The Priest: Bratva Blood Five: (A Dark Mafia Romance) Read online

  The Priest

  BRATVA BLOOD SERIES

  Skye Jones

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Epilogue

  Thank you

  MORE BOOKS BY SR JONES

  Copyright Skye Jones writing as SR Jones – 2021

  This is a work of fiction and any resemblance to people real or imagined is entirely coincidental.

  This work contains adult themes and is only suitable for people aged eighteen and over.

  The series does contain dark themes, and therefore, trigger warnings apply.

  Thanks to my editor, Silla Webb – you rock!

  Amazing beta’s Jessica, and Tami!

  Obeithion Covers for the beautiful cover.

  Wander Aguiar for the stunning photography!

  All the Addicted 2 Alpha ladies – thank you for all your support.

  Chapter 1

  The air is cool, and tiny bumps form along my skin. Whether from the chill or the hungry gaze of my captor raking over me, I don’t know.

  The man next to me flicks his cigarette to the ground, takes one more sweep of my body with his oily gaze, and drags me inside the house.

  I’m tired, cold, and hungry.

  Since these men took me, I’ve only eaten a couple of slices of bread and had a few glasses of water. I don’t know how long I’ve been with them exactly because they drugged me at first, but it must be days.

  They came and took me at night, when I was in my long t-shirt style nightdress, and this, and a worn top and shorts they let me grab, are all I have on me.

  I changed into this after the last time he dragged me out here, thinking it might be a bit warmer, it isn’t.

  The damn thing isn’t warm at all, and it’s heading into winter here. Although, thank God, they’ve kept me by the coast. It would be much colder up in the mountains. I don’t think we’re near my home of Dubrovnik anymore, but I can’t be sure.

  If it weren’t for the fact that I don’t know where we are, and the ocean looks rocky around here, I would risk swimming for it if I had the chance.

  I haven’t had the chance because they haven’t left me untied long enough when they’re not watching me like hawks.

  So far, they’ve pulled and pushed me around and slapped me twice, but they haven’t hurt me beyond that. One of them, though, the one who dragged me outside while he smoked a cigarette, scares me. His eyes are crazy, and I sense any veneer of patience and civility is wearing thin.

  I don’t know who these men are, but I have guessed my kidnapping must be to do with my father. When it comes to my dad, I have no illusions. My father is mafia. An organized crime lord, and it seems he’s pushed his luck too far, and I’m the one paying.

  Father had been honest from the start about what he does. I only see him a few times a year, as he says it is better if people don’t know where or who I am. In some ways, I’m fortunate compared to most young people. I have a home in a stunning World Heritage city. I’m studying my dream subject, and it’s all paid for by my father.

  In other ways, I’m a tragedy.

  Conceived during the dying embers of a civil war, to a mother who died only a year after my birth. I’ve moved around a lot.

  My earliest memories are fighting, gangs, and terror.

  I’m lucky in many other ways. I’m educated, multilingual, and I know I’m pretty, so on the surface I have it all. Scratch that surface, though, and I’m nothing but a lost little girl who has never felt safe, and now the monsters of my nightmares are made of flesh.

  One of the other men saunters into the room and says something in Polish, a language I don’t understand. He and the one who scares me laugh, and then Scary Eyes trails his finger down my arm. I shudder and pull away, and they only laugh more.

  Not wanting to give into the terror I’m feeling, something telling me to do so will ignite a deeper hunger in these predatory men. I catalogue how I’m going to support myself in the future so that I no longer need Father’s money.

  It will hurt to lose my only family, but I can’t live like this. I need a new start. I can’t do that if I rely on him to support me. Once I’m able to, I’ll cut the purse strings and the family ties along with them. Something tells me that despite being hurt, my father will understand. He’s nothing if not pragmatic.

  As soon as I’m qualified and can gain employment, I’ll sell my apartment and work full-time for all that I own. I’ll never take a penny from Father again.

  I’m studying for a degree in psychology at Dubrovnik University, and I must admit the beauty of the city I now live in won me over. I had been almost happy. For the first time in many years, I felt settled, and then these men turned up and took me.

  These bastards shattered everything in one fell swoop.

  I’m cold, hungry, and scared. I try not to show it. I really do, but their smirks tell me I’m horrifyingly transparent.

  One thing my father taught me is to never show fear. Not unless you think it might help you. With these men? I don’t think it will help. I don’t know how long I can keep up this charade though.

  The one who dragged me back inside says something to me in Polish.

  “I don’t understand,” I tell him. “Sorry, I don’t speak Polish.”

  I’ve said this about twenty times now. I force myself to remain calm each time I do as I don’t want to antagonize him.

  “I said,” he says, deliberately and slowly in English, as if I’m stupid. “Your father hasn’t done what is asked of him yet, and we haven’t heard from Jan.”

