Page 1 of Trapped by the Bratva (The Valkov Bratva #5)

HANNAH

I slipped inside my apartment and closed the door behind me as quietly as I could. The lock clicked, and I winced at even that much noise.

This was my home. I paid the rent and managed all the bills for the utilities to keep this crappy place livable. Yet, I was forced to sneak in like a trespasser.

Waiting at the door, I stalled. With this headache, I just could not deal with her. I didn’t have the energy to put up with whatever my sister was pissed about today. All I wanted was to shower and drop into bed.

“Hannah?” Melissa called out from her room. The bigger of the two, with an attached bathroom. I usually didn’t mind my smaller space, but it was getting cooler at night and the window had such a bad draft.

I cringed, leaning back against the door at the sound of her footsteps through the apartment. She heard me come in. Maybe she’d been watching out the window to spy when I was done working.

This is wrong. She can’t keep doing this to me.

“What the hell took you so long?” she demanded as she exited her bedroom. Dressed in loungewear, her makeup on point, her hair styled to perfection, she looked pampered to the caliber of high maintenance she deemed herself worthy of.

She sneered at me at the entrance, looking me over with disgust. I couldn’t look pretty.

After a twelve-hour shift at the hospital, I was ragged.

Stains dotted my scrubs. My hair was knotted in a messy disarray of a bun.

And if I glanced in the mirror, I’d see for myself how vacant and exhausted I was with bags under my eyes.

“Well?” She popped a fist on her hip, looking like a parent demanding answers. Technically, she used to be my guardian. I was fifteen to her nineteen when our parents overdosed six years ago, and since that day, she'd acted like my legal guardian.

Now that I was twenty-one, she had no right to lord over me like this. But she did.

“I just got off work,” I replied dryly, in no mood for her whining.

“Like”—she scowled at her phone, checking the time—“an hour ago.”

“That’s when my shift was supposed to be done.” I pushed off the door and headed toward the kitchen. “I couldn’t get out of there.”

“Is that my problem?” She trailed after me, stabbing a finger at her chest as though I could misunderstand who she was talking about.

“No. I didn’t say it was.” I’m only explaining why I was late because you asked.

“I ordered food to be picked up fifty-five minutes ago!” She glared at me, watching me set my purse and water bottle on the counter. “And you couldn’t even pick it up? How ungrateful can you be?”

I narrowed my eyes. “What food?”

“Dinner, you dumbass. My dinner.” She crossed her arms and tipped her chin up. “I texted you the pickup number for you to pick it up. Do I have to spell out everything for you?”

I sighed, only now grabbing my older model phone from my pocket. “I didn’t have a chance to look at it.”

“Oh, sure. Because work was so ‘busy’.”

“It was. We were short-staffed already, and a huge car accident meant we had seven patients come in at once.” Most days, my work as an LPN was mild in the emergency room, but today was one of those awful exceptions.

“Again. Not my problem,” she yelled.

I lifted my face from my phone, pausing in seeing her messages to grab her dinner on my way home. I couldn’t help the grimace from showing on my face. I felt my skin pulling taut around my eyes. I ran out of my moisturizer a week ago, and I was feeling it.

“What?” She scowled. “Don’t look at me like that.”

Like you’re the worst human on earth?

“You hear me?”

“Do you even hear yourself? Ever?”

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t start with me.”

“I’m not a kid, Melissa. So don’t talk to me like I am one.”

“You’re acting like one! Unable to do me a favor by picking up my dinner on your way home—late.”

I rubbed my brow, hating the tension ratcheting up higher there. “And you couldn’t go pick it up yourself?”

“No,” she said. “Why should I when you’d be going that way at that time?”

“Well, I wasn’t. I was stuck at work longer than I thought I’d be.”

“Why? Because you lack the backbone to tell them that you have to leave on time? To get my dinner?”

“I didn’t even know you’d ordered dinner!”

She shrugged. “Then maybe you should check your damn phone.”

“No.” I narrowed my eyes. “I can’t check my phone on the clock. I’m there to work. To help people. Not to cater to whatever the hell you want.”

“After all I’ve done for you…” She lowered her arms as though she struggled with the urge to slap me.

If I had a dollar for every time she threw that in my face.

She’d taken me in when our parents died, and she would never, ever let me forget her big, ol’ sacrifice in becoming my guardian.

Had I known what life would be like with her, I would’ve preferred to go into the system and try my luck with fosters.

“I didn’t check my phone because I was busy. We were busy because of staffing and the number of patients. That’s not my fault.”

“And it’s not mine either.”

I fisted my hands as I thrust them to my sides. “I didn’t say it was! Stop trying to make everything about you!”

“So I give up years of my life to help raise you, and?—”

“Raise me?” I was two seconds from strangling her. “I was fifteen when they died. I was already doing everything around the house because they were too high to bother. Since I was a kid, I did everything. I raised myself.”

“Oh.” She huffed. “That’s how you see it? Then see yourself out and make it on your own.”

“No.” I pointed at the door. “ You see yourself out. I pay the rent on this place.”

She leaned closer, as though she could intimidate me with the one inch she had on me. “ My name is on the lease. Remember that, bitch?”

I laughed, too incredulous at her attitude to hold it in. This laughter would turn into hysterical cackles soon. If I couldn’t cry, I had to vent somehow, but nothing about this was funny.

“You want to kick me out? Maybe I should go. See how long you’ll last until they evict you for not paying rent.”

“Shut up. Just shut the fuck up.”

I shook my head, dropping my phone into my purse. She hadn’t worked a goddamn day in her life, and as long as she manipulated me to stay with her, she wouldn’t.

