Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 57121 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 228(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57121 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 228(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
And I was never supposed to find out.
Maksim Volkov is the kind of man people cross the street to avoid.
Cold. Ruthless. Untouchable.
I’m just the nurse who treated him after a gunshot wound.
Or at least, that’s what I thought.
Until my phone lights up in the middle of the night.
Don’t move. Someone’s following you.
My blood runs cold.
How do you know?
His answer comes seconds later.
Because I’m following you too.
Turns out, Maksim has been watching me long before tonight.
He knows how I take my coffee.
How many hours I work.
How I smile before walking into a patient’s room, even when I’m barely holding myself together.
I should run from him.
Instead, this terrifying man does something no one has done since my brother died.
He sees me.
Behind the ruthless Bratva king is a man who makes me laugh over text. Who protects me without hesitation. Who looks at me like I’m the only good thing left in his brutal world.
And now someone else is watching me too.
Someone who thinks I have something worth killing for.
Maksim swears no one will touch me.
Because apparently the Bratva king has been keeping one more secret.
He isn’t just watching me.
He’s obsessed with me.
*The Stalking King is a steamy, obsessive Bratva mafia romance featuring a possessive alpha hero who will do anything to protect the woman he claims. This standalone romance has no cliffhanger and a guaranteed happily ever after.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
PROLOGUE
MAKSIM
Idrift in and out of consciousness, the pain in my side stabbing. Goddamn Conrad Vale. He’s my most prominent rival in this town, good old DC, where information is worth more than gold.
We both operate in the realm of information empires.
We’re both fighting to be the secret keepers of this godforsaken place.
I’m pissed at myself. Walking alone down the street like some kind of amateur. I wanted a cup of coffee. And the last few years had been quiet. We’d settled into a calm rhythm. We’ve worked around each other, selling and keeping secrets. But Conrad—or one of his men, most likely—saw his chance and went for it.
When I peel my eyes open again, something hotter and purer than the pain grips me. It’s the sort of feeling I never expected to feel. Not love. My world is the furthest thing from a fairytale. My world is metal, ruthlessness, and blood.
But something human. Something real.
She’s staring down at me. Her eyes are wide, hazel, and expressive. Her hair is tied back, but I can imagine those chestnut strands flowing down her back.
“Stop struggling,” she says when I thrash.
Hospitals aren’t a place a Bratva kingpin would visit like a common man.
But I was unconscious, damn it. “Or we’ll have to restrain you.”
We share a moment as she stares into my eyes. It goes unnoticed by everyone else.
Maybe I wouldn’t mind that. I think.
She smiles and rolls her eyes before she regains control and becomes the professional again.
I gave them nothing. No real name. No information about who might’ve shot me. The second I'm alone, I leave, texting Anton, then limp across the parking lot to the jet-black sedan waiting for me. I finished my recovery with a private Bratva doctor.
But Lia doesn’t leave my mind.
Those two words—lie still—affected me profoundly, far more than any Bratva princess could.
I remember her hand on my shoulder. The heat of her palm. The fierceness in her voice.
I want to get to know her, to learn more about her. In a different life, I might’ve asked her on a date. But this is my life. Cold, focused, and grim. What right do I have to pull her into it?
So, I stay away. Physically, at least.
But my company owns the company that handles security for the hospital, among other places. I have access to the CCTV.
I watch her. Liora Quinn. Lia for short. A beautiful name for a beautiful woman. Walking down the hallway, her nurse’s uniform hugging her ample hips. Tossing her hair in the break room. Leaning over the counter, her scrubs pulling tight across her thick, perfect ass…
And her golden-brown eyes. The kindness in them. The care. The hope.
They’re the complete opposite to mine.
CHAPTER 1
LIA
Months Later
History is repeating itself. I try not to allow that thought to dominate my mind as I apply pressure to the wound, as doctors and nurses rush all around me. I hustle down the corridor as the young man bleeds out on the gurney.
A young man with dark, curly hair. A youthful face. Freckles scattered across his high cheekbones. He’s a stranger off the streets, involved in a high-impact collision that has twisted his body and cut a terrible gouge across his stomach. And he looks exactly like my brother.
I try not to think of Evan, of how I held his broken body in my arms. I try not to think of the pain of not knowing if he’d make it… and the misery that gripped me the moment I realized he wouldn’t. I try not to think about anything other than doing my job.
It’s like I’m split down the middle as I help to tear away his clothes. He has two phones, which is odd. And the location is strange, too. One is in his pocket. The other is strapped to the inside of his calf with duct tape, under his clothes. The doctors and nurses exchange a brief, confused glance—no more than half a second—before we get on with our work.
I put his wallet with the phones. It spills open and shows me his ID behind a plastic cover. Daniel Mercer. I would’ve preferred not to know his name. But it’s too late now.
“Stay with me, Daniel.”
My mind goes to my little brother. To another car crash, just like the one this young man was in.
I care about all my patients, even if it’s probably not smart. An older nurse once told me that caring is the quickest road to ruin. You care, you die, she said, with a severe look. I believed her. I try not to. But it’s tough. And now, it’s impossible.
Soon, it’s time for surgery. I clean myself up, relieved that it’s time for a short break. In the break room, I get a coffee and sit at the window, staring out at the hospital parking lot with a distant view of the Capitol. The white dome of the Capitol building punches through the foggy day.