Shotgun Wedding: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance: The Brooklyn Brotherhood

Prologue

Gray

Iwatch as Viktor Solonik —the crew's pakhan, my boss, and the biggest pain in my ass—casually swings a hammer as he paces the room. I haven't met the unlucky guy who's tied to the chair in front of Solonik, but even if I had, chances are once Solonik begins beating on him, I wouldn't be able to recognize him.

Solonik is a twisted fuck, but he doesn't like to get blood on his fancy suits. Maybe it's because his face is so ugly. I’m not being petty. He loves his deeply pockmarked cheeks, the scar on his lip that makes half his mouth a quarter-inch higher than the rest. He preens and prances in his ten-thousand-dollar suits, while intimidating the hell out of his enemies—not to mention subordinates, women, the police, fucking dogs on the street—with his looks.

Call him ugly, fat, a dirty shit, a bastard, a minion from hell. He's probably heard all of it and worse.

Just don't get one speck of dirt or drop of blood on his designer shoes.

He leaves the dirty work to his us, the boyevik boys, his warriors. He doesn't mind ordering us to get waist-deep into the shit and mud and blood. He loves it, in fact. I seriously think he gets off on the violence—and, of course—the money.

But it's that cruel, soulless thing he's got going that's quickly elevated him from a minor player in Brighton Beach to one of the biggest, newest forces in New York's criminal elite. As Solonik would say, fuck the Italians. And the Irish, Chinese, Mexicans and—well, basically, he'll say that to anyone.

Not to me, though. Not anymore.

Maybe once, when I first started with his crew. But I've grown a lot in the past seven years. I'm not a scared-shitless shestyorka, a glorified errand boy keeping a lookout as Solonik's crew did their worse.

I'm an assassin, my aim sharper and truer than my father's ever was.

It helps that I never touch the vodka he loved so much.

The man in the chair jerks and shouts as Solonik swings the hammer—a feint—over the prisoner's head. The man's voice nags at me, and I frown. It makes me think of my father, but it must be because in one week, I'm free.

Free from the promise I made, to be in Solonik's debt for seven years in exchange for my father's life.

It was the stupid, rash promise of youth. Noble, but meaningless: my father drank himself to death less than a year into my sentence. I'd left my home, I'd left my friends, I'd left my youth—I'd left her—and all for naught.

I’m only twenty-nine, but I feel almost one hundred.

Solonik throws back his head and laughs as the man in the chair begins to weep.

Of course, working for this asshole would age anyone.

I roll my shoulders and freeze my face into the same impassive mask that I've perfected over the years. I could be at a wedding, a funeral, or a fucking Fourth of July fireworks show and I'd look the same. It was how I'd earned the nickname Ghost.

Partially because, hit after hit, I would appear, take out my target, and disappear into the night. Like a specter. And my face. After the brutal beatings and mafia initiation rights, I learned to clamp down, never show weakness. Never show anything. People thought nothing ever touched me, that I just coasted through the world.

And after awhile, after enough pretending, they were right.

Now, in one more week, none of this shit would touch me, ever again. I'd saved enough money to leave Viktor Solonik, New York, and all this shit far, far behind.

Petrokov.

I stiffen but don’t move as Markov calls my name. Markov, my second least-favorite person on earth, never refers to me as Ghost—that would give me too much power in his mind.

Markov moves to stand next to me, both of us in the shadows of Solonik's club's basement. Solonik steps back and lets one of the new guys begin the beating; the man in the chair howls after the first punch. The second punch to the gut shuts him up, except for the wheezing.

I should have known, Markov says, grinning. He has squat, pug-like features, and he acts like a dog who’s tasted blood: you know, sooner or later, he’ll have to be put down. You really do have ice in your veins. You grew up with that asshole, and you don't even care he'll be beat to death.

What the fuck?

It's not often Markov, or anyone, surprises me. I don't like that he knows something I don't. I shrug, knowing Markov just wants to get a rise out of me.

He owes Viktor too much money to ever pay it off, Markov whispers. He sounds gleeful. Viktor says he'll give us the bar to save his life—it won't be enough, of course.

The bar? Markov loves to lord his relationship with Solonik over the rest of us. Of course, you kiss ass well enough, anyone can get close to the throne.

The man in the chair moans again, begging for his life, saying he'll give up anything—his bar—anything Solonik wants.

Something's niggling at the back of my mind. A bar. The man's voice.

I keep thinking of my father, of my years growing up on Poplar Street, deep in Brooklyn, deep in poverty.

