The Cleaner (Born Bratva Book 4) (17 page)

Natasha

“Well, that went well,” I mutter under my breath when we return to our room. “I swear, Nikita, no matter how long I know your father he still scares the shit out of me. I don’t know how your mother does it—dealing with all that intensity.”

“The same way you deal with mine,” I say with a smirk. “He doesn’t give her a choice.”

He pulls me to him and covers my mouth with his, stifling the retort that was about to spill from my lips. His tongue overpowers me and my mouth welcomes the intrusion. Abruptly, he steps away although he continues to eye me with heated masculine appreciation.

“We’ve got work to do, but make no mistake -- you’ll be getting that spanking later. Maybe I’ll make you count while I smack that ass, one for each time you sucked up to my father.”

“I’m looking forward to it. Bring it, baby,” I gloat. “And I didn’t suck up to him. He just understands me and knows what I’m capable of. Nothing wrong with that.”

“You really are an adrenalin junkie, aren’t you? Keep trying to be the Pakhan’s little pet and I’ll make sure you can’t sit down for a week.”

“Yeah, fear is a high for me, I get off on it. Maybe your mother and I have more in common than you realized.” I shrug it off like I’m not concerned with what he’ll do—but deep down, I am. I never know what to expect from Nikita. He’s unpredictable and that keeps me on edge—and he knows it, the bastard. He never could resist a good mind fuck.

“Back to the matter at hand, go ahead and boot that computer up while I get comfortable.” True to his nature he’ll get my mind off of the
spanking
and when I least expect it…oh, well, that’s my Nikita.

“You got it, boss man,” I smirk, as I deliberately sashay away. I can’t resist looking over my shoulder to see if he’s watching me. He is.

I boot the computer up and throw on a button-down shirt and boy shorts. When he saunters back into the room wearing nothing but drawstring pants, I force myself to look away.

“Let me get me in there to research the cop,” he orders, “and you go through more of those journals. We’ll get more done if we split up.”

I sit down on the floor and pull the box from beneath the bed to get started. I’m not sure what I’m looking for, but I’ll know it when I find it. I begin flipping through the notebooks when one of them catches my attention. After reading a few lines, I finally understand why she began to write things down. I have found that there are usually two reasons why people write things down -- people who aren’t authors, anyway. Either they need a release from the things plaguing their mind and emotions, or they’re leaving a warning in the event of something dire happening to them. This notebook appears to be the latter and the title on the front of it bears witness to that fact. I read silently and quickly become captivated by her story.

In The Event Of…

If you’re reading this then I’m probably gone. I’m writing it in hopes I can help someone else avoid the traps I fell into.

It started when I married a cop. Things were fine in the beginning. Like any couple, we spent our weekends at cookouts, traveled, and just enjoyed being together. I had two close female friends who worked with Bob. We were our own little community and needed no one else.

Once you’re weaved in so tightly that there’s no escape, that’s when the nightmare begins—at least for me that was the case. Knowing what I know now, I can see how he did it—and hindsight really is 20/20. First, he began to systematically separate me from friends and family, which isolated me from any outside help. I liken it to a form of Stockholm syndrome, where you’re forced to look to your abuser for your day-to-day needs. Along the way, he never missed an opportunity to put me down or prey on my insecurities. I was never good enough, but I tried over and over to meet his expectations. Things went along like that for years, until I finally realized that I would never have his approval. All the future held for me was more humiliation and insults. Things like ‘You’re fat’, ‘You’re stupid’, ‘No other man will ever want you’ became so familiar that I started believing his bullshit.

“Hey! Hey, Natasha!” I glance up from the notebook and can tell that Nikita must have been trying to get my attention. I’ve been so engrossed in this woman’s journal that I haven’t heard a word he said.

“Sorry, Nikita. The more I think about it, I don’t know if this woman was writing a book after all. She may have started out with that in mind and wrote some of the entries as if they were scenes written from a character’s perspective, but I don’t think she intended to follow through on it. No, I think she abandoned these notebooks, left them in the care of one of her friends, maybe even both of them. They were intended as a warning for others. Sounds like her marriage was hell, it’s a real shame. So, what have you uncovered? Was the dead guy married?”

