Page 1 of Bratva Knight

Chapter One

Nikolai Volkov

“Iswear,youdriveme absolutely fucking insane!” I screamed, glaring down at the tiny little bombshell in front of me.

Tatiana Andreeva was the bane of my existence. Long, golden hair. Soft, sun-kissed skin. Curvy hips. She had the face of an angel and the attitude of the fucking devil.

For four years, she’d consumed my every waking thought. Made me ache with a burning, unrelenting need. For four years, she’d tortured me with heated glances and that sassy fucking mouth. Testing my patience, my self-control. She was always on my mind. Under my skin. In my heart. No matter what I did or how hard I tried, I couldn’t get her out.

Tatiana smirked, a sparkle in those bewitching hazel eyes. She enjoyed riling me up, fucking lived for it. “Calm down, Nicky, before you give yourself an aneurysm.”

I ground my teeth together. She knew I hated it when she called me Nicky. She did it on purpose just to piss me off, like everything else she did. A constant thorn in my side.

“How many times have I told you not to go running alone? It’s dangerous.”

“And how many times haveItoldyouto mind your own damn business. What I do isn’t your concern. Not anymore.”

Pain lanced through my heart and I sucked in a harsh breath. Guilt flashed across Tatiana’s face for the briefest moment before she shut it down, returning to the cold, hard ice queen she always was around me.

She might think that was the case, but she couldn’t be more wrong. Anything andeverythingto do with her was my concern. No matter what happened between us, no matter where we stood with each other, she would always be my concern.

The blistering heat of the Las Vegas sun bore down on me, sweat trickling down the back of my neck. We were around the corner from my house. I could see the tall, iron fence surrounding the property standing tall in the distance.

Tatiana only lived a few miles away. I’d seen her jogging on the side of the road when I was on my way home. She had absolutely no sense, unaware of the danger she’d put herself in. It would be so easy for someone to just pull over and shove her in their car. Shit like that happened all the time in Vegas. People disappeared, never to be seen or heard from again.

Three blue vans zoomed past, pulling up into my driveway and stopping at the guardhouse. It made me frown in suspicion.

Who the fuck are they?I wasn’t aware of any visitors dropping by.

My suspicions vanished when the iron gates swung open, allowing them entry. Whoever they were, they’d been given permission to enter. Otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to get in.

“Look, Nicky, I’ve got somewhere I need to be. So if we’re done here—”

“No, we are not done here,” I barked, cutting her off. I stepped into her space, standing nose-to-nose with her as I stared her down.

Tatiana’s breath hitched slightly, her eyes flaring. Sexual tension snapped the air taught around us, raw and magnetised. My skin hummed with awareness at having her so close, our bodies less than an inch away from each other’s.

That was the way it was with us. The way italwayswas. Any time we were in each other’s orbit, it was like the attraction between us justexploded, igniting like gasoline on a fire.

The chemistry that burned between Tatiana and I was cosmic. The type of shit people wrote stories about, sang songs about. It would never fade. Never lessen. Never diminish. It would blaze as strong as the sun until the day we died.

The sound of a gunshot ripped my gaze away from Tatiana’s, my eyes snapping to my three-story home in the distance.

Did that come from there?

More gunshots echoed out in the air and I jumped into action, pulling out my Beretta from behind my back.

I quickly handed my car keys to Tatiana. “Get out of here. Now.”

I should have known she wouldn’t fucking listen.

She stared at my open hand with derision, her lip turned up in disgust. “If you think I’m just going to leave when something is clearly going on, you’re even dumber than I thought you were.”

“Goddamn it, Tatiana, I don’t have time to argue about this with you. Get your ass in that fucking car, or I swear to God, you’re going to regret it. I’m not playing around with you.”

She plopped her hands on her hips, staring me down. “I’m. Not. Leaving.” Her shoulders were squared with determination, lips pressed firmly together.

My phone vibrated in my pocket. I dug it out, keeping my irritated scowl firmly on her. I quickly glanced at the screen. It was a text from my brother, Aleksandr, in our WhatsApp group chat with all our soldiers.

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