The Hollow: Preacher Brothers, 4 Page 3

  “You’ll do what I say, or the boy will die.” His expression was sober now, his tone brokering no argument. “Do you understand what I say, Nadja?”

  Oh, I knew.

  My throat tightened as I nodded slowly.

  “You’ll do what I say, and you’ll do it without complaint, or I will gut that boy from navel to throat.” He gave me a sadistic grin. “You can’t run. You can’t hide. I will always find you. So if you want that boy to live, if you love him as deeply as you say you do, then you’ll be wise, girl.”

  A choked sob left me, and I hated that I couldn’t control it, but the very thought of my father hurting Frankie simply because he didn’t want us together, simply because he wanted to control my life, had pain unlike anything else I’d ever felt consuming me.

  My father was evil, soulless, and there was nothing I could do about it.

  “How you must hate me,” I finally said. He couldn’t feel any other way toward me for him to be so cruel.

  He was silent for long moments. “You’re of my flesh and blood, daughter,” he spoke in Russian. “There is no hatred. If I cared nothing for you, I’d have fed you to the wolves long before now.” He shifted on the chair to face me more. “But business comes before your happiness.”

  “I’d give anything to be with Frankie.” I didn’t care if it sounded like I was pleading, begging. “Please don’t take away the one thing that makes me happy.”

  Still, his face was emotionless. He didn’t care about anything but power.

  “Nadia, weakness only creates vulnerabilities. You know your place. Accept it. Embrace it.”

  I swiped at my tears and felt my rage grow. “I hate you,” I whispered.

  He stared into my eyes for a prolonged moment. “Hate me all you want, girl. Makes no difference as long as you know your place and follow my law. And that law is you’ll do what I say, or I’ll take that boy from you as easily as drawing in a breath.” He dismissed me with a wave of his hand, as if I were nothing but a bug, a gnat he wanted gone.

  I left, my body numb. I had no choice, not if I wanted Frankie alive. This was my own fault, allowing my heart to open for someone, allowing my body to crave them.

  I wanted to be with Frankie, but that would only hurt him, snuff out his life. And it would be my fault.

  I couldn’t run. We couldn’t run away. My father would find me anywhere. No corner, no dark place could hide us from his reach. And so I only had one option.

  Leave Frankie in order to save his life.

  4

  Frankie

  Present day

  Hollowness. That’s what I felt. That’s what my life was. It was an endless cycle of back-alley fighting, being a professional fucking thief, and watching each one of my brothers drop like flies in the name of falling in love.

  I sat on the couch with nothing but a layer of sweats on, staring at the TV that wasn’t even on, my sixth beer nearly empty. I brought it to my mouth and finished it off. The buzz I had going on was the only thing making everything fucking bearable.

  My brothers and their women. Fuck, they had something I had once.

  Once upon a long fucking time ago.

  I reached for another beer and cracked it open.

  I thought about my brothers and how they were happy now. I was glad for them. They deserved to have strong, good women by their sides.

  Dom had been gone for a good while as soon as he found “the one”—aka the one he kidnapped, and they fell in love and lived happily ever after. Cullen too, although I was sure his story was a lot more fucked up, because, well, it was Cullen.

  And after the two eldest Preacher brothers found the women they were going to spend the rest of their lives with, of course they wanted their own space to do just that.

  It had just been Wilder and me living in the house we’d grown up in since then. For months, we’d been on our own, an adjustment, since it had always been the four of us, but it hadn’t been bad. I had my twin, and life had been good. The four of us were still a unit, still pulled jobs, made bank, and were good at being the bad guys who probably weren’t so bad at all in the grand fucking scheme of things.

  But now, all that had changed.

  Wilder had gotten his own place with Zoey. And I understood that’s how life worked, but it didn’t make it less shitty. Just because I understood, didn’t mean I liked it.

  Because being alone meant that hollowness came up full-force.

  So here I was, alone in the house we’d grown up in for the first time in my life. But this wasn’t the first time I felt bone-deep loneliness. I always felt a type of emptiness despite having my brothers around, that heartbreaking void that always stayed with you, that refused to let up. It was a bitch, a motherfucking soul-sucking demon.

  And no matter how much I pushed it aside, no matter how many beers I drank to numb it, no matter how many random fucking fights I picked, or how reckless I was during a job... nothing really ever worked.

  And it was all because of one thing. One woman.

  God… one woman who owned every single part of me even all this time later.

  That was the sum of why everything changed.

  Fuck.

  I drank more and more and more.

  But change wasn’t a bad thing. It was the natural order of things.

  So here I sat, on the couch in the darkened living room, the TV dark, and getting drunk by myself once again. I was a sorry, sad piece of shit; that was for sure.

  I tipped the beer bottle back and finished off the dark ale. My plan was to get good and shitfaced, so drunk I couldn’t even walk straight to my bedroom after it was all said and done. And although I knew better than to drink while in this foul mood, it was the only thing I could do, the only thing I had control over. The drinking always led to me thinking about what I was trying desperately to ignore... to forget.

  Her.

