Merciless - Paperback

She's A Ruthless Card Counter I'm The Mafia Enforcer She Stole From...And I'm About To Collect.

With a gorgeous face and a criminal streak, Lindy thinks she owns Sin City. But my new obsession made a fatal choice when she walked into my Las Vegas casino.

She trusted the wrong people, put greed before common sense, and lost everything.
Now, there's a debt to be paid.
To me.

But I don't care about money...
I want her as my payment.

MERCILESS, the explosive first book in the dark Russian mafia series, SEVERINOV BRATVA, by USA Today Bestselling author Kristen Luciani, is a standalone Dark, Captive, Hate To Lovers Mafia Romance, complete with HEA and no cheating.

Do you know how hard it is to row your fucking boat through a black sea of icebergs?
It’s murder. 
Punishable by death.
The blistering sea winds assault my body as I trudge through the hard snow. I tug the fur collar of my coat up higher around my neck, but the bone-chilling cold still manages to seep into my skin even though it’s buried under about four layers of fleece and thermals.
I brush my heavily gloved hand down the side of my thick, sheepskin-lined pants, running what I think are my fingers over the frigid steel strapped to my inner thigh.
I should be stretched out on a lounge chair right now on Plage du Larvotto Beach in Monaco right now, watching the crystal blue waves of the Mediterranean ripple. The hot sun, the palm trees, topless women giggling and dancing around with champagne glasses clutched in their hands…I should be there right now.
I could be fucking some gorgeous heiress. Or some internet entrepreneur. Or whoever the hell else might catch my eye.
Maybe all three of them together.
But all of it would be meaningless…just diversions from a life filled with rage, regret, and plots for revenge. 
And none of it could heal the gaping wound that haunts our family. None of it would bring back what we had lost.
Until I got the phone call I didn’t realize I’d been waiting for.
I’ve waited a damn long time for this night. I’ve trained my whole lifetime for it.
Everything is in place.
I trudge through the hard, packed snow, knee-deep in the frozen tundra toward the single glowing light in the distance. I use it as my only guide. Any other lights will call attention to me, and my marks will scatter like fucking cockroaches. I can’t risk that. It’s taken me too long to find them. 
My breaths become short and sharp as I drag my limbs forward, flexing my numbing toes. Just a little farther…just a few more minutes…just a few more steps…
And then, justice will finally be served.
A buzzing sound jolts me, and I drop to the ground and huddle behind a thick tree trunk to see if there’s any new intel on my targets. I roll my eyes. It’s not intel. It’s my sister, Tali, sending me a picture of what I’m missing right now. A shiver runs through me, and I pull my scarf higher around my neck. I was supposed to meet her and the rest of my family days ago, until I made up some bullshit excuse about one of my security guys finally finding a hole in the German banking system we’ve been trying to hack for the past month. 
She’d flip if she knew where I am right now. So would my brothers. 
And my father?
Well, he’s the reason I’m here in the first place. 
I shoot off a quick reply and shut off my phone. Once I get closer, any distractions will cost me a whole lot.
Like my fucking life.
I grunt for the last few feet until I’m positioned right outside of the ominous stone compound set in the Middle of Nowhere, Russia, only accessible by boat.
I take a deep breath and drop my bag on the ground. The ice is so thick that my boots stay secure on the surface. Not that it matters since my pants are already soaked and now frozen to my legs from my hike up to the barbed-wire barricade set up outside the concrete building. I assemble my assault rifle and hoist it over my shoulder before slicing a hole through the fence with one of my trusted tools of the trade.
I climb through and position the rifle on a rock overlooking the compound that sits at the bottom of the valley. Heat sensors identify my targets, and fortunately for me, they’re all in one spot. 
Perfect.
Motherfuckers will pay. All of them. I don’t give a shit how many of them I take out tonight. 
It’s my war to win. 
It’ll never bring Mom back, I know that. It’ll never make us whole. I’ll continue to suffer, just like the rest of my family. It’ll never take away the horrifying memories and the feelings of helplessness and guilt that eat away at my sister Tali.
All because I lost my focus the one time I needed to keep it.
No, this won’t even the score. It won’t fix us. 
But it has to be done. 
And I have to be the one to do it.
I can take them all out right from here, just like one of those stupid carnival games where you take out ducks or some shit like that. I can plug them one at a time and watch the heat sensors go cold. 
But that’s not how I work. Not this time.
I creep down the hill, toward a dark opening in the compound. I need to make sure I look that fucking asshole right in the eyes before I put a bullet between them. I want him to know who pulled the trigger, who sold him out, who gave me the information I needed to find him. I want him to know he’s not goddamn invincible.
The icy wind snakes around my limbs and numbness creeps up each of my calves. I trudge through the packed snow until I reach the entrance. I pull it open slowly and immediately drop to the ground in the darkness.
A large man wrapped in wool twists around, pointing his gun at the air. From my vantage point on the floor, I take aim and pull the trigger once, hitting him in the carotid artery. He drops to the hard concrete floor like a two-hundred-pound sack of potatoes. The ground shakes with the impact, but I don’t wait for the aftershock to settle. I jump to my feet. 
One down.
I check my heat sensors again and see two approaching on my right. I wait until they’re in range. Seconds pass, precious seconds that I need to carry this whole thing out…and nothing. My heat sensor has gone cold. 
Fuck!
Whoever was there backed off for some reason. I’d wanted them to come to me, but it looks like they’re gonna make me work for my retribution.
Fucking perfect. It’ll make the kills that much sweeter.