He owed Viktor for gambling, Markov continues. I'm surprised he's not rubbing his fucking hands together with glee. Then he tried to run drugs for us, out of his family's bar. He's a shitty gambler, but an even worse dealer.

I look down at Markov, shrug, then look back at the man. But my mind is racing…family bar…my father's voice.

Please! I'll give you anything! the man screams as the new recruit takes the hammer and aims it as the poor bastard's knees.

Now Markov actually laughs. Solonik's going to take the bar. It's a shitty old Irish place, but it'll be a great cover for getting clean money. But even that wouldn't pay off this asshole's debts. He's got a pretty daughter, though. A real looker. Viktor says he'll take her, pass her around. If I want her, I can have her. If not, the Red Room brothel will get a sweet little Irish girl to add to their collection. You should see her tits…

I see red.

Irish bar.

Irish girl.

They're talking about my Kat.

1

Kat

It's my wedding day .

At least, that's what my father told me, before he took my cell phone and locked me in the women's restroom in the basement of St. Ignatius Vasily Catholic Church.

Dear ol' dad didn't bother to throw a wedding dress in here with me, so I'm wearing jeans and a t-shirt, which is a much more appropriate outfit for what I'm attempting to do: get the hell out of here.

Unfortunately, I'm a bartender and waitress, not a locksmith. So I can't get the door open. The only window is about the size of one of my butt cheeks, and it's about five inches from the top of the ceiling. Ever the optimist, I stacked three, large cardboard boxes full of toilet paper and am now balancing on them, trying to pry open the bathroom window.

It's welded shut.

I drop my head, and the nail file I was trying to pry open the window with; wild guess, but I don’t think Hello Kitty nail files are what people use to break out of prison.

Oh God, oh God, oh God is the only thing going through my mind right now. I take a deep breath and slowly exhale. I need to move past the panic and into problem-solving mode. I need to breathe. I need to get the fuck out of this church basement.

Maybe I should try and pray. I am in a church, after all.

Dear God, as you probably know, I've been kidnapped.

By my own father.

Please help me escape this bathroom. Please don't let this arranged marriage to some crazy Russian mobster actually happen.

And please, please don't let the Russians kill my father…

…because I want to do that the next time I see him.

I wait a minute, foolishly expecting an answer. A sign. A savior?

Instead, the cardboard boxes beneath me shift. I knew it was stupid to stack half-empty boxes on top of each other, and even more stupid for me to then climb up on them—but there was nothing else to stand on and nowhere else to go.

I try to balance on the stronger, outer edges but the boxes wobble and begin to bend beneath my weight. I'm little, but I'm not that little. For a five-two chick, I've got curves and ass to spare. I spend my days and nights working at my family's bar, which means I'm adept at dodging drunks' groping hands, but that's about the extent of my athletic abilities. I'm about the last person in the world who should be attempting a gymnastics-meets-balancing-act escape.

I'm also in a complete, panic-induced mental meltdown. All of which adds up to imminent disaster.

The boxes wobble again. I gasp and my old Converse tennis shoes slip. I reach for the window ledge above me, but of course, one inch of finger grip does nothing for me. I'm not a fucking Russian gymnast. I yelp and shriek and begin to teeter toward the bathroom floor. Great, I'll break my tailbone.

Maybe they won't make me get married if I'm in a full-body cast.

Suddenly falling on my ass from six feet up isn't the worst idea ever.

I shout again, instinctually, when the boxes shift and begin to collapse, my left foot going straight down and through the top box. And that's when the door flies open—like, hinges be gone!—and I really scream.

Both because my makeshift escape-ladder is collapsing beneath me, and because my first love—the boy I haven't seen in seven years, but who still haunts my dreams at night—is standing, chest heaving, in the doorway.

Gray! I shout instinctually as he rushes forward. And suddenly I'm falling, straight into his waiting arms.

2

Kat

He catches me . Like it's nothing. Like I weigh nothing. Like he never left. Like we planned my falling perfectly.

And just like that, I'm in Grayson Petrokov's arms.

You're back, I whisper. I sound like I'm in awe.

I am.

The last time I saw Gray, I'd been seventeen and he'd been twenty-two. The days of our exploring abandoned Brooklyn buildings together—and hiding from our violent fathers—had already disappeared. But even as we left our shared, scarred childhood behind, he still checked on me every night, climbing up the fire escape outside my bedroom window. I'd feed him dinner through the window, since his mother was gone and his father didn't give a shit.

And he'd make sure I didn't have any new bruises, that I didn't need a place to escape to for the night.

Not that his house was much better, but unlike my Dad, Gray's old-school Russian father didn't hit women.

