Resurrected Bride: Blood Empire, #3

By Blake York

I refuse to be a link in the chain of family duty…or a shiny toy to my new mafia husband.

I believed my father lost his life in a motorcycle accident.
I thought my mother died from a slip and fall.
The day I learn that I'm next on the hit list, I'm torn away from my life, kidnapped and tossed into Hell. I'm strong, but not this strong. I cannot become the next bride in the Rossi family of organized crime.
Worse, I can't play whore to Kenzo, the brother I've heard possesses the darkest appetites. I must escape before it's too late to save myself…or my body from giving in to this terrible, mind-spinning desire he instills in me with a single look.
I come from one of the strongest families in Russia. My roots run deep. I'm a Nikolai, and I will get away before the Rossis force me into this marriage.
But Kenzo says he'd like to see me try.

If a woman determined to rise from the ashes and powerful, arrogant men who rule the dark underworld—and are good with a paddle—are your thing, you're in for a rough and dirty ride with RESURRECTED BRIDE. Do you dare to open the door and look upon the darkness? Grab your copy now!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Blake York
• Release date: Feb 20, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215519325

Book preview

Chapter I

Kenzo

I can’t believe I returned from Europe for this shit show.

I look up at the big stone mansion I’m about to break into. The man who lived here already received the gift of life when my brother’s bullet missed his aorta by one millimeter.

He lived...for a while. But we accomplished our goal by getting him off the Chicago streets. Now I’m about to steal a paper with his signature.

It’s not official without that paper.

I pick the door lock in under five seconds. At my side, my oldest brother, Anders, gives a grunt that’s the equivalent of a pat on the back in the Rossi family.

I stuff the lock pick in my pocket. That was too easy. I hope to hell there’s a safe to offer some real fun.

After spending six months in Rome learning the darkest evils of the mafia world, and then the rest of the year terrorizing Dublin with my cousins on my mother’s side, Chicago looks like a mud puddle.

And this place is no match for my newly-honed skills. Uncle Angelo in Rome taught me how to break into a safe using nothing more than my trained hearing to detect the click of the tumblers, so hacking into the Russian mobster’s security system is nothing.

With a few swipes on my phone, I disarm the alarm system and then pocket my device.

We enter the dark hallway. Anders and my other older brother Gabriel are armed at my back. This is my gig, and they take orders from me tonight. I have no use for power the way my old man and some of my brothers do, but I gotta admit it feels good to lead.

I gesture to a guard with his back to us. Anders and Gabriel sneak up behind him. Gabriel digs his thumb into the guard’s pressure point, and he drops like a stone. Anders is quick about tying him up, and we rush forward in search of Nikolai’s study.

You never could walk quietly, Kenzo, Anders whispers behind me.

You never did get a visit from the brain cell fairy, I shoot back.

Gabriel gives a wheeze that tells me he’s laughing at our banter. The old man would chew you a new one for walking loud.

The old man’s a controlling dick. He doesn’t know as much as he thinks he does.

No one argues with me. Though Vincent Rossi heads our crime family, he does so with fear and intimidation tactics that leave none of us liking him even a fucking little bit. We don’t pretend to either.

Whoever offed Nikolai did it the smart way. Making it look like an accident. Gabriel’s voice comes from over my right shoulder.

We just fired a warning shot before. Then I was given the green light, and someone beats me to it. I’m still pissed over the Russian dying before I got to do my job.

It’s about time someone left their skateboard on the stairs for Pops to trip over, I say to Gabriel.

I stop before a door. I don’t know how I know it’s Nikolai’s office, but I do. Gut instincts and all that are bullshit. Training’s where it’s at.

I put in the time. There’s a reason why within days of landing in Italy, my cousins were following my commands. Same with Ireland.

I’m not stupid enough to believe my brothers will fall into my shadow, though. One thing about the Rossis? We’re all on the fucking top.

Except with women...then it’s definitely me.

Swinging open the door, I head straight for the desk while my brothers watch my back. Nikolai’s been dead for months, yet his office looks as though he just stepped out. With papers scattered all over the surface and the phone blinking with messages left unheard, the place is a damn time capsule.

Even a photo of him and his wife in a silver frame doesn’t have a speck of dust on it. Do the servants keep this office as a shrine the way my father keeps our mother’s room?

I glance at the faces in the photo. Nikolai’s wife wasn’t half bad. Luscious tits.

Too bad she’s dead.

I whip around to look at Gabriel. Dead?

His brows shoot up. You didn’t know?

Hell no. I thought— I stop short of saying more. Nobody knows I was tasked with killing the parents of the woman I was arranged to marry. Who the hell killed her?

The cops are investigating the daughter.

Jesus Christ. My bride has her mother’s blood on her hands?

I slash a hand through the air. Well, I guess I’m O for two.

It pisses me the hell off someone stepped on my toes.

I was tasked with doing more than finding a signed paper, but fuck it—plans change.

Let’s get the paper and get out, I say.

Anders grunts again, and he and Gabriel go straight for the filing cabinet while I hit my knees in front of the safe. A man like Nikolai wouldn’t just leave a paper as important as the one we’re searching for out in plain view. He’d have it locked up.

Tell me why we’re looking for this paper again? Gabriel opens a file, sending sheets cascading all over the floor. I thought our old man already had the paper signed by Nikolai in his possession.

