Page 8 of The Bratva's Bounty

I fucked up.

I shouldn't have called her stupid bluff. I shouldn't have screwed around and found out.

Strings of curses in Russian spilled from my scowling mouth as I held the small towel Nicole threw at me after bashing my face in with a wooden plank.

"Seriously, what happened? You look like you lost a fight with a wall," Alexei, my younger brother, inquired as he inspected my crooked nose after removing the blood-saturated cloth. "You're usually not this grumpy either, so something went wrong."

Grumbling under my breath, I glared burning holes into the wall ahead of me. "Nothing, just a bad day in the field." No one knew much about my latest assignment besides that it was a locate and retrieval of a woman.

Yeah, like hell I would admit to them now that a little tiny Asian woman got the best of me. I'll just wrap up this damn assignment and be done with it. Nicole was still as much of a mystery to me after two weeks than before.

Yet, I couldn't bring myself to retrieve her and put her back in her parents' care, if it could even be called that. Something wasn't right with this whole situation, but I still hadn't figured that out either.

Personally, I haven't had much time to dig into her parents as I'd like because most of my day went toward tailing Nicole. Well, recently, most of my day has been focused on tolerating her yapping. For someone supposedly reserved, she sure could run her damn mouth and talk the ears off of people.

Honestly, Nicole was nothing as I anticipated thus far—but whether it was in a bad way or a good way was yet to be determined. I half expected some demure girl, but lo and behold, I got a fucking grenade that blew up in my face today.

I should be pissed and in a rage. Woman or not, if someone struck me, then it made them fair game to me. Only time I never retaliated was if my assailant was literally a child or some feeble woman who'd die from a single strike from me. Yet, I found myself unable to feel anything ill toward Nicole, even though she wasn't acting in self-defense or out of petty revenge. She fucking whacked me in the face with a piece of wood because I simply annoyed her and underestimated her. Now, she could have very well done something not so drastic, but I couldn't help the feeling of amusing shock at her bold audacity.

Seriously, who the fuck thinks, 'Oh, this person isn't listening to me, so I'll just smack them with a bat' basically. No one soft and innocent would jump from zero to a hundred like that without damn good reason. And no, my disregarding her words would not constitute as a damn good reason. I would make that jump, but I'm me, so that's fine. I mean, what can I say? I'm an amped-up man with too much to vent on the world. Nicole, though, damn woman gotta be crazy.

Sure, I deserved something thrown at my face for being an asshole to her warning, but certainly not something literally to my face like that. Still, couldn't be mad at her, which is the reason why I was pissed because I should be. Crazy enough, I wanted to see what more damage she could do when pushed.

Yeah, call me a crazy and stupid asshole because I am, but I've never met a woman who was brave enough to stand her ground against me like that after knowing exactly who I am. Not counting my sister-in-law and my new best friend because they were mafia women. From what I'm aware, Nicole wasn't involvedin the mafia. Also, even though she stood up against me, I could still see the slight fear in her eyes. Yet, she didn't let that fear take over.

Nicole could have run, freeze up, or tried to appeal to my greater side for mercy—that's what people tend to do after realizing they'd fucked up against me. But not Nicole, though. Damn little hell fire was ready to face the consequences of her actions despite her fear. Then, there was also something else in her eyes; she had this look as if she dared me to doubt her more. For a sweet girl, I think she had a pretty violent bone in her cute little body.

"You rarely have a bad day in the fieldbratok, so what happened?" This time, my eyes moved over to my little brother, watching as he pulled on a pair of gloves and grabbed a wad of gauze. "Also, not every day you come to my office because of a little injury like this."

I expected him to dive right in and reset my nose, but nope. He stood there with his free hand on his hips, looking at me inquisitively. "Have you ever had someone scared of you but not? Like you can clearly see the fear in their eyes, yet they have this fire to them as well?"

Cracking a small, smug smirk, Alexei chortled out a chuckle before looking over my shoulder with a fond distance to his eyes. "Yeah, a long time ago, yeah. But it sounds like you've met your match. I feel bad for the dude who ends up with you," Alexei remarked with a cheeky gleam in his eyes before he stepped up to me and grabbed at my nose.

"Excuse you? Dude? I'll have you know I like chicks a little too much. Why the hell would you assume it's a man?" I grumbled with narrowing eyes as I braced myself for what was to come.

"Because no woman is crazy enough to put up with your insane and violent ass unless she's an insane criminal," Alexei replied before snapping my nose bridge back into place with a sudden jerk.

"Blyat'!" I cursed with a sharp inhale. "I'm starting to wonder how insane she actually is if she had the guts to whack me in the face like this," I muttered with a soft scowl of displeasure.

"Wait, a girl did this to you? Now you have to tell me, consider it payment for fixing your ugly face to make it semi-decent again." Never a good thing when your psychopathic brother is interested in your life. "But wait, yousaid you got hurt in the field… Wait, please don't tell me she's some cop or something. Seriously, Arseny's already gonna get himself in a hell of a bind with his little cop crush."

With a roll of my eyes, I snatch the wad of gauze from him to hold against my leaking nose. "No, she's not some cop or anything like that, just another assignment. I just underestimated her, that's all. I've got it all handled, and she probably won't be a problem for much longer. So, don't go running your mouth to Kolya or the others. I'm pulling the patient-doctor privacy privilege shit on this one." Unless my life was in immediate danger, I knew Alexei would respect my wishes because he took his career as a doctor rather seriously enough.

I'd never go for a cop or anyone in law enforcement or politics—that was just asking for shit to go down. I honestly don't know what the hell went on in my youngest brother's—Arseny—mind with this stupid little crush of his. Well, pretty sure I could easily get the answer from Alexei because the two of them shared everything with each other and understood each other in and out. Of course, that'd be a cheap shot to ask Alexei because, of course, he'd know his own identical twin inside and out—they're practically the same person. No matter, Arseny was a grown-ass adult who could make his own bad decisions if he so wished; as long as it didn't bite our family in the ass, then I saw no harm in him having some kind of fun.

With a wary look, Alexei eyed me for a good moment before plopping back down behind his desk after discarding his gloves. "Lev, you've never let an assignment get the best of you like this, nor have you ever underestimated many people. Are you going soft now?" The little shithead teased with a cocky little smirk as he leaned back in his chair with his fingers laced and elbows propped on his legs.

Gritting my teeth, I scowled deeply at Alexei with a growl and chucked the saturated gauze at him. Alexei chuckled and easily dodged it by leaning to the side. "It's about time you simmer down and stop being a terror to everyone in the city," Alexei remarked with a cheeky smirk.

"I'm not going soft, you little psychopath. I just didn't expect her to have that spunk to her after doing all my research on her. But like I said, she won't be a problem much longer. I'm done playing around with her." Screw it. I'll just corner her at the next chance and have a nice chat with her before possibly snatching her back to her parents.

"Done playing around with who?"

Fucking great.

Internally groaning, I looked over to the office door as it shut. "Nothing, Kolya," I grumbled in response to my oldest brother, the Pakhan of our bratva.

"Lev, what the fuck did you do?" Nikolai—who we all call Kolya—sighed exasperatedly before rubbing his temple.