Bratva Vows Complete Box Set_ A Dark Mafia Romance - SR Jones Page 0,1

climates.

Wanting a breather, I push through a group of waitresses waiting impatiently for their orders and head out the door. I turn to the right, and my legs fly from under me.

I’m falling backwards, my heart in my throat, and a moment of awareness this is going to hurt.

No pain greets me; instead, something halts my fall. A strong grip around my upper arm and I’m wobbling to a standing position, my breath coming in quick gasps.

I look down to see someone has thrown the ice from the freezer out by the door. Stupid idiot!

“You ought to be more careful, you could have broken your back.”

The deep, thickly accented voice jolts me from my contemplation of the ice.

I’d recognize the voice anywhere.

I slowly turn to look at my savior. Oh, Lord.

Andrius.

A monster among men.

Those men inside, sat around the table, might not scare me too much, not even Allyov himself. This man though … he terrifies me. I do all I can to avoid him, and it sucks he was the one to catch me.

I swallow hard. “Thank you.”

He’s looking at me too intently for my liking. Those ghostly grey eyes of his don’t miss anything.

Whenever he comes here to eat, I avoid him. I try not to serve his table, and if he’s with Allyov, I take a break from my loitering and spying.

I do all I can to stay off his radar because every single sense I possess tells me he’s a malicious and dangerous man. He’s also devastatingly attractive, the combination of which is all a bit too much for me to deal with. I can’t deny I have a strange infatuation with him.

He scares me but fascinates me. When he’s not looking, I find my eyes flicking his way, and the odd occasion he glances up and our gazes lock, my legs go weak. Like something out of a bad novel. Yep, the man is dangerous to my health. Avoidance is by far the best tactic. Yet here I am in front of him, his sharp gaze upon me.

“Someone threw ice out right by the door,” I say as a way to make conversation and explain my clumsiness.

His gaze hardens as he looks at it. “Stupid. Allyov leaves this way; he could hurt himself.”

Oh, great. I might have given one of the kitchen staff a death sentence with my big mouth.

I only know about Andrius what my senses tell me and the rumors I’ve heard. Whispers here, mutterings there. But what I’ve heard is terrifying.

He’s impossibly handsome, beautiful even, but it hides a dark heart. The sharp suits, expensive car, the designer watch, he gets all these things from killing people. From taking fathers and brothers from their loved ones.

The rumors say he doesn’t touch women and children. People whisper this reverentially, as if it makes him a hero. Some hero.

I want to scrub at my arm where he grabbed me, his touch burning through the cotton of my blouse.

The door opens behind me, and Andrius turns. I sag in relief to have his searching gaze taken away.

“Andrius, you beast!” One of Allyov’s henchmen staggers out into the warm night air, obviously worse for wear.

“Watch where you’re going,” I tell him, before I can question the wisdom of having anymore interaction with these people.

I might want Allyov to notice me one day, maybe one day soon. When it suits my purposes. However, it doesn’t pay to be on their radar before the day comes to put my plans into action.

Allyov didn’t hire me, the restaurant’s senior manager did. She’s a nice, middle-aged woman, and I wonder if she knows she works for a Russian mob boss? She must know something is amiss with Allyov and his crew, but if she doesn’t speak the language then she won’t necessarily know what.

Me? I listen. I spy on them. I play my dangerous and increasingly terrifying game as I try to gain as much information as I can about my target.

One day, I hope and pray I, the lamb, will become the hunter.

Until that day, the moment when opportunity will present itself, I lurk and linger and learn.

I hover around their table when they are in the restaurant, hiding myself behind the huge plants nearby, or simply lingering on my way to the kitchen. They don’t notice me. The kind of women they like are glamorous, tall, stacked.

All except Allyov himself. He prefers women like me. Or, I should say, the real me, the one I am when I