Merciless Hunter

“Boss, you’ve got to get back here,” Sasha blurts. He’s speaking so fast I can barely make out his words.

“What’s going on?” I press the phone to my ear and pick up my pace.

“Your house is on fire.”

Fuck! Fucking fuck. I jump in the car and gun the engine, tearing out of the parking lot as fast as I can.

“Are Gabriella and the baby safe?”

“I don’t know. Vincent and Caleb went over to check on them, but I heard gunfire. I’m in the pool house.”

“What the fuck happened?” I bellow as if I don’t already know what happened.

I know, and it’s my fault.

“Men came in and started shooting up the place.”

“Jesus Christ.”

No one can just get onto my property and start shooting up the place. It’s a heavily guarded fortress with armed guards at the front, back, and sides. Anyone who would attempt it has a death wish.

Or has more power than me.

Fuck. So ... it is them.

The Order.

It fucking must be them.

This means they know the truth. They know what I did, and this is my punishment.

This is what you do to get to a man like me.

Me, Aidan Romanov, the infamous Obshchak of the Voirik Bratva, one of the most powerful groups in L.A.

You get to me by going after my weaknesses—my woman and my child.

Clearly, I was being watched, and those fuckers have just been waiting for the right moment to strike.

I thought keeping Gabriella and Aleksei in the house would be safer. But, like everything else lately, I am wrong.

I’m fucking wrong.

Sasha winces in pain. “Boss, I’ve been hit. I’m not going to make it. I’m not—”

He doesn’t get to finish. The echo of a bullet pierces through my ears along with his shouts of anguish.

Then the line goes dead.

I run every traffic light and get to my house in ten minutes. The blaze of the fire was visible from way down the road. Now that I’m here, it looks like a miniature version of the sun.

God in Heaven.

The entire house is on fire. And there doesn’t look like there will be a way where I’ll make it in or out alive.

I rush out of the car, and the sight of my guards strewn out on the lawn with blood and bullet holes all over their bodies makes me stop in my tracks. In the mingle of the moonlight and the wild orange blaze of the fire, the image before me looks like a scene from a horror film.

As I stare, the sickening thought hits me that there’s not a face I don’t recognize.

All are my men. All are men I’ve known for years. Some I grew up with and treated like family.

The crackle of flames snaps my attention back to the real nightmare which might be inside the house.

My Gabriella and Aleksei.

My soul weeps when I imagine my wife and child inside the hellish flames.

They must have gotten out.

This cannot be their fate.

Not because of me.

Aleksei is only a month old. A baby.

I’m his father. It’s my job to protect him from danger.

How could I have been the one to cause this?

Sirens wail in the distance and get closer, but I already know they’ll get here too late and won’t be able to do anything.

Panic pushes through my soul, and I run around the corner of the house, trying to find a way in. I have to make sure my family got out.

Movement on the terrace catches my attention, and a masked man throws a rock at the kitchen window, smashing it. When he sees me, however, he runs in the opposite direction.

With a savage growl, I launch myself forward, vaulting over the balcony as he runs down the stairs.

I knock the fucker to the ground and land a fist in his face, punching in his mask, but it doesn’t come off.

He’s strong, though. He manages to dodge my next blow and escape my hold.

Just as he was about to make a run for it like a fucking coward, I grab his arm and yank him back to me, tearing the sleeve off his shirt. As it comes off and my gaze lands on the tattoo on his forearm of the dagger with the snake going around the handle, I realize I’m right.

This is about the Order. The tattoo marks him as a member.

I stare at the fucking tattoo for a few seconds too long, tightening my grip on his arm.

Above the tattoo is a deep knife scar. He’s about to get another one.

I pull my knife from my back pocket and ram it into his stomach.

He cries out, doubles over, and makes a gurgling sound.

I don’t give him the chance to feel the pain. I have more to deliver his way.

Grabbing his neck, I hoist him into the air.

“Where are my wife and child?” I shout in his face.

“Inside. Inside the house,” he sputters, and something inside me dies.

The same something that warned me I’d be my own destruction. A guy like me should never have gotten involved with a woman like Gabriella. Everything I had with her was too good for me—everything, including our baby.

I did this to them.

A banging sound catches my attention, and I look up to the second floor to see Gabriella knocking on the window. I drop the guy and run across the grass, getting closer to the flames.

The flames are so high, all around and before me, warning me away from the danger.

But I won’t leave her.

I push forward, keeping my gaze trained on my wife. Against the flames, her obsidian hair flows out behind her like a cape, and those champagne-colored eyes widen with terror.

In my mind’s eye, I remember the day we met, the day we got together, and those who tried to keep us apart.

I’m nearly there. Nearly to the mouth of Hell.

The window opens, and she starts calling for me to help her.

“I’m coming,” I shout.

“Aiden, help me. Save me!”