When? When will I ever get the courage to just leave?

“I want my dinner,” she said.

“Then go walk out there and pick it up,” I shot back as I opened the fridge door. “I don’t see why you’re ordering out, anyway. You don’t have money for it.”

“I used your card.”

I stood up and glared at her. “What the fuck, Melissa?”

“I was hungry and you were taking forever at work to come home and make something.”

I smashed my hand on my face and growled. “You’re not two. Make something yourself.” Then I frowned and looked back in the fridge to move things around. “Besides, I made a huge bowl of spaghetti the other day so we’d have leftovers for a couple of days.”

It wasn’t there. The Tupperware wasn’t chilling in the fridge like I expected it to be. As I stood up and slammed the door shut, I debated, not for the first time, how to hurt her. “Where is it?”

“Devin ate it earlier.” She shrugged.

“You gave your boyfriend all of it?”

“He has quite the appetite.”

Eww. She was trying to be funny, making a joke about what else he wanted from her. I knew too well. They weren’t quiet about it no matter how often I said I was trying to sleep.

“And he’s not my boyfriend,” she corrected. “We sort of broke up before you came home.”

“I don’t—” I growled, pushing past her to go to my room. “I don’t fucking care.”

“Hey! Where are you going?”

I flipped her off, not turning to face her.

“I’m hungry.”

“Then make some fucking food yourself.” I stopped short. “Figure it out on your own.” I grabbed my phone out of my purse and unlocked it to lock the card she had access to. “All on your own.”

“Hannah! You can’t do that!”

I glowered at her. “Done.” I lifted my phone to show her the screen, and she lunged at me.

“You bitch! You ungrateful bitch!”

I hurried into my room and slammed the door shut as she tried to reach me. I had just enough time to flick the lock.

“Hannah! You fucking bitch! Open the door!” Her fists pounded on the panel, and her feet kicked even lower. The flimsy wooden slab wouldn’t last. This wasn’t her first time lashing out like this.

Sticking my fingers in my ears, I paced in the small space and wondered if this hellish existence would always be my life. I couldn’t possibly deserve this, but I didn’t know how to escape it, to get away from her.

“Unlock that card. Right now. If you know what’s good for you, you'd better give me some money. Now.”

I closed my eyes as I slumped onto my bed. Even though I was seated, I couldn’t really relax and enjoy the fact that I was no longer rushing at work.

My feet ached. Angry grumbles sounded in my stomach, and I winced at the cramps of hunger. As I kept my hands lifted up, my fingers in my ears to block out the sound of my sister, I tried my hardest to zone out and think of a happier time, a happier place.

Throbbing aches intensified in my head, but it wasn’t just because of my sister’s horrible screams and shouts or her furious kicks on my door because I’d cut her off from helping herself to my money.

She had zero reason not to have a job. She had no feasible excuse for not making her own money and taking care of her own meals. None at all.

I was hungry. Overworked. Dehydrated. Stressed. And sleep deprived. All of the above resulted in this nasty headache.

I’d just gotten over a spell of suffering from debilitating headaches from a head injury, too.

Months ago, when I was babysitting a precious infant named Emily, someone had snuck inside their home and kidnapped the baby on my watch. I was hit from behind and fell to the floor. When I woke up, a man helped me sit up.

That stranger was patient, kind, and generous with his help. Even though he had an unspeakable and undeniable dark edge to him, he had shown me so much care and concern that he’d been etched into my mind ever since.

No one had ever worried about me like that before. He was gruff, so tall and hard, with the leanest jaw and darkest eyes, but he’d acted like my freaking hero.

He’d rushed after Emily, and when he ensured that she was recovered and taken care of, he’d immediately helped me to the hospital and warded off all the cops who wanted to investigate.

So much of that incident was a blur. With the head injury, worries about a concussion, and bleeding, I hadn’t been feeling stable to inquire about it all.

I was told that Emily was with her mother again, and that was it.

Nothing had added up about the whole situation, but between recovering from that hit to the head, keeping up with college, and working as much as possible, as usual, I lacked the time to follow up.

It was weird that Becca had never reached out to me again, and it was times like now that I thought of the sweet mother and daughter.

Becca was more like a sister to me than Melissa ever was.

And little Emily was such a joy to babysit.

I fantasized that I could be the “cool aunt” to an adorable baby like her and that I could have a compassionate sister like Becca to talk with.

Since that day, I'd had nothing but stress. Demands from my sister. More expectations at the understaffed hospital. I’d dropped out of school because my headaches had taken so long to subside.

My life was nothing but a series of hardships, and I wished from the bottom of my heart for that man to come back and take care of me again. I was so desperate for anyone to care about me that I was clinging to him like an enigmatic dream guy, something from my imagination.

I didn’t get his name, and I doubted I’d ever see him again.

If I were smart, I’d knock it off with wishing for a run-in with a hardened man like him.

He seemed like a dangerous stranger, but no matter how much I dismissed him and what happened that day while babysitting, I couldn’t forget the recall of feeling so safe when he was near.

That sense of security was a luxury that I bet I’d never have again.

Slowly, I pulled my fingers out of my ears and waited to see if Melissa had given up.

It was quiet out there in the hallway, but I knew better than to assume the coast was clear to go shower or find some crackers and applesauce for a tiny dinner in the kitchen.

I’d rather starve and be stinky than face her.

I stood and walked to the door. My foot landed on a creaky floorboard, and Melissa went at it again, pounding her fists on the door and yelling all over again.

I groaned and dropped face down onto my bed, praying that someone like that mystery man could just appear again, like he had before, and give a shit about my well-being.

Keep dreaming, Hannah. Keep dreaming.