Page 1 of Savage Boss

Prologue

Moscow, 1989

His arm trembled, his mind raced, and he begged God to get him out of his current situation. Though his insides were chaos, not a single twitch gave him away. Twitches weren’t allowed. They were weakness. And if there was one thing Vlad was not allowed to do, it was show weakness.

Unfortunately, Vlad’s father considered everything about Vlad weak. From his lean, wiry fourteen-year-old body to his thoughtful mind and his love for his mother. Vlad could do nothing but take his father’s abuse and hope that one day he would be strong enough to show his father he deserved the life gifted to him.

Thus, at fourteen-years-old, in an effort to prove his worth to his father, Vlad found himself holding a gun on a man who was tied to a chair and sobbing for his life. Victor Sitnikov stood unmoved next to his son, his face a picture of granite, his arms crossed over his chest. He smelled of cigarettes, sweat, and gun oil. A familiar smell that sent shudders of fear and distaste through his son.

“Do it, Vlady.”

Vlad pulled the trigger.

It was a clean shot to the middle of the forehead. The man’s head was flung back as he slumped, unmoving.

Dead.

Vlad felt burning hatred. Not for the victim in the chair, but for the father who forced him to kill the man. This wasn’t Vlad’s first kill and it wouldn’t be his last. He’d learned at a young age that it was him or them. Because he had no choice. Because he was being made into the image of his father. What little of his mother he was born with had been steadily beaten out of him over the years. Any sense of compassion, understanding, love. Soft emotions that had no place in the Russian Bratva.

Vlad was a fighter. Even at his relatively young age, he was becoming feared on the streets of Moscow. He was Victor’s deadly shadow; the youngest enforcer in the Bratva. He was proud of his accomplishments and hoped that one day his father would see him as an equal.

Instead of praise, Victor pulled the gun from Vlad’s hand, cuffed him in the side of the head with the hot metal and growled, “Clean up your mess.”

Vlad stood with his shoulders straight, unmoving as his father strode away from him. Once he was out of earshot, Vlad approached the body slowly, his gaze on the face of a man he’d once accepted sweets from.

His name was Kostya. He was a shopkeeper who’d had a difficult year and could no longer afford to pay for the mob’s protection. Victor was making an example of him, showing the other building owners and shopkeepers in his territory that failure to make protection payments would result in swift and brutal retribution.

“I’m sorry,” Vlad whispered to the dead man before setting about untying him from the chair and disposing of the body.

* * *

Two years later.

Vlad felt great. He was young, strong and feared. He was king of his small section of Moscow. He’d been his father’s loyal weapon for two years and his hard work and perseverance were finally paying off. Victor was going to go to the Bratva and officially name Vlad as his successor.

It was finally time for Vlad to take a prize.

Svetlana.

She was fifteen, one year younger than Vlad. Beautiful and sweet with long smooth hair, long smooth legs and a smile that lit up the long Russian nights. Vlad was positive he was in love and nothing would stop him from taking what he wanted. Not even Svetlana’s affiliation with the Petrov family, Victor’s oldest enemy in the Bratva. Victor was convinced Petrov stole his seat of power within the Bratva when it should have gone to the Sitnikovs.

Svetlana was Petrov’s niece, but wasn’t really part of the family. Her mother, Petrov’s sister, hadn’t approved of her brother’s affiliation with the mob. She’d taken her young daughter and moved to the city where she opened a sewing shop in Victor’s district.

Vlad had met the girl, who had been minding the store when he’d shown up to collect payment from the mother. Vlad would love to say that he was smooth and suave with the girls, but in reality, he had little experience with the opposite sex.

Sure, he had raging hormones like the other boys his age, but he’d been driven pretty much since birth to prove himself capable of taking over the Sitnikov family one day. Girls were a distraction, not one he could afford.

Until Svetlana. She was going to be the exception.

If all went well, one day she might become his bride. The woman who would produce his future heirs. He blushed as he thought of fucking Svetlana. It was an image that had been occupying his every other thought since he met her a few weeks ago.

Tonight, they were going to consummate their budding relationship; they were going to kiss by the Moskva river outside the Kremlin and Vlad was going to present her with the silver bracelet he’d taken from a jeweller as payment for protection.

He scaled a fence and walked quickly down the alley toward her mother’s shop. Before he could reach their meeting point by the dumpster, someone jumped him from behind, punching him in the back of the head and throwing him to the pavement.

Vlad rolled away and leapt to his feet, knife in one hand, while his other fist went straight into his attacker’s throat. Luckily, Vlad realized who was on the ground on his knees before he gutted the man. It was Sergei, one of his father’s oldest friends and another enforcer. Vlad knew him well as they often worked together, though Sergei’s loyalty belonged to the elder Sitnikov.

Just as Vlad was about to demand what his father’s man was doing in the alley, the old man’s rough voice sounded from behind him. “Boy!”

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