10 Days to Ruin (Ozerov Bratva #1)

by Nicole Fox

I’m suddenly powerless to do anything that he doesn’t tell me to do. Can’t wait, can’t think, can’t argue, can’t flee. I can only receive things, isolated little sensations that come and go like passing clouds.

“There is not one single, solitary thing about you that is obvious.” “No? Then let me be clear.”

“Let me worry about that.” Then he’s kissing me again and it’s easy to do exactly that: let him handle the worrying. Some days, it feels like all I do is worry. So for him to pick me up and move me here and move me there and take all that burden off my plate? I feel light. I feel weightless.

He really doesn’t do this. Not “this” as in sex, because any man that handsome and that obviously wealthy and that supremely confident in his own skin can clearly have women in his bed at the snap of his fingers. What I mean is that he doesn’t do “this” as in gaze down at the woman he’s about to fuck like she might be the death of the self-control that defines him. He doesn’t do “this” as in show that there is anything accessible within him that might charitably be called a soul. He doesn’t do “this” as in let his bedmates look back and wonder just what it might take to crack him open for once in his grim, bloodsoaked life. He doesn’t do “this.” Neither do I.

This isn’t how it was supposed to go. Mama never told me this part of the fairy tale. I wasn’t supposed to want the monster.

When he pulls me upright, I’m trembling for real now. “What do you want from me?” “Everything.” His finger traces the line of my hip, possessive. “Starting with the truth you’re hiding from yourself.” “Which is?” “That when you said ‘Or else what?’ in that bathroom…” His grip tightens, sending electricity through my veins. “You weren’t afraid I’d kill you.” The crowd melts away. There’s only his breath on my collarbone, his lips grazing the hammering pulse at my throat. “You were afraid I’d ruin you instead.”

Ariel wants a fairy tale? Fine. I’ll give her a goddamn epic.

It’d be nice to live in her world for a little while. Mostly because “her world” is a snow globe filled with rainbow sparkles, where everything is “yay” and “woo” and never-ending sunshine beams. No room in a place like that for men like Sasha Ozerov.

Two dozen black roses, their petals kissed with crimson edges like they’ve been dipped in blood. The card is simple. Tonight. Le Bernardin. Eight o’clock sharp. Wear something pretty… unless you’d prefer I choose for you. —S.O.

I’m almost sad that she looks so meek, so submissive. I wanted more of an outright fight, if only so I could snarl in her ear, Oh, sweetheart. You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into.

“You like heights?” he asks. “I like knowing I could jump if I had to.” A beat. His chest brushes against my back. “You say that like I wouldn’t go after you.”

“You’d chase me down there?” I gesture at the glittering streets below. “Through all that?” “I’d burn this whole city to find you.” “That’s not romantic; that’s psychotic.” His laugh rumbles through his chest and into my spine. “They’re one and the same, ptichka.”

“What are you doing?” I breathe. “You told me to leave.” “I told you to try.” His lips hover over mine. “So leave. Or kiss me.” I hate him. I loathe him. I kiss him.

The bikini must be worse than he imagined—black lace triangles held together by fishing line and audacity.

He’s here and he’s huge and he’s looking right at me, waiting to see what I’ll do next. Will I roll over and heel like the good little pet he wants me to be? Will I submit?

Pride cometh before the fall, I think, scooping a dollop of cream. But at least the road to hell will be well-moisturized.

“Wrong. I want you in the only way that matters: utterly, completely, and permanently.”

Slowly, still staring straight into my soul, Sasha pushes me onto the massage table, laying me out on my back. His hand is a slow pulse inside my throbbing pussy. “Still hate me?” he growls down from where he towers above me. “Yes.” My nails score the underside of his wrist. “Despise you.” “Good.” He adds a second finger. “Hate me louder.” “I h-ha… h-hate…” “What’s that? I can’t hear you.”

“You think closing your heart makes you safe? Makes you strong?” She laughs, a dry, hacking sound. “All it does is make you alone.”

“What do you want from me? A confession? Fine. She’s… infuriating. Reckless. Stubborn. She looks at me like I’m some broken thing she’s determined to piece back together, even if it cuts her hands to shreds.”

“You listen to me, Sashenka. You are Nataliya’s son. Her heart. Her kindness.” Her thumb brushes the scar on my throat—the gift from Yakov that keeps on giving. “But kindness isn’t a cage. It’s a choice. Every day, you choose: armor or mercy. You’ve worn the armor long enough.”

“Hungry?” “I’d rather eat my laptop.” “Good. I know a place.”

“This isn’t a date,” I announce to a passing poodle. “Just so you know. So everybody knows.” Sasha hums. “If it were, I’d have bought you better shoes.” I glance down at my scuffed ballet flats. “These are my daily drivers.” “They’re falling apart.” “So’s my will to live, but here we are.”

He steps closer. Our shoes nearly touch. “Is that what you fantasize about? Me serenading you with my feelings?” My pulse thrums. “I don’t fantasize about you.” Liar. Dirty, rotten liar. Liar liar pants on fire. Didn’t he warn you not to fib in front of him? His gaze drops to my mouth as if he knows exactly what I’m thinking. “Pity. Wish I could say the same about you.”

Instead, it turned into… whatever that was. Lost. Cold. Huddled in his arms, drenched in rain, wondering why I wasn’t quite as miserable as I should’ve been.

“But you’re hopeful, too, and that’s maybe the worst thing you could be, because hope is the deepest cut and the slow bleed that would follow if you let it slice you open is what terrifies you most of all.”