“Yes, he was married to an Emily Finley, and get this -- she disappeared six months ago.”

“Whoa. Really…What do you mean by ‘disappeared’?”

“I mean there’s been no trace of Emily Finley for six months. Poof. Gone.” He folds his arms across his chest and takes a deep breath, exhaling harshly as he shakes his head in frustration. “She’s either dead or hiding from something.”

“Or someone.” 

Cop Killer

When you’re living your life ‘off the grid’, your survival instincts become rapier sharp. I was in survival mode for years before I finally left Bob. He was a cruel, calculating animal with flat, dead eyes and a taste for torture. And he was smart, even calculating. When I finally stopped believing his lies and constant insults, the devil in him knew something in me had changed. I took great pains not to change my behavior, in hopes that he would think I was still at his mercy. But somehow he knew I wasn’t the same.

He had always kept a close eye on me but his controlling nature went into overdrive. He watched for any changes in my habits. Sometimes he would go out of his way to be an asshole just to see how I’d react. Most days, I felt like I couldn’t breathe.

At my lowest, I considered taking my own life. I had it all planned, had the pills lined up in a tidy row on my nightstand. But at the last possible moment, I had an epiphany that changed everything and set my feet on a far more meaningful path: if someone was going to die because of this man’s cruelty, it didn’t have to be me.

He was successful in killing off a piece of me; just not the one he had expected. He tried to destroy my spirit, but it reawakened and raged within me like an inferno. My love for him – or the childlike adoration that I had mistaken for love -- was the only part of me he crushed.

But there were other casualties, like the close friendships that I had counted on to be my saving grace. Any loyalty I had ever had for my two so-called friends was snuffed out when my pleas for help fell on deaf ears, when they averted their eyes and awkwardly told me that everything would work out somehow.

The judicial system is supposed to be there to protect its citizens. But it’s only as strong as the people who make it run: the judges, the magistrates, law enforcement. When I tried to turn the judicial system against one of its own by seeking a restraining order, no one took me seriously and I knew it was hopeless. Bob found out, of course, and promptly beat the shit out of me.

When those in positions of power become the enemy, there is no playing by the rules. There is only survival. Much like an animal being pushed into a corner, I am being forced to fight for my life.

Bob was a blow-hard who was always shooting off his mouth, always bragging about his high-ranking connections. And that is how I came to know the names of every dirty cop in town.

They’ll do anything, including murder, to keep their secrets, to protect the flow of their dirty money and illegal drugs. So, really, the more I think about it, fair is fair.

Ironically enough, the mercy I showed that hooker the other night will probably be my downfall. I thought every shred of mercy had been torched from my heart, but the fear on her face and the physical abuse he inflicted on her was too much. I couldn’t bring myself to kill her, but her presence on this earth guarantees my demise. When the authorities realize I’m a woman, it won’t take them long to figure out who I am.

When a criminal can’t face the prospect of jail time, a surefire way to avoid it is to kill a cop -- or make it look like you’re about to. Pull a gun on a cop, and he and his friends will take you out in a barrage of bullets. There’s a lot to be said for that scenario. It’s quick. It’s decisive. Permanent. That works for me. Yeah, when I leave this world, it’s going to be on my terms—in a blaze of glory.

Nikita

I’m considering doing something that would mean certain death for anyone else in our cell—disobeying the Pakhan. I’m not sure if it’s because he migrated here directly from Russia as a child or if it’s innate, but I don’t think any of us could be as unscrupulous as my father. I am considered an effective and bare-knuckled litigator, but my father is known for being utterly ruthless.

You have to understand that to cross the Pakhan is death. To so much as question him is inviting obliteration. The fact that I’m flesh of his flesh offers very little protection. My father is a different breed and I don’t know that my punishment wouldn’t be more extreme, in order to send a message. I have no intention of being made an example of.

