ESSENCE OF FEAR
by Bethany-Kris
A Boykov Bratva Novel
Publication Date: June 22, 2020
Genres: Adult, Romantic Suspense, Organized Crime. Erotic Romance, Standalone
Amazon: https://geni.us/
The allure of fear is learning to love it.
Viktoria Boykov has heard it all—cold they call her. The spoiled bratva princess. She knows very well what people say when her back is turned. She doesn’t mind; let them talk. It’s better for people to assume what they want about her than for them to know the truth … until him.
Pavel Kotov knows what people say—death they call him. The Boykov dog. He’s heard all the whispers locked away in the cells of the Compound. As the reaper for the bratva, his life owned by someone else, he knows what they say doesn’t matter. His life has never mattered … until her.
He’s terrifying.
She’s terrified.
Viktoria only wants to keep running from her past. Pavel doesn’t have a life to run from. Freedom is the one thing they both crave—for entirely different reasons. But this life is vicious, and scars like the ones they wear will never fade.
Together, they could have everything.
Or are they just pawns to a bigger game?
*
Note: Essence of Fear is a Boykov Bratva standalone.
EXCERPT
Viktoria hated the Compound. No, that was too
nice. She despised the place. It was huge, old, and smelled like it, too. In
her memories from childhood, this place had never done anything good for her.
The only time she remembered her father bringing her to the Boykov Compound was
if something bad was going on, and he didn’t have a choice but to have her tag
along, too.
She purposefully
tried to avoid the maze of warehouses—and one old factory—that made up the
Compound because unlike her brothers who had their offices here, there was
nothing about the place that comforted her.
Like now.
Because she was
lost.
Fuck.
That was the thing
about the Compound. It was far too easy for someone like her—who wasn’t
familiar with the many hallways, stairwells, and connected warehouses—to get
lost by simply taking a wrong turn. She was sure her brothers could navigate
this musty-smelling hellhole with their eyes closed. After all, they’d spent
the majority of their life behind these walls, under the watchful eye of their
father.
Her?
Ha.
She had no idea
where she was.
Viktoria felt like
she had now been walking around the Compound aimlessly for at least twenty
minutes—a good estimation. She could absolutely call her brother, and have
Konstantin come find her, but she didn’t want to give him that satisfaction.
Knowing him, he would likely take great enjoyment from the fact she had managed
to get lost and needed him to come
find her.
He probably
already knew she was lost.
She glanced up and
saw a camera pointed in her direction at the end of the hallway in the right
corner. A blinking red light told her the thing was live and watching every
movement that happened in the hallway. No doubt, her brother was watching those
cameras, and just waiting for her to call him for help.
Nope.
She would figure
this out on her own.
Viktoria stuck her
middle finger up to the camera as she passed it by. Just in case her brother
was watching her and getting a kick out of her predicament as she tried
helplessly to find the floor where his office was situated. Then he could know
how she was feeling before they finally came face to face.
She was starting
to regret bringing her large kit instead of the smaller kit that she usually
used to travel with when she was tattooing. She’d taken some time off just
because her mind was everywhere but tattooing,
but even when she was working regularly, she typically traveled with the
smaller kit.
It was lighter and
easier to unpack or clean up. The larger kit was making her arm tired as she
navigated the maze of hallways.
She came around a
corner at the end of the hallway and ran right into someone coming out of an
opened door.
No, not someone.
Not just anyone.
A man.
A strange man.
Viktoria’s kit
fell from her hand and crashed to the floor. Her first instinct was to
immediately step back from the man, and put as much distance as she could
between him and her. In her mind, her thoughts raced. They screamed at her to relax, calm down … don’t let him see you’re
scared; don’t panic, Vik.
She hadn’t even
looked at his face yet. Not that she needed to—just the sight of his large
form, fit, tall, and lean, and the smell of his musky, spicy scent was enough
to make her nervous. Her gaze drifted a little higher, traveling over the
expanse of the black T-shirt that stretched across a broad, muscular chest, and
then over his lower throat dusted with dark hair.
