The Enforcer (Chicago Bratva #3) - Renee Rose Page 0,5
from experience, it won’t last long. I’m the type who doesn’t stick. I run as soon as things get serious. I don’t know. I get this anxiety in the pit of my stomach. I consider it my inner guidance for when it’s time to break things off. So I don’t end up destroyed by love the way my mom always was.
And still is.
This thing will play out in a matter of weeks, the way all my relationships do, and then it will be over. And then I’ll never be able to return to the pleasure of going to a gig where Oleg will be there watching. Basking in the heat of his gaze on me all night long.
Knowing there’s at least one person in the crowd who is crazy about me.
Oh well. It was nice while it lasted.
Chapter 2
Oleg
I don’t have a way to get home. I could text one of the guys in my cell, but it’s almost four in the morning.
I could use a ride-sharing app, but it would mean interacting with another person—something I loathe. I decide to walk. It’s only a few miles. It’s freezing out, but I’m from Russia. Cold doesn’t bother me, especially when I could use the temperature to cool down after what just happened.
Story’s vanilla-sweet scent still lingers on my shirt.
I zip my leather jacket and shove my hands in my pockets. My mind is still filled with images of Story getting off under my hands. It was the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen. Like that first hit of a drug, I’m now utterly addicted. I don’t know how I’ll wait a full week to see her again. How I’ll settle for just watching now that I’ve touched her.
But I’m not stupid enough to think I can have Story.
Keep Story.
I am a man with a very dangerous past. A past that could catch up with him at any time. One that would hurt the people I’ve come to care about—my bratva brothers—and will likely mean the end of my life.
I’m not safe for Story, even if I was lucky enough for her to want someone as broken as I am.
I back the memories up to the moment I got in the van with her, wanting to replay every minute we were together. The indulgence costs me.
Dearly.
Because I don’t notice anyone else around.
Pain explodes on the back of my head as I’m clubbed from behind. A bag gets pulled over my face as I topple forward, landing heavily on one knee. I try to rip it off, to see my attackers, but the blow to my skull disorients me, and I tumble to my side before I yank it away.
The cold metal of a gun presses against my temple. “Don’t move.” The words are Russian.
Blyad'.
They found me.
I always knew this day would come. I knew it, but to have it happen tonight—the night I got to watch my little lastochka come—makes it a special torture. The night I’m given a burning reason to live.
“Get up,” a different voice rasps.
“You want him not to move or to get up?” a third voice argues. “He doesn’t look that smart. Why confuse the guy?”
Yeah, every mudak thinks he’s a comedian.
Several thoughts snap together in my brain. If they wanted me dead—if they worked for Skal'pel'—I’d already be dead. So that means these idiots work for someone who’s after Skal'pel'. Someone who wants what’s in my head. Which means they have orders to take me alive.
The crack I took to the skull makes it hard to focus, but I’m a big guy. I can still throw my weight. I stand, launching myself backward into the guy holding the gun. As I predicted, he doesn’t shoot.
I knock him on his back, my weight landing square in his middle. His gun arm splays out to the side, but I miss snatching the pistol before it clatters to the ground out of reach.
I rip the hood off my head and turn to punch him in the face to make sure he stays down then go for the gun. Too late—it has already been scooped up by Mudak #2.
“Shoot him in the kneecap!” Mudak #3—the comedian—suggests. These guys would never make it anywhere in Ravil’s cell. They lack the organization and discipline of bratva. And intelligence.
Mudak #2 does try to shoot me in the fucking knee. My fist hits his throat at the same time he pulls the trigger. The bullet grazes my leg. At least I hope that’s just