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Copyright © February 2022 by Jenika Snow
First E-book and Paperback Publication: February 2022
Photo provided by: Adobe Stock
Cover Designer: Cormar Covers
Editors: Kayla Robichaux, Lea Ann Schafer
Beta Reader: Judy Ann Loves Books
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This literary work is fiction. Any name, places, characters and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or establishments is solely coincidental. Please respect the author and do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials that would violate the author’s rights.
My father sold me off to a ruthless killer in the Russian mafia, an alliance between the Bratva and the Cosa Nostra.
An arranged marriage where I’d be at the mercy of the man who’d no doubt see me as his property, where I was sure he’d be just as cruel and violent as every other Made Man I’d known in my life.
Nikolai Petrov, known to be a sociopath and for killing anyone for the smallest infraction. And I'd be forever tied to him, an accessory he could use or dispose of any way he saw fit.
And then I found myself painted red, my wedding dress stained in blood. A man dead by my husband's hands for simply touching my hair.
I was terrified of the lengths Nikolai would go to get what he wanted… to keep me as his, but despite all of that I felt something far stronger, far more dangerous.
Need. Want. Dark and depraved desire. And it was all for the man who said I was his.
For better or worse.
PROLOGUE
Nikolai
We’d arrived at Butcher and Son, a decades-old abandoned slaughterhouse in the outskirts of Desolation, New York ten minutes ago. I looked down at my watch, expecting Arlo Malkovich any minute.
Arlo, a free agent in the crime syndicate known as the Ruin, did the dirty shit other men couldn’t or wouldn't. Body clean-up, mercenary work, torture, and hits ordered down from the higher-ups from all factions of the underworld.
The Cartel, Bratva, Cosa Nostra, and any other illegal entity that needed a hub to get their guns, drugs, trafficking, or kills done easily and without legal interference.
And that’s exactly what we were going to use Arlo for.
Our dirty work.
Not that I personally gave a fuck if anyone knew we were about to put a hit out on Leonid Petrov, our father and the Pakhan of the Desolation branch of the Bratva. The asshole had this long coming, and had dodged more attempted hits on his life over the decades than I could count.
The sound of a car pulling in, gravel being kicked up, and then followed by an engine being cut, a door being opened and closed sounded. I straightened and glanced at the partially opened metal doors just as footsteps echoed off the walls and Arlo stepped inside.
I glanced at my brother as he leaned against the rusted walls of the warehouse, Dmitry’s body relaxed although I saw the lines around his tightened lips. He brought a cigarette to his lips and lit it, the end flaring a second before he inhaled, held it in, and then exhaled, tendrils of smoke curling around him. He brought it to his mouth again and inhaled, and I could see the tension growing in him. The end of his cigarette lit up once more in the darkness, a flare of brilliant orange as he inhaled.
I kept to the shadows as Arlo came closer, his focus on my brother. I knew he couldn't see me shrouded in the corner and I grinned.
Arlo stopped a few feet from where Dmitry still leaned against the wall. “Your brother can crawl out of whatever dark hole he’s occupying anytime now.” His voice was low and I grinned wider and laughed, the sound echoing off the rusty, debilitated walls.The fucker.
Dmitry inhaled from his cigarette again, that smoke circling him, clouding his visage, his focus trained on Arlo. My brother didn’t say shit, just flipped theash from his cigarette, took one more hit, then flicked it away before pushing off the wall and coming to stand before Arlo.
I tensed, taking a step closer but staying in the shadows, my hand on the butt of my gun as I prepared to fight dirty.
