt and sad and guilty.

  I sit in a café by myself, drinking bitter black coffee, which I hate, but right now I’m all about punishing myself.

  It’s a weekday. The café is filled with happy couples, and students, and young mothers with strollers; I try not to hate them for having bright happy futures. For not knowing the pain that I feel. My phone chirps, demanding my attention. It’s a text from Raisa, a tiny bright spot of light in my bitter, dark world.

  Raisa: I’m the worst friend ever. I am so sorry I couldn’t come to her funeral.