The God: (A Dark Mafia Romance) (Bratva Blood Book 3) Read online

  THE GOD

  BRATVA BLOOD BOOK 3

  SR JONES

  Copyright ©2020 The God by SR Jones

  All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced or used without the written permission of the publisher.

  All events depicted are fictional, and any resemblance to places and persons is coincidental.

  This book is dedicated to Lilliana Anderson for her genius!

  Thanks go to my amazing editor, Silla Webb, beta Tami Lund, and proofreader Jessica Fraser.

  Also thanks to the Addicted to Alphas girls! You ladies are the best!

  Thanks to Obeithion Design for the stunning cover!

  And to Wander Aguiar Photography for the beautiful photograph of the gorgeous Phillipe.

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Epilogue

  Chapter One

  Bohdan

  Heat bathes me as I close my eyes and turn my face to the sun. Who knew even six months ago that I’d be here on Corfu helping my friends build something new?

  From a city rat and street thug to an investor in a paramilitary-style private security operation with Konstantin ‘King K’ Silvanov and Andrius-scary-motherfucker-hitman.

  Yep, I’ve come a long way from a tiny flat in St Petersburg, with an abusive father and alcoholic mother.

  I’m sweating, hot, and happy, which is a new feeling for me. It’s as if the sun is burning all the horror of my past away. Maybe if I stay here long enough, I’ll rise from the ashes like a phoenix. The idea makes me smile.

  It won’t last, this surprising burst of joy. It never does. Happiness always seems so fleeting.

  K told me something the other day, something deep for a hard fucker like him. Ex Bratva he may be now, but he’s still got that toughness bone deep in him. K told me that happiness is overrated; it is contentment we should be chasing.

  I think he’s found his contentment with his partner, Cassie.

  Andrius has certainly found his with Violet and their baby.

  They’ve named her Eliana, which means daughter of the sun, but this is the third name that Violet has come up with. I’d go nuts if my wife kept changing my baby’s name, but Andrius doesn’t care.

  Violet says she’s naming her as she gets to know her and that changes. She’s a bit of a hippy chick, I think. Total fucking opposite to her husband.

  I glance over at her, laid out in the shade and flipping through a gardening magazine.

  To her left, seated around a table, drawing furiously are Zoey, the dark-haired girl Konstantin hired for Bridge Tech and his friend from Russia, Maxim. Konstantin tracked Maxim down figuring he and Zoey would work well together, and they certainly do.

  Bridge Tech is the only business he’s still interested in managing, other than this new security enterprise. He wants to make the games side of things big again, and once K gets his teeth into something, he sees it through. He’s leaving most other tasks to Margaret.

  Maxim and Zoey are staying in a villa for a few days, which is only a three-minute stroll away. They came here today for a meeting with K, and they’ve stayed to work around the pool.

  Maxim nearly shit a brick when Andrius went through his bag; he looked utterly terrified. Seeing it from his point of view, I could understand it. He and Zoey were greeted at the gates by an armed guard and ghostly-eyed Andrius demanding to inspect their bags. Now, though, he seems relaxed enough.

  Us ex-Bratva men are playing rugby, except I don’t know the rules, so I’m mostly just hanging out in the sun enjoying the feeling of camaraderie and belonging.

  I ought to soak it up before I fuck life up for myself again.

  In a few days, I fly out to Paris. Hopefully to see the love, or maybe the hate, of my life. She has no idea I’m coming, but as soon as Damen gets my name to her husband as the best bet for close protection, I’ll be there, in her life.

  Dasha. World famous ballerina and another street rat like me. A childhood friend from our shitty upbringing in St. Petersburg and now the darling of the world ballet scene.

  Beautiful Dasha.

  My love.

  My hate.

  My obsession.

  My betrayer.

  That woman fucked me over in the worst way and simply vanished. I thought she’d be a nobody. One of the millions of people who simply eek out an existence in Russian. Instead, she’s very much a somebody.

  Married, too, as I found out when I saw her only weeks ago on an impromptu trip to the Paris opera with this bunch of reprobates.

  It was an outing I had very much not wanted to be part of, organized by Maya, the wife of a Greek mobster. However, I could kiss Maya now for her crazy idea because it led me to my Dasha, the girl I thought I’d never see again. It has to be fate.

  God wouldn’t show her to me if he didn’t mean for me to do something about it, right? So, I have.

  I’ve created a false threat against her to enable me to infiltrate her life. Her new security guard will be little old me. I think of her face when she sees me and it makes me smile. I’m so fucked up because part of me wants to screw her life up completely, and part of me wants to save her. I’m like some lovelorn Jekyll and Hyde.

  All I know is that I need to be close to her. And all my beautiful little ballerina will know is that her shitty husband has hired someone to protect her. Not because he loves her, but because she’s his cash cow.

  I love this sun on my face, I think idly, my thoughts coming back to the present and the heat of the day.

  Wind disturbs my hair, and I snap my eyes open and lower my head in time to see a rugby ball whizzing by me. I raise my arms in a belated attempt to catch it but miss.

