Protecting anastasia, p.1
Protecting Anastasia, page 1
EVERNIGHT PUBLISHING
www.evernightpublishing.com
Copyright© 2026 Sam Crescent
ISBN: 978-0-3695-1389-2
Cover Artist: Jay Aheer
Editor: Lisa Petrocelli
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews. No AI Training permitted.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Protecting Anastasia
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Epilogue
PROTECTING ANASTASIA
Sam Crescent
Copyright © 2026
Chapter One
Dmitriy Fedulov glanced down at his cell phone and gritted his teeth. Nikolai Gnesin was pushing on his last nerve. If he wasn’t careful, all the soldiers and people that followed him would turn on him, as he now wanted the Thompsons completely annihilated. In the last six months, that would be the fifth family his boss wanted eradicated. This started with the Babkins.
He was no stranger to death or to killing. It was his job. For as long as he could remember, he had killed. He had killed his own parents, but they had been sick fucks and deserved every ounce of pain. There were rumors he was a man who could not feel pain. That he had no feelings. He was worse than the Devil, because at least the Devil showed mercy.
Up until six months ago, Dmitriy had never shown any kind of mercy. He was told who to kill, and that was exactly what he did. He killed without mercy and without remorse. He got the job done.
That all changed when he was given the order to remove the Babkins. There was nothing special about the Babkin family. They were quite large, and when it was annihilation, that meant from the head of the family down to the child. Again, it didn’t bother him to do just that. Only, there was a tiny detail he had never told anyone.
Anastasia Babkin.
She was nothing special, at least he hadn’t thought so. A few years ago, he had seen her at a few parties. She didn’t mingle and stood in her own little corner, trying to be as invisible as possible, which made her different to other women her age. At the time, she had been eighteen, and she wasn’t eighteen anymore.
Rumor had it she embarrassed her father and as a result, she was cast out. One day, she simply stopped coming to parties, or even appearing as a family member. For all intents and purposes, she was an outcast.
He shouldn’t have been curious. In fact, he shouldn’t have even cared. Nothing involved with the Gnesin Bratva was his business. It was as simple as that.
Only, he hadn’t let it go.
Instead, he had gone looking for Anastasia. What he discovered had surprised him. She wasn’t living on the streets, but surviving. She had gotten a nine-to-five job at a local artisan supermarket, and in her free time worked at a kennel. She had a small apartment, nothing flashy, and she didn’t have a constant stream of boyfriends. Anastasia had left the life, and Dmitriy found it peaceful to just sit back and watch her.
Then the order had come in.
Death.
He should have killed her. For a few days, if not a whole week, he had wrestled with this decision. He could have left it. Pretended to have killed her, but instead he told Gnesin the job was done, and she was dead. Then he stole her in the night, kidnapped her, took her to one of his secure locations, and told her that her life was in his hands. Since then, he had been taking care of her. He continued to do his job. No one was the wiser.
He didn’t have feelings about anyone. Dmitriy kept expecting the tide to turn, for him to realize the error of his ways, and just get the job done. Kill her. It was what needed to be done. Only, he wasn’t doing it. Far from it.
He liked going home. Anastasia was ... perfect. She was peaceful, and she didn’t make any demands. But there was also the problem that he wanted her.
She was twenty-five years old, had her whole life ahead of her. He could have any woman he wanted, but he couldn’t bring himself to be with anyone else. There was only one woman he wanted, and it was driving him crazy to be the perfect gentleman.
Gripping his cell phone tightly, he reread the message, which was clear. Another family was on the chopping block, and the one thing he had come to know about Gnesin was if he didn’t get the job done soon, there would be a problem. He would hire amateurs.
Something wasn’t right with Gnesin. People whispered it was drugs. Others said he was going crazy.
The Gnesin Bratva was feared. The members were loyal, and not because he killed them all, and everyone lived in fear. At least, he fucking hoped it wasn’t.