  Nadja Romonoff.

  The only girl I ever loved. The one who broke my heart, because she left, because her hardcore criminal father who was involved in the bratva—the Russian mafia—said we could never be together. She was promised to another, already given away to strengthen the mafia alliances he had.

  She was her father’s pawn.

  He made no secret that he’d kill me slowly, painfully. And he’d enjoy it.

  And then she was gone.

  I didn’t know for sure what happened, but I knew enough about how her father was to know if we didn’t stop seeing each other on our own… he’d do it for us.

  That or she made a deal with him for my life.

  I was still breathing, so that was the only explanation. She left to keep me alive.

  She slipped away in the night like a damn thief with my heart. It was ironic really, me in the profession I was, Nadja stealing my heart and leaving me no choice but to fucking grieve over it.

  And I had been grieving. For so fucking long. Because I knew I’d never have a chance of finding her. If her father hid her away, there was no amount of any resources I could come up with that would bring me closer to her.

  I held a torch for that girl for the last five years, ached for her, obsessed over her... loved her even though I should have moved on.

  But life was a cruel bitch. I knew that at a young age, and still even as an adult. You couldn’t get happy without being hurt.

  I was glad my brothers found what made them whole. I’d never have that, not with anyone, because no one would compare to her.

  I closed my eyes and rested my head back on the couch, letting the alcohol flow through my veins, hoping like hell it numbed me. But it didn’t. Nothing helped. I couldn’t push the pain back; I couldn’t ignore the loneliness. I was stuck in my own personal hell.

  Fucking bullshit purgatory.

  But at least I had Wilder there. And now that was gone too.

  I pictured Nadja, the fall of her long black hair, her porcelain skin. I remembered her lips had been so pink, the shade of bubblegum. They’d tasted just as
fucking sweet too. They’d always swell when I kissed her. And then there were her eyes, so green they were like cut emeralds. I swore I could look into them and see my fucking future. And it always led me to her.

  And when she told me she didn’t want anyone else in her life, that I was the only man she would ever love, I didn’t hold back my possessive, obsessive side.

  Fuck, I was getting hard as I thought about that last night I’d been with her, the first and only time I’d been inside her, claimed her. Then again, getting aroused wasn't a surprise where she was concerned. I just had to picture Nadja’s face and I was sporting a damn lead pipe between my thighs.

  God, I missed her. I wanted her back. But it was clear I wasn’t destined to be happy.

  I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling. I could jerk one off right now thinking about her, imagining how tight and wet she’d been for me all those years ago. It would feel good, really fucking good to come with the image of her in my mind, but after it was all said and done, that ache in my chest would just intensify. It always did. So I punished myself, didn’t touch my dick, didn’t get off. I wanted to. I wanted to really fucking badly. But denying myself made me feel stronger.

  I’d been denying myself the pleasure of having a woman for five years. She’d been the last woman I’d been intimate with, because no one else compared to Nadja. No female ever would.

  Maybe one day our paths would cross once more. Or maybe I needed to get off my ass and try to find her again, search high and low until she was mine. Damn the consequences.

  It wasn’t like I had anything else worthy in my life. It wasn’t like she didn’t consume my thoughts every fucking second of every fucking day.

  She was my life. She always had been, and she always would be, even if I never saw her again.

  I thought I reached a dead end all those years ago, and knew it was my reality when her father told me I’d never see her again, and if I didn’t let her go, I’d be six feet under the ground. That despair had thrown me into a darkness I didn’t think I’d climb back out of.

  Because I hadn’t wanted to climb out of it.

  And even if I knew trying to find her was a lost cause, it wasn’t like I had anything better to do right now; it wasn't like I didn’t obsess about her every damn second of every damn day.

  Being alone had that effect.

  Falling in love had that effect.

  I’d find Nadja, no matter how long it took, no matter who I had to tear down to make that a reality.

  I’d probably die in the process by her father’s hands, but I didn’t care. If I could just see her once more, it would be all worth it.

  She’d be mine, because life wasn’t worth shit without her in it.

  5

  Nadja

  I couldn’t breathe, this heaviness on my chest. Then again, I’d been feeling it for the last five years, after my father took me away from Frankie, away from a life I desperately wanted. He’d carted me off to Russia, to be locked away in a prison.

  His prison.

  No outside communication. No friends. No phone calls.

  Nothing.

  Five years of crying myself to sleep.

  Five years of wondering if Frankie moved on with his life, if he was even okay. Had my father kept his promise and not hurt him? I had to pray that was the case, because it was the only thing that kept me going, that didn’t have me rebelling and fighting with everything in me.

  I stared at myself in the floor-to-ceiling mirror, the white gown on me form-fitting. Disgust filled me, and I wanted to cry even harder. I wanted to beg to whoever would listen to me to give me a second chance, to stop this arranged marriage.

  Since moving back to Russia, my father had been trying to groom me, make me believe and accept that this marriage to Maximillian was something I wanted.

  I’d never feel that way, never agree to accept this as my fate. There was a part of me—even if unrealistic—that said one day I’d be with Frankie again.

