A Baby for the Bratva Read online

  Her gaze flitted up, her neck straining to take in the dark figures towering above her. It took one fleeting glance to take in the three strange men occupying Sister Nadya’s office as if they owned it, before Starla whipped her head down, her breath caught in her throat, her heart pounding in her ears.

  She wasn’t accustomed to being around males, hardly anyone at the orphanage was. The one boy she knew who shyly and secretly asked her out once was the grocer’s son, Anton and she saw him for five minutes every other Wednesday when he delivered a box of over ripe fruit for the orphans. A sweet, lanky boy she really liked. But just not enough. But he was nothing like the men openly appraising her now.

  They crowded the office with their bodies, their height and more so with that sense of brute power they emitted so carelessly.

  She shut her eyes and tried to rinse her mind of the images her infinitesimal glance at them had imprinted in her brain. Even while she couldn’t clearly see their features in the dimness, their presence overwhelmed her.

  Three men.

  Russian mafia.

  Powerfully scary. Deadly.

  A trio of clenched jaw lines highlighted under the dusky beams of the desk lamp, structurally hard and unforgiving. Three pairs of unmerciful eyes continued to scour her, penetrating her skin and incinerating her bones.

  Fear bit into her like frostbite.

  What did they want with her?

  Why had Sister Nadya deemed her the bravest to see this through when she stood quivering in her boots, not from the cold like she usually did, but from her sheer unadulterated fear.

  Like a mighty feline beast one of them closed the distance between them to stand within a hair’s breadth of her with Sister Nadya at her side.

  “Is she the best you have?” His deep rough, husky Russian-edged voice clinked over her iced skin but ignited a firestorm in her belly. His words seemed to poke at her pride, as if he were disappointed at the choice made for him. She raised her head a little and regretted her reaction immediately as her gaze locked with his, a gulf of dark blue eyes shrouded with hardness that seared her soul. But she refused to back down, never mind that she was forced to swallow around the lump of unease blocking her throat.

  She had never seen anything as such a contradiction before. Utterly spine-chilling on the surface yet in the tarnished light, mesmerizingly beautiful. His steely penetrative glance seemed to weaken her knees and she had to remind herself to stand tall.

  “Da, she is the best, the strongest girl we have,” Sister Nadya said and again Starla had never known anything existed that could scare Sister Nadya. But these three men killed that perception entirely.

  “She’s American?” another voice asked, in English. She could barely discern his features fully, but as her gaze followed the direction of his voice, her heart stopped beating altogether. He stood with his hands inside his trouser pockets, the coat he wore carelessly pushed back out of the way of his pockets. The white of his shirt stretched over a chest wider than three of her together could fit. His face remained hidden in the shadows, but he exuded unmistakable danger.

  Her heart thudded. She had no idea how to deal with these men, and there were three of them altogether.

  “She is American,” Sister Nadya said quietly.

  “But she speaks Russian?” the man standing before her asked. Starla fisted her hands to halt the deep desire to hug herself, as if she somehow needed protection from the men whose presence seared her skin and nerves.

  “She… understands it.”

  Starla took a half-breath. She had a love-hate relationship with Russia. She had refused to speak the language even though she could speak it as fluently as a native if she wanted. While she called Moscow home, it was also the city that took her mother from her on their first night there. Sister Nadya had told her it was a childish retaliation not to speak the language, but it was all Starla could have against the country and she needed something to hold against it.

  “Remove your clothes,” the man said. His words were like bullets fired into her, perforating her body. Why did she have to take off her clothes? What did they want with her? What was going on?

  “If… if you will allow, we haven’t told her what to… to expect. There hasn’t been any time and we were about to tell her before when you… you summoned us in. If you please, we would like to be the ones to tell her. To explain this to her. To prepare her.”

  Tell me what? Sister Nadya spoke as if she were preparing Starla for her execution.

  “Please, just a moment. This is all a sudden rush and we haven’t had a chance to… For just a moment?” Sister Nadya stumbled over her words, repeating them, nothing like the stern woman preceding her reputation here at the orphanage.

  “You have a minute,” he said, his impatience as tangible as a real living thing.

  Well, excuse me.

  Who the heck did they think they were? Oh right. The Russian mafia, she reminded herself. Sister Nadya slinked away in a manner wholly uncustomary for her. She dragged Starla with her then closed the door behind them.

  She shooed the other girls back to bed immediately or face dire consequences in the morning. Starla knew they would only pretend to leave.

  Sister Alena who hadn’t left her place outside the door, rushed to her. “Just do as they say, my darling girl. Just do as they say, and it will be over soon.” She sobbed.

  “What will be over? What do they want with me?” Starla asked. She had reached the end of her patience. It was bad enough they had critiqued her as if she were a basket of waxed fruit in the dim lighting of Sister Nadya’s office, but it was quite another to not know the exact reason for them doing so. She had waited long enough for proper answers.

  “What is going on?” She turned to Sister Nadya, the only one who would give her straight answers without sparing her feelings.

