The War: Bratva Blood Two : (A dark mafia romance) Read online

  THE WAR

  BRATVA BLOOD TWO

  SR JONES

  Copyright ©2020 The War 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.

  Copyright ©2020 The War by SR Jones

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  PART ONE

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  PART TWO

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-two

  MORE BOOKS BY SR JONES

  This book is dedicated to Silla Webb for everything she’s done–and does do–for me! Thank you for organizing me, babe!

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks go to my amazing editor, Silla Webb, and proofreaders, Tami Lund, Jessica Fraser, and my beta reader, Ana Rita Clemente.

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

  Thanks to Obeithion Design for the absolutely gorgeous cover!

  Thanks to Wander Aguiar photography for the amazing cover image!

  PART ONE

  War is delightful to those who have had no experience of it.

  Desiderius Erasmus

  Chapter One

  Konstantin

  My hands slip as I try to hold the tea towel over Vasily’s wound. Derek is being tended to by one of the men I hired, and the other is driving. Those fuckers shot Derek! I’m fucking fuming.

  He should live. Vasily, though, might not. He’s losing a lot of blood.

  I try to focus on his wound, but all I can think about is Cassie in the hands of Popov and the Armenians. Andrius will find out what has happened soon enough. He’ll return to my shot-to-fuck home, see the blood, and he’ll know. What will he do?

  I need him to help me. I must get Cassie back. Anything else isn’t acceptable.

  Popov is a sick, sadistic fuck. I don’t know Tigran, but his reputation proceeds him. He’s cold as hell, calculating, and vicious. It’s best all round if he thinks Cassie means nothing to me. In fact, I even tried to pretend that Liza did. It’s a terrible thing I’ve done by making those men focus on Liza. After all, she’s pregnant, but losing a finger won’t kill her, or the baby, and she deserves the pain more than Cassie.

  Liza lied to me, betrayed me, fucked me over, and fucked Denis over. He’s dead now for trusting her. God, I laugh.

  “What’s funny?” Vasily groans out.

  I look at him and try not to show my concern. “Out of all us men playing one another, screwing one another over, the one who stands out as the absolute star player is Liza. An Instagram model, slash influencer, slash reality TV nobody is the one who has tricked and fooled more of us than anyone.”

  I shake my head.

  “Not gonna lie, boss. Not gonna make it.” He grabs my wrist as I shake my head. “Listen to me, you need to bring Bohdan over right now. You need help. You can’t… Moscow…” He coughs, and bloody spittle forms at the corner of his lips.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  “Don’t worry about any of that. It’s my shit to sort. You’re going to get through this,” I command it, as if by doing so I can bend the awful mechanics of a gunshot injury to my will.

  My mind is in turmoil, but one thing is clear— I’m getting Cassie back.

  She is fucking mine.

  Do I love her? Fuck knows. Does she belong to me? Yes. Does that mean no one else gets to play with her? Fuck, yes!

  If Andrius won’t help me, and with his life as it is there’s a good chance he won’t, I’m going to have to form an army to take those pricks on. They ambushed us with at least ten men, Vasily told me, and the Armenians are heavily armed.

  We pull up outside the hospital, ten minutes after I lied and told Tigran I was arriving here.

  Once more I think of Cassie. She’ll have heard everything I said, and she’ll be hurting, but it’s for her own safety, for her own good.

  Liza is clearly as unhinged as they come, and so it’s best for everyone that Liza has no idea how much Cassie means to me. Or that I’ve decided to make my little ray of sunshine mine the moment I get her back. Hopefully, in the next few hours, Liza will also become of interest to Tigran, who might think she means more to me than she does.

  The driver has the door opened and is yelling for help. This is going to be tricky. I’m about to blow my false image as a respectable businessman sky high. No way will I be able to cover this shit up. Legally, yes, because I have a lot of powerful people in my pocket. This will go away … eventually. In the court of public opinion, though, who knows. I expect this will hit the papers. I’m not known, but my stupid dick has led me into dalliances with a few women who are. The pictures of me dining with the President of France, the leader of Italy, as well as the Foreign Secretary and his wife here, will give the media interest too.

  I can’t worry about such matters, though. Not when the alternative is to let Vasily die.

  The doors to the accident and emergency department slide open, and three nurses come running out. One pales as she takes in the grave devastation we're faced with. I have the back door of the car open and a heavily bleeding Vasily lay in my arms. Derek is next to us with one of the hired guns in the passenger seat, and another driving.

  They probably don’t see shit like this regularly in London. Knife crime, yes, but gunshots? Not so much.

  One of the nurses, not the one staring with pale skin and glassy eyes, turns on her heel and runs inside shouting. Soon there are gurneys, doctors, and nurses all around us, and it’s so chaotic and fast I can’t take it all in.

  By the time they’ve rushed Vasily and Derek away, I’m consumed by the enormity of what has happened.