“Hello,” he
greeted.
Viktoria’s gaze
snapped up all at once to find his face. His eyes—a dark ocher color, flecked
with brown and gold—met hers, and she sucked in a sharp breath that ached in
her lungs. He really did have a beautiful face, with his strong jaw and sharp
cheekbones. The strong lines of his face were only accentuated by the intense
coldness in his stare and the way his lips seemed to be pulled into a permanent
line.
No smile.
No smirk.
Nothing.
His dark hair was
a little long on the top, but messy, like he’d been running his fingers through
it. A small scar through his left eyebrow only added to the straightness of his
brow line, giving him an even more disinterested expression.
Yeah, beautiful.
And fucking
terrifying.
“Do you not
speak?” he asked.
She wasn’t sure
what to make of his tone—it was both flat, and yet dark. Like he was accustomed
to speaking in low tones, but it was just husky enough to suggest he could get
loud if he needed or wanted to.
Viktoria swallowed
hard, determined not to show the fact that being alone with this strange man in
a hallway put a fear into her very bones that she would never be able to get
out. “I can talk, thank you.”
Yeah, she meant
for that to come out as sharp as it did.
He only arched a
brow at her. “Are you lost?”
“No.”
His gaze drifted over
her shoulder, and she swore the edges of his lips threatened to lift into some
form of a smile, but he held back. She had the strangest thought, then—what
would he looked like if he did smile?
Then, his dark
eyes came back to her.
“You are lost.”
Viktoria balled
her fists at her sides, but if he noticed it, the man didn’t say. “So, what if
I am?”
“What are you
looking for?”
“Who,” she
corrected. “Konstantin.”
Immediately, and
without questioning her further, the man nodded. “Da, this way.”
He turned and
gestured with one hand for her to follow. She didn’t move, and he walked a bit
down the hallway before he realized she wasn’t following him. He stopped and
glanced over his shoulder with another arched brow.
“I will take you
to him, come on,” he said.
Viktoria still
didn’t move.
Who was this man?
She didn’t know.
That bothered her.
The look of him …
the unknown … all of it was horrifying to her. Her worst fears and the
nightmares that constantly plagued her sometimes started exactly like this, and
that’s what scared her the very most. Not that she could tell this man that.
She didn’t even tell her brothers these things, honestly.
She was terrified.
He was terrifying.
The world was
playing a joke on her, surely.
“I don’t know
you,” Viktoria managed to say.
Maybe then, he
would understand her discomfort.
At that statement,
the corner of his lips did lift into something akin to a crooked smile. It did
nothing to soften his features, but rather, darkened them further.
“I don’t know who
I am either, woman, but most people just call me Pav.”
“Pav,” she echoed.
“Or Pavel.”
That
doesn’t help, really.
It seemed like he
could read her mind because he shrugged, adding quickly, “At the end of this
hallway, you will find an elevator. It’s loud and old, but it works. Press the
button for the highest floor, and it will take you to Konstantin’s office.”
He didn’t give her
the chance to say anything before he turned around and passed her by in the
hallway. He took extra care not to touch her as he passed, and he didn’t even
glance at the kit she had dropped on the ground. He disappeared around the
corner of the hallway and never once looked back over his shoulder.
Viktoria was still
frozen.
Fear was horrible
like that.
ABOUT BETHANY-KRIS
Bethany-Kris is a Canadian author, lover of much, and mother to four young sons, one cat, and two dogs. A small town in Eastern Canada where she was born and raised is where she has always called home. With her boys under her feet, snuggling cat, barking dogs, and a hubby calling over his shoulder, she is nearly always writing something … when she can find the time.
To keep up-to-date with new releases from Bethany-Kris, sign up to her New Release Newsletter here: http://eepurl.com/bf9lzD
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