Yeah, but we need the other half of the agreement. They split the terms so each half is useless without the other. I freeze as the toxic fumes hit my nostrils.

I lift my head at the same time my brothers get a whiff. Do you smell gasoline?

Then we hear the whoosh and the roar of fire that tells us the place is burning. I can’t stop now—I need that paper. There’s no time to listen for lock tumblers to click into place and tell me what the combination is. I’ll have to blow open the door.

Hurry the fuck up, Kenzo! Anders pops back into the office. The place is up in flames.

From upstairs I hear a woman screaming. My bride will have to wait for me to rescue her—I need that paper that proves she belongs to me first.

Using some explosive material and a few wires, I blast the door off the safe and manage to keep all my fingers.

Where the fuck’d you learn that? Anders sounds impressed.

Our Dublin cousins. The Irish are good at blowing shit up. I sweep my contents of the safe into a bag and shove it at Gabriel. My brothers’ faces are obscured by the smoke pouring into the room.

Get out, I say.

You’re not going for the woman, are you? It’s not even time to claim your bride. Let the firemen rescue her. Gabriel catches the bag I thrust at him.

I can’t just let her roast, can I? She means something to this empire we Rossis are building. She’s another brick in our fortress, a tie to the Russians that means they’re easier to take down with all the inside information she can give us.

I’m going for the woman.

She’s shrieking now.

I rush out of the office and head straight for the stairs. Black smoke’s rolling through the place, and I run in a bent over position. When I reach the top, I turn toward the sound of that scream. It rises and falls like a fire alarm.

Since we cut the security system to the mansion, the fire department won’t be alerted to the fire until it’s too late. The only thing left standing will be the stone walls, and everything will be charred—including Camila Popova Nikolai.

My bride.

I blast into her bedroom. She’s curled in the corner of her bed. Sees me and starts shrieking louder.

In two strides I reach her. Curling my hands around her upper arms, I yank her out of bed. She fights me like a little wildcat.

And I’m enough of a dick to admit it turns me on. I love when a woman puts up a fight. Eventually, this one will succumb to my will. They all do.

Her thighs are bare, and when I toss her over my shoulder, the skimpy nightshirt she’s wearing leaves little to the imagination. With each step I take through the smoke-filled house, she hammers me with her small fists and kicks in an attempt to free herself.

I burst out the back door with her and drop her on the ground at my feet. Covered in soot and spitting mad, she glares up at me with the baby blue eyes of her hot dead Russian mother.

Camila

The bastard binds my hands in a rope that’s too tight. He knows it too. When I wince, the corner of his lips doesn’t quite quirk up, but I know my pain amuses him.

Am I supposed to be grateful you carried me out of a burning house? I spit at him.

He doesn’t answer.

I’m not grateful, though. They should have let me burn. It’s better than being tortured by three dangerous men. Tonight I’m the last of my family slated to die.

One man wears a gold coin on a chain around his neck, and my gaze is drawn over and over to the glint among the shadows.

The apartment is dark, and I make out bulky shapes of furniture. The men stand back to look at me. I wonder what they see. Even I don’t know what the hell I really am.

I used to be a daughter, but both my parents are dead. These past months, I’ve been locked up in my house trying to cope and figure out my next step. Do I leave the suburbs? Where would I go with no skills, no hope...

Only my determination to keep the pieces of myself together.

The man with the cruelest eyes, the one who rescued me from my burning house, crouches before me. I can’t meet his eyes for long and twist away.

When he digs his fingers into my chin I bite back a cry, but my will is no match for his strength as he forces me to look at him.

You resemble your mother.

My heart’s being ripped out at the mention of my mother, but the next question spins my world in a three-sixty.

Did you kill her?

His voice comes out quiet but the words rock me. I rip from his bruising hold on my chin.

Are you guys cops? I ask.

Do we look like cops? The malice in his eyes makes my skin crawl.

The cops already investigated me about my mother’s death. I wasn’t involved.

Losing my mom was bad enough without being accused of shoving her down a flight of stairs and breaking her neck.

She slipped and fell. It was an accident—that’s all, I hear myself say, angry that I feel the need to explain myself to this asshole.

And your father’s death?

I jerk upright, moving my hands so fast that the restraints cut into my flesh. Oh yeah, I cut the brake lines on his motorcycle right before I kissed him goodbye!

An evil smile spreads over his face.

The guy wearing the coin necklace goes out and then comes back in a second later. Kenzo.

The man crouched in front of me unfolds to his full height, and I keep craning my neck back to look up at him. He must be over six feet tall, with the lean body of an athlete. A European soccer player or one of those guys on a rowing team.

He turns to the other man and looks at a piece of paper he holds out. With a nonchalant nod, he waves the man away. Something about their mannerisms makes me think they’re related.

Then my mind catches up. My stomach pitches as I realize what they call my rescuer.

Kenzo.

Kenzo? I rack my brain. Where have I heard that name before?

Two of the guys get into an argument, though I don’t totally understand what it’s about.

Rossis don’t operate that way! Kenzo’s cutting growl jerks my attention back to the men.

Ice crystals form in my veins. Rossi.

The Chicago mafia family. Their family wants my uncle dead. My family’s ties in the underworld is the reason my father took