Defiant Queen: A Dark Bratva Academy Romance, page 1
Defiant Queen
A Dark Bratva Academy Romance
Jagger Cole
Defiant Queen
Jagger Cole © 2022
All rights reserved.
Cover by Plan 9 Book Design
Editing by MJ Edits | Proofing by Jessie Stafford, Teshia Elborne
This is a literary work of fiction. Any names, places, or incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Similarities or resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events or establishments, are solely coincidental.
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No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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The unauthorized reproduction, transmission, or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal and a violation of US copyright law.
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Contents
Defiant Queen
Playlist
A Special Present
Trigger Warning
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Epilogue
Savage Heir Preview
Paying The Bratva’s Debt Preview
Also by Jagger Cole
About the Author
Defiant Queen
“Alas that love, so gentle in his view,
Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof.”
-William Shakespeare
Playlist
Don’t Hurt Yourself - Beyoncé, Jack White
Magnolia Blues - Adia Victoria
Make It Easy - Sylvan Esso
Fountain Of Youth - Local Natives
Lover, You Should’ve Come Over - Jeff Buckley
Disparate Youth - Santigold
Solen Love - Josiah and the Bonnevilles
First Day of My Life - Bright Eyes
Love Will Tear Us Apart - Joy Division
I’ll Believe in Anything - Wolf Parade
Time Stands - Nathaniel Ratliff
Looking for You - Flo Morrissey
Wintersong - Blake Mills
Be Sweet - Japanese Breakfast
The Limits - BLOW
Baby Hallelujah - Konradsen
Civilian - Wye Oak
Love Brand New - Bob Moses
Never Is a Promise - Fiona Apple
Seven Nation Army - The White Stripes
Nocturnes, Op. 9: No. 1 in B-Flat Minor - Frédéric Chopin
Too Late Now - Wet Leg
Bassically - Tie Shi
Shiver And Shake - Ryan Adams
Song for Zula - Phosphorescent
Of Angels and Angles - The Decemberists
Chasing Cars - Snow Patrol
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Search “Jagger Cole” on Spotify to find this and other book playlists!
A Special Present
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Trigger Warning
This book contains graphic depictions of past trauma and abuse. While these scenes were written to create a more vivid, in-depth story, they may be triggering to some readers. Please read with that in mind.
Defiant Queen is book 2 of a two-part duet within the Savage Heirs series. You should not read this book before you have read Broken God.
1
This is where I died.
Two thousand miles from Oxford Hills—from my only safety net and only tether to my new strange life—I stand before the wooden door set in the high stone wall. Ivy covers the cracks and the bricks. Old wrought-iron lanterns adorn either side of the doorway—the flickering flames replaced with cobwebs in one and a bird’s nest in the other.
I know this place. No amnesia in the world could erase Krasnova Garden from my memories.
Odessa is dark and silent in the late evening hour. The walled mansions on this street and the ones around it—including the one I once lived in—are dimmed and cloaked in the serenity of high, manicured hedges and sprawling Mediterranean-style gardens. They’re also fortified against the darkness by unseen security systems and armed guards.
But here, on the small side street that runs past the entrance to Krasnova Garden, I’m alone when I reach out to press my palm against the heavy, weathered wooden door.
There are still three bullet holes in it. And for some reason, touching my hand to it feels like the same sort of feeling you’d get if you leaned out over the edge of a cliff. If you let go of the handlebars of a bicycle careening down a hill to feel the wind and the rush of death whistle past your ears.
“I have the municipal key, if you’d like to go inside.”
Well, I’m not completely alone.
I turn, nodding at Detective Bagan, who’s standing by the car a few yards behind me.
“I would. Thank you.”
He nods, but his brow knits.
“Ms. Belsky, don’t feel like you need to do this. I’ve been doing this long enough to know that facing past trauma, even if just by revisiting the scene of that trauma, can take a toll—”
“I’ll be fine, Detective.”
He eyes me curiously. Which is a slight change from the outright shock he had on his face when I walked into his precinct office an hour ago.
As fortified and guarded as OHA is, the security is there to primarily to keep people out of the campus. With the sons and daughters of some of the most important, and wealthiest people on earth living there, the guards are mostly concerned with stopping unapproved guests, paparazzi, and that sort of thing from entering the grounds.
