Living for the Badman (Russian Bratva Book 4) Read online

  Living for the Badman

  Copyright © 2016 by Hayley Faiman

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  Editor: RC Martin, The Green Pen

  Cover: Cassy Roop, Pink Ink Designs

  Formatting: Champagne Formats

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Quote

  Russian Bratva Structure

  Prologue

  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

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Epilogue

  Tempting the Badman

  Also by Hayley Faiman

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  To every single person that chooses to LIVE no matter what obstacles life throws their direction.

  Russian Bratva Structure

  Pakhan – The Boss: Controls everything.

  Sovietnik – Councilor: Advisor and closest trusted individuals to the Pakhan.

  Obshchak – The Bookmaker: Collects all money from Brigadiers and bribes from the government.

  Brigadier – Authority: Captain in charge of a small group of men.

  Boyevik – Warrior: Soldier, works for a Brigadier.

  Kryshas – Covers: Extremely violent enforcers.

  Torpedo – Contract Killers

  Byki – Bulls: Bodyguards

  Shestyorka – Associate: Errand boys. Lowest rank in the Russian Mafia.

  The Wedding

  THE SILENCE IN THE car is deafening.

  I look down at my fingers twisted in my lap.

  I can feel Yakov’s anger toward me. I can almost taste it.

  It’s palpable.

  I know better than to say anything when he’s like this, so I stay quiet as he drives back to the apartment where we’ve been staying. Once we arrive in the parking garage, he doesn’t turn to me. He doesn’t even look at me. Instead, he orders me to get out and go inside. I do as I’m told, as it’s how I’ve been taught—how I’ve been molded.

  Once I’m inside of the apartment, I quickly strip out of my clothes, leaving myself completely nude, and walk into the bedroom where I kneel down on the floor. I wrap my arms around my back and hold onto my elbows, arching my chest forward, then I dip my head down.

  I wait.

  I don’t move.

  What seems like hours later, I hear rustling. Then the bedroom door clicks closed. I don’t chance looking up, not even to move my eyes.

  Yakov is not in the mood for what he deems bratty behavior. I’ve accidently done something to challenge him when he was in a mood like this once before. My punishment was not something I ever wish to repeat.

  “I can’t make you happy,” he whispers into the silent room. My breath hitches at his words, at their meaning, but I don’t move. “Eyes up.”

  I do as he orders and lift my head, letting my eyes meet his. I don’t shield myself from him. I let him see how his words have hurt me. I bare it all without saying a word. I watch as his face threatens to crumple.

  “Jacob?” I ask.

  “Nyet, Ashley. I’m no longer your Jacob. This doesn’t work for me anymore. You want things I do not wish to give you. And you are not the woman I wish to have forever. This must end. I have saved you from the hell I found you living in. I saved you a second time when you were stolen. Now it is over,” he says harshly.

  Every word breaks my heart, but his last four words shatter my world.

  “Because I want you, all of you? Or because I want a piece of you, I want to create a child with the man that I adore? What exactly don’t you wish to give me?” I ask bravely as I stand from my spot on the floor.

  “All of it. You think I want some weak woman who is so easily taken from me and used the way you were to be my wife? To have my children?” he spits.

  I take a step backward, stumbling, feeling his words like a physical punch to the gut.

  Every single one.

  “Why are you being this way?” I ask in confusion.

  “You asked,” he shrugs as he takes his bag out of the closet.

  I watch in shock as he packs the few things he has and then walks away from me, into the living room without a word.

  “Yakov,” I cry out as I run after him. He pauses and turns to me, his eyes cold as ice.

  “I’m over it, Ashley. Over it all. I’m done,” he says. His jaw is clenched, and I wonder if he means it.

  It feels so out of left field, so sudden. Yes, I mentioned having children and he shot it down. An argument, that’s all we had, and it wasn’t even a big one.

  I don’t understand why he’s leaving me.

  “You’re leaving? And what happens to me?” I ask.

  “Radimir will get you taken care of, get you a job somewhere in his office,” he shrugs.

  “You’re leaving me here in LA, for good?” I ask in complete shock.

  “I am,” he says with a nod.

  “Did you ever love me?” I ask as my bottom lip trembles.

  I wait for his answer, but it never comes. He turns and leaves me standing naked, in the living room of an apartment that isn’t even ours. It’s just a place for us to stay while we are in town. It’s owned by Kirill.

  He leaves me with nothing.

  No money. No more than two weeks’ worth of clothes. No food. And the most important thing he leaves me without—himself.

  I stare at the closed door unable to move. I’m frozen. Completely and totally frozen in my spot.

  I stay there for hours.

  I don’t know what to do. Without him telling me—I’m lost.