He ran a hand down his face. Something had to be done. At this rate, there wasn’t going to be a Bratva. Taking out bloodlines wiped out generations of people following the Gnesin rule. In the past six months, his wealth had started to deplete.
Dmitriy rarely saw him. Most of his communication was done via cell phone, and right now, it was starting to piss him off. Pulling out his cell phone, he made a response, demanding an audience with Gnesin, and once he did that, he waited one single minute and was surprised not to get a response. There was not going to be any more killing until he talked to Gnesin himself. He was done making the Gnesin Bratva weak.
He glanced around the street, checking to make sure there were no enemies lurking. Even though no one knew who he was, there was no room for error. He was a ghost.
Many in the Bratva feared him because they didn’t know who he was. One moment he was there, another he was not. No one had seen the devil ghost. It always made him smile that people knew his name but didn’t have a clue who he actually was. It made walking amongst them easier. People let their guard down. They figured he was just another soldier, or a Brigadier. Just a rude one. They had no idea who they were dealing with, and he wanted to keep it that way.
****
Dmitriy said she didn’t have to cook, clean, or do any housework. The moment she was removed from her family’s house nearly four years ago, she had been living on her own. No maid, no one to pay her bills. They had removed her from the family with what they thought was nothing, but she had skills.
Anastasia had known there would come a time she would risk it all for freedom. That had come when they tried to marry her off to a fifty-year-old man who had already killed his previous wife, and the man was a pig. Most girls—daughters—did as they were told. It was their duty. The Gnesin Bratva was life.
Not to her. She had wanted freedom since she was ten years old. All she could do was taste it. Crave it. Freedom.
And then, when her father hit her so hard it bruised her eye, swelling it shut, Anastasia had left. She had looked her father in the eye and told him she would slit the throat of her husband. She would make the Babkin name no better than dirt if he forced her to marry a man she could not stand. It had been a standoff.
Her father had been torn between anger and admiration. He, nor her mother, had raised a weakling. She was strong, confident, independent. She refused to bow down to the pressure. There was no way she would balk.
He told her she would not be able to come back. Anastasia knew she would miss her parents, but freedom meant more to her than being trapped in a prison with a powerful man.
She had been saving for this moment. Since she was ten years old, she had saved every cent of her allowance and any money she had been given over the years. There was no great fortune, at least, not to many, but twenty thousand dollars across eleven years had meant she could leave, get a job, make rent, and survive.
She learned to survive first. Trust no one. Being raised in the Bratva, that had come first. Locks on her doors were a must. She took self-defense lessons, and she found the means to take care of herself.
Until six months ago.
She hadn’t seen her family in four years. Well, apart from her father, who would make random stops to the artisan supermarket to see her. There was no love or affection, but in his own way, she knew he cared.
Her family was now all dead. Her three brothers, her mother, her father, her two grandparents, all of them gone.
When she had woken to Dmitriy in her room, she knew he was the ghost, the devil that many feared. The man who did Gnesin’s work. Killed without mercy. She had no idea if her parents deserved death, but to come from Gnesin, that was on strict order. Dmitriy would have no choice but to abide by it.
That night, alone in her apartment, facing certain death had terrified her. She knew the risks. Even though she had been cast out, her father had warned her that if it was deemed the family needed to be removed, that would include her. It was why she never dated and didn’t allow herself to get close to anyone, and why at twenty-five years old, she was still very much a virgin. She would not bring an innocent person into the life she was part of.
She glanced across the cabin, and saw it was a little after six. Dmitriy usually arrive d, and he would be quiet for some time, then ask about her day. There was not much to tell. She had read the books he had on the shelves, about forty. She had worked from most of the cookbooks. He didn’t have a television. It was a cabin in the woods. The days were spent out in the garden, tending to the vegetables and keeping her mind busy.
Dmitriy had saved her. She knew she should probably hate him, but against all odds, he had saved her. She had no idea why he had opted to save her.
