Page 9 of Bratva Daddy (Underworld Daddies #1)

The one holding me—Mikhail—shifted his grip, one arm coming around my waist to lift me partially off my feet. I kicked wildly, my heels connecting with his shins, but he seemed immune to pain. His free hand went to his jacket pocket, and I saw the flash of white fabric.

A cloth. Chloroform or something similar. The kind of thing that would make me disappear into quiet unconsciousness, wake up somewhere else entirely with no idea how I'd gotten there.

"No!" The word came out as almost a sob. "Please—I'll come quietly, just don't—"

"We have orders to deliver you unharmed," Mikhail said, like that was supposed to be reassuring. "But unharmed doesn't mean conscious."

Unharmed. What a joke.

They could keep my body intact while destroying everything else—my life, my future, my pretense of independence from my father's world.

I thrashed harder, managing to twist enough that one of my heels—the left Louboutin—went flying off my foot.

It skittered across the sidewalk, red sole flashing like a distress signal no one would answer.

My silk shawl tangled around us as I fought, the delicate fabric tearing with a sound like a scream.

Three hundred dollar silk, destroyed in seconds.

The triumph of the auction, David's business card still in my clutch, the promise of Monday's meeting—all of it crumbling because my father had betrayed someone scarier than him.

"Stop fighting," the first man said, stepping closer. The scratches on his face had already stopped bleeding, barely inconveniences to someone like him. "You're only making this worse."

"Worse?" I laughed, high and hysterical. "You're kidnapping me off the street! How does it get worse?"

"We could leave you unconscious in an alley for NYPD to find after we're done with your father," Mikhail suggested quietly. "Would you prefer that?"

"Enough," the first man said sharply. He nodded at Mikhail, who brought the white cloth up toward my face.

"Please," I whispered, the fight draining out of me as quickly as it had come. "I organized a charity auction tonight. Raised money for homeless services. There are people expecting me on Monday. They'll notice—"

"No one will notice," Mikhail said, almost gently. "Rich girls disappear all the time. Rehab, Europe, mental breakdown. Your father will make excuses, and everyone will believe them."

He was right. How many times had girls from my social circle vanished for weeks or months?

Sent away to deal with inconvenient pregnancies, drug problems, nervous breakdowns that threatened family reputations.

Everyone always accepted the polite fictions, asked no questions, pretended to believe whatever story got told.

"He made a deal with the Kozlovs," I said desperately, remembering dinner conversation my father thought I was too stupid to understand. "He's betraying someone—the Volkovs. That's who you work for, isn't it? The Volkov bratva?"

Both men went still. I'd hit something true, something that mattered.

"What you know about that?" the first man asked, studying me with new interest.

"I know my father is switching sides," I said quickly, sensing an opening. "I know he's been taking money from both organizations. I know he's planning to destroy the Volkovs' construction contracts."

"Interesting," Mikhail murmured. "The little princess pays attention after all."

Princess. I wanted to scream that I wasn't a princess, but I held my tongue.

"It doesn't matter what I know," I said, exhaustion creeping into my voice. "I can't stop him. I can't change anything. I'm just—"

The slam of a car door changed everything.

Heavy, deliberate, the sound of expensive German engineering meeting controlled force.

Both men holding me straightened instantly, their entire demeanor shifting from professional to deferential in the space between heartbeats.

Mikhail's grip on my arms loosened fractionally, and the first man actually took a step back.

A third figure emerged from the shadows beyond the SUV, and the October night suddenly felt colder.

He moved differently than the other men—not with their practiced efficiency but with the lazy confidence of an apex predator who'd never met anything that could challenge him.

Each step was deliberate, unhurried, like he had all the time in the world to claim what was already his.

The streetlight caught him as he approached, and my breath stopped in my throat.

Older than his men by maybe a decade, putting him somewhere in his mid-thirties.

Taller too, with the kind of build that suggested controlled power rather than bulky muscle.

His suit was perfection—charcoal wool that had been tailored by someone who understood that true power didn't need to advertise itself.

But it was his face that made my stomach do something complicated that wasn't entirely fear.

Sharp angles and harsh planes, like someone had carved him from granite and forgotten to soften the edges.

A jaw that could cut glass, cheekbones that threw shadows in the streetlight, and a mouth that looked like it had forgotten how to smile without cruelty behind it.

His hair was dark, almost black, pushed back from his face in a way that looked deliberately careless.

But it was his eyes that made me forget I was supposed to be fighting.

Steel gray, the color of winter storms, and absolutely empty of anything resembling mercy.

He looked at me the way I imagined wolves looked at rabbits—with interest, assessment, and the absolute certainty that the outcome was already decided.

"Enough," he said, and that single word carried more authority than anything my father had ever managed in his entire political career.

His voice was dark velvet wrapped around broken glass, accented but precisely articulated, like he'd learned English from Oxford professors and Russian prison guards.

Both men stepped away from me immediately. Just like that, I was free—standing on Fifth Avenue in one shoe, my dress torn, my shawl hanging off one shoulder like a flag of surrender. Free to run if I wanted to, if I was stupid enough to think I could outrun whatever this man was.

I didn't run.

Couldn't, actually.

My legs had turned to water the moment those gray eyes found mine.

He approached slowly, giving me time to see him coming, to understand what was about to happen.

The distance between us closed with inevitable precision until he stood close enough that I could smell him—expensive cologne layered over something darker, more dangerous.

Gunpowder, maybe. Or just the scent of a man who'd gotten everything he'd ever wanted through force.

His hand came up, and I flinched, expecting violence.

