Page 6 of Brooklyn Bratva

I was so pissed with myself. I wasn’t some clueless idiot. I should have had enough street smarts to notice I was being targeted. But I was locked in my fantasy world, daydreaming about Ivan.

It wasn’t the phone that mattered, it was the pictures on it. Snapshots of times with friends and family that could never be replaced. And I knew I should have backed them all up somehow.

His long legs ate up the distance. I couldn’t help but smile when I saw the sudden shift from cockiness to utter terror when the guy Ivan was tailing looked back to see the powerhouse of a man charging after him like John Connor in Terminator.

Ivan was unstoppable. I already knew that. My heart was beating as fast as if I was the one he was chasing.

Part of me wished he was.

Had he recognized me, or was this just the kind of man he was that he’d go after a mugger without a second thought?

It shouldn’t have mattered to me, but some childish part of me wanted him to be doing this for me. As if then I’d know he cared about me, instead of this just being him doing his job.

I was so absorbed in watching him that I barely realized the man from the cafe he’d been in was trying to encourage me back to his shop. I waved him off with a smile.

“I’m fine. Thank you.”

“Come, come. Sit and wait for your friend.”

I didn’t want to go anywhere with anyone I didn’t know. Not after that. All I wanted to do was watch Ivan dispatch the asshole who’d ruined my first day back in the city. I was shaken at how quickly I’d been left on my ass. And how easily surprised I’d been.

All those street smarts I prided myself on couldn’t have evaporated that quickly, could they? Maybe last time I was here, I was too young to be of interest. Now I guess I looked like someone who had the latest tech and was an easy target.

I hated that the first impression Ivan had of me was of a clueless chick who needed rescuing. But at least I got my chance to see him in action. If nothing else I’d at least be able to look back and say I got my hero moment.

He’d caught up with the slower of the pair, and someone let out a shriek as he drew his gun, but the mugger just carried on running.

Suddenly, Ivan leapt forwards, tackling the guy to the ground. The brute force of the move slammed him hard into the pavement and there was a moment of stillness before Ivan grabbed a fistful of the man’s hood and slammed his head hard against the pavement. He yanked the unconscious man’s arms behind him and had him cuffed in a matter of seconds.

To his feet again, he barely broke stride following the second man, and the mugger’s idling pace turned to an out and out sprint. They were nearly out of view when Ivan seemed to get a second wind.

My whole body was tuned to him as I watched the impressive display. He might have been in a suit, but there was nothing to suggest he’d spent much time at all in the past seven years behind a desk. He was running down the sidewalk like an Olympic athlete or some kind of Titan.

Broad shoulders tapered to an almost impossible V at his waist and his thighs bulged inside the legs of his pants as he powered forward.

I held my breath as it looked like the accomplice might get away, but I shouldn’t have had such little faith. He made another lunge, his muscled arms grappling the skinny guy to the floor and they both dropped in a tangle of limbs.

I couldn’t make out what happened from the distance I was at, but by the time they were back on their feet, Ivan had the man’s arm twisted behind him, and my phone in his hand.

Ivan

“Listen, punk,” I wrenched his head back and the man eyeballed me, not even bothering to struggle. He was breathing hard, just like I was, but he had fear in his eyes, where mine had only gotten more serious. “You don’t pull this shit in my neighborhood. Who are you working for?”

Panting hard, he played like he couldn’t get his words out, but I knew better than that. I pulled one arm up behind him, wrenching it hard and kneeling into his bicep until he screamed out like a panicked little bitch who’d never felt real pain. “You tell them they don’t wanna piss me off. You got that? Take your cell phone racket outside my damn neighborhood. This is my town, and you got no permission to be here.”

Only the beat officer who appeared on the scene once I’d secured the suspect stopped me from putting my fist clean through the asshole’s head.

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