The Bratva's Baby: A Dark Mafia Romance (Wicked Doms)

  The Bratva’s Baby: A Dark Mafia Romance

  (Wicked Doms)

  Jane Henry

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Epilogue

  Island Captive preview

  About the Author

  Copyright 2019 by Jane Henry

  Cover design by PopKitty

  Photography by Paul Henry Serres

  Chapter One

  Kazimir

  The wrought iron park bench I sit on is ice cold, but I hardly feel it. I’m too intent on waiting for the girl to arrive. The Americans think this weather is freezing, but I grew up in the bitter cold of northern Russia. The cold doesn’t touch me. The ill-prepared people around me pull their coats tighter around their bodies and tighten their scarves around their necks. For a minute, I wonder if they’re shielding themselves from me, and not the icy wind.

  If they knew what I’ve done… what I’m capable of… what I’m planning to do… they’d do more than cover their necks with scarves.

  I scowl into the wind. I hate cowardice.

  But this girl… this girl I’ve been commissioned to take as mine. Despite outward appearances, she’s no coward. And that intrigues me.

  Sadie Ann Warren. Twenty-one years old. Fine brown hair, plain and mousy but fetching in the way it hangs in haphazard waves around her round face. Light brown eyes, pink cheeks, and full lips.

  I wonder what she looks like when she cries. When she smiles. I’ve never seen her smile.

  She’s five-foot-one and curvy, though you wouldn’t know it from the way she dresses in thick, bulky, black and gray muted clothing. I know her dress size, her shoe size, her bra size, and I’ve already ordered the type of clothing she’ll wear for me. I smile to myself, and a woman passing by catches the smile. It must look predatory, for her step quickens.

  Sadie’s nondescript appearance makes her easily meld into the masses as a nobody, which is perhaps exactly what she wants.

  She has no friends. No relatives. And she has no idea that she’s worth millions.

  Her boss, the ancient and somewhat senile head librarian of the small-town library where she works won’t even realize she hasn’t shown up for work for several days. My men will make sure her boss is well distracted yet unharmed. Sadie’s abduction, unlike the ones I’ve orchestrated in the past, will be an easy one. If trouble arises eventually, we’ll fake her death.

  It’s almost as if it was meant to be. No one will know she’s gone. No one will miss her. She’s the perfect target.

  I sip my bitter, steaming black coffee and watch as she makes her way up to the entrance of the library. It’s eight-thirty a.m. precisely, as it is every other day she goes to work. She arrives half an hour early, prepares for the day, then opens the doors at nine. Sadie is predictable and routinized, and I like that. The trademark of a woman who responds well to structure and expectations. She’ll easily conform to my standards… eventually.

  To my left, a small cluster of girls giggles but quiets when they draw closer to me. They’re college-aged, or so. I normally like women much younger than I am. They’re more easily influenced, less jaded to the ways of men. These women, though, are barely women. Compared to Sadie’s maturity, they’re barely more than girls. I look away, but can feel their eyes taking me in, as if they think I’m stupid enough to not know they’re staring. I’m wearing a tan work jacket, worn jeans, and boots, the ones I let stay scuffed and marked as if I’m a construction worker taking a break. With my large stature, I attract attention of the female variety wherever I go. It’s better I look like a worker, an easy role to assume. No one would ever suspect what my real work entails.

  The girls pass me and it grates on my nerves how they resume their giggling. Brats. Their fathers shouldn’t let them out of the house dressed the way they are, especially with the likes of me and my brothers prowling the streets. It’s freezing cold and yet they’re dressed in thin skirts, their legs bare, open jackets revealing cleavage and tight little nipples showing straight through the thin fabric of their slutty tops. My palm itches to spank some sense into their little asses. I flex my hand.

  It’s been way, way too long since I’ve had a woman to punish.

  Control.

  Master.

  These girls are too young and silly for a man like me.

  Sadie is perfect.

  My cock hardens with anticipation, and I shift on my seat.

  I know everything about her. She pays her meager bills on time, and despite her paltry wage, contributes to the local food pantry with items bought with coupons she clips and sale items she purchases. Money will never be a concern for her again, but I like that she’s fastidious. She reads books during every free moment of time she has, some non-fiction, but most historical romance books. That amuses me about her. She dresses like an amateur nun, but her heroines dress in swaths of silk and jewels. She carries a hard-covered book with her in the bag she holds by her side, and guards it with her life. During her break time, before bed, and when she first wakes up in the morning, she writes in it. I don’t know yet what she writes, but I will. She does something with needles and yarn, knitting or something. I enjoy watching her weave fabric with the vibrant threads.

  She fidgets when she’s near a man, especially attractive, powerful men. Men like me.

  I’ve never seen her pick up a cell phone or talk to a friend. She’s a loner in every sense of the word.

  I went over the plan again this morning with Dimitri.

  Capture the girl.

  Marry her.

  Take her inheritance.

  Get rid of her.