But his fingers found my chin instead, grip firm but not painful, tilting my face up to meet his gaze.

His skin was rougher than I'd expected—calluses that suggested he hadn't always worn expensive suits, that those manicured hands knew how to do damage without weapons.

"You fight like a tiger," he said, and there was something in his tone that made heat flood through me despite the October cold.

Approval mixed with amusement, like I'd done something unexpectedly entertaining.

His thumb brushed across my jaw, and I hated the way my body responded—pulse jumping, breath catching, every nerve suddenly aware of how big his hand was against my face. “But that stops now, pussycat.”

"Let go of me," I managed, but my voice came out breathless instead of demanding.

His mouth curved in what might have been a smile on someone capable of actual human emotion. "No."

Just that. No. Not a refusal or an argument, just a statement of fact. The sun rose in the east, water was wet, and this man wasn't letting go of me.

"I don't even know who you are," I said.

"I am Alexei Volkov," he said, and the name hit me like ice water. Not just Volkov bratva—the Volkov himself. The pakhan. The one whose name made my father sweat during his wine-fueled confessions about city corruption. "Your father made a very expensive mistake."

His fingers tightened slightly on my chin, forcing me to maintain eye contact when every instinct screamed at me to look away.

This close, I could see flecks of darker gray in his irises, like storms within storms. Could see the faint scar that crossed his left eyebrow, the slight imperfection that somehow made him more dangerous instead of less.

"My father makes a lot of mistakes," I said, surprising myself with the bitter honesty. "Which one am I paying for?"

Something flickered in those gray eyes—surprise, maybe, or interest. His hand shifted, fingers sliding along my jaw to cup the side of my face. The gesture should have been threatening, but instead felt almost . . . possessive. Like he was examining something he'd already decided to keep.

"Many mistakes," he said simply. "But primarily his decision to take Kozlov money while spending mine. He seems to have forgotten that betrayal has consequences."

"So you're kidnapping me?" My voice cracked slightly. "That's your solution?"

"I'm collecting collateral," he corrected, his thumb tracing my cheekbone with clinical precision. "Your father stole from me, against my will. Now I'm taking something of his, against his."

Something of his. Like I was property to be transferred between powerful men. The fury that had driven me to fight his men flared again, hot enough to burn through the fear.

"I'm not his," I spat. "I'm not anybody's anything. I'm my own person with my own life that has nothing to do with his corruption."

"Used to be," Alexei said, and there was something almost gentle in the correction. "Now you belong to me until your father pays what he owes."

The way he said 'belong' sent electricity down my spine that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with the heat in those storm-gray eyes.

This wasn't just about money or revenge.

There was something else in the way he looked at me, something hungry and possessive that made my knees weak even as my mind screamed danger.

"Go to hell," I managed, trying to jerk my face away from his grip.

“Already been. Didn’t much care for it.” He didn't let go. If anything, his hold firmed, keeping me exactly where he wanted me. "Such spirit," he murmured, and now I was sure he was amused. "We're going to have so much fun breaking you in, little girl."

Little girl. The words should have been insulting—I was twenty-three, a college graduate, a woman who'd just raised almost two hundred thousand dollars for charity.

But the way he said it, in that dark velvet voice with those gray eyes burning into mine, made something low in my stomach clench with heat I didn't want to acknowledge.

"I'm not a little girl," I said, but my voice came out whispered, weak.

"No?" His thumb found my lower lip, traced it with deliberate slowness. "Then why are you trembling?"

Because you're terrifying, I wanted to say. Because you're probably going to kill me. Because my father betrayed the wrong people and now I'm going to pay for it.

I couldn’t say a word.

His smile this time was real, sharp as winter, dangerous as black ice. "Don’t worry. I have decided. You're going to be my guest until your father remembers his obligations. How comfortable that stay is depends entirely on you."

Guest. What a polite word for prisoner. What a civilized way to describe whatever was about to happen to me in the hands of the Volkov bratva.

"And if I refuse to be your guest?" I asked, though we both knew it wasn't really a question.

He leaned closer, close enough that his breath ghosted across my ear. "Then I'll teach you why refusing me is a mistake you'll only make once."

To my horror, my traitorous body responded with heat that pooled low in my belly, with awareness of his strength, his control, his absolute certainty that I'd end up exactly where he wanted me.

"Mikhail," he said, not looking away from my face. "Bring the car around. You will take her to the safe house. Then, a few hours later, to the penthouse."

"Yes, Pakhan."

"Now, we can do this gracefully," Alexei said, his hand sliding from my face to wrap around my upper arm. "You'll walk to the car, sit quietly, and accept your new situation. Or we can do it the other way, and you'll wake up in your new accommodations with a headache and no memory of the journey."

"Those are my only options?"

"Absolutely." He pulled me against his side, his arm sliding around my waist in what would look like affection to anyone passing by.

Just a couple walking to their car after a night out.

Nothing suspicious about the missing shoe or the torn shawl or the way his grip was firm enough to leave bruises.

"Whatever you think I'm worth to my father, he won't pay," I said one last time, desperate to make him understand.

"Your worth to him doesn't interest me," Alexei interrupted, and something in his tone made me shiver. "What interests me is what you're worth to me."

The black Mercedes waited at the curb, engine purring, Mikhail holding the back door open like a chauffeur instead of a kidnapper. Alexei's hand on my lower back pushed me forward, inevitable as gravity.

I had one last moment to look at Fifth Avenue—at the city I'd walked through feeling free just minutes ago. Then Alexei's hand pressed harder, and I folded into the backseat of the car that would take me away from everything I'd ever known.