  “Starla,” Sister Nadya began, gripping Starla’s arms tightly once she commandeered her out of Sister Alena’s embrace. “Listen to me. You are to go with these men. They need a woman to have a… to have a baby.”

  Nothing could have shocked Starla more than if Sister Nadya had said they were aliens from another planet, here to abduct her. Frowning heavily, she swerved her attention to the closed door housing the ginormous shadows which had freaked her out as much as fascinated her curiosity.

  What? A baby? They wanted a baby. From her? Did they know she was a virgin and hadn’t even been kissed by a boy before? And they wanted her to have a baby? Were they mad? Were they all mad?

  Everything made even less sense now.

  “I don’t understand—”

  “You don’t need to understand, Starla,” Sister Nadya whispered harshly. “We don’t have a say in the matter. They asked for a girl of a suitable age to… to use… until she is pregnant. They just need a viable body, that is all. It is not hard to understand that.” Her lips thinned into a line so tight they could barely be seen, but her eyes were drowning in defeat and apprehension.

  Everything felt surreal and not for the first time Starla wondered if she were dreaming all this up. Then a horrible thought crossed her mind.

  “Wait, do they mean to have the baby right now? Is that why they asked me to remove my clothes?”

  “Don’t be silly, child. They’re taking you away and will keep you until you have delivered a child to them. Do you understand? They asked you to remove your clothes so they can… so they can… inspect… your body.”

  Chapter 2

  Starla understood nothing, but she needed to think clearly. Think fast, act fast. Traits she had learned since being orphaned and abandoned in a strange cold country with only the girls and the nuns on her side.

  A viable body. They wanted a vessel. Not a person, which was enhanced by the fact that they just pitched up at a random orphanage to take a random girl. The task was meant to be clinical. Like a service.

  She pushed aside her own tumultuous apprehension, now was not the time to think about herself or what was goin
g to happen to her. But a baby. For as long as she lived this whole episode with the Bratva would never cease to stun her, not until the day she died.

  Think fast. Act fast.

  Her sole purpose in life was to help the nuns upgrade the impoverished orphanage, make sure the other nine girls were able to get some schooling, do some online courses, well, first they had to buy a computer, but she had plans to help them. She wanted them to go out there and lead good quality lives. Now was the time to set aside her own growing confusion and anxiety and be smart.

  They were the Bratva.

  Sister Nadya’s words rang in her head. Never to be crossed. Disobeyed. But they were also deemed the richest crime organization to date. And that had to mean something. An image of their shoes flashed through her mind. The genuine handcrafted leather had no problem gleaming thoroughly in the half-light. The cost of one pair of their shoes alone could feed this orphanage for God knows how long. Their expensive clothes as well. She understood fabric, she knew luxury when she saw it. The Bratva, and in particular those men were not short of money.

  “Will they compensate me?”

  “Compensate you? What are you talking about?” Sister Nadya asked, flabbergasted, her gaze darting to the door as if at any moment she expected it to open and the ogre of a man to come out and haul them back inside with nothing but a glowering command.

  “I mean if they want me to have a baby then I think I should be paid for it, don’t you think so too, Sister Nadya? Sister Alena?”

  Starla’s words could not have startled the sisters any more than if she sprouted a tree from her head.

  “Starla, these men…” Sister Alena almost shook her as if doing so would impart sense into her.

  “I know who they are, Sister Alena, I haven’t forgotten.”

  “Good, then you will shut your mouth from this instant onward and do as you’re told and nothing more.

  “Sister Nad—”

  “Enough.” Sister Nadya had reached the end of her own tethering patience. She grabbed Starla’s chin and half threatened half pleaded. “You will do as you are told,” she repeated. “You will not utter a single word to them for the duration of your time with them, then hopefully… hopefully you will come back to us in… in one piece. That is all we can pray for. It’s time,” she added and marched toward the door. She hissed at Sister Alena who had started to sob again.

  Starla grasped Sister Alena’s hand and squeezed. Yes, her insides may be fossilized with trepidation, but she offered her guardian, her mother’s best friend and now hers, a bold smile.

  “Don’t worry, Sister Alena, everything is going to work out. You’ll see.” They had to find a positive angle to the situation and utilize it for their own good. And their own good meant giving the girls here from the youngest at four to the oldest a proper chance to change their lives. She had an opportunity to do so now at the cost of her own body.

  Again, she was devastated by their size, by the scent of the expensive cologne tingeing the air, of their maleness and brutal power and she wanted nothing but to cower to their wants without question the moment she and Sister Nadya entered the office again. But that was out of fear of the unknown. And she was stronger than that. Always.

  “I… I would like to be,” Starla started immediately, her voice small and weak as she stuttered over her words.

  “Starla,” Sister Nadya rasped, squeezing her arm. “Hush now.”

  Ignoring the older woman beside her, Starla found a little more courage and continued, “I would like to be compensated for this service you require of me.”

  She had no idea what to expect, but the crystal-clear silence from the three men who chose this orphanage to pilfer a woman to bear a child was not how she expected her demands to be met.