  I swallow another sip of coffee and watch Sadie through the sliding glass doors of the library.Today she’s wearing an ankle-length navy skirt that hits the tops of her shoes, and she’s wrapped in a bulky gray cardigan the color of dirty dishwater. I imagine stripping the clothes off of her and revealing her creamy, bare, unblemished skin. My dick gets hard when I imagine marking her pretty pale skin. Teeth marks. Rope marks. Reddened skin and puckered flesh, christened with hot wax and my palm. I’ll punish her for the sin of hiding a body like hers. She won’t be allowed to with me.

  She’s so little. So virginal. An unsullied canvas.

  “Enjoy your last taste of freedom, little girl,” I whisper to myself before I finish my coffee. I push myself to my feet and cross the street.

  It’s time she met her future master.

  Chapter Two

  Sadie

  I breathe in the comforting, familiar scent of well-worn books and newsprint, and sigh. The anxiety I struggle with assaults me and begins its insidious attack whenever I leave the library. When I return, the smells and sights soothe me. My frayed nerves calm.

  I knew from a very young age that I would want to work in a library one day. I discovered books as a means of escape when I was six years old, living in the abusive foster home that mars my memory like an ink stain. The family I stayed with could barely afford to clothe their own children, muc
h less me, and I was treated like little more than a servant. One day, when I failed to serve breakfast on time to her screaming baby, Mrs. Enry locked me in the second-floor closet. There I found a stack of books likely forgotten by the previous owners, for I knew Mr. and Mrs. Enry never bothered to read. Some of the words were too big for me, and I still trailed my index finger along the lines like I was reading primers, but eventually I learned to escape into my books.

  I’d learned to read in school, but the books we had there were simple and dull, likely chosen for emergent readers and not for someone like me. I picked up a copy of Little Women, read it in a day, and never looked back.

  My books are my friends. They take me on journeys to places I’ll never travel. My friends know what I think, what I feel, what I long for.

  I was in eighth grade by the time I discovered romance novels, and by high school, my fantasies took an entirely different direction.

  Scottish highlanders. Swashbuckling pirates. Earls and lairds and scoundrels. They sweep me off my feet, and I dream about the type of romance I find in these pages. It’s easier knowing these stories don’t take place in the modern world. I can fantasize about being dressed in the gowns of the era. Wearing the dainty shoes. Being wooed by a rogue. When we have the library book sales, I sneak in early and buy all the books I can priced at only twenty-five cents. When I’m given a budget to order books for the library, I order all the new books from the catalog. They come in, I enter them into our system, then I’m the first one to check them out. Today, a new shipment’s arrived.

  I glide a finger along the raised golden edge of the title. I fan the pages and inhale the scent of fresh ink. I sigh in contentment when I think about how good it will be to lose myself in these pages. I’m so lost in thought, I don’t notice anyone arrive until his deep, masculine voice arrests me.

  “Excuse me?”

  I stifle a squeal of surprise at the sound of his voice and look into the most mesmerizing brown eyes I’ve ever seen. I blink. He’s so beautiful, it’s intimidating.

  Though he wears a jacket, I can tell he’s muscled and strong. His hair is roguishly long and so dark brown it’s nearly black, a little unruly, and he sports a heavy, dark-brown beard. High cheekbones underscore the depth of his eyes. He’s got the blood of kings in his veins, and I half expect him to speak a foreign language.

  I blink dumbly for a moment before I find my voice.

  “Yes, sir?”

  My cheeks heat. It’s uncustomary for us to call our patrons sir or ma’am but there’s something about the way he looks at me that makes me instantly respect him. When he smiles, revealing white teeth and full lips, my belly gives a little flip. His brown eyes dance at me.

  He speaks in an accent I can’t quite detect. Something European? “Can you help me find the biography section? There are several I’m looking for.”

  His accent gives him an air of power that takes me by surprise. He’s a man fit to rule armies. Fight battles. He’d look every bit at home dressed in a soldier’s uniform wielding a sword and commanding his men to victory as he does here. Perhaps more so.

  “Oh, yes,” I tell him. “Of course. Which do you want? Allow me to see what we have.”

  I ignore the trembling of my hands while I type the names he gives me into our search database. I should be able to handle a man looking at me. I shouldn’t let it scatter my nerves and mess with my head.

  I really should read fewer romance novels.

  When I locate the books, my stomach drops. I forgot our catalog system lists the biographies at the very back. Though few people come here at this time of day, this section of the library is completely isolated. I usually escort our patrons to find the books they’re looking for, but I don’t want to be alone with him.

  “It’s in the 900s, and easy to get to,” I tell him, feeling the heat of my cheeks travel all the way to my neck. I can’t be alone. Not with him. I don’t trust myself not to make a fool of myself.

  “Ah,” he says. “I see. Thank you.” But he doesn’t go.

  I swallow. I really need to control my imagination. My hand travels to my throat and my fingers graze the tender skin.