  I’ve been fucked over, well and truly. It makes my blood boil. Liza must pay for this. She has to— there is no alternative. Not in my world. I cannot let this go. I cannot let Liza live. Female or not, she must die. But when? I can’t kill her while she’s pregnant, so what the hell do I do?

  My head throbs violently, and my mouth is dry. We all head inside and sit on the hard, plastic chairs. My mind is in total turmoil. Someone nudges my shoulder, and I look up to see one of the new hires, Johnny is his name if I recall, offering me a coffee in one of those forlorn little plastic cups. I take it, though, needing the liquid.

  I sip at it, and it’s like lava. Fuck me, I’m surprised they aren’t busy treating all the caffeine-related burns victims they must get.

  “Do you want us to stay or go?” Johnny asks.

  “Best if you guys go,” I tell him. “This is a clusterfuck. I’ve got a contact in the police meeting me here, in about”—I check my watch—“twenty minutes, so he’ll help me sort this shitshow out. You go back to the house, but listen—be fucking careful, okay?”

  He nods gravely and heads out the door where the other guy is still waiting.

  I’m left alone. All alone. Cassie is gone, and I can’t even let my head go there. Denis is dead. Vasily is possibly mortally wounded.

  Michael. Shit, I must
tell him.

  I don’t want to. I don’t want to explode his world into a million pieces and put the fear of God in him, but he needs to be aware of the path of war we're on. I also must talk to Lucia’s father and let him know how serious shit got. He might throw Michael out.

  I pinch the bridge of my nose, stand, throw my coffee cup away in the nearest trash can, and walk outside. I turn left and head down a small walkway where there’s no one around. Then I take out my phone and call my son.

  “Hey, Konstantin, how’s it going?” Michael sounds happy. Shit, he won’t be in two minutes.

  “Something’s happened.” I hate those words. Words that must bring back memories of the last time I had to give him grave news. When his mother died.

  “What? Are you okay, Dad?”

  “Yes,” I say. “But I need you to go fetch Lucia’s father if he’s there? There’s been an attack on us, at the house. They’ve shot Uncle Vasily and Denis.” I don’t tell him Denis betrayed us, no need. “They took Liza and Cassie,” I add.

  “Shit, Dad.” Then he asks, making my heart hurt, “Are the dogs okay?”

  “Yeah, they are. I had them inside when it happened. They were in the utility room eating, and the door was closed.”

  “Seems like great timing on behalf of whoever did this, the dogs being inside… How the fuck did they get through the gates?”

  “They hacked into me, into our security systems. Turned off the fence, opened the gate, and turned off the alarm on the door. They probably had access to the security cameras downstairs and knew the dogs were in the utility room. Frankly, I’m grateful they were inside. They were bought to protect us, but no dog can protect against ten armed men.”

  His loud inhalation of breath makes me realize exactly how much I’ve given away.

  “Son, listen, can you go fetch Mr. Bianchi for me?”

  “Of course, Dad. Where are you now? I’m coming.”

  “No.”

  “But, Uncle V.”

  “Michael, no. You’re safe there, please.”

  There’s a long beat of silence then he says, “Okay.”

  A moment later I hear hushed talking and then a smooth, cultured voice with a hint of an Italian accent.

  “Hello. We finally get to chat.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”

  “I understand. This all happened so quickly between our children. I wasn’t too happy at first, but your son is a good man, and I know he’ll do right by my daughter.”

  Know is said with an implicit threat. If he doesn’t do right by her, Michael, and by extension myself, will find ourselves on the wrong side of the Bianchi family.

  Normally, I’d be bristling at the fool daring to threaten me, and thinking of all the ways I can make him realize his place in the pecking order, but right now, I let it go.

  “Bianchi,” I say.

  “Yes, Kon.” God, he’s a dick. I grind my teeth and swallow my pissed off rebuke.

  Instead, I simply ask for his help. “I’ve been hit, my home, by the Armenians. I come to you because you need to know. You might not want Michael there. After all, his presence will be a threat for you and yours.”

  I go with that angle. I’m hoping for two things with this approach. Firstly, I’ve expressed concern for him and his, over and above Michael’s safety, which is the only polite fucking thing to do in the circumstances, and the Italian mob are all about flowery manners.

  Secondly, I’ve put it out there, implicitly, that he might not have the firepower if such a threat is turned against him. I’m betting he won’t want to back down and say so. I’m betting he will act the big man and tell me it’s no bother to a man like him.

  “Thank you for coming to me with this information. This is very serious, and for such a legitimate businessman.” He sighs, and I want to pull his fucking teeth out with pliers. “However, Michael will be safe here, and I give him my protection.” He chuckles. “After all, he is the father of my soon-to-be born grandchild. My blood and your blood will be in that child.” Then he coughs, the fucker, as if he’s made a mistake. “Oh, sorry, not your blood, but you get what I mean.”

  He’s fucking pushing it now. I swallow down any retorts, telling myself over and over that this is for Michael, and I’ll make this bastard pay for insulting me one day.