  I would never bend to anyone’s will. My father should have been proud I took after him in that regard.

  “Beautiful,” Marina said, but she had this sadness in her voice. She didn’t meet my eyes in the reflection of the mirror as she went around and smoothed out my dress.

  Another girl who was helping me get ready for the wedding left the room, the door closing silently. Marina glanced up at the now closed door then looked into my eyes in the reflection.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  My chest ached painfully, and I gave her a sad smile.

  Over the last five years, Marina had been a constant, supportive figure in my life. As a maid for my father, she was undoubtedly afraid, just like me, just like anyone and everyone who was connected in some way to the bratva, and so that had her keeping her head down and doing her job.

  She’d braid my hair as I lay in bed crying, whispering how I wished things were different, how I didn’t want to be with someone I didn’t love. She’d sing to me, Russian lullabies she said her mother had sung to her when she was little.

  She became a mother figure to me, and I latched onto her love.

  And once my engagement was official, I asked her for help in leaving. I knew there could be repercussions in asking for help, especially since my father’s staff were tied to him, almost feeling obligated and forced by fear to bring any indiscretions to his attention. I’d taken that risk, because I didn’t care if I died, didn’t care about anything else at that point.

  My life was hollow, an empty vessel. And I refused to let my father fill it with his agendas and Maximillian’s evil.

  At first, she’d just given me a sad smile and told me things worked out how they did, that sometimes our path wasn’t meant to be our own. It was only after the engagement party where I’d been flaunted and pulled in every direction, shown off as not a strong woman or an individual, but as a pretty thing to hang on a man’s arm, that I knew I had to take matters into my own hand.

  Escaping my father’s compound was impossible, what with his guards patrolling the property around the clock, the security cameras… always someone watching.

  But I’d try and try and try until I couldn’t, until the breath left my lungs one last time.

  And it was when I was planning an escape, knowing I probably wouldn’t get far, that Marina stopped me at the back door, taking my hand and leading me back upstairs, shaking her head slowly. She shut my bedroom door, sealing us in. And then she’d said, “If you want help, I will help you. But we will do this the safe way. The smart way. We will plan this. We will make it so you survive.”

  And I cried, clutched her hands to my chest, and thanked her. And it had taken time, a lot of time. I believed that Marina hadn’t thought twice about helping me, because she had nothing else, no other ties. She had no children, her husband having passed away years before. She was alone, a live-in maid at my father’s compound, seeing his cruelty, his brutality. She’d been stretched thin by everything she witnessed, the secrets kept.

  She was tired of it.

  Just like I was.

  I was brought back to the present, in the suffocating draft, my hair done, my makeup perfect.

  The very thought of tying myself to Maximillian had my heart rising in my throat. He was cruel and evil, maybe even more so than my father. And at our engagement party when he leaned in and said against my ear all the disgusting and vile things he’d do to me on our wedding night, I knew I’d rather be dead, rotting in the ground, than spend my life with him.

  “Today is the day, little mouse.” Her voice was whisper-soft, thin as air.

  My bedroom, along with my father’s study, and his bedroom, were the only rooms in the estate without cameras. But still, I didn’t trust him. Still, I knew he had eyes and ears in the wall.

  I nodded, my heart racing. Today was the day. I refused to let this wedding go through.

  She started whispering, explaining what the plan was, how once I was out of the staff door there
would be someone waiting to take me to a safehouse, to hide me until we could figure out how to get a passport, change my name, and leave the country.

  These were all things I’d thought about, but I had no connections like that. I knew Marina did, and that surprised me. She was always so quiet, so diligent in her work that to think she knew anyone who could help me like this, who would go against my father, had me thinking there really were guardian angels, and she was mine.

  And although I had no misconceptions this would work, trying was what I had to do. No matter what.

  I wouldn’t be able to leave the country right away for obvious reasons. My father would be looking for me in every crack of the city, and traveling would be far too dangerous.

  But as long as there was a chance to get out of Russia, go back to America… be with Frankie, I was willing to take that risk. Even if Frankie had moved on, found another woman, had a family, all of this would’ve been worth it.

  I didn’t want to think about him moving on, although it was a reality. I couldn’t expect him to wait for me, not knowing what even happened to me or where I’d gone. But he knew who my father was, and I knew he was smart enough to realize I wouldn’t have left on my own if I had no other options.

  “Stick with the plan,” Marina said softly and smoothed her hands down the train of the dress.

  She told me there would be clothing, essential items for me at the safehouse, even a little bit of money for me to use once—if—I made it out of Russia. She was risking everything, her life, to help me get out of here.

  I could never repay her. And the fact that if my father found out, he’d hurt her, kill her, it had me saying no to this, that I wouldn’t do it, wouldn’t put anybody else at risk. But she’d taken my hands in hers and said she’d lived her life, that cancer would take her sooner than later. She told me she lived a purposeful existence and there was nothing in life worth more than living and being happy.

  And that if her time came, she’d smile and accept it, because it meant she’d be with Viktor.