He sure beat the hell out of his son, though.

Seven years ago, Gray had changed from a wiry, rail-thin, tow-headed boy to a tall, towering, young man. He'd started working out and putting on muscle. He'd cut his hair short, and his signature white-blond locks had seemed to get darker and darker, like his moods.

He’d begun disappearing from our street, from my life, for days at a time. He had hung around big men with thick, Russian accents. He'd stopped talking to me. He’d said nothing was wrong, that he was just working. He’d told me I should just concentrate on school and not worry about him so much.

He’d said of course he'd always be there for me, but in order for us to ever leave Brooklyn, he had to make some money first.

He'd just gotten his first tattoo.

And how he's here, and I'm in his arms—it's all I ever wanted. It's what I've embarrassingly, achingly dreamed about for years and years.

I'd just always thought that if he were holding me like this—like a groom holding a bride, about to cross the threshold into their new home, or their new life—that's that what we would actually be.

Not that Gray ever knew how I felt. We'd never even kissed. He never even seemed to want to kiss me, except for that one night, before he left—

My gaze falls to his throat. His skin is darker than I remember it, an amber tan that complements the burnished brown and gold of his hair. Above the starched white collar of his dress shirt, I see the edge of a black tattoo, rising. It could be a vine; it could be a tentacle. The rest of the tattoo is hidden beneath his clothes.

His hair has turned from light blond to burnt gold. It's cut short, almost a military-style cut, though it's a bit longer and messy on top. He's got a five o'clock shadow that's thick gold and brown, and I realize if I moved my face just a fraction of an inch closer, I'd know what it feels like to have that roughness rub against my skin.

He has a scar above his left eyebrow, a white, puckered line that looks like he was cut once, and badly. It's new to me, yet old to him.

And he's wearing a suit, a dark gray suit that matches his name and his eyes. He's always had those rare eyes that look light blue sometimes, and then at other times, steel gray. I always used to think, when Gray was mad, that his eyes looked like the sky above the harbor, right before a storm. When he was happy—or when he wore a blue shirt—they looked like a sunny summer day.

They look dark and stormy right now.

I can't believe you're really here, I whisper. We stare at each other a moment, and I wonder why he isn't speaking. Then I realize: he did it.

He didn't forget about me.

He didn't lie to me.

He came back for me.

He said he'd come back once he made some money. Once he did whatever mysterious job he had to do. He said he'd come back and we could escape, get away from New York, away from our fathers, away from everything miserable in our lives.

You came back for me, I say. My eyes sting and I know I'm about to cry, but I don't care.

But Gray sees my forming tears. For a moment, his eyes soften.

Kat, he whispers. His voice is low, thick. God, he's a man now. He's got cheekbones for miles, a tense, square jaw. And those gray eyes are watching me, studying me, taking me in like he can't look away.

And I'm doing the same to him.

I could stay here for an hour, staring at his face.

Oh, thank God you're here. You came back. I'm smiling so hard my cheeks hurt, and I'm surprised when I start crying at the same time.

Don't cry, little Kat. Gray's voice is so low, so rough. He's even taller than he used to be, at least a foot taller than me, and so massive his shoulders fill the open doorway behind him.

Shh, Gray murmurs. He sets me gently on my feet, and I'm amazed when he takes my face between his palms. His hands are rough, I can feel the callouses on his fingertips as he wipes away my tears. He holds me so gently. Like I might break at any moment.

Like I'm precious.

I shake my head and pull back, out of his arms. For a moment his eyes flare and I have the crazy feeling that he won't let me go, won't even let me back up a step. But he does.

I'm fine, I say. I'm sorry, I'm fine. It's just been a—a crazy day. First my Dad lied to me, lured me here saying he was hurt, and then locked me in the church basement. I pause, and a wild laugh escapes me. I realize I sound like I'm in shock. Hell, I probably am in shock.

"Gray, I want to know everything. I want to know where you've been for seven years. But—right now—we have to get out of here." I take a deep breath and hope that what I'm about to say won't make Gray run out of here and disappear for another seven years.

I know you've been gone awhile. I try not to sound bitter. But the Russians, the Solonik family, have taken over the neighborhood. Apparently my Dad owes them a lot of money. Like, more than he could ever earn at the bar. Even if we sold it.

I'm sure Gray remembers O'Malley's. It was my mother's family's bar, a good, old-fashioned, unpretentious Irish neighborhood bar that my father had apparently run into the ground over the last ten years.

My dad wasn't exactly forthcoming on what he did to piss off the Soloniks so much. But, I pause and look down at my feet. I can't look Gray in the eye when I say this. Apparently he's offered them the restaurant. And when that wasn't enough—he offered them me.

