Page 4 of Cruel Bratva King

Two intense dark eyes were staring back at me. The owner of those eyes was the most handsome man I’d ever seen. He was six foot five at the least, had muscles that couldn’t be hidden beneath his gray suit, and the broadest shoulders I’d ever seen.

His face was chiseled, his lashes long and as thick as his brows. Handsome was an understatement; he was beautiful in a masculine way. There was something mysterious and dark about him, and he was irresistible. On an average day, I didn’t get thrilled by adrenaline, but today had been anything but average.

My stomach lurched, and butterflies awakened inside when he spoke to me. “Hello,krasivaya,” he said, his eyes boring into mine. “It’s nice to meet you.”

His lips curled into a crescent smile, and my heartbeat slowed until I completely forgot how to breathe. Fuck, this is what it meant for someone to take your breath away.

Chapter 2 - Sergey

Tonight is a good night for bloodshed,I thought as I stepped into the club.

The sound of gunshots could be buried under the deafening music, and with the crowd in the club, no one would notice if one man or even dead men were dead. With the smell of alcohol ricking in the air, no one would notice if it blended with the stench of fresh blood.

Tonight, I had to drink with my enemies and make a pact to end the lengthy rivalry between the Italian and Russian mafia.

I took my hand to my chest, feeling the extra gun I’d strapped beneath my suit jacket. As the leader of the Russian mafia in Chicago, I believed in one quote, and it was a popular one in this dark underworld: If you must dine—or drink—with your enemies, youneedan extra gun and bullets strapped to your chest.

Especially if that enemy was Giovanni Pietro, head of the Italian Mafia in Chicago and lifelong rival of the Bratva. Giovanni was a ruthless bastard, cunny and twisted like every mafia boss to have ever existed.

I was just as twisted and ruthless as he was, maybe even more. Our minds were corrupt, our thirst for each other’s blood insatiable. We’d lost hundreds of men trying to kill each other since I became pakhan twenty years ago, and we’re going to lose more until either of our heads was severed from our bodies.

But before that happened, we needed something—an alliance with each other. Of course, it wasn’t going to end the war between us; it was only going to warm the animosity air between us until one of us was traitorous enough to end the other’s life.

Only then would the war end.

I strode to my office, some of my best men behind me.

There were only five minutes left before Giovanni’s arrival at the club. I almost laughed at the thought of it. The man I’d been hunting for years would come into my club any moment from now, and no matter how I thought of it, the night could only end in one way.

In peace or in war, there was no in-between.

“You know you don’t have to do this,brat,” my younger brother and right-hand man, Nikolai, said behind him. “That man, Giovanni, is an animal. You can’t trust him.”

I pushed the oak door to my office open. “I do not trust him.” I wouldn’t have had my men and myself weaponed and ready for war if I did. “I’m only improvising for now.”

“He could kill you.”

I halt and turn to Nikolai. “I will never die by Giovanni’s hands.” Only one Russian had ever died at the hand of an Italian, and I wasn’t going to top that number to two. I would rather kill myself than be killed by one of those pussy-ass bastards who couldn’t even treat their women right. “Go outside and bring him in.”

Nikolai obliged with a reluctant nod. “Yes,brat.” He left the office.

Nikolai was the eldest of my younger brothers. He was the only one who’d been by my side since I became the head at the age of twenty-two, after the brutal death of our father. I understood his concerns and fears, but in our world, fear was a luxury we couldn’t afford.

My father had made sure I understood that from the moment I could talk; it was his own way of preparing me for the throne of hell.

I walked to my black mesh chair and sat, reminding myself I had to control my hatred for Giovanni.

I heard footsteps down the hallway before the door handle twisted, and Nikolai walked in with Giovanni and a few of his men behind him.

The smell of cigarettes followed them in—Giovanni’s signature cigarette. He knew I hated it, but smoking in here was his way of telling me he was in control despite the fact that he was in my territory.

It was also his way of poking me, a failed attempt at drawing a reaction out of me.

“Well. Well,” he said, taking the chair across my desk and puffing smoke into the air. “We meet again, Sergey Vadim. Who would have thought we would meet under such friendly circumstances.”

The feeling wasn’t mutual, our meeting was far from peaceful, and the fucker knew that. The air was even more tense than it used to be when we didn’t need to hide under the false pretense of a “peaceful” meeting.

Right now, it was a battle of who was the most observant and who would betray the other first.

---