Page 94 of Bratva Knight

But then, that begged the question…how long had they been there? How long hadsix menbeen watching us while I had absolutely no fucking clue?

It wasn’t the time to berate myself, but I definitely would later. If anything happened to Tatiana because I was too consumed to monitor my surroundings, I would never forgive myself.

I turned around and assessed the situation with quick eyes. Six men, spread out in a wide arch in front of us. They each wore a motorcycle vest, the words “THE BROTHERHOOD” stamped across them.

Shit.

The Brotherhood was one of the MC gangs I dealt with back in Vegas. They must have a charter here in New York and, after hearing about what happened to their brothers, decided to enact their own revenge.

One of the men stepped forward. He had long, scraggly hair and a big, bushy beard. “Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Bern,” he said, placing a hand on his chest. “And you are Nikolai Volkov.” He looked to me for confirmation but I said nothing.

If it was Lukyan in my place, he probably would have cracked a joke and made a wise-ass comment. If it were Aleksandr, he’d just grunt. Me? I didn’t waste the time talking unless it was necessary—especially with an enemy.

And that’s definitely what these guys were. They weren’t there to have a nice, pleasant conversation. They were there to kill me.

“Nikolai.” Tatiana peeked out from behind me like a scared little dove. “I’m scared,” she whispered, her body visibly shaking.

“It’s okay, baby. It’ll all be okay,” I said, playing along. She whimpered, a tear falling from her eye. She had a vice-like grip on my arm, staring at the men in front of us with a look of absolute fear.

If I didn’t know her, didn’t know with one-hundred percent certainty that she was putting on this act to appear weak and defenceless so they would underestimate her, I would believe it myself.

“Don’t be scared, Pretty.” The man on the right with the misshapen head said. “We’re only here for him. We won’t hurt you. Why don’t you come over here to me? I’ll take you away from here. Come on.”

Everything in me rebelled at the thought of her stepping away from me. Of her going anywhere near those guys. But our chances of survival greatly improved if she was over there with them. She would be able to attack and take them completely by surprise, since all they saw was a snivelling, scared little woman. A part that Tatiana was playing exceptionally well.

“Leave her alone. She has nothing to do with this.”

“I agree,” Bern nodded. “So why not let Al here take her away? She doesn’t need to see what’s about to happen.”

Tatiana’s hands drifted down my back and grasped the gun tucked into my waistband—the same gun I’d fucked her with only moments ago.

“And what would that be?” I asked, watching the men carefully. They’d begun moving forward inch by inch, so deceptively slowly that I’m sure they thought I wouldn’t notice. But I did.

“You think that you can just come after our own and we wouldn’t retaliate?” Bern tsked. “I thought you Bratva folk were meant to be smart. But I can see you’re not, because if you were, you wouldn’t have come here all alone. Now you're ours.” He peeked around my body to lock eyes with Tatiana. “Come on out, darling. Come on. We’re not going to hurt you.”

Her bottom lip wobbled and she stepped out tentatively from behind me. I had no idea where she’d stashed the gun. I couldn’t see it, and yet I’d felt her take it.

“I just want to go home to my mum and dad. Please. D-don’t hurt me.” Her voice quivered so much, I honestly thought she was about to burst into tears. Her acting skills were goddamn phenomenal.

“No one is going to touch you, Princess. We just want to talk to your boyfriend. That’s all.”

“Just t-talk?”

Bern smiled, all non-threatening. “Just talk. You know, man to man.” He stretched his hand out in offering. It took every ounce of willpower I possessed not to take my knife and cut that fucking hand off, especially when Tatiana stepped away from me to take it.

She obviously had some sort of plan to get out of this, and it was my job to be ready when she put it into effect. Tatiana was a born tactician. The way her brain worked, her ability to think ten moves ahead and come up with quick, effective strategies was something the Bratva had been dying to get their hands on. When she decided not to go through with the initiation to become a Bratva soldier, my father was beyond disappointed. He wanted to put that genius mind of hers to work.

I watched in agony as Bern led her towards Al. I had all of three seconds to regret the decision to let her walk away when she glanced over her shoulder at me.

MyTatiana was back. Her eyes held that fire, that craziness I loved so much that she’d been hiding behind all those tears. Her lips were set into a dark smirk and I saw the exact moment she planned to strike. Bern’s face dropped slightly when he took in her expression, but by then it was too late.

Tatianamoved. She pulled Bern towards her with a strength that surprised the man and he stumbled into the gun she pulled out, the barrel pressing right into his abdomen. She fired, spun and fired again, a clean shot straight through Al’s forehead.

Everything kicked into overdrive. I whipped out my guns and took two shots, both hitting their targets before I dove for Tatiana, tackling her out of the line of fire.

Bullets whizzed past us, bouncing off the brick walls and slamming into the metal dumpsters. We scrambled into a crouch and stayed low as the last two MC men fired relentlessly.

Theclick-click-clickringing out in the alley told me they’d run out of bullets. Tatiana and I locked eyes. She peeked over the top of the dumpster and said, “11 o'clock and 3 o'clock.”

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