Falling, I’d called it. Bullshit. This isn’t normal gravity at work. This is getting sucked into a black hole.

“Your daughter’s stubborn,” I growl. “Annoying. Reckless with her sarcasm and her… everything.” The words come too fast, too raw. I clench my teeth, but the dam’s cracked. “But when she looks at me?” My thumb grazes the scar at my throat. “She doesn’t see a monster.”

Belle grabs my wrist, her grip surprisingly strong. “If you hurt her⁠—” “I’ll break myself first.”

She searches my face. Then, a nod—sharp, reluctant. “Men like you don’t know what to do with happy endings, Sasha Ozerov.” “We don’t deserve them in the first place.”

“That girl doesn’t make you weak, Sasha. She makes you hungry. And hungry men?” He ducks me with a wet laugh. “They’re the only ones who survive this shit.”

“You are, in your own way. You cry with blood. You cry with spreadsheets. It’s a little depraved and disturbing, if we’re being honest, but hey, far be it from me to criticize another man’s coping mechanisms. I’m just saying that I see you, Sasha Ozerov. I see what’s in front of you. And I want you to see what I’m seeing.” He slumps back against the bench. “That’s it. Lecture over. I’m out of poetry for the night.”

“I said don’t.” He whirls on me, looking wilder than I’ve ever seen him before. His beard, his hair, his eyes are all positively feral. But it’s the tremble in his mouth that undoes me. I’ve never seen fear on him before. This is what it looks like. But not fear for himself. Never, ever for himself. I know without asking that this is fear for me.

“You’re angry with me.” “Astute fucking observation,” I seethe. “What gave it away?” “Because of last night.” “Again, nothing gets past you.” He frowns again. “And you think that gives you the right to break your word to me.” “My—” Jaw, meet floor. Audacity, meet your master: Sasha Ozerov. “My word?!” “You agreed to the deal, Ariel. Ten days. Ten dates. We have three to go. And I will not be denied.”

“Sasha— what the— PUT ME DOWN!” I hammer fists against his back, his shoulders, anywhere I can reach. My knee clips his ribs; he grunts but doesn’t slow. “You can’t just kidnap me because I ghosted you!” He kicks the ruined apartment door shut behind us. “Already did.”

It occurs to me, not for the first or even the hundredth time, how beautiful he is. It’s unfair, really. No one man should get to have hair that thick and eyes that blue. No one person should get to be so tall and so broad and so there. There’s too much of him, too much width and depth. I feel overwhelmed. It’s hard to breathe. But it’s his eyes that draw me in most of all. Because they’re looking at me like he’s never seen anything quite so divine.

All of my pent-up brattiness is turning into dirty fuel, getting channeled into something altogether different than what I thought I’d be doing today. I’m hot, seething from head to exposed toe. Barefoot and in lingerie and almost two feet shorter than this mute, brooding titan, but fuck it—I’ll go to war with him if that’s what he makes me do.

“Wanting you is far more than ‘inconvenient,’ Ariel. It’s fucking ruining me. Do you know that? How can you not see that?” His laugh, when it comes out, is utterly heart-wrenching. “I want you so much it’s rotting my bones. Every second I’m with you, I want to bury myself in you until we both forget our own names. But wanting—” He presses his forehead to mine and exhales wearily. “Wanting is how men like me get people like you killed.”

“Why’d you come for me last night, Sasha?” “You know why.” “Because my father would’ve slaughtered you if I died?” “Because I would’ve slaughtered the world!”

“You asked me why I stopped kissing you in the car,” he rasps. “It’s because I knew. One taste, and I’d need another. Then another. Until you weren’t just a means to an alliance—you were the fucking air.”

“So need me then, Sasha.” My knuckles graze his split, scabbing knuckles. The site of the new scars he’ll soon bear as the price for keeping me safe. “Need me like I need you.”

This is more like an asteroid hitting the fucking earth.

“Quiet,” I growl against her spit-slick mouth. “Or they’ll hear what a greedy little thing you are.”

What am I?” She watches me through the reflection. “A man who breaks everything he touches.” The accusation tears through me, raw and true. I fist a hand in her hair, forcing her head back as my other hand clenches the flimsy lace between her legs. “Then why do you keep handing me the hammer?”

“You want them to know?” I hiss. “Want Yvonne to hear her precious merchandise getting fucked raw?” Her cunt flutters. Christ. I drag her head back by the hair, exposing her throat. “Beg.” “Sasha—” “Beg.” “Please—please don’t stop⁠—” I release her throat to shove two fingers in her mouth. “Suck. Taste what you’ve done.”

I don’t miss how his eyes dart to the corner, the alley, and the nearby roofs in quick succession. I wonder, not for the first time, what it’s like to be him. I’ve always run from stuff that hides in the shadows. Sasha? He shoots it. But, with a sigh, I turn and do as he says.

Sasha laughs bitterly as he stops sorting and turns to face me. “Ariel Ward, if you think for even a moment that I’m in charge of what’s happening here, you’re mistaken. I’m as helpless as you are.”

He spreads his hands wide. “No traps here. No games, tricks, or bullshit. I didn’t intend for any of this to happen the way it has. But…” He leans over and cups my fingers between his palms. “I’m not fighting it anymore, Ariel. I tried; I tried like fucking hell. But it failed. So I’m doing the only thing I can do now: seeing where it takes us.”

“You want my biography, Ariel, as if that will explain me. Since when do facts on a page explain a person? Are you summarizable? Does your fucking LinkedIn tell your story?”

The monster isn’t a mask. Neither is the man. They’re the same person, split down the middle. And I’m falling into the crack in between them.