Broken God: A Dark Bratva Academy Romance, page 1
Broken God
A Bratva Academy Romance
Jagger Cole
Broken God
Jagger Cole © 2022
All rights reserved.
Cover by Plan 9 Book Design
Model: Kyle Beaumont
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.
* * *
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.
* * *
The unauthorized reproduction, transmission, or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal and a violation of US copyright law.
Created with Vellum
Contents
Broken God
Playlist
A Special Present
Trigger Warning
Prologue
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
Also by Jagger Cole
About the Author
Broken God
He's my deepest damnation. And my darkest desire.
Konstantin Reznikov's war buried me in darkness.
Four years later, he's the one dragging me screaming from my coma.
The viciously domineering, brutal, terrifyingly gorgeous tyrant who haunts the shattered fragments of my memories. The man with dark gray eyes as cold as his dark gray soul.
I remember almost nothing from my past. But he does. Now, he owns my present, and my future.
Because Konstantin didn’t wake me up for free. He brought me out of my darkness to engulf me in his.
To own me. To trap me in a maze of twisted games and jagged thorns.
Now I’m bound to the broken god of wrath and ruin who might hold the key to my past.
Or maybe, to my unraveling.
* * *
Broken God is book 1 in a duet and not a standalone book. The completed duet is a standalone story within the Savage Heirs series, though. You do not need to have read the previous books in this series to read this duet.
This extra dark Bratva academy romance is guaranteed to leave your kindle steaming. Step into the viper’s nest of Oxford Hills Academy and meet the Savage Heirs of Bratva kings and oligarchs.
Absolutely no cheating,
Playlist
Up From A Dream - HAIM
Wake Up - Arcade Fire
Bright Lights - Gary Clark Jr.
You Are a Tourist - Death Cab For Cutie
begin again - Purity Ring
Coma / Smoke - Hailaker
Dreamy Bruises - Sylvan Esso
Colors - Halsey
I Am A God - Kanye West
HOUDINI - AViVA
Man In Me - Madi Diaz
Romeo and Juliet - Dire Straits
Nothing Else Matters - Phoebe Bridgers
Erode - TENDER
Wide Awake - Katy Perry
Is There A Ghost - Band of Horses
So Real - Jeff Buckley
I WANNA BE YOUR SLAVE - Måneskin, Iggy Pop
Good Enough - July Talk
London Is Lonely - Holly Humberstone
Doomsday - Ryan Adams
Open Your Eyes - Snow Patrol
Cathedrals - Jump, Little Children
* * *
Search “Jagger Cole” on Spotify to find this and other book playlists!
A Special Present
The Jagger Cole fans-only newsletter is the first place to hear about new releases, giveaways, and more! Sign up today to grab a free copy of Mr Big - an extra hot billionaire romance not available anywhere else!
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.
Prologue
The world goes red as the blood flows hot across my face. It stings my eyes and fills my mouth with copper. Something like thunder keeps banging right next to me, turning my ears mute, deafening me until the only sound is the feel of my own heart screaming to break free through my ribcage.
Hands grab me, shoving me—pulling me, yanking me to the ground. Everything blinks white, and I see nothing but a blinding brilliance, like I’m staring directly into the sun. Hot, wet blood splatters across my vision once again, dashing away the bright light and plunging me into darkness.
Someone’s been shot.
Someone’s dying.
It’s the only thing I know. Not where I am, not who I am. That’s it: someone’s been shot, and they’re going to die.
I need to run. To find help. To get away. To save myself.
I try and stagger to my feet, but the pain lancing through the back of my skull sends me screaming to the ground, face-first. I hit with a dull thud, unable to move. Unable to breathe.
Unable to do anything as the blood flows hot across and into my eyes.
One single eyelid lifts halfway. Still the only sound I can hear is my own heartbeat, getting weaker, slower, dwindling. But I see the noiseless flashes of guns blasting. I see the heavy drop of bodies crashing to the ground around me.
The eyelid droops shut. I think of my sister, my twin. Then, I think of nothing as the darkness closes in.
Until suddenly, I realize the truth.
Someone’s been shot.
Someone’s dying.
That someone is me.
The darkness has no timeframe. No meter. Nothing. It’s neither fast nor slow. Filled with thoughts or boring. It just… is.