I ready myself to run through the fire, but the second I take my next step, I’m blasted back into the cruel, foreboding darkness when everything explodes around me, and the world ends.

My world ends.

My wife.

My child.

I couldn’t save them.

A shiver skates down my spine when I meet Jude Kuzmin’s cold, heartless stare.

Seated a breath away in my grandfather’s armchair, Jude holds his head high.

Power, control, and the stench of evil emanating from him.

Having just inherited the empire from his late father, Russian Oligarch Mikhail Kuzmin, Jude is just as powerful and wealthy in Russia as he is here in San Francisco.

He’s like a god walking amongst mere mortals on Earth.

Men like him enjoy preying on the weak.

The weak, like me and my mother, who have been rendered helpless because everyone we knew who could protect us is either dead or missing.

To men like Jude, I am a thing. Property. A means to an end of great financial benefit if I don’t do something to stop him.

The contract I just signed resting on the coffee table before us is a testament to that fact. It’s a contract of ownership of me and my inheritance, my family’s company.

Markov Tech.

I’m the world’s poorest multi-billionaire because my fortune is in name only. This devil before me has managed to take everything he could get his hands on, and the last thing left is his name on the company documents.

Everything will be finalized by the lawyers in seven months on our wedding day. The same day I turn twenty-six.

I wonder if my grandfather has turned in his grave yet. Several things have happened to move him.

Every time I think about it, a wave of nausea assails my body, twisting my insides with sickness and grief.

I can confidently say, it’s going to be another bad birthday.

“I do not want any problems from you people,” Jude warns, speaking with a thick Russian accent.

“I assure you there won’t be any,” I reply, masking my hatred by keeping my tone even.

“There better not be.”

I want to tell him to go fuck himself, but I hold my tongue.

I can’t fuck things up and screw myself over by retaliating. Not when I might be close to unearthing such a staggering truth that could change everything.

What I must do is keep going.

Keep up the game.

Keep up the pretense; I don’t know Jude Kuzmin’s dark secrets.

“Okay,” I answer instead. Simple, compliant, obedient. Like the good little servant I need to be.

His gaze switches to my mother, who’s sitting next to me in her wheelchair.

“You are to see to it that everything is in order for this wedding,” he tells her. “Invitations will be sent out in two weeks.”

“Everything will be ready,” she replies.

I hate the way her voice quivers.

Mom is barely in her fifties, but I swear she looks twice her age whenever we’re around Jude.

“Good, I also want the rest of Olivia’s things moved into my house.”

Anyone would think I’m a fucking child the way my mother has to answer for me. I don’t have the usual freedoms a woman my age should have. And, when I start living with him, I won’t have any. He’ll treat me like an animal no one wants.

“All her things are virtually there already.” Mom nods.

“Just make sure it’s all done before I get back from New York.” He moves a lock of his dark hair away from his eyes.

“It will be done.”

That trip to New York will at least give us a break from him, and maybe the window of opportunity we need.

He’ll be back next week.

All I can do is hope Amy comes up with the information we need to find Eric.

Eric, my brother, the rightful heir to our family’s company, who Jude had declared dead five years ago.

Except Eric’s not dead.

Jude did something to him. I don’t know what that something is or where he’s been keeping my brother, but Eric’s alive.

Finding him is the part I have to figure out.

I don’t doubt Amy will do her best to find out what she can. That’s not what I’m worried about. She’s been a friend to me for years and the only person who works at the company I can trust with a secret I shouldn’t know.

What worries me is the possibility that she might not find anything.

If that happens, I’ll have to marry this monster, and he’ll get my family’s legacy.

He’ll take control of our lives and Markov Tech, the company my grandfather started in Moscow decades ago.

The only thing worse than that is if Amy gets caught snooping and Jude kills her.

I don’t know how I’d be able to live with myself if that happened.

“Juliana, if you don’t mind, I’d like a private word with my wife to be,” Jude says, cutting into my thoughts.

“Of course,” Mom replies, casting an uneasy glance toward me.

She doesn’t want to leave me with him. She never does. I know she never meant for things to turn out the way they did. Nobody did.

She’s a victim like me, and I hate she’s had to live the last five years of her life terrified of this man, especially after all she’s been through.

Deep down, I know if she still had the use of her legs, she’d grab me and run.

It’s not that I haven’t thought of doing the same. I just know if I ever attempt such a thing without having leverage, Jude will kill her to teach me a lesson.

She’s expendable and the person he holds over me to do his bidding.

Mom glances at me over her shoulder before she goes through the door. Then she’s gone.

When I return my focus to Jude, his gaze intensifies into that soulless look. I want to look away, but the last time I did, I was punished for my disrespect.

Not seeing the light of day for a little over a month because Jude kept me locked in my room is enough to show me the extent of his cruel hand.

