Page 3 of Hostage of the Russian (Nikolai Bratva Brides #7)

Freedom tasted like coffee grounds and the pages of textbooks.

Azriel Hartford breathed in the familiar scents of the campus library, savoring the quiet hum of academic pursuit around her.

Five months in Chicago, and the novelty hadn’t worn off—the anonymity of being just another face in the crowd, the structured rhythm of university life, the absence of fear that had defined her childhood.

She tucked a strand of black hair behind her ear and returned her attention to her Constitutional Law textbook.

Final year. Just one more semester after this one, and she would have her degree.

Five years of relentless work, first online classes while waitressing double shifts in three different states, then finally here, physically present for her final year at Northwestern because she’d wanted, just once, to experience what normal students did.

The library began to empty as evening settled in. Azriel checked her watch; it was nearly eight. Time to head back to her apartment. Her roommates, both nursing students, would soon be starting their overnight shifts at Northwestern Memorial, leaving her with blessed quiet for her studies.

Outside, the April evening carried the promise of approaching spring, though Chicago’s temperamental weather still clung to winter’s chill.

Azriel pulled her jacket tighter around her slender frame as she walked the fifteen minutes to her off-campus apartment, mentally organizing the work ahead: a constitutional law paper due on Friday, a criminal procedure exam on Monday, and a shift at the coffee shop tomorrow afternoon.

Her apartment building was nothing impressive; a three-story walk-up in a neighborhood populated mostly by students and young professionals starting their careers.

The rent was affordable with her scholarship stipend and coffee shop wages, especially split three ways.

More importantly, the landlord hadn’t asked too many questions when she’d applied with a limited credit history and no cosigner.

Azriel unlocked the door to Unit 1C, immediately greeted by the sound of her roommates preparing for their shifts.

“Hey, Az,” called Mina from the bathroom, where she was pinning her dark hair into a neat bun. “There’s leftover pasta in the fridge if you want it.”

“Thanks,” Azriel responded, dropping her heavy backpack by the small kitchen table. “Big night ahead?”

“Trauma rotation,” Mina grimaced. “Pray for me.”

Jen emerged from her bedroom in scrubs, looking equally apprehensive. “We won’t be back till eight tomorrow morning. Try not to have too much fun without us.”

Azriel snorted. “Yes, because my wild parties are legendary.” She gestured to her backpack. “Just me and Justice Scalia’s dissenting opinions tonight.”

“Sounds thrilling,” Jen laughed. “There’s also wine in the fridge if Scalia gets to be too much.”

After quick goodbyes, her roommates departed, and blessed silence descended on the apartment. Azriel reheated the pasta, poured herself a glass of water, and settled at the kitchen table with her textbooks spread around her.

Two hours later, eyes burning from reading case studies, she decided to take a break.

Stretching her arms overhead, Azriel padded to her small bedroom, changing into comfortable sweats and an oversized Northwestern hoodie.

She lay back on her bed, just for a moment, staring at the ceiling and allowing herself a rare moment of pride.

She had done this. Despite everything—despite her father’s best efforts to crush her spirit, despite the system that had failed her repeatedly until she took matters into her own hands at sixteen—she was here. Months away from earning a law degree. On her own terms.

Her father. Danny Hartford. The name still conjured a complex mixture of emotions: fear, anger, grief for what should have been.

Five years since she’d last seen him, since she’d escaped that house in the middle of the night with nothing but a backpack and the bruises he’d left as a parting gift.

She’d changed her phone number, moved across three states, and used every legal avenue available to ensure he couldn’t find her.

As far as she knew, he remained blissfully unaware of her whereabouts, still in Boston, still gambling away whatever money he managed to acquire, still working for whoever would hire a man with his volatile temper and questionable ethics.

Azriel shook her head, dispelling thoughts of the past. That wasn’t her life anymore. She had created something new. Something that belonged entirely to her.

With renewed determination, she returned to her textbooks, this time bringing them to bed where she could read more comfortably.

The Constitutional Law cases were fascinating, a complex web of interpretations and precedents that challenged her analytical mind.