These guys aren’t even the ones I really want. They’re collateral damage. No, Klim Yazov is my guy. He gave the order to kill my mother and sister. These other vodka-soaked inbreds just follow his lead, but he’s the one whose head I want to see explode into a million fucking pieces.
Just like our lives.
And hearts.
I inch forward, my finger pressed against the trigger. The silencer has kept me invisible, but I know I’m on borrowed time. I need to find Klim. My chest is tight with each step closer to a nearby doorway. Dim lights glow from the bottom of the heavy wooden door, and loud voices argue in some Russian dialect behind it.
How many of them are inside of that room? And why are they all together? My sensors had them spread out…is my equipment crapping out on me?
If I blow through this door, I can take out a handful of them. But who the fuck knows how many others will come running?
I can’t risk it. Klim wouldn’t be in the center of his army. He’d be tucked away somewhere, probably balls deep in some pussy. There’s a staircase a few feet away, and I debate for a split second before I start the climb. The sensors detected someone upstairs, and I’d bet my left nut it’s Klim.
I take the stairs, light as possible on my toes to avoid any creaks. Fucking old wood. All the money that Klim has stolen through the years, and he insists on shacking up at this shithole in Siberia? 
Cheap bastard. 
I get to the top of the stairs and a faint moaning drifts out into the darkened hallway. It’s a woman. My brow furrows. Strange…it almost sounds like—
I sidestep a rusted nail popping out of the floor. The rotted planks are uneven and old, and I’m afraid one wrong step will have me crashing through them, plunging to a painful, mangled death before I can finish the job I came here to do. I hold my breath as I tiptoe closer to the first room on my right. Someone’s getting fucked for sure. Literally and figuratively.
And judging from the grunts and groans that get louder with each passing second, I don’t think anyone will notice if the floor boards creak under my weight.
I stand outside the door, my heart thumping against my rib cage. My leg twitches as I raise it to kick in the door. A quick look at the rusty hinges confirms that it won’t take much to knock it down.
An image of my mother and Tali laughing and dancing around our garden flashes through my mind. 
This won’t change anything.
He already took too much that you can’t ever get back.
I grit my teeth, position the gun on my shoulder, and kick in the door. 
Fuck it.
A loud shriek shatters the silence, and I don’t even stop to think before I pull the trigger. One clear shot to the head and his naked, lifeless body collapses next to the woman he’d just been fucking. 
I don’t have time to think. Fuck, I don’t have time to breathe. I point the barrel of the gun at the woman whose face is still hidden by the man’s beefy body. I need to shut her the hell up and hope the other assholes downstairs are too hopped-up on drugs and drunk on booze to realize that there’s an all-out assault on their compound only a few feet away.
“Kaz, don’t! Stop, please!”
I yank off my ski mask, my eyes squinting at the bloody scene in front of me. 
“Ana?” 
As in Ana Petrov, the one who gave me the intel on Klim’s location. 
Ana, my ex-girlfriend and the Russian spy I was stupid enough to trust for help with taking down Klim. 
I figured since we had a history, she could be trusted.
Clearly, I was wrong. 
“Goddammit!” I kick over a chair. Always a spy fucking first.
She sits up in the bed, clutching the bedsheet to her neck. “I’m sorry, Kaz.”
Sorry for what? For fucking me and making promises she’d never keep?
Or for pretty much handing me my own death certificate?
But I can’t let either thought percolate. I have to get the hell out of here. 
I can’t focus on the fact that this woman had been working with my enemy all along, that she served me up to them on a silver fucking platter.
“Did they pay you well, Ana?” I growl before turning on my heel. Heavy footsteps thump around downstairs, and voices that were loud before are now deafening. Everyone is jumping into lock-down mode. “I hope the money was worth it.”
I have a few seconds left before I’m completely screwed, but fuck me if I leave without the last word.
I let her get inside of my head. I trusted her. I lost focus.
Again.
“Kaz, I never meant—”
I hold up my hand, raising my rifle. Before I’d kicked in the door, I noted two windows on the opposite side of the hallway. 
My rapid escape plan.
The army of Chechen fucks that’s about to invade this space won’t know what hit them. I’ll take them out one by one…every single one will see exactly who has the last word. 
Including Ana.
That goddamn whore.
I swallow hard as the footsteps get louder and heavier. They’re close…
They’re coming at me from all sides.
Ana jumps off the bed and lunges for me at the worst possible time, tackling me to the hard floor next to the bed, butt-ass naked. The door, already barely hanging on its hinges after my kick-in, crashes to the ground as the walls shake under the force of the men running into the flames without even understanding what they’re fighting for.
Bullets explode into the air as I struggle to regain my footing. I crouch with my rifle, pointing at each one of the lumbering assholes who stumbles into the room swinging around a weapon.
Within seconds, the place is wallpapered with blood and brain matter, but more yelling follows. More pounding, more shooting, more hellfire about to rain down on this death trap.
“Why the hell are you helping me?” I hiss, pulling another semiautomatic from the ankle strap on my left leg. “You baited me. You knew I’d come.”
Ana points her own gun in anticipation of the next wave of Chechens ready to invade. They’re like fucking cockroaches. Kill one, ten more show up.
“Yeah, I did. But there was no way for me to get to you after you left,” she whispers. “And by then it was too late to tell you—”
A door creaks open in the corner of the room and I jump, pointing my gun to the single figure illuminated by the brightest light I’ve seen in hours. I blink a bunch of times to make sure my eyes are still working. 
Because if they are, fuck me up the ass. 
I just made a very big, very deadly, mistake.