  The next thing I know, Radimir and Emiliya are in my space. I feel something slide over my shoulders. A blanket. I grasp the edges and cover myself, my face tinting red at the realization that Radimir has seen me naked. Though, what does it really matter? He’s seen me before, when he rescued me from hell in South Africa.

  “He’s left me,” I whisper.

  “I know,” Emiliya says. I look over to her.

  She’s angry. I know because she looks so much like her brother when he�
��s angry. It makes my heart break that much more.

  “You’re stronger than this,” Radimir barks.

  I look up to him as my eyes fill with tears.

  “I’m not,” I murmur.

  “You are. You’ll feel sorry for yourself today. Tomorrow morning, I will send a man by to pick you up. Between Maxim, Ziven, and me, we will find work for you,” he announces.

  “I haven’t even finished high school, Radimir,” I admit sheepishly as I lower my head.

  I feel his thumb and finger pinch my chin before he lifts my head, forcing my eyes to connect with his.

  “We will find work for you, Ashley. You have nothing to concern yourself with. This apartment is yours, for free, for as long as you desire.”

  I nod my agreement.

  Thankfully, both Emiliya and Radimir leave shortly after. I know that tomorrow will come soon enough, and I’ll have to appear to be whole when Radimir picks me up.

  But tonight, I will prove Yakov correct. I will be weak and I will cry.

  I feel so completely lost.

  I have been his since he found me chained up like an animal. He breathed life back into me, and now he’s abandoned me.

  I walk to the balcony of the apartment, still wrapped up in my blanket, and look out at the ocean in front of me. I think. I don’t hear when somebody joins me, and I’m startled when he speaks.

  “You, Ashley, are not a weak woman,” I inform her after I’ve sat down in the chair next to hers.

  I don’t look at her. I focus on the ocean in front of me. I feel her eyes on me for a beat, and then she too turns to the ocean again.

  “I am. I’ve been informed of this particular trait,” she says. I can hear the venom in her voice.

  I don’t blame her.

  If I were her, I would be angry as well.

  “You are not. You will discover that Yakov was wrong. You are strong and your strength will continue to grow with time. Yakov will regret ever walking away from you,” I say.

  “He will never admit it,” she whispers as she pulls her blanket closer to her body.

  “If he is the man I think him to be, then he will. But I wouldn’t suggest pining over him. You’re young and beautiful, and you deserve everything your heart desires. You should have it all, Ashley. After everything you have suffered in this life, you deserve to have everything you want,” I tell her. It is the truth, the straight-up fucking truth.

  “My heart desires Yakov,” she murmurs.

  “It may not always, and yet it may. If it does, then you shall find a way to have him again.”

  “You’re a good man. I’m glad that you got what your heart desired,” she whispers. I stand, shaking my head before I take a step away from her. Then I turn to face her.

  “I thought my woman weak once. I had never been more wrong in my entire life. He will know of his mistake, and then you, Ashley, you will be the one in control of the outcome,”

  Six Months Later

  I NEVER IMAGINED THAT I would be back in this city, permanently. But here I am.

  Los Angeles.

  Not the city I was born in, but the place I lived for a few years before I was taken by the Russian Bratva—stolen by them, actually.

  I was seventeen years old when a man took me, plucked me from in front of my high school. Nobody saw a thing. Nobody said a thing.

  Nobody cared.

  Later, I found out that the man was named Gregori, but I only knew him as Master.

  When he looked at me from the sidewalk in front of my school, I knew I was in trouble.

  Gregori was beautiful, the most beautiful man I had ever seen in my life, but his eyes were horrifying. They looked dead. I knew that if his eyes looked dead, then his soul must be as well.

  I always believed that the eyes were the windows to our souls. I had read it somewhere, and I thought it to be true. The moment I laid eyes on Gregori, I knew it was in fact truth. His eyes were clouded in death.

  I could have never even imagined the nightmare that would become my life for over a year.

  I slip on the pencil skirt I am wearing for the day over the top of my pantyhose before I zip it up. Then I look at myself in the mirror, topless. I try not to focus on them often, but my eyes always go to them. Small silvery marks all across the peak of my breasts. Healed cuts. Cuts that Gregori made. A lesson amongst dozens of lessons. This one being the most important of them all, the one that caused my scars.

  No matter how pretty my face is, no matter how beautiful I’ve grown to be, my body will always be marred by the scars he gave me. He owned me. Gregori could do as he wished to the animals he owned.

  I close my eyes and try to beat back the tears that are threatening to spill over. The tears always come when I think about him. When I think about how he broke me, repeatedly.

  Then my thoughts shift and I think of Yakov and of how he found me.

