Page 1 of Born into Chaos

Prologue

Two Years Earlier

Vitya

We’ve been patrolling this area for eight nights, and I’m starting to think guarding a house in the woods is going to be my permanent assignment from now on. I look around at the place the Melnikovs call the farmhouse and the acres of woods surrounding it. I’ve had worse gigs, and it’s not like I give a fuck anyway. It doesn’t matter where I am or what I’m doing. There’s no escaping certain things.

Out in the country or in the city—the memories always find me, and there’s fuck all I can do about it.

A quick glance at my watch lets me know I’ve got twenty minutes left on my shift before I switch out with Andrik. Wanting to make the most of it, I walk the perimeter again, scanning the dark woods to the right of me while giving quick nods to the men I pass. Everyone is on high alert. We all know what’s at stake here. It may not seem glamorous, but inside this big house are the wives and kids of the Melnikov brothers, and if anything happens to them, we’re all dead men.

When I’m sure everything’s secure, I head for the back door, hoping I can at least manage a few hours of sleep before it’s my turn again. Not wanting to wake anyone, I punch in the security code and step inside, closing the door behind me.

“Hey, Vitya. Everything look okay?”

The Russian words are whispered, and before I can even fully turn around and answer Andrik, I feel the sharp sting of his blade puncturing my skin. In seconds, the sting turns excruciating as he sinks the knife in to the hilt.

“Fucker,” I growl, trying to reach my own weapon, but he’s already pulling the knife out and bringing it down again, hitting my chest with a brutal strength that brings me to my knees. He’s determined to not give me the chance to fight back. My body falls to the floor, no matter how hard I try to remain upright. The wet heat of my blood soaks my shirt, and I know I’m losing way too much of it.

“Nothing personal,” Andrik whispers as he leans over and smiles down at me. “It’s just money.”

Stupid fucker is already a dead man for going against the Melnikov Bratva, but I guess he’ll figure that out soon enough. He sinks the blade in one last time, and as my vision grows spotty all I can think is that I’ve failed.

I’ve fucking failedagain.

I hear my brother’s voice, screaming my name through the chaos as bullets tear into his fifteen-year-old body, and the pain I feel at that memory is a thousand times worse than anything Andrik could do to me. He pulls the knife out, but every part of me is already back in Moscow, reliving that day, the moment my younger brother died in my arms. This is my hell, the one I’ll be doomed to suffer for an eternity, and it’s one I fully deserve. Seryozha’s dead eyes haunt me. He was always so happy, so annoyingly optimistic, but now they’re empty, completely lifeless. In my mind I scream his name, trying like hell to revive him, but just like the day it happened, he remains dead, because no matter what I do, he’s never coming back.

I welcome the darkness when it comes, sick and tired of carryingaround the guilt and wanting it to be over. I feel like I’ve only just slipped away when I hear someone screaming my name.

“Vitya! Oh my god, don’t you dare fucking die!”

Her voice sounds so far away, but even though my body remains still and I know my heart is barely beating, she doesn’t give up. If anything, she just gets louder.

“Pyotr! Get your ass down here right fucking now!”

I feel hands on me, pressing against my chest, but I’m too far gone to feel pain or to care. I’m so close to escaping this life, but the woman screaming and putting pressure on my wounds is obviously set on keeping me alive. She sobs, and she must be leaning over me because I feel her tears hit my face, and I want to tell her that it’s okay, to just let me go, but I can’t get the words out. I can’t even find the strength to open my eyes.

“Fuck.”

I recognize Pyotr’s voice. He’s the medic for the Bratva, and even though I don’t have any medical training, I know I’m pretty much a lost cause at this point.

“Sveta,” he starts to say, but she quickly cuts him off.

“Don’t say it,” she hisses. “Fix him.”

I’d laugh if I could, but it’s getting harder and harder to breathe, and I’m pretty sure Andrik hit a lung.

“I’m not sure I can,” Pyotr tries to tell her, but she’s having none of it. He tries again and says, “He’s lost a lot of blood, and we’re an hour away from anything.”

The sob she lets out surprises me, but then she says, “That fucker took my best friend, and I don’t know what’s being done to her right now. He’s not taking anything else from us. Start trying to save him!”

She’s upset about Natalya being taken. They must know by now that it was Andrik, and in her grief, she’s latched onto me. If I can survive, then maybe Natalya can too. It’s a nice thought, but I wish I could tell her that I’m not worth the tears. They’ll get her cousin back. I have no doubt about that. Lev will burn down this whole goddamnworld to get his daughter back. Whether I live or die has no effect on that.

She lets out another sob and clutches my arm. “What’s his blood type?”

“A positive,” he says, because Pyotr is a walking encyclopedia of all our medical information.

“Me too,” Svetlana says. “Are you going to do the vein-to-vein transfusion, or do I need to start poking around on my own? We can start it and maybe it’ll keep him alive until we can make it to the hospital.”

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