Until it isn’t.
Bright light slices through the emptiness like cracks opening across a wall. As if the glass of the aquarium where Lizbet and I love to go visit the penguins would suddenly crack and splinter open until the water explodes over the crowds.
One second, there’s darkness, the next, the light engulfs me like fire.
I’ve been asleep, and I wake up screaming.
There are hands grabbing me, just like when I went to sleep. But these ones are soft, gentle. They come attached to people in white coats, with concerned, calculating faces. People with lights they flash at my eyes. Someone is snapping next to my ear.
I can hear.
It’s like slowly coming out of a pool, the dull murmur of sound slowly turning into recognizable words, drowning in a sea of mechanical beeps and alarms.
“Mara. Mara, can you hear this?”
“Can you see this? How many fingers am I holding up?”
“How many snaps? Left ear? Right ear?”
“Mara, do you know who you are?”
“Do you know where you are?”
“Do you why you’re here?”
No. No, no, no, no, no…
I want to scream it until the welcome embrace of silence drags me back to sleep. I want to run, but I can’t feel my legs, or my body at all. I can just lay there, heart pounding as the fear chokes me.
The people are asking me questions. The machines next to me beep and hiss. Lights flash over my face, and cold metal is being placed on my skin.
Someone’s raising my arm, and in the peripherals of my vision, I can see them pushing a needle into it.
My head lolls to the side, my eyes and mouth open in noiseless, wordless terror.
“Mara, honey, you’re okay. You’re in a hospital, and we’re here to help you. You’ve been asleep a very, very long time. But you’re awake now.”
“You’re awake now.”
For some reason, those words slice into me harder, deeper.
I’ve been asleep. Now, I’m awake.
I’m awake.
I’m awake.
My head lolls to the other side, relishing the one movement I can accomplish. Everything is foggy, unfocused. I see doctors talking hurriedly with each other. Notes being taken on notepads. People on cellphones. Someone’s recording me with a camera.
And then slowly, quietly, something behind all the chaos catches my eyes. I focus, squinting, frowning, trying to see clearer.
A shape.
There’s a glass wall, and a shape beyond it.
A person.
A face.
I blink as it slowly melts into view. And I see dark, gray, gun-metal eyes, locked right on me.
Ice seizes my chest. Razor sharp claws that I don’t understand dig into my skin, trying to rip thro
I don’t know who this is. But all I know associated with those eyes is abject terror.
And then I make my first sound.
I scream.
I scream and scream and scream until I can’t hear the sounds of the doctor’s yelling. Or the nurses running into the room with syringes. Or the machines beeping louder and louder like a nail right into my head.
I scream, caught in those cold gray eyes.
I’m awake.
I’m awake.
I’m awake.
And it’s a fucking nightmare.
1
Three and a half months later:
The car pulls to a stop outside of the gorgeous, Tudor-style building. I’ve seen pictures of this place before. But looking at it now, even at night, it takes my breath away as I stare out at the school campus through the car windows.
Oxford Hills Academy. My new start. My head-first-into-the-deep-end crash course in being a human again. In being awake, amongst the living.
A hand touches mine. I startle, whirling to stare blankly for a second into the face of the girl who looks just like me, sitting next to me in the back seat of the town car. My brows knit, my pulse thudding as I draw in a breath.
I’m Mara. I’m eighteen years old. This is my sister, Lizbet. She’s my twin.
I’ve been asleep for four years.
I am awake.
It’s important for me to keep track of the things I know; the things that are true enough in my head to act as guiding wires. Waypoints. Lighthouses to keep me off the rocks. Those are the big ones.
When relief floods Lizbet’s face as I smile warmly at her, I feel the same emotion swelling in me as well. She smiles—trying to look comforting, but not quite hiding the worry in her eyes as she squeezes my hand again. I squeeze back, centering myself.
My name is Mara Belsky. This is my twin sister, Lizbet Belsky. When I was fourteen, I was shot in the back of the head and dropped into a coma. I’ve been asleep for four years, and now, I’m awake.
My “team” back at St. Thomas’—the psychiatrists, psychologists, occupational therapists, neurologists, cognitive specialists, behavioral analysts, neurological disorder specialists, trauma counselors—they all agreed that hanging onto these markers is the best way forward. So, I repeat them like a mantra most days.