This was what she wanted to do with her life: use the law that had failed to protect her to shield others from similar fates.

Azriel was so engrossed in her reading that she almost missed the sound. A faint scraping from the direction of her window. She froze, senses suddenly alert, heart accelerating.

Probably nothing. The building was old, prone to strange noises. Or maybe a branch against the glass, there was a tree outside her window, after all.

The sound came again. Not a branch. More deliberate. More precise.

Azriel set her book aside slowly, eyes fixed on the window. The curtains were drawn, preventing her from seeing outside, but also blocking anyone from seeing in. Small comfort as the scraping evolved into the unmistakable sound of her window sliding open.

Years of hypervigilance kicked in. Azriel moved silently from her bed, reaching for her phone on the nightstand. Before her fingers could close around it, the curtains were thrust aside, and a large figure filled her window frame.

A man. Tall. Powerfully built. Dressed entirely in black.

For one suspended moment, they stared at each other; Azriel frozen in shock, the stranger’s dark eyes calculating as he took in her appearance, the room, the distance between them.

Then training overcame paralysis. Azriel lunged for her bedroom door, adrenaline surging through her veins. She’d made it halfway across the room when an arm like iron wrapped around her waist, lifting her off her feet as if she weighed nothing.

“No!” The scream tore from her throat as she thrashed against her captor’s grip. Her elbow connected with something solid, his ribs perhaps, eliciting a grunt but no loosening of his hold.

“Be still,” a voice near her ear commanded, deep and accented, Russian, her brain registered absurdly. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Let me go!” Azriel’s hand grabbed his face, nails tearing down in desperate retaliation. She felt skin give way beneath her assault.

The man cursed in what was definitely Russian, his grip tightening painfully around her waist as he used his free hand to capture her wrists, immobilizing her arms with effortless strength.

“Enough,” he growled. “We’re leaving. Make this easy on yourself.”

“Who are you?” Azriel demanded, still struggling despite the futility of it all. “What do you want?”

“Kostya Nikolai,” he replied, the name offered casually as if they were meeting at a social function rather than during her abduction. “And I want you, Azriel Hartford.”

The use of her name sent ice through her veins. This was targeted. Specific. Not a random attack.

“How do you know my name?” Fear made her voice higher than usual.

“Your father told me all about you.”

Her father. The words struck like physical blows. After all these years, after everything she’d done to disappear, to build a new life, her father had found her. Or worse, sold her out.

Before she could process this revelation, Kostya was moving toward the window, carrying her struggling form with apparent ease. Outside, another man waited, taller, with pale features partially visible in the dim alley lighting.

“Take her,” Kostya instructed, passing Azriel through the window like a package.

The second man’s grip was equally unyielding but somehow more impersonal as he restrained her, allowing Kostya to climb out after them. Despite her continued resistance, they moved efficiently through the darkness toward a waiting vehicle, a black SUV with tinted windows.

“Please,” Azriel tried, adrenaline giving way to cold fear. “Whatever he owes you, I have nothing to do with it. I haven’t spoken to my father in years.”

Neither man responded as they opened the rear door and placed her inside. The interior was luxurious, with leather seats, wood paneling, and the scent of expensive cologne. The taller man pulled out zip ties, securing her wrists before stepping back and closing the door.

Kostya took the seat beside her while his companion moved to the driver’s position. The engine purred to life, and they pulled away from the curb, leaving behind everything Azriel had worked for.

“Where are you taking me?” she demanded, determined to maintain composure despite the panic threatening to overwhelm her. Her mind raced through options, memorize the route, look for landmarks, identify any potential weapons in the vehicle, and assess the restraints for weaknesses.

“My home,” Kostya replied, turning to study her in the dim light of the car’s interior.

He was handsome, she noted from a distance, almost criminally so, with dark hair and eyes that might have been warm under different circumstances.

A fresh set of scratches marred one cheek, evidence of her resistance. “We have matters to discuss.”

“I have nothing to discuss with anyone associated with Danny Hartford.”

Something like surprise flickered across Kostya’s features. “You truly hate him.”