Students obviously aren’t supposed to just leave. But when you’ve called ahead to have a chauffeured car ready, and you march right through the gate with a “try me” look on your face? I mean what were they going to do, restrain me? Hold me at gunpoint? For all they knew, given the caliber of students attending OHA, I could have been the future queen of Norway or something.
When I knew I needed to run from Oxford Hills—and far from Konstantin—it was a blind rage to just flee at first. And then, for some reason, I knew exactly where I needed to go.
The one good thing about being Semyon Belsky’s daughter? Having access to the kind of money that lets you call a chauffeured car to bring you to a private airfield, to take a private jet from Manchester to Odessa, at basically a moment’s notice.
I have no idea what it actually just cost me to make this leap of blind… something. But I’m pretty sure it’s going to make my impulse buy of the Oscar de la Renta dress a few weeks ago look like pocket change.
Running was the only option, though. I’ve felt numb and cold since the second I laid eyes on that horrible image—the damning proof of the devil I let inside.
The same man I’ve let into my heart and between my legs, and the man who pulled me from the darkness four months ago, is the very same man who shoved me screaming into that very darkness in the first place.
I’ve looked at the picture on the phone that’s currently in my small bag once since fleeing OHA—on the jet, halfway here. But the sheer panic and horror that sliced into me had me shoving it back into the depths of my bag before I exploded in pure rage and disgust.
I gave my virginity to the man who gave me a bullet.
I gave my heart to the man who almost stopped mine.
I’ve been trying to figure out if want to scream until my throat shreds, throw up until my body gives out, or run until my lungs stop working ever since I left campus.
Maybe it’s all three.
It wasn’t until I was in the waiting car that I knew where I’d be going. But why here, of anywhere? Why Krasnova Garden? Why the very place where my life shattered into a thousand shards of scattered memories and stolen years?
That’s what I’m hoping to figure out.
After this, though, the plan runs dry. All I know is, I have to put distance between me and Konstantin. I have to get away from the twisted claws he’s sunk into me, before he can…
I swallow.
Before he can try and kill me again.
Detective Bagan nods slowly.
“So you’re sure about going in there?”
“I am, yes.”
He blows air through his lips, letting his eyes hold mine for a minute. He’s a handsome, built man in his forties, with a trimmed goatee and a sharp suit—almost more like a James Bond actor than a police detective.
And
“Da, okay,” he smiles a winning grin. “Maybe it will shake something loose, no? But Ms. Belsky—”
“Mara really is fine.”
He smiles.
“Well, Mara, if it’s too much, or you start to feel overwhelmed, we’re leaving. Okay?”
“Okay.”
He smiles as he walks past me and fishes a key out of his jacket pocket. Krasnova Garden, like a lot of the walled little gardens in this area of the city, is for local, wealthy residents only. Hence it being locked. But Bagan has a police key that opens any of them.
“It’s amazing to me. This beautiful, private park right here. And not a one of them ever use it.”
I smile wryly.
“Why, because a girl and her bodyguards got shot here?”
He flashes a half smile, half grimace at my dark humor.
“No, not that. After your family moved away, this entire area seemed to grow even more wealthy and walled-off. More security details, more VIP residents, higher walls…” he shrugs. “A very famous Polish actress lives in your old house, actually. I can drive you past on the way back if you’d like. You should see the Cyprus trees she had brought it with a helicopter for her pool area.”
I’m not sure how to answer that I’d just as rather burn my late father’s home to the ground than see it again. But I’m saved by Detective Bagan pushing the heavy wooden door open on rusted, unused hinges.
“Oh, I meant to ask you before at the offices. Were you able to open your old phone?”
I shiver.
“Yes, I was,” I say coldly.
“Oh? Anything…helpful?”
Depends how you look at it.
“I haven’t delved into it too much.” I clear my throats. “it’s… hard, sometimes, to look at the past.”
“Of course, of course. I completely understand. Do you think it might be possible for us to get a copy of the data? I do think it might help breathe some warmth into some cold clues.”
I nod. “That would be fine.”
He smiles as he gestures to the dark garden waiting inside the doorway. But just then, my phone—my current phone—rings. I slip it out, and my heart twists.
I’ve been putting of answering Lizbet’s calls for almost a full twenty-four hours—from leaving campus, to the car to Manchester, to the jet to Odessa, to the hotel I checked into with a fake name in order to sleep for a few hours, to when I walked into the precinct. I’ve texted a few responses like “I’m fine” or “Just needed to go think.” But not telling her what’s going on is just cruel at this point.