  She dug her nails into her palms as the silence grew deafening. Was she indeed plain mad to be making her own demands? Yes, she was insane. She had completely ignored everything about the situation—to have a baby—and the consequences and ramifications that would come from that. She had even forgotten she had no idea how to even make a freaking baby… well, she understood the textbook version between two drawings but that was it.

  But no, all she had seen was a business opportunity, and was blindsided with the idea that maybe there could be a lucrative outcome for the orphanage.

  But she was offering them a service so to speak. And all services required renumeration, so she had every right to ask.

  Except when the silence passed the stage of awkward and stretched into downright torture. She didn’t need to be able to see them properly in the diminished light to know that their scrutiny of her had quadrupled. She’d also be dead if she couldn’t feel the tension in the air, like a palpable monster waiting to devour her.

  After what seemed an eternity, the man who had spoken before turned his head ever so slightly in Sister Nadya’s direction, looking for an explanation for Starla’s audacity.

  “Please, ignore her. She does not know what she’s talking about,” Sister Nadya said nervously. “Or who…” she added softly.

  “I do… ouch!” Starla yelped as Sister Nadya pinched her hard.

  “Is she going to be a problem?” the man who had stood with his hands in the pockets of trousers asked, softly.

  “No, no. She is just a little tired maybe. She will do as you say.”

  “I will… but for a price,” Starla said then gulped down in fear as he again closed the distance between them in less than a heartbeat and invaded her space.

  She was sure she imagined the sliver of perspiration slithering down the center of her spine as her body throbbed in fear. By his size alone the man could break her in quarters and step over her and worse, no one would come to her rescue.

  She swallowed her fear, trembling visibly like a leaf but she stood her ground.

  Dear God, help me. What am I doing, trying to strike a deal with the Bratva of all men?

  “Show us the other girls,” he said and instantly dismissed her, turning his attention on Sister Nadya.

  Sister Nadya stuttered and Starla winced.

  “No,” she said immediately. Fuck. This was not going very well for her at all. She closed her eyes, again wondering if she had lost her mind. No one messed with the Bratva, least of all a little American virgin currently from an obscure Russian orphanage everyone seemed to have forgotten about. There was no way in hell she would let any of the other girls take her place.

  Fuck.

  Sister Nadya had been right. Even though she had little to really no actual idea what they intended to do with her in order to have a baby, she could survive them. She would. She was a survivor. Strong. Resilient. But none of those girls would. While they were not her blood sisters, they were her life sisters and she would protect them until the day she died.

  “No,” she said again. “That won’t be necessary.” Like a giant predator discovering his prey, he tilted his attention back on her.

  She couldn’t quite read his expression clearly, not in the uncomfortable light, not that he seemed to have an expression at all when he glanced her, but she was sure he raised his eyebrow for an infinitesimal moment. Starla didn’t know what to make of it, but that he was properly sizing her up, quite blatantly.

  “Bring in the other girls,” he said. Fuck. For someone who rarely swore, these men were making her break all kinds of records. What had she done? Why could she not just have done as she was told? Why did she think she could come out the better one if she negotiated?

  “Take me.” She left Sister Nadya’s side and engulfed the little space between them. She tried to swallow her gasp but barely succeeded. He was a brick furnace and an avalanche of ice all in one go. The two men in the background, obscured by the shadows, shifted as they stood.

  Even if her eyes were closed, she would have sensed them moving only by the way the very air around her changed. They sucked whatever strength she thought she had right out from under her whenever they moved.

  “The othe
r girls,” he said again, blatantly ignoring her.

  “Please, no. Take me,” she pleaded.

  Oh, God, what have I done?

  “Now, Sister,” he said, before turning his back on Starla. The finality in his tone negated any kind of response except to do his bidding.

  “Yes,” Sister Nadya stuttered then ducked out of the room. The three men spoke so softly she barely heard what they said but that they were arguing was clearly prevalent. For a brief second Starla desperately wanted to follow Sister Nadya out. The thought of being left alone, even for a moment, with these three strange men rattled her nerves. There was something about them that just completely threw her off balance.

  They scared her as much as they fascinated her. She had no idea how to handle the ambiguous feeling. Part of her wanted to stare openly at them, to sculpt their features into her mind, to lay her gaze over their faces and their bodies where she’d never forget them for the rest of her life. The other part knew they were dangerous men and anyone with proper common sense and a love of life would divert their attention everywhere else but them. And now she had singlehandedly destroyed another girl’s life.

  Sister Nadya’s urgent whisper as she addressed the girls obviously and defiantly still waiting outside the door shattered any hope for Starla that she could remedy the situation, but she wasn’t above throwing herself at their feet if it meant sparing her sisters from whatever ordeal these men had planned.

  Cara, Tatiana and Yeva stumbled into the room, clearly shaken up that they were called in. How could one stupid move on her part put her sisters’ lives at risk?

  She immediately stood in front of them, blocking them from the view of the three men.

  “Please, please, I made a mistake. Take me, I beg you.”

  He maintained his attention and didn’t deviate from her face, not for a merciful second. He scorched her with his dark, ominous eyes, never for a moment looking behind her at the three girls trembling barefoot in Sister Nadya’s office on one of the coldest nights this winter.