  “Yes, sir.” Damn. There’s that sir again.

  He smiles, making my belly warm and my breasts tingle. God, I’m a mess. I inwardly scold myself for being such a fool.

  “Your name?” he asks.

  “Sadie,” I whisper.

  “Sadie,” he repeats. Oh I like hearing him say my name. “Show me, please?” Though he asks me, it sounds more like a command.

  No. He wants me to walk with him. I groan inwardly.

  “It’s very easy to find,” I stammer, which isn’t quite true. I’m trying to dismiss him, and I fear I sound rude. The biographies are fairly hidden. I wave my hand in the direction of the of the back of the library. “Just all the way down, take a left at the elevator, then a right at the periodicals. It’s the fourth section on the right, behind the local maps.”

  He raises a brow, and I’m not sure if it’s my imagination, but his look grows a bit stern, and when he speaks, there’s an edge of austerity that makes my heartbeat race. My cheeks flame.

  “Are you too busy to take me there?” His lips thin, and he crosses his arms on his chest, raising a brow questioningly. The simple question feels like a scolding, but any correction I’ve gotten before never made my pulse race like this.

  “Of course not, sir,” I rasp in a voice just above a whisper. “I—I’ll take you.” Do I have a choice?

  He graces me with a smile that warms me through. “Very good,” he says, his voice lowering just a bit. “You’re a very good girl.”

  I like how that makes me feel, and I smile softly to myself.

  I grab a stack of books that need to be put away so I have something to do with my arms, but when I turn to him I promptly lose my grip. The books slip and cascade down around me, onto his feet and mine, scattering along the floor in a helpless mess.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” I moan, tears pricking the backs of my eyes. I’m such an idiot. Who cries over such a stupid thing?

  I swallow hard and lean down to pick up the books. He kneels and gathers the ones nearest him.

  “No need to apologize,” he says. “Allow me.”

  I can’t very well sit here and watch him pick the books up on his own.

  “I can help you—" I begin, but he gently grasps my wrist, just the press of a thumb and forefinger.

  “I said allow me,” he says, his voice lowered. My mouth is stuffed with cotton, my head spinning in a dizzy confusion of excitement and fear.

  This man is used to being obeyed.

  I want to obey him.

  Has he hypnotized me?

  Tempering his stern gaze with a half-smile, he gives a curt shake of his head, then reaches for the book in my hand and stacks it with the rest in his left hand.

  My mind reels. I’ve met a man out of one of my books. His commanding stature. Powerful presence. A voice that could melt ice. I’m enamored and terrified all at once.

  I watch him in silence, my arms dangling awkwardly as I squat beside him, watching him collect the fallen books. I don’t know how to handle being in his presence like this.

  After he’s stacked the books, he reaches for my hand and lifts me to my feet. Awareness courses through me at the warmth of his hand.

  “You were showing me the way,” he says quietly, seemingly unaffected by touching me. He points toward the back of the library.

  I blink. “Yes,” I murmur. Where is the poised, intelligent heroine from my novels? Haven’t I read enough that I could assume the grace and dignity they possess? Clearly not.

  I walk in silence next to him, and he has to slow his strides so he doesn’t walk too fast for me. My mind whirls. It’s just a simple task. I shouldn’t feel afraid like this, but the further we get from the entrance to the library, and the more isolated we become, the more nervous I become. The little hairs on the back of my neck rise and my ski
n prickles with awareness. I’m not sure why. He’s done nothing to earn my distrust, and yet my instincts are warring with my need to be near him. Something inside tells me run.

  On the one hand, I like being near him like this. He’s magnificent. Handsome. And I like the attention of this beautiful, dangerous man. On the other, I can’t help the instinctive desire to get away from him. My body thrums with need and pleasure while my brain screams at me in warning.

  “Are we near?” he asks, taking a step closer to me. I inhale the masculine scent of expensive cologne that takes me by surprise. He’s dressed in workman’s clothes yet he smells like he stepped off of Wall Street. It’s incongruous. Disarming.

  “Yes,” I whisper. “It’s just three or so more rows ahead.”

  “We’re so far away from everyone else,” he says, his voice dropping to a husky whisper. He laughs. “They really hide these books.”

  My pulse quickens, but when I look at him, he’s looking away, and not interested in me at all. My imagination is insanity. I quicken my step. He gives me a tight smile.

  “Yes, here we are,” I stammer. “Biographies.” I nearly choke out the words. “Please, take your time.”

  He smiles and nods his thanks. “I will get what I came for,” he says, giving me a curious look, “and then I’ll help you put that stack of books away.” He places the stack down beside him and nods to the books. “Leave them until I’m finished here.”

  No. I need to get away from him. I can’t handle my loss of control while in his presence.

  I go to protest but the look he gives me makes my words freeze on my lips. As if bewitched by his power, I have to obey him. I stare at the books, trying to compose myself, but my gaze wanders. I watch as he peruses the titles and carefully chooses a few.