I glance at Detective Bagan.
“Sorry, do you mind—”
“Of course,” he smiles. But his brow furrows for a second.
“Ms. Belsky, one moment, actually?”
I raise a brow.
“Your trip here was not a planned one, I gather?”
I bite my lip. “What makes you—”
“I’m a professional detective, Mara,” he smiles wryly. “And you’ve been looking at and then silencing your phone all evening. Look, it isn’t my business. But you, in a way, are my business. Your case is, at least. May I suggest not telling anyone where you are until you’re sure you want that information known?”
I shiver as the image of a young, snarling Konstantin, crouched behind my bloodied body with a gun in his hands slices into my thoughts.
“I’ll be careful. Thank you.”
He nods as I turn and step away to the curb to answer the call.
“Lizbet—”
“Fuck you!” She sobs, screaming into the phone. “Fuck you! Fuck you!”
“Lizbet, I’m sorry—”
“You can’t just leave, Mara!!” She cries, sucking back tears that make my heart wrench.
“Do you have any idea how terrified I’ve been about you? How out of my mind I’ve been worrying that you were kidnapped, or having an episode or—”
“An episode?” My eyes narrow. “What, you thought your crazy, forgetful sister had a senile moment and just wandered off campus?”
“Yes!” She snaps back. “Yes, fuck you, yes. Goddamnit, Mara! You can’t just leave me like that!”
The pain and terror in her voice is killing me. I squeeze my eyes shut as I lean against the side of Detective Bagan’s Maserati.
“I’m sorry,” I murmur. “I don’t even know what to say. You’re right, and I’m so sorry I just ran off like—”
“Like an asshole,” she mutters, huffing.
I smile.
“A total asshole.” I sigh heavily. “Can you forgive me? I just…”
I just saw a picture of the man I’m completely wrapped up in, in the act of trying to murder me four years ago.
“I’m trying to put pieces together, Lizbet. It’s hard to describe how jarring it is to not have a linear memory. And something just kind of snapped in me, and I had this sudden urge to try and put some of the pieces back where they belong. I should have told you, and I’m so sorry.”
She exhales slowly.
“Look, I understand that. But I’m here, okay? And I want to help you do this! I wasn’t able to help you for four years—”
“Of course you helped me,” I say softly.
“Well, let me help you with this.”
I close my eyes again.
“I will. Soon. I just have to do some of the pieces myself, okay? And that’s a me thing. That has nothing to do with you, I promise. I just… I had to…”
I frown, trying to put the right words together.
“I ran because…”
“Did you run because of Konstantin?”
I stiffen, dragging my teeth over my bottom lip.
Yes.
“I know I’m right,” she whispers. “I know you too well. Twins, remember?”
I smile wryly.
“Did he hurt you?”
“I—”
My eyes close.
I think he might have.
But my no answer is all she needs right now.
“No, he didn’t.”
“Mara, where are you?”
I sigh as I look up around me at the familiar and yet forgotten tree-lined street of walled homes.
“Home,” I croak.
“Wait, what?! Are you—Mara, are you in Odessa?!”
“At the garden.”
She chokes.
“Mara, please—”
“I have to see, Lizbet. I have to know, and I need to remember. There’s a detective who’s been on my case. He’s here helping—”
“Mara, stop, please. Konstantin is missing from campus.”
I shiver as cold claws sink into my chest.
“What?” I croak.
“When you never came to the dance, he was prowling around looking furious. Then later last night, he came over to Lordship looking deranged, demanding to see you. I mean it took Lukas, Misha, and Ilya grappling him away from the door to stop him from barging in. And the only reason someone isn’t dead is because Charlotte, Tenley, and I jumped into pull the three of them away from him.”
I swallow thickly.
“And he’s missing?”
“Yeah. Just not on campus at all, and the school is losing its shit, too.”
I stiffen. She takes a shaky breath.
“Mara, I get it. I mean, I get it as much as I can, full acknowledging that I’ll never get this as much as you do. And look, you don’t have to come back to OHA. But I need you to be safe. Please. Please let me get you somewhere safe. Lukas’s family can put you under protection, okay? I mean just until this—whatever this is—gets figured out?”