  Locked in a basement—in a cage. A bucket for my waste in the corner, my breasts cut and scabbed over, a few infected from the filth of my environment.

  My hair hadn’t been washed in at least a month, which had also been the last time I had showered. My food had run out seven days before he discovered me, and my water two days prior.

  Gregori always made sure that I ran out of provisions at least a couple days before he came to me, but this had been the worst of it.

  Gregori was sadistic—Yakov was my savior.

  I hear my phone beep and I hurry to slide and clasp on my bra. I slip on my blouse, buttoning it as I tuck my feet into my four inch, black, high heels. I smooth down my high blonde ponytail and take one last look in the mirror.

  Black-on-black-on-black, just how my boss demands I dress.

  Clean, crisp, and professional.

  I snatch my turquoise handbag from the table next to my apartment door and dig my keys out, locking it behind me. I hear something rustle from across the hall and look up, up, and up into the dark eyes of a hulking man—a man I have never seen before.

  “Privet,” he rumbles.

  I stare. Unsure of what he’s said to me. I don’t know Russian, not a word of it, which is kind of a problem, since I live in a building filled with Russians, in a Russian neighborhood, and my boss is one hundred percent Russian.

  I don’t venture out too much. I keep to myself, and that suits me just fine.

  I smile at the kind-of scary, extremely handsome man and continue to walk down the hall to the car that is waiting for me. My boss is awesome. He sends a driver for me every day to take me to and from work. It’s an extremely kind gesture, and I’m very appreciative of everything he does for me.

  “Bitch,” the man grumbles behind me.

  I halt and turn around to face him, my eyes wide at his words.

  Bitch.

  I have never been called one before.

  “I’m sorry?” I murmur as I look into his eyes.

  “Can’t even say hello back?” he grunts.

  “Is that what you said? Hello?” I ask, completely serious.

  “It is. Don’t act like you didn’t know. You were just caught being a bitch,” he grinds out.

  “I don’t speak Russian, so I didn’t know what you said. I’m sorry,” I mutter, suddenly feeling embarrassed. I should at least know the greetings of the language. I feel so stupid.

  “Hey,” he mutters as his fingers cup my cheek. He applies a bit of pressure, forcing my head to tip back.

  I look up into his pretty, dark eyes and just stare. Not sadistic, not evil, not dead—but kind. Stern and serious, but kind nonetheless.

  “You really don’t know Russian?” he asks as his eyes search mine.

  I bite my bottom lip and shake my head slightly.

  “I’m Mika,” he rumbles.

  “Ashley,” I whisper.

  “Ziven waits for you then?”

  My eyes widen and I nod.

  I don’t know how he knew that Ziven was waiting for me downstairs. Every morning he waits for me, he takes me into work
, and then either he, or my boss, Kirill, brings me home.

  There are cars in the building for the residents, but I don’t have a driver’s license. I never learned to drive.

  “He does…” I let my words trail off.

  Mika shrugs before he releases my face and then holds out his arm for me.

  I take it. Once you’ve been broken, those things that were engrained in you, you never can ignore. Like obedience.

  I’m obedient to a fault now. I’m also meek, quiet, and jumpy, things I never was as a child. In fact, I was a bit of a tomboy and a little wild as a girl; though, I only remember bits and pieces of my life before Gregori and the Russian Bratva.

  “I’ve just moved to the building. Finally high enough ranking to be offered an apartment. I work for Baryshev, under Ziven, of course,” he murmurs.

  My boss, Kirill Baryshev, another savior of mine. Without him, I would never have survived what Yakov had done to me.

  Yakov, the love of my life, the only man I thought could love me after everything I had been through—he abandoned me. He didn’t want someone like me, someone with the past that I have, to be his wife and bear his children.

  It hurts, but in reality, I cannot blame him. Who would want a broken woman as the mother of their children? Yet, I still miss him. Every. Single. Day.

  I let a shaky breath out and make my way downstairs to my waiting car on the arm of Mika. I smile when I see Ziven standing at the passenger side of the car. Leaning his back against the door and playing on his phone. He looks so young, though he’s at least a decade older than I am. Nevertheless, at twenty, I feel like I’m about a hundred years old.

  I have lived four different lives.

  The life my father gave me; the life Gregori gave to me when he kidnapped me; the life that Dimitri forced upon me in South Africa; and finally, the life that Yakov gave to me.

  Only with Yakov did I feel alive and whole.

  Only with Yakov did I feel like I was a human being.

  Even with my father, I didn’t feel like a person. More like a bargaining chip. If he wasn’t using me for more government aide, then he was using me to run other scams.

  Now I’m nothing but a shell of a person. I breathe, I eat, and I work, but I don’t live. I don’t know if I ever will again. Not without my Yakov. My Jacob.