  I don’t know who Jan is, but I figure he must be their boss as they’ve referenced him a few times. It strikes me as bad for my long-term prospects that they’re dropping his name around me. Even if my father pays up, I don’t think they’ll let me live. I’ve seen their faces.

  “A few more hours of no contact, and I say you’re fair game,” he sneers.

  “What does fair game mean?” I ask him.

  “It means we start to cut bits from you,” the other one, the blond, says.

  He’s cold, but he doesn’t scare me as much as this one with the reddish-brown hair and green eyes. The blond doesn’t strike me as crazy the same way the redhead does.

  I’ve named them all. There’s Blond, and then the crazy one, Red. The other two guys were easy enough; one is Brown because his hair is brown, and the other, who also has brown hair, is Legs. That’s because he has to be around six-foot-seven, and it’s all in his legs. He’s tall, lanky, and pimpled, and I think he might only be young, like me.

  It reminds me how soon my birthday is. I hope to God I’m still not stuck with these goons for my birthday. Then again, if not, I may be dead.

  “Before we do the cutting, though,” Red says to Blond, bringing me back to the moment. “I’m going to do some fucking.”

  I gasp before I regulate my response. He turns to me, and satisfaction shines in his pretty green eyes. It’s a shame su
ch an evil man has such a pretty face. He turns my stomach the way he looks at me. “Yeah, you don’t like that, huh? Miss Prim and Proper. Miss Principessa.”

  Principessa is Italian for Princess, and it’s a nickname my father used for me when I lived in Italy. These men know much more about me than I like.

  “You act all fucking controlled, but I know you’re scared.” He comes closer to me, prowling around me like a jackal. “Do you know how I know? Huh?”

  I shake my head, swallowing down my fear at his closeness. He stinks. Sweat, smoke, and sour alcohol from all the drinking he’s been doing. “I can scent it on you. I smell your fear. I can smell your pussy too.”

  I flinch. His words make me want to curl up and cry.

  He laughs and turns to Blond who seems entirely sanguine about the psychotic turn Red has taken.

  “See, cutting a finger off is good to scare the old man, but to really fuck her up, we need to fuck her. She’s like all of them. Guards her pussy as if it is something special.”

  He gets right into my face. “It’s just a hole, whore.”

  I stare at him, and through the fog of my terror something new burns. It’s vital, alive, and strong. Anger. I grab onto it and hold it tight because my fear won’t get me through this. Anger might. Hate too.

  My calm hasn’t worked. I did what my father told me to do. I hid my fear, and it hasn’t worked. These men are scared too. I sense it underneath their anger and bravado, there is fear. They haven’t heard anything from this Jan they work for. Has their boss decided to wash his hands of this? Has my father figured out who moved against him and killed Jan already?

  Why hasn’t my father given these men what they want? Unless… It’s something he can’t give them. He won’t hand over his men, the ones loyal to him. Not even for me. I know as much. What he would do is send his men in to save me, and the fact they haven’t shown doesn’t bode well.

  I’m in the dark and scared, but now I have a new friend. Anger.

  “When I decide to make it so, that hole is mine, not yours.” Red smirks.

  I smile at him in return, slowly, and then I spit in his face.

  He screams something in Polish and backhands me so hard I fall to my side. I end up half sprawled over a chair. Pain slams into my side, and the breath leaves me as my ribs scream in protest at the hard wood digging into them.

  I don’t have time to try to right myself because calloused hands grab me and haul me up, and then I’m being dragged roughly across the floor. I still can’t find my breath and I gasp, trying to take in air. My fingers scrabble at the hand wrapped around my throat, but the hold is unmoving.

  Blond says something to Red, who is the one dragging me through the house, but Red ignores him.

  The third man appears at the doorway. He has rich, dark brown hair and is built like a tank.

  He grins at Red. “Going to have some fun, huh?”

  He says it in English, which is purposeful, I understand as much. They are playing with me, the way a cat toys with a mouse instead of simply killing it. This is fun for them.

  “Until we get word from Jan, don’t cut bits off her,” Brown says.

  “No cutting; got it, Boss.”

  So the brown haired one is the boss. I file that away.

  There’s only these three and Legs, who is outside on the dock, keeping guard with his gun.

  The house is eminently defendable. It’s on a rocky outcrop, with only one road in and a dock that a boat can pull up to. Behind it is nothing but miles of forest.

  There’s a huge gate and fence around the house on the land side, and nothing but the dock and the ocean to the front. The gate and fence are electric; they informed me of this when we first arrived, and there’s always a guard on the dock.

  Even if I did escape, the coast here is rocky, and I wouldn’t know which way to swim. There are big cliffs either side of us, and the wind is strong here. I would imagine the currents could be dangerous. I know the ocean, and I respect it. I love being in or on it. Diving and sailing are my two favorite pastimes, and they’ve both imbued me with a healthy respect for the water alongside my love of it.