Belief in the Pakhan’s supernatural powers goes back centuries. The elders in our cell believe unequivocally that to even think of crossing the Pakhan invites the grim reaper. There have been times when he has displayed an almost mystical ability to read someone’s intentions, so I don’t judge. Anything is possible, I guess. I can’t help but think of the tightrope my brother Kodiak walked with my father concerning his woman, Logan. He made it through, yes, but there were times when we all feared for him.

The more I investigate Emily Finley, the more I’m convinced that she’s the one offing all of these cops. She was pulled into a set of circumstances that would have broken a weaker person. Regardless of how she came to be in this situation, I believe she’s a cop killer three times over now. She doesn’t stand a chance if the police nab her. It’s the same thing as being considered a rat or a snitch in my world. Bang, bang, you’re dead.

Society will condemn this woman for her crimes, but me? I feel a burgeoning respect for her balls-to-the-wall approach to justice. Being born Bratva, I can definitely relate to that. I wish there was some way for her to know that the whole world isn’t against her, that someone is at least attempting to understand.

“People don’t disappear unless they want to, Natasha.”

“Well, I may be holding the reason why she did right here in my hands. This notebook I’m working on now, was deliberately written to be found. Take a look at this,” she says as she hands me the notebook she’s been reading. It does appear to be a message of sorts, telling of the subtle and not-so-subtle warning signs of emotional and physical abuse.

“She killed multiple cops, which has the feds checking out old reports of police corruption, just trying to establish a possible motive. You know that’s got to be freaking out the local PD. But I don’t think this woman is as much concerned about corruption as she’s concerned about warning other women about how insidious emotional abuse can be,” she says as she shakes her head sadly.

“Then why kill those two women?” I ask impatiently. The pieces are just not adding up for me.

“Down, killer…The hell if I know. What we do know is that they were her friends. If they were truly close female friends, then -- take it from a woman -- there had to have been one hell of a betrayal to prompt her to take them out like that. Remember that part of the journals about the meeting in the restaurant with two women? I’d be willing to bet those are our first two victims.”

Well, shit. That makes sense to me. After years of abuse a psychological breakdown can take place. Hell, there’s ample case law about women committing murder because of battered women’s syndrome; cases that have been won. As happens every time I find the key to a difficult legal case, my battle instincts fire up, delivering a shot of adrenaline that sizzles from my head to my toes.

I let the surge of testosterone roll through me and decide, for now, to focus on other, more pleasurable, pursuits. I don’t utter a word, just get up and ensure the bedroom door is locked before I prowl across the room to my woman. I take her by the hand and she follows me to the bed, where I sit down and drape her across my lap, face down. I run my hand over the curve of her ass before I fist her hair and yank her head back, forcing her to look up at me.

“Do I need to gag you?” I’m not particularly interested in her response, I just want to piss her off and get her blood flowing. Judging by the seething look she gives me, she damn well knows it.

“What the fuck do you think?” she hisses defiantly.

You have to know Natasha like I do to understand her answer goes far beyond simple rebellion. She’s a master at enduring torture. My father put her through intense training and we’ve never talked about the things that were done to her, but her body bears the scars. I run my finger along a thick, jagged scar on the back of her upper thigh that’s about four inches long.

“Tell me about this one,” I murmur seductively.

“It’s from a jagged piece of metal that was sliced through the back of my thigh during training.”

I’m on a roll, so I continue. I run my fingertip over a perfectly circular, deep scar on the back of her right calf.

“I was branded there with a piece of metal that had been heated over an open flame.”

I lift her shirt and stroke the scars on her back that bear witness to the bite of a whip. There are things I have always wondered about but have never asked. But I find that I must know.

“Did they…?”

“Your father wouldn’t allow anyone to touch me sexually; said he’d kill them if they did. He said no fucking up my face, and no defiling his son’s future wife. You know I’ve never been with anyone but you.”

Bratva training is usually intense, ruthless -- no holds barred. Natasha’s training would have been particularly grueling due to the nature of her grisly role within the cell. The thing about it is, it wouldn’t change how I feel about her—I would, however, hate my father for permitting such an atrocity. And knowing my father the way I do, that is why he did not allow it.