Kat
My father's marrying me off to the Russian mob.
But is it still a shotgun wedding…if I used to be in love with the groom?
Growing up, Gray Petrokov was my closest friend and confidant.
Then he left town and broke my heart into a million pieces.
Now he's back and waiting for me at the altar.
But Gray's transformed into a tattooed hitman with a cocky smile, a dirty mouth, and the biggest, um, gun I've ever seen. I'd be crazy to still be in love with him. I'm not the kind of girl who takes orders, even from a Bratva boss.
Even when I'm carrying his secret baby.
So, I'm planning on being a runaway bride.
But what will I do if he catches me?
Gray
I never wanted innocent Kat to be touched by my criminal lifestyle.
But now she's in deep. And that's all I can think of: being deep inside her.
That, and keeping us alive.
Kat was too good for me, too good for the things I've done. So I pushed her away.
Now she's caught up with the mob and I'm her only hope.
She's looking at me like I'm a killer—and she's right.
My feelings for her haven't changed. Call me crazy. Obsessed. An animal.
But if she finds out I've been lying to her…she'll run.
Now that I've had a taste of her, I'll never let her go.
I'll chase her, hunt her down, claim her as mine.
No matter what.
Shotgun Wedding is a standalone romance novel with no cliffhangers and no cheating, but one seriously bossy, seriously big Bratva hitman. Due to the tattooed guy's dirty mouth and dirty deeds, this book is not intended for readers under the age of 18.
Excerpt
Prologue
I watch 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 was only twenty-nine, but I felt almost one hundred.
Solonik threw back his head and laughed as the man in the chair began 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 stiffened but didn't move as Markov called my name. Markov, my second least-favorite person on earth, never referred to me as Ghost—that would give me too much power in his mind.
Markov moved to stand next to me, both of us in the shadows of Solonik's club's basement. Solonik had stepped back and was letting one of the new guys begin the beating; the man in the chair howled after the first punch. The second punch to the gut shut him up, except for the wheezing.
"I should have known," Markov said, grinning. He had squat, pug-like features, and he acted like a dog who’d tasted blood: you knew, sooner or later, he’d 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 owes 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.