  “I will make sure Michael is safe; on that you have my word. One thing, Kon. It would have been polite for you to come to me far sooner than this. Your son got my daughter pregnant, and we’ve not even met? This might be the way of the modern world in some cases, but it is not the way with us, with the Bianchi family. We are traditional.”

  I bite my cheek so hard I taste blood as I grit out the next words. “I’m sorry, Bianchi, you’re right. It was rude of me. And thank you for so generously taking Michael under your wing.” I use his surname as a way of showing him, we’re not fucking friends.

  “Well,” he says on a sigh, the pompous act dropped for a moment. “My daughter does love your son, and I believe the feeling is returned. All I want is for her to be happy, and I’m pleased she’s not marrying someone active in the same business as me; that wouldn’t do at all. You and me, we are one thing. Our children are another, no?”

  “Quite,” I say. In total agreement with him.

  “Your son tells me he wants to work in marketing, and this is a good career for him, well paid and respectable.”

  “I agree. It is best they don’t go into the family business.”

  “I’m so glad on this fundamental point we see eye to eye.”

  “I’ve got to go. I have a seriously injured man.”

  “Take care and keep me updated.”

  I hang up without answering the fucking cheeky shit. Does he think he’s the boss of me? My God, the shit I have to put up with these days. Italians on one side. Armenians on the other. Liza and her fucking betrayal on another, and Allyov the last side. Christ, it’s like a rhombus of fuckheads, and I’m in the damn middle.

  As I turn to walk inside to check on V and Derek, my phone vibrates. I glance at it impatiently, expecting to see Bianchi calling me back for hanging up on him, but it’s Andrius. Thank fuck.

  I press the answer button and move away from the building entrance.

  “Jesus fucking Christ, K, are you okay? I get back from my meeting with Allyov to find the house a war zone.”

  I feel a lump in my throat at his familiar voice and have to swallow it down. “I’m fine,” I answer in Russian. “Vasily isn’t, though. He got hit, bad. Derek too, and they took Cassie. They have Liza too, although that whore is complicit in this. Denis is dead, luckily for him, because otherwise I’d have made him spend days wishing he were.”

  Andrius blows out a breath. “Where are you? I’ll come over.”

  “Listen, Andrius I have to tell you… The guys who took Cassie are the Armenians… They want you for her.”

  Nothing. No response.

  I carry on. “They want you, my friend. This is all about you. My belief is they tried to get to you on Corfu, and obviously failed. Pays to live in a fortress. Your house must be like a castle.”

  “So is yours, but they got in here,” he says.

  “Not the same. I have good security, yes, but I don’t have biomarkers and other things, which you do. I will be getting it, though. I don’t have a team of trained men always on the property the way you do. They hacked me, and that’s how they turned off the fence and the alarm, and opened the gates. They used my own system against me. I presume they must have tried the same with you.”

  “Ah, this makes sense,” he says. “About two months ago, I noticed two or three attempts to get into my system. Damen checked it out, beefed it up so it’s even harder to crack.”

  “Do you think I can trust him?” I ask.

  “Damen? Shit, yes. If you trust me, you can trust him and Alesso. Markos too probably, but I don’t know him as well. Stamatis … he will look out for himself and the business. But Damen
and Alesso are my friends, and there are very few people I say that about. Wouldn’t hurt to meet with Damen. Wouldn’t hurt at all.”

  “I need some help,” I say, hating to sound weak.

  He pauses. “Okay, listen. Firstly, I am coming to you right now. You are my fucking brother, K, and these fuckers don’t get to do this and walk away. Secondly, if they want me, they aren’t going to stop until they get me. Is it Tigran?”

  “How did you know?”

  “Because he has good reason to want me dead or maimed. I’m on my way to you.”

  “Okay, see you soon. I’m at the Royal George Hospital.”

  He hangs up, and for a moment I sag against the brick wall behind me. He’s going to help, which means Cassie has a chance. We need men, though, good men. Andrius can’t pull them off his place in Corfu because he’ll need everyone there to make sure Violet is safe.

  I have plenty of men working for me in Moscow, but if I bring them all over here that leaves Moscow wide open to takeover attempts.

  I can hire men, but it’s always risky to do that. When this is over, I’m building an army, but we need men now. Would the Greeks come and help? They might, but I doubt it. Stamatis won’t want that, I don’t believe, and it would leave their women vulnerable at a time when the sands are shifting beneath our feet. Powers are realigning, the same way the earth’s crust does every now and again, and it is going to cause earthquakes before the dust is settled.

  By the time Andrius arrives, I’ve got the legal side of things sorted, with a couple of cops on my payroll dealing with things. I’m sitting on a hard, plastic chair in the waiting area when the doors swoosh open, and Andrius storms in.

  People turn to look; he has that effect.

  He’s wearing a gray, three-piece suit, probably for his meeting with Allyov. Andrius always wears his armor for business, and he looks big, rich, and hard.

  I look harder, and bigger and I am richer, but right now, I don’t appear it. Certainly not wearing the sweatpants I threw on in a rush to get Vasily to the hospital.