  “Fucking catch the ball,” Andrius shouts at me. “That’s the point of the game.”

  It’s not my fault I suck, as I don’t know the rules. I’m only half assed anyway because it’s a stupid game, much less with everything else on my mind.

  Jesus, Andrius and K are competitive. For two men who were so high up in the Bratva, their names literally have people crossing themselves in fear, they seem awfully childish about who wins this game.

  Andrius drew the short straw when he got me on his team. K has one of the Spetsnaz guys, and he seems super competitive too. So Andrius has me, and I’m shit at this. He’s staring at me; his cold gray eyes storm clouds in his tan face. Next to him, grinning because he’s playing against us is Konstantin.

  Andrius grabs the ball, shoots me a disgusted look, and walks back toward a still laughing Konstantin.

  K has changed. The man who was Moscow’s most feared Bratva Pakhan has already changed once when he became a bona fide businessman in Britain. If you look up the word oligarch in a picture dictionary, you'll find an illustration of K. Now he’s gone back into his cocoon and come out all shiny new once more.

  The man used to be serious. Focused. Hungry. Always wanting more. Now? He’s almost laid ba
ck. He laughs a lot too. He never used to. The reason he laughs a lot these days is sitting behind us on a lounge chair in the shade, a light blanket wrapped around her shoulders, and sipping at a frothy coffee she’s made.

  The first thing K’s girlfriend, Cassie, did when she moved into the spare property on Andrius’ land was install an expensive coffee machine.

  K and Cassie’s temporary home is where Andrius houses armed guards. Those guards are now living in a rental villa a few doors away. It’s a huge, cavernous place where they’re staying while everything is finalized for us to complete the purchase on the property and land next door to this. The place where we will build our security empire.

  Two of the soldiers patrol the grounds, as they do on rotation every day.

  So far, there are ten men in total waiting to be trained. They were all recruited by K and Andrius from their time in the Spetsnaz. Two of them I know. They were the pilots for the private jet K had as part of an airliner he owned. An airliner he’s now sold. He’s sold most things. More than I think he intended to at first. It means he’s rich. It also means he’s free.

  I’m rich too. Not his level of course. But I’ve been paid very well for years by K, and I invested it wisely. I invested in the markets and did all my own research. No financial advisors or investment funds for me. I buy and sell all my shares myself and focus on emerging markets. I’ve made a killing. An absolute fucking killing of the highest order. If I had been born in a different country, I’d have been a Wall Street asshole for sure.

  The women’s chatter drifts to me on the breeze, a nice sound amongst the testosterone fest that is this stupid game.

  Sitting with Cassie is Justina. She’s Andrius’ assistant or something. I’m not sure exactly what her deal is, except she’s part of his family now. She’s also very efficient and doesn’t suffer fools gladly. She and Andrius’ woman, Violet seem close, but there’s something there, a tiny thing you might only notice if you observe people closely. I’ve noticed it. There’s an issue, but I don’t know what it is. I don’t think Violet is jealous of Justina. There’s nothing remotely sexual between her and Andrius, but on some level she’s not entirely comfortable around her. She’s much more relaxed around Cassie, and she hasn’t known her as long.

  Then again, who wouldn’t be relaxed around Cassie? K calls her his sunshine, and she is a golden ball of happy, fluffy-haired, positivity. She makes my teeth ache some days. Funny how she saw something in such a miserable bastard as K, then fell head over heels.

  Justina is reading a business magazine, and she looks up from it grinning.

  “Hey, Andrius,” she shouts.

  “Yeah?” he asks without turning to look at her.

  “You know how much shit you give me for my handbag habit?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, it says here they’re a better investment than classic cars or art.”

  Finally, he turns to her, panting from the running around he’s doing, and stares. “Seriously?”

  “Yeah, says here, some designer handbags now perform better than almost any other collectable investment.”

  “Well, shit, go buy some more.” He starts laughing, but I’m filling it away.

  The way I do with all the facts I learn.

  See, us men, we think the things we like— cars, art, hell, even cigars, are serious; and the stuff women like— handbags and jewels are frivolous. Women however have been making their own economy for a long time now. They don’t sit around discussing their bags the way some men discuss their investments and collections. They buy them and sell them though—to one another. In some cultures, jewelry is where money and wealth are collected and handed down. It goes from one generation to the next to be worn around the necks of the daughters and granddaughters and so on.

  It’s not a surprise to me that handbags might outperform art as investment pieces. Women have their own money now and their own power. Good for them too. I prefer women to men. Men are shits. Mostly.

  I trust about three men in the entire world. K, Andrius, and Vasily. That’s it. Maybe Ilya, another Pakhan, to a degree, but not fully. Damen, I’m thawing toward, mostly because he’s helping me dig into Dasha’s life, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable with him the way I do with K now.

  Men have beaten me, abused me, threatened me, and lied to me. Every bad thing that has happened to me has been at the hands of men. Except for one thing. The worst thing, and that happened because of the only woman to betray me.