But it didn’t break me.

That is not the thing that broke me, and he knows it.

Jude Kuzmin broke me long before he locked me away from the light.

The darkness in his stormy blue eyes threatens that thing again, and that’s the only reason he has my undivided attention.

“What is it?” I ask, cutting into the silence. I hate when he just sits there looking at me. I never know what to expect. “What do you want to talk to me about?”

“Your attitude. It needs to be fixed.” He holds up the contract. “This is a reminder that I own you.”

Own. God, I hate that word.

He’s right, though.

Owned is exactly what I will be if I don’t find Eric.

Owned because of the great mistake Grandfather made when he gave this devil the title of C.E.O of the company and opened the door for him to invest.

Jude took over after Eric’s supposed death and claimed we owed him billions. That’s where I come in. In the event of Eric’s death, I’m next in line to inherit the company.

My grandfather’s stipulation that the clause becomes active on my twenty-sixth birthday is supposed to be a safety measure.

Neither my father nor grandfather wanted me to become trapped in this exact situation where I’d be a pawn in a game of wealth via an arranged marriage.

Their safety measures, however, counted for nothing.

My grandfather couldn’t have foreseen this devil who he trusted would want both the company and me. And if I fight back, it means death to my mother and me.

That is the situation.

“If you don’t fuck with me, I won’t fuck with you,” Jude smiles. “Of course, that doesn’t mean I won’t continue to fuck you.”

Lust clouds his eyes, and bile churns my stomach when I think of the countless times this man has had me.

“I didn’t think so,” I rasp out.

He laughs. It’s a sound as cruel and wicked as he is.

I’ve heard it said before; a woman can always tell when a man is interested by the way he looks at her. Well, I’ve known about Jude’s interest in me since I was ten.

He’s twenty-two years my senior. In the past, he’d take every chance he got to look at me exactly the way he is now whenever Grandfather or anybody else who could protect me wasn’t around.

Every time I caught him looking, it was like he was waiting for his chance to have me. The first time he raped me happened only a week after he told us Eric and his best friend, Robert, died in a car crash.

That week was the worst in my life, especially since I’d lost my father only months before, and Mom became paralyzed in a crash following that.

His assault on me took what little I had left to hold on to.

Since then, I’m always on edge when I’m around him.

So, when he stands and comes closer, I stand too. That way, I have a better chance at protecting myself if he hurts me. Last time I wasn’t prepared and ended up with a black eye.

With a shit-eating grin, he walks me back to the wall, so I’m against it with nowhere to go.

Placing a large hand beside me, he looms closer and glares into my eyes.

“You will do as you’re told, and you will not talk back to me.”

“You’ve told me that many times. I—”

One strong hand clamps around my throat before I can get another word out. Instantly my airways close.

My head lightens, and within seconds, I lose focus like I am going to pass out.

“Clearly, you didn’t listen. Maybe I need to remind you of what awaits.”

I try to move my face away as he presses his lips down on mine and kisses me. When he fills his palms with my breasts and squeezes, I want to scream and tell him to get away, but the words never come. Even if they could, he’d hurt me for my defiance.

“Let. Go…” I manage, and he releases me.

I grasp onto the edge of the wall to hold myself up, taking deep, even breaths to clear the black spots from my view.

“Be careful, my dear wife-to-be. Wouldn’t want something awful to happen to you after our wedding, would we?” His laughter rips another hole through me.

I swallow hard, trying my best to keep my composure. “No, I wouldn’t.”

Another cruel laugh falls from his lips. “Be grateful for my love for you.”

“Love. You love nothing, Jude Kuzmin.”

“We both know that’s not true. I love you.”

Jude has that obsessive kind of love you’d find in a psychotic sociopath.

“Then again, I might find something else to love,” he adds with a condescending smirk. “Until then, you’ll be for fucking, and since we both know what a good fuck you are, you just might bide more time on this earth.”

With a wink and an easy grin, Jude backs away, picking up his briefcase before he leaves the room.

I keep my eyes on him as he goes and continue to stare, even when I can’t see him anymore.

The front door closes, and I know he’s gone, but I’m still staring.

Staring and wondering what the hell I’m going to do.

It was two days ago I overheard a conversation I shouldn’t have heard.

The words came from the devil himself, confirming Eric’s alive and Jude has been lying to us for the last five years.

I’m so lost in my thoughts it takes Mom’s hand on mine to pull me from the trance. I never even heard her come back into the room.

Usually, I can hear the wheels of her chair against the marble floors.

“Are you okay?” she asks just above a whisper like she’s afraid to breathe.

“No,” I grate out, unable to lie this time.

Mom brings her hands to her heart. “This is a disaster, Olivia.”

I couldn’t agree more, so I say a silent prayer to whoever will listen that I can do something to stop Jude.

Even if it kills me.