  Still, if my options are rape or risking my life in the ocean, I’ll take the ocean. I’d kill myself before I let Red touch me. I hate him.

  Pulling me up the stairs, Red kicks open a door and throws me onto the bed.

  “Ah, who would have thought I’d find love on Korcula.” He laughs, but I file that fact away.

  Now I know where I am. Korcula, an island off the Croatian riviera.

  I kick at him as he comes near me, but he merely laughs as one blow lands on his side.

  “I like it when they fight.” He grins manically at me.

  Then he bends down and licks my cheek.

  Dear God, I pray for the first time in many years, please help me.

  Chapter 2

  I shift position, uncomfortable, prone like this on the hard ground.

  I’ve been watching the house where Roze Muka is being held for a few hours now.

  My first assignment for a new company specializing in close protection of extremely high worth individuals and more specialized jobs, like this one. Hostage extraction.

  Target: Roze Muka.

  Assignment: Extract and guard, until told to come in. Kill all hostiles.

  I have the target for extraction on my phone, a picture of her given to us by her father.

  She’s a mafia princess. The daughter of a high up member of a loose grouping called The Starz Allianz. Her father, Gezim Muka is about to take over the alliance because the previous leader, a fool called Janusz Nowak is now dead.

  The organization I work for had a hand in his death, and now I’m following up.

  There’s a minor civil war going on within the group between Polish and Albanian factions, and Janusz was the Polish faction’s leader. Now, with him gone, Gezim can take on the role of leader, but his daughter has been taken, in a chain of events put into motion by Janusz before he died.

  I’ve taken the job of getting her back because I know I won’t fuck it up.

  Oh, who am I fooling. I took the job for another reason.

  I saw Roze’s picture and wanted to save her.

  I don’t know why. Why care for this woman out of all the people who are in danger at this moment in time? I’ve seen a lot of collateral damage in my time, but her face is such an exquisite mix of beauty, innocence, and sadness that it called to me the moment I saw her photograph.

  She’s also young, only nineteen, and from the intel Gezim shared, she has led a relatively sheltered life. She knows vaguely what her father is and what he does, but she’s not of his world. She’s studying and wants to be a shrink. I have no time for the men who enter the world of organized crime, but I have time for an innocent woman caught up in it through no fault of her own other than who she was born to.

  When I took the job with a group of Russian Special Forces operators and ex-Bratva, I did so because Cole, my long-time compadre from the military, vouched for them.

  He told me they were legit now and setting up the world’s pre-eminent security firm. One of them, a deadly as fuck Russian called Andrius, was basically only Bratva to hunt down men who had wronged him and take them out. Some of the others were more deeply involved but have turned their backs on that world.

  I shift again, a tiny movement against the hard ground. I’m used to the discomfort and pain of sitting or lying on rocky earth for hours. I’ve been in much worse positions than this.

  In fact, I’ve missed it. The discomfort is a form of penance and meditation rolled into one.

  I need to be doing something, not sitting around losing my mind. It’s why the offer of work with this secretive group called to me. Plus, the fact that all those involved are ex-Special Forces of one nation or another. The fact there’s a smattering of SAS and SBS guys involved either directly, or as backers, gave me confidence this isn’t some sort of scam.

  It’s a venture wh
ich will have a lot of interest. Every month the world seems to become a more dangerous place. Every month the gap between the super-rich and the rest of humanity widens, and the Russian’s, Konstantin and Andrius, saw a market for the kind of protection only those with the deepest pockets could buy.

  I tried to live a normal life back home in Georgia, working the chop shop with my brother, but it wasn’t for me. I miss the high. I miss the purpose. I miss the camaraderie, if I’m honest. I might be a quiet fucker, but I liked falling asleep listening to my brothers in arms arguing about who had the best rack, or which MRE was most likely to kill you.

  The United States government took me and forged an elite fighting machine out of the mess of bone, muscle, and sinew that made the young man I was, and now I can’t put that machine back in its box.

  I sigh and stretch. Any moment now, I’m going in. I’ve told Andrius I’m in position, and I’m waiting for the go signal.

  Glancing at my phone, I scroll through the profiles of the four men who Gezim thinks are involved.

  He has sent me pictures and basic profiles of the men, all of whom are loyal to Janusz and who Gezim believes are part of this. He said all four might be involved in this, or maybe only three of them. One of them, a lanky, spotty kid, is new to the group, and Gezim thinks they might not have included him in this.

  They have.

  I can see part of the dock at the front of the house. When the person on the dock walks right to the far end, I can spot them. The kid has done so about ten times now. I can see him clearly with my binoculars, and he looks bored, young, and as lanky as Gezim stated.