I screw up my courage and look up at Gray, past his clenched hands, his nice suit, to his stormy gray eyes—I'm startled by how tortured he looks.

If I don't go upstairs and marry some Russian mafia henchman, they'll kill my father.

Gray still hasn't said anything. He hasn't even moved. But, under the surface, I see this anger working, moving, building. His body is as massive and still as a mountain, but I get the feeling that inside, his emotions are building up like an active volcano. And from the red tinge on his cheeks and his tight jaw, from the way his eyes are flashing—I have a feeling he could blow at any moment.

So, it's not that I don't want to catch up, but I've been locked down here for an hour while everyone apparently waited for the groom to arrive. And now, I gesture at the door Gray so handily bulldozed through. it's open. So maybe we could, I don't know, run like the wind and catch up outside? Maybe a million miles away from here?

Gray finally cracks a smile. He has a few more lines around his eyes now, but other than that, his smile is the first real glimpse of the boy I used to know. I could always make Gray laugh.

I smile back.

Kat, Gray says again.

"No, seriously, I want to hear all about it, big guy, I say, grabbing his mammoth hand and giving it a hard tug. I stumble forward a few steps; the giant rock formation Gray has turned into doesn't move. Once we're, like, at the airport headed for France. Or Iceland. Or…Wisconsin. Anywhere but here!"

I turn and face him, grabbing for his hand again, but now Gray's not smiling. He looks, in fact, like he's either going to punch a wall or throw up. I'm not sure exactly how to read the face he’s making—I’d call it pissed-off man of steel—but I'm pretty sure it's one of those two options.

I start to drop my hand, but he reaches for it, faster than I would have thought possible. His grip is strong and warm, but I'm suddenly nervous.

Why the hell aren't we getting the hell out of here?

Kat, I have to tell you something, Gray says.

And that's when I hear a deep, Russian voice behind me. I turn to see Viktor Solonik, the head of the Solonik crime family, in the doorway. He looks me up and down, appraising me like I'm a horse at auction, his hands brushing over his pockmarked cheeks. I've only ever seen him briefly, in passing. He uses the Café Russo as his home base. Everyone knows that if you want coffee, you sure as hell don't want to walk into the Café Russo.

Viktor finally drags his eyes away from my body and up to my face; his attention feels like a knife prick on my skin. Then he turns to Grayson and says, Ah, Petrokov, good: you have found your bride.

3

Gray

It wasn't supposed to be like this.

I watch as Kat's shoulders freeze, her entire body locking into place at Viktor's words. I watch her turn to stone before me, and it enrages me. I didn't think I could be more fucking pissed-off than I already am… but that's what happens when Viktor Solonik opens his damn mouth.

It makes me want to kill someone.

Specifically him.

The fucking prick couldn't have stayed upstairs for five more minutes. No, he has a sixth sense for how to fuck with someone—his employees, his enemies, his friends. And there’s no one who can stop him from playing with the lives of everyone around him.

No one, that is, except me.

I inhale slowly, wishing like hell I could wipe the smirk off his craggy face. Viktor's grinning, and though Kat has her back to me, from the glee on my current employer's face, it's clear that she's devastated.

Current being the operative word.

For the millionth time, I curse Kat's idiot father. I'd had a plan, and it was working—of course. I'd found out a long time ago that it doesn't matter what anyone else does or says: as long as you know what you want and you never stop, you'll get it.

Unless fucktards of the highest order come in and toss your perfectly laid plans to the four winds. But then you pick up the pieces, you adjust course, you move ahead.

You conquer.

Still, I couldn't wait for the day when I could wipe the evil smile off Viktor's face, once and for all. But for now…

"Pakhan. I force myself to call him boss" in Russian, though the word grates out of me. I've trained myself to never show emotion, to let them all think my nickname is earned, that I'm a pale shade of a man who only cares about killing and the paycheck that comes along with it.

They don't need to know that inside I'm a volcano; that one day I'll blow this motherfucking family up and burn it to the ground.

Then Kat turns around and I see her tear-stained face and the fire rages higher inside: burn it all until there's only ash left, the animal inside me growls. Most people don't know their animal nature. If you follow the rules of society, you can ignore the meat of your body and your baser instincts. You can sleep in a soft bed and have machines make your fucking coffee in the morning. You can distract your mind with phones and television and the internet all day long.

It's only when you feel—or inflict—pain, that you realize there's an animal inside all of us. An animal that, when cornered, will do anything—to escape the fire, to stop the pain,