Page 1 of Marked & Bred By the Bratva
One
Ava
Oh my God, it has a bed.
Not an air mattress, not a pull-out. Not a Craigslist couch with mysterious stains. A real-life bed with a real-life mattress. And, holy crap, are those clean sheets?
“Stop,” I whisper to the empty room. “You’re spoiling me.”
I set my suitcase down and do a little spin in the center of the living room, arms wide. The whole place is tiny. Like, sneeze-and-you’ll-hit-a-wall tiny. But it’s clean, it’s cold (air conditioning?!), and it doesn’t smell like sadness or cat pee. Honestly? I feel like I just leveled up in life.
Sure, the rent is suspiciously low, and I got the keys after signing a lease online from a man who only communicated in two-word text messages. But who cares? It’s mine. My own place. My firstsolo apartment. I feel like such an adult, and I haven’t even unpacked my off-brand shampoo yet.
The kitchen is basically a hallway; the bathroom has a mirror so old it makes me look like a goblin, and the only window in the whole place is barred like I’m living in some experimental prison. But still.
After six months of couch surfing, sleeping on floors, and pretending microwave popcorn counts as dinner, this feels like a damn palace.
I drop onto the mattress and bounce once, grinning like a lunatic. It doesn’t squeak. It doesn’t sag, doesn’t smell like feet.
There’s a bottle of water on the nightstand. Unopened. Beads of condensation still clinging to the sides.
“Okay, fancy,” I mutter, picking it up. “Little welcome gift? Five-star treatment?”
I twist off the cap and take a sip, shrugging. Not poisoned. Cold. Nice.
I stretch out on the bed and stare at the ceiling, hands behind my head, grinning like a dork. “You did it, Ava,” I whisper to myself. “You’re a grown woman now. With your own address. A lock on the door. A whole-ass bed to yourself. Living the dream.”
* * *
The next morning, I open my door and walk straight into a brick wall of a man.
Not literally. But close.
He’s stepping out of the apartment across the hall, and for a second, we just freeze. Me, wide-eyed. Him, looking like he eats barbed wire for breakfast.
He’s huge. Tall, broad, dark-haired, dark-eyed. Everything about him is big, intense and way too hot for a building that charges rent via cash app. His handsome face is serious, his full mouth unsmiling, his jaw sharp enough to cut glass. My ovaries immediately perk up.
“Hi,” I say, smiling instinctively. “Neighbor?”
He nods once. Barely grunts. He doesn’t even stop walking.
And… that makes him hotter.
I stand there for a beat too long after he disappears down the stairs, biting my lip and fanning myself with one hand.
Two
Lev
She looked right at me.
Smiled, like she wasn’t walking into the worst mistake of her life. Like I was just some neighbor, not the man who rigged her lease. She said hi, bright, soft and fucking sunny, and all I could do was grunt. Nod. Walk away before I did something insane, like drag her back into her apartment and make her say it again with her mouth full of cock. She smelled like fucking flowers. Looked like a goddamn wet dream. Full tits, thick ass, perfect fucking mouth. All wrapped in that soft little body, and I knew right then I wasn’t gonna be able to wait long.
* * *
My girl talks to herself when she’s alone. Not in a weird way. Not in a sad way. In a fucking adorable way.
Like tonight, bent over a kitchen drawer, muttering, “I swear toGod, if one more thing sticks out…”
