Page 1 of The Bratva's Forced Kidnapped Bride
Chapter 1 - Masha
Scrolling through the different views on the multiple screens in front of me, I shook my head to keep myself awake. Watching over empty offices and deserted hallways was even worse than the endless stakeout duty I took this job to get away from.
Well, that and to have some much-needed free time to gather information. After one last cycle through the system, I snapped one of the screens off, catching a short glimpse of myself in my boxy brown uniform. Not cute, as my cousin’s new wife told me. Most of the other security guards at Mat’s new business were men, and my uniform was just the smallest size they had available. Not flattering, and not even that comfortable, I still didn’t mind it because I could easily hide a multitude of weapons under the bulky expanse of fabric.
Imagine a security guard without a weapon. Yeah, I didn’t count the little can of pepper spray we kept snapped in a case on our belts. But only a fool would try to break into Taurus Ingenuity now that it had changed hands from Gordon Taurus to my cousin Mat. Not too many people knew about the changeover—or the somewhat unusual way he acquired it—but the ones who did wouldn’t dare mess with him. Those who didn’t wouldn’t use force to get what they wanted; they’d try to hack their way in. And that was someone else’s problem.
Taking the job was a way to get out of stakeout duty, but now that I’d made sure no one was breaking in or vandalizing the property, and the few people in the pit at that time of night were being quiet, I could finally log into the program CJ was letting me test out for her.
At least that was the excuse I gave so she’d install her brand new spyware on one of the squeaky-clean Taurus Ingenuity machines I was allowed to use. She didn’t know what I was really doing, because she would have immediately told Mat, who would have tried to talk me out of it. Oh, not with a conversation, he knew that wouldn’t work. He’d fire me and put me back with his crew, keeping our many enemies in line. Not that I minded that. I lived for a good smackdown, but they were few and far between lately since his power had been solidifying.
The real problem with working for my cousin, the newest Bratva kingpin in the Silicon Valley area, was that he’d changed since he married CJ.
Well, not really, since he married her, because he originally only married her as payment for a debt her father owed him, and for the first few weeks of their lives together, I wouldn’t have classified their union as wedded bliss. But things changed, and now he was… not exactly soft. No one could ever call anyone in the Fokin family soft. But he had gotten annoyingly protective and had been spouting nonsense about putting certain things behind me and looking forward to the future.
Um, hell no. Some things couldn’t scurry away and hide in the past. No, some things needed to be dragged, kicking and screaming, if necessary, to the present. That’s where the spyware came in, but so far, I wasn’t having much luck with my true aim, though I’d managed to learn a few more things about a shadowy new organization that had been popping up here and there.
They first showed up in Moscow, causing some of my cousins to make an emergency trip over there to tighten up their security. Then, in LA, where most of my American cousins lived. We were a huge family, and we were getting bigger all the time, thanks to the elders marrying and having babies. When I finallygot to come over and show what I could do, I screwed up on one of my most important assignments.
While I was trying to remedy that, the least I could do was help to bring down this gang that called themselves the Collective, who seemed determined to test our patience. There were rumblings that they were moving north, and if I could trip them up in any way, it would go a long way toward redeeming myself. At least in my own eyes, because my family was being obnoxiously understanding about my greatest mistake.
Why was that such a bad thing? Probably because I was stubborn as hell and hated the fact that one of our worst enemies had gotten away on my watch. Even though I wasn’t actually present at the time and his men orchestrated a massive distraction that had us scattering to put out literal fires, he was under my tender loving care at the time of the breakout. My responsibility and a hell of a big deal.
And it kind of pissed me off that everyone was being so cool about it. If it had been one of Mat’s brothers, they would have still been putting ointment on their bruises for not double and triple-checking the security at the holding facility. I had a sinking suspicion I was being treated differently because I was a woman. Pretty much anyone would be glad they weren’t still limping a full three months after the incident, but it rankled that I barely even got sworn at.
Although that might have been partly because of Mat’s newfound happiness and willingness to hand out forgiveness like cheap Halloween candy.
The stiff collar of my uniform was starting to itch as my neck began to get hot from dredging it all up again. Every night when I logged into CJ’s program, I was filled with hope that I would find something new, anything at all that would putme on the right path. Once again, there was nothing, and the anger crashed over me like the wave that took me out last week when Mat’s head techie, Delta, tried to give me a surfing lesson. Getting my face ground into the rough sand and a nose full of salt water was nothing compared to my burning desire to make things right.
Trying to push it aside, I pored over what little new stuff there was on the Collective. Not super useful, but I copied it all to a file that I’d send over to Delta and his crew to add to everything we already had. My back was screaming, and I twisted it to work out the kinks, nearly letting out an undignified yelp when I saw one of the pit guys standing behind me, staring at my screens.
The pit wasn’t as awful as it sounded, just the nickname all the people who worked in the cubicles in the big open area on the main computing floor called it. It was still pretty chaotic during the day, but during the wee hours of my shift, there were usually only a handful of hardcore employees who stayed to work.
Marcus saw me twitch when I caught him staring, but he only cut his eyes quickly at me, nodding a terse greeting before searching the small squares showing the layout of the entire building. He was laser-focused, but not on my top-secret side project, which I had shut down before he noticed one of the screens wasn’t a camera view.
I sighed. “Hide and seek?”
He grinned at me, pushing a hand through his somewhat greasy hair. His team was working on something big, not that they all weren’t, but it seemed like this particular group hadn’t gone home in days. They sometimes took these little sanity breaks when they hit a wall with their programming.
“Did you think I was spying?” he asked, giving me his full attention and nodding toward the now dark screen directly in front of me. “Hey, I don’t care if you’re playing a game. I could join you, maybe?”
“It’s a single player,” I said.
I liked him and his little group of intense geniuses, and the long nights of nothingness had led me to get to know them a bit. Marcus frequently brought me coffee, and when I was covering for someone on a day shift last week, he invited me out to lunch. I was hungry, and I felt like he could benefit from some natural light, so I accepted, and now he might have had a tiny crush on me.
I wasn’t exactly stringing him along, but one of the best ways to get information was through insider gossip, so I wasn’t shutting him down, either. I realized he was gazing at me as he prattled away about some game he wanted to start developing.
“So then the rejuvenated souls will be able to leave the body behind. I’m still deciding what to do with the bodies.”
“Zombies?” I asked politely, following him to the coffee maker in the employee kitchen.
He looked at me with disappointment. “Absolutely not zombies. But I don’t want them to be just lying around either, so I was thinking about…”
Half an hour later, I was freshly caffeinated and almost looking forward to the copy of his game he promised me once he found some free time to create it.
“Which might never happen if we can’t find that damn bug that keeps crashing our interface,” he said. According to the whoops and hollers coming from down the hall, the hide-and-seek break he’d abandoned was winding up, and he sighedgustily at having to go back to work. His dark circles had dark circles.
“Why not just go develop the game?” I asked.