“What I feel for my father is none of your business,” Azriel replied coldly. “Whatever he’s done, whatever he owes you, I’m not part of it.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.” Kostya leaned back, watching her with unsettling intensity. “Your father offered you as payment for his debts.”

The words hung in the air between them, monstrous in their implication. Azriel felt the blood drain from her face, replaced by a wave of nausea. She shouldn’t have been surprised; it wasn’t the first time Danny Hartford had used her as a bargaining chip, but the reality of it still cut deep.

“How much?” she asked, voice barely above a whisper.

“Excuse me?”

“How much did he owe you? How much am I worth?”

Kostya’s expression shifted, something unreadable passing through his dark eyes. “Two million dollars.”

Azriel gave a bitter laugh. “Inflation. Last time it was only fifty thousand.”

The statement clearly wasn’t what Kostya had expected. He studied her with renewed interest, as if reassessing a puzzle whose pieces didn’t quite fit.

The car turned onto a main thoroughfare, Chicago’s lights blurring outside the tinted windows. Azriel recognized Michigan Avenue before they turned again, heading north toward the Gold Coast. Money, then. Serious money, judging by their direction.

“What exactly do you want from me?” she asked after several minutes of silence.

Instead of answering immediately, Kostya reached into his jacket and withdrew an envelope. He placed it on the seat between them.

“Your father suggested marriage,” he said, his tone so matter-of-fact he might have been discussing the weather.

“A way to square his debt. I found the idea ridiculous at first, but then...” He shrugged, a fluid movement that spoke of controlled power.

“I became curious about the daughter he was so willing to trade away.”

Azriel stared at the envelope, understanding dawning with horrifying clarity. “Marriage papers,” she stated flatly.

“The arrangement is quite favorable, all things considered,” Kostya continued, watching her reaction closely. “You’ll want for nothing materially. Your education can continue; I’m not a man who needs a housewife. But you will be mine, Azriel Hartford. Payment for your father’s mistakes.”

The car slowed, turning into a gated driveway that led to an elegant townhouse overlooking Lake Michigan. Even through her shock, Azriel recognized the address, one of the most expensive residential areas in Chicago.

“I won’t sign anything,” she stated, wrists straining against the zip ties. “You can’t force me.”

Kostya smiled then, the expression transforming his face from merely handsome to devastating. It was the smile of a predator, beautiful and deadly.

“I think you’ll find, Miss Hartford, that there are very few things I cannot do.” He nodded to the driver, who had come around to open their door. “Welcome to your new home.”

As they led her from the car toward the imposing residence, Azriel fought against encroaching despair. Everything she’d built, every step away from her father’s shadow, had been erased in minutes. She was once again a pawn in someone else’s game, property to be traded for a debt.

But she wasn’t sixteen anymore, desperate and afraid, with nowhere to turn. She was stronger now, smarter. And if Kostya Nikolai thought she would surrender without a fight, he was about to learn otherwise.

They escorted her through towering doors into a foyer that spoke of old wealth and refined taste; marble floors, crystal chandelier, artwork that even her untrained eye recognized as valuable. A prison, no matter how gilded, was still a prison.

“Show Miss Hartford to her room,” Kostya instructed someone Azriel couldn’t see. “We’ll discuss the details of our arrangement in the morning. After she’s had time to... adjust to her new circumstances.”

As a stern-looking woman appeared to lead her away, Azriel met Kostya’s dark gaze with defiance burning in her gray eyes. “I escaped my father,” she said quietly. “What makes you think I won’t escape you, too?”

Something like respect flickered across Kostya’s features before his expression smoothed into practiced neutrality. “Because, Azriel, unlike your father, I never let go of what’s mine.”

The statement lingered in the air between them, both a threat and a promise, as Azriel was led up a sweeping staircase toward whatever cage this man had prepared for her.

Her mind was already calculating, assessing, and planning.

The same skills that had kept her alive under her father’s roof, which had allowed her to build a new life, would now be used to secure her freedom once more.

One thought echoed above the others as she crossed the threshold of her luxurious prison: She had not come this far, survived this much, only to become another man’s possession.