  Dasha.

  I’m thinking about my beautiful ballerina again when the ball comes flying my way. I catch it for once and am full of triumph. Which way do I run? I hesitate for a moment. It’s a moment that costs me.

  Two seconds later, two hundred and fifty plus pounds of muscle collides with me, taking me to the ground.

  I hit hard with an oomph as the air goes out of me. Pain hits my stomach at the winding, and then I can’t worry about that because my face explodes with pain as it smashes into the dry ground.

  Holy fucking shit, it hurts.

  I groan, and the weight on top of me disappears as K’s gravelly voice reaches me.

  “Bohdan?”

  Hands pull at me, and I’m turned over to see K and Andrius looking at me with concern. Cassie is running over too, her blanket on the ground.

  My face feels like someone detonated a bomb in the middle of it.

  “Your nose.” K shakes his head. “Shit, I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s broken,” Andrius says. “Like you broke mine.” He turns to K. “You’re the breaker of noses. You should have a coat of arms made with this as your title.”

  K’s face falls. “Fuck, Bohdan. I’ve messed you up good and proper.”

  “Another fucking hospital trip,” Andrius says in English as Cassie reaches us.

  My eyes are watering. Tears pouring down my cheeks as they stream from the agony in the center of my face. I try to sniff, but can’t.

  “How do you know it’s broken?” I ask Andrius, automatically speaking in English too, the way I’ve grown used to when Cassie is around.

  “Because it is no longer like a nose, but a splat in the middle of your face.”

  What? A splat? That sounds bad.

  “You’re not going to be so pretty now, no matter what they do with you,” Andrius says. “Come.” He gives me his hand and pulls me up. “We must take you to the hospital.”

  He turns to K. “Sometimes you don’t know your own strength.”

  K looks so damn upset at himself. I pat his arm, consolingly. “It’s okay,” I tell him.

  “Yeah, it’s not,” he says. “It was an accident. You went down at a weird angle.”

  “Because his head has been in the clouds ever since he saw his ballerina,” Andrius grouses. “Good fucking job you’re not starting an actual work role in Paris and instead are just going there to stalk your ballerina, because I wouldn’t put you in the field with your head like this.”

  “Not stalking,” I say, gritting my teeth at the agony.

  “It is.” Andrius fixes me with his ghostly eyes and shrugs. “You need to get her out of your system, and then come back here and help us build our business. Go … stalk her, get it all worked out, then come back here with your head on right and you can start work proper.”

  “I’m amazed you’re allowing him to go stalk her,” K says as if I’m not here. “What, with us only just starting this and it being your baby and all.”

  “Not stalking,” I mutter as my nose throbs.

  Andrius shrugs. “Either she’s going to tell him she hates him, he’ll come back here and mope, or she’ll fall in love with him again and he can bring her back here to add to the collection of women we’ve kidnapped or been given.” Andrius cracks up at his sick humor, but K glowers.

  “Technically, I didn’t kidnap Cassie. She came with me to save her life.”

  “I came with you because I didn’t have anything better to do that day,” she quips.

 
; Their big, stupid dog comes bounding up, tongue lolling out. He’s idiotic and has no control over his limbs. He runs around like he’s a three-month-old puppy not a fully grown dog, legs going everywhere. We all love him, though. You can’t not when he comes bounding up to you, smiling his soppy Golden Retriever smile, his whole-body waggling.

  “Go back inside, Gully,” Cassie says.

  When he ignores her and continues slinking around us, waggling his body, she laughs. “Okay, Gully, go find Violet. Go on, find Violet.”

  Gulliver is Cassie’s dog, but he’s taken a real shine to Violet and the baby; he’s protective of them. He runs off at Cassie’s command, back legs going every which way, to find Violet who has disappeared into the house somewhere. Levi, Violet’s dog, will already be by her side no doubt.

  “Come on,” Cassie says with a grimace at my nose. “I’ll drive.” She runs off to their house, behind Andrius’ property, and comes back swinging the keys to the old Land Rover she drives.

  Andrius jogs into his house and comes out swinging his gun around his finger. Justina looks at him and bursts out laughing.

  Violet is on his heels. “I’ve called the emergency clinic in Corfu Town, and they can see you. Say they’re quiet today,” she says.

  Andrius shouts an order in Russian to the men now loitering around the perimeter of his property. He tells them to escort Maxim and Zoey off the property now, and to make sure no one comes within shooting distance as he’s going to the hospital. Then he turns to Justina and asks her to go be with Violet.

  I doubt there’s any danger, but Andrius is always paranoid. The man has two maids who are trained in shooting and unarmed combat. He’s insanely protective of Violet and their little one.

  Cassie saunters by me and to her car, which she opens with a press of the fob.

  The woman grows in confidence daily. She manages the business side of things for us, and although nothing is fully up and running yet, she’s obviously going to make an excellent manager. Her efficiency is top notch, and she’s already getting organized with ordering things we’ll need for the office once we have the land and buildings handed over to us.