My name is Mara Belsky. My twin sister is Lizbet Belsky. When I was fourteen, I was shot in the back of the head and dropped into a coma. I’ve been asleep for four years, and now, I’m awake.
Then there’s a secondary tier; facts that are probably just as important but that I haven’t placed as markers of my sanity or waypoints on my path to remember just yet. Or maybe, deep down, I know I don’t need to remember all of these, for my own benefit. But sometimes, I still repeat them, like another mantra.
My father was Semyon Belsky, a horrible man and a mobster. He’s dead now, but his violence is why I was shot. My mother is Nadia Belsky, who has visited me twice in the three and half months since I woke up, for a couple of hours each time.
I don’t need Lizbet’s pinched mouth or stormy eyes to tell me Nadia isn’t someone I need to try too hard to remember. Nor are the memories surrounding her. I know she’s my mother. But I know from my own blank slate and her own slightly bored look when she visited that I don’t need to worry about any sort of long-lost mother-daughter relationship there.
I have enough to worry about.
My team is optimistic about my recovery, and about reclaiming my memories. For now, though, it comes in little bursts, here and there.
Small breaks in the storm clouds. Little flickers of light through the darkness.
I have what they—my team—call acute complex amnesiac comorbidity. Which is a nice way of saying my memory and ability to even have memories is severely messed up.
There’s a smattering of dissociative amnesia, where I can’t quite always put my finger on important things like who I am, who my family is, and why I’m currently in England. Hence, the mantra, which has been helping a lot.
On top of that, as if not always knowing who you are when you look in a mirror isn’t exciting enough, there’s a healthy dash of anterograde amnesia thrown in as well, where my ability to create new memories is slightly hampered.
The big one, though, is post-traumatic amnesia. Which apparently tends to happen when the back of your skull takes the hit from a ricocheted bullet, and you go into a coma for four years.
For the last three and a half months, I’ve been working hard, trying to reclaim a sense of who I am. A lot of it is behavioral. When I was shot, I was fourteen. Now, I’m eighteen; an adult. A lot of what I’ve been working on every single day is just basically how to grow up four years in about a twelfth the time most people get.
How to act. How to think. How to behave, and wrest control of my emotions.
In terms of my memory, some of it has come back. Other, larger parts, have not.
* * *
I was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, but grew up mainly in Ukraine. I used to speak both Russian and English fluently. And apparently some French.
All I can manage right now is English and a smattering of Russian. The doctor’s think it has something to do with “ambient cognitive association;” as in, though in a coma, the nurses and doctors around me for the last four years have been speaking English, so my brainwaves have subconsciously latched on to that.
I know that my family was wealthy, but I remember the sense that my father was a bad, evil man. Through Lizbet, I know he was the head of a criminal organization that bore our last name, and that he was killed a few years ago in a Bratva war.
Whatever I do and don’t remember, I know I felt no sadness learning this.
I know that since his death, Lizbet was forced to grow up fast. She took on the Bratva high council in order to secure our father’s holdings—all for me, on the very slim chance of me waking up one day. She herself, up until recently, had a terrible heart condition that meant an almost certain early death.
But she’s better now. Just like me.
Lizbet was saved by her now-husband, Lukas; her superhero. As if reading my thoughts, he turns from the passenger seat up front. His face has its usual slightly haunted, stoic feel; his stormy blue eyes lasered on me.
If he were a stranger, I might be scared of him. But Lukas is one of the most familiar faces I know now, in my second life. He and Lizbet have spent a lot of time at St. Thomas’ over the last three and a half months—even living in London at a flat nearby the hospital for a bit while Lizbet was recovering from heart issues, to be near me.
Lukas’s cold intensity may frighten some people. But not me. To me, he’s family. To me, that intensity is a strength I latch on to, and feel kindred with.
“Are you ready?”
Lizbet squeezes my hand tightly, her worry and concern about this entire thing coming through obviously. But I just nod at her husband’s question.
“I’m ready.”
“Mara, we can put this off until next week. If you need to rest, there’s no rush to—”
“I think I’ve rested enough,” I say quietly, turning to smile at my sister.
“Or tomorrow? Look, we can drive back to Manchester and get a great hotel room for the night—”
“Lizbet.”
I smile a braver smile than I actually do feel inside.
