Page 1 of Claimed and Bred By the Bratva

Dimitri

Thecoffeeshopreeksof burnt espresso and broken dreams. Fitting, since I'm here conducting business that ends with someone's kneecaps shattered.

Viktor slides the flash drive across the sticky table between us. "Payment records. Every transaction Kozlov made with the Italians." I pocket the drive without looking. My attention snags on something else entirely—something that makes my chest tighten in a way I haven't experienced in twenty years.

She's laughing.

The sound cuts through the ambient noise like a blade through silk. Pure. Unguarded. The kind of laugh that belongs to someone who still believes the world contains more good than evil. She's behind the counter, wiping down the espresso machine while chatting with her coworker, a girl with purple hair and enough piercings to set off metal detectors. But this one... Christ. This one glows like she's been lit from within.

Warm mahogany-brown skin catches the late afternoon light streaming through grimy windows. Her hair is pulled back in a messy puff that reveals the elegant curve of her neck. When she tilts her head back to laugh, I catch sight of bee-sting lips painted in soft cinnamon, and something primitive unfurls in my gut.

Mine.

The thought slams into me with the force of a freight train. I don't even know her name, but every cell in my body is screaming the same word. Mine. Mine. Mine.

"Dimitri?" Viktor's voice sounds like it's coming from underwater. "We need to move on Kozlov tonight."

I don't respond. Can't. Because she's walking toward our table now, coffeepot in hand, and I'm drowning in dark espresso eyes shot through with gold flecks that seem to dance when she moves.

"More coffee?" Her voice is warm honey over gravel, sweet with just enough rasp to make a man think sinful thoughts. I manage a curt nod. She leans across the table to refill my cup, and I catch a hint of vanilla and something uniquely her. The scent brands itself into my memory banks. Up close, she's even more devastating. High, satin-smooth cheeks frame a smile broad enough to light the dimmest room. There's a barely-there beauty mark near her jawline that makes my fingers itch to trace its outline.

"You know," she says, straightening up but not moving away, "I've seen you in here a few times, and I don't think you've smiled once. Not even a little upturn of the lips." The casual observation should annoy me. Instead, it sends electricity crackling down my spine. When was the last time someone paid enough attention to my expressions to comment on them? When was the last time anyone dared?

"Maybe you haven't given me a reason to," I reply, my voice rougher than intended.

Her grin widens, completely undeterred by my ice-cold tone. If anything, she seems charmed by my bluntness. "Challenge accepted." She taps the table with one finger—short nails painted a cheerful coral—and winks. Actually winks. At me. Dimitri Ismailov, the man who's tortured grown men into catatonic states just for looking at him wrong. "I'm Amani, by the way. And you are?"

The question hangs between us like a loaded gun. I should give her a fake name. Should lie, deflect, disappear. Instead, I say, "Dimitri."

"Dimitri." She rolls my name around on her tongue like she's tasting fine wine. "I like it. Strong. Classic. Suits you."

Then she does something that stops my heart completely. She smiles at me. Not the practiced, calculated smiles I'm used to from women who want something from me. Not the fear-tinged grimaces of those who know what I'm capable of. This smile is pure sunshine. Golden light radiating from someone who sees a brooding stranger in an expensive suit and thinks,I want to make this person happy.

The last person who smiled at me like that was my sister Katya. Right before they put a bullet in her head and dumped her body in the Moskva River. The memory hits like a physical blow. Katya, barely sixteen, laughing at something stupid I'd said while Mama braided her hair. Both of them gone because of my father's enemies. Because I wasn't strong enough, smart enough, ruthless enough to protect them.

I haven't smiled back at anyone in twenty years. Haven't had a reason to.

But looking at Amani—sweet, oblivious Amani who has no idea she's flirting with a monster—something long-dormant stirs in my chest. It's been so long, I can't identify the fluffy feeling.Is it hope? What the fuck? If Viktor notices the exchange, I'll have to kill him—and I like Viktor. But no one can know the way thiswoman, a girl really, is breaking something inside me. Shit, and I haven't even touched her… yet.

"I'll work on that smile," she says with mock seriousness, then bounces away to help another customer. I watch her go, mesmerized by the natural sway of her hips and the musical cadence of her voice as she greets the next patron. Everything about her radiates life, light, and innocent joy. Everything I've spent two decades systematically destroying in myself.

Viktor clears his throat. "We should go."

Right. Business. The reason I'm here. Except now all I can think about is finding out Amani's last name. Where she lives. What makes her laugh. Whether she'd still smile at me if she knew I've killed more men than she's probably met in her entire life.I leave cash on the table—enough to cover the coffee and a tip that will make her remember me—and follow Viktor toward the exit. At the door, I risk one last look back.

She's already watching me, that sunbeam smile still playing at the corners of her mouth. She raises her hand in a little wave, and something cracks open inside my ribs. Twenty years of carefully constructed walls. Twenty years of ice-cold control.

Shattered by one smile from a coffee shop angel who doesn't know she just sealed her fate.

Because when I want something. I take it.

And I want her.

***

Twenty-four hours later, I'm in my home office staring at multiple screens that shouldn't exist.

Amani Greene. Twenty-one years old. Scholarship student at the local university, majoring in early childhood education. Works part-time atBean There, Done Thatto supplement her financial aid. Lives alone in a one-bedroom apartment six blocksfrom campus—a neighborhood that makes my security team twitchy.

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