Anastasia had no idea he was the “ghost devil” people talked about. She had thought it was stupid when people called him that. At least, she assumed he was the ghost devil. He had admitted to killing her family, but he didn’t mock her, or make it worse. All he did was tell her the truth.
She checked the clock again. The first month, she had hated him, and every time he had come through that door, she had attempted to attack him. That anger was gone.
Next, she had felt the tears. She had wept for days. Then, it was like a light switch had gone off, and all her father’s warnings over the years had come back to her, and she realized the danger Dmitriy had placed himself in.
She was alive, and he had saved her.
Then, little by little, she had come to see what he did for her. He protected her and took care of her. He brought her food, or whatever she had asked for. In her spare time, she had learned to craft. Back at her apartment, he had taken some of her things and placed them in storage. In the beginning she didn’t realize he had done that. Her little sewing machine, overlocker, and some fabrics, as well as some of the crafting items she had managed to accumulate over the years—they were all there—and he had even set them up in the corner of the cabin for her to have something else to do. Whatever she wanted, he got her.
Slowly, against all odds, she was falling in love with her captor—or her savior—whichever she wanted to fantasize about.
Chapter Two
The cabin where he had placed Anastasia was in the middle of nowhere. It was deep into the woods, off the beaten track, and not able to be detected. He had paid for it in cash, under a fake name, and then he had made sure all those documents were gone.
No one knew where he lived. This was one of many locations he had. There were some safe houses with a lot of security. This one didn’t have quite so much, because it wasn’t as easily detected. However, he had placed sensors a mile from the property that would send him an alert. He had also placed cameras around, and he was able to access them by his cell phone.
It was amazing what could be done via cell phone now. He remembered a time they could only text or call, which was a miracle when that happened. They were also a lot smaller than back in the day.
The smells of dinner were intoxicating as he entered the main cabin. He closed and locked the door. Anastasia greeted him with a smile, asked if he was okay, then put a pot of food in the center of the small table.
Anastasia loved to cook, and it reminded him that he needed to stop by a bookstore and grab a brand-new cookbook for her.
“You’re late,” Anastasia said. She handed him a knife and fork, and then leaned over the table to serve him a large bowlful of spaghetti and meatballs.
He had come to realize that Anastasia’s favorite food was pasta of any kind, and she loved meatballs as well.
Dmitriy didn’t need to look at the clock to know it was nearing seven. This was a big improvement on what happened the first month he had brought her here. Every night, she would be ready to attack him. Sometimes she would have a knife or a fork and attempt to stab him. On one occasion the prongs had indeed entered his flesh, which had sucked. Thankfully, they had been clean and not soaked in any kind of poison. It was not the worst feeling in the world, however, Anastasia had felt incredibly guilty afterward. He refused to tell her it didn’t sting.
That was when food had started to be made for him. Dmitriy couldn’t remember a time he had a home-cooked meal. His own parents hadn’t exactly been loving or comforting.
“It has been a long day.”
She never broached the subject of his work.
“Did your parents ever talk to you about ... the Bratva?” he asked.
Anastasia looked up, and he saw the surprise in her eyes.
She shook her head. “Not really. They spoke about how Gnesin had made something out of nothing, and that one of his points was to remember where he came from.” She shrugged. “But then, he stopped arriving at parties, and there was a messenger or something. I don’t know. Rumors were he got paranoid and was afraid of dying. You know him, though, right? You’ve seen him?”
Dmitriy nodded. What he didn’t tell her was it had been a long time since he had—over six months.
“When did he stop coming to parties?” Dmitriy asked.
She blew out a breath. “At least four years ago, that had to be when it started, but I don’t know about everything in between. I left, remember?”
“I remember. You refused to marry.”
“The guy was a pig, and he was gross.”
“You didn’t want to be with the guy because he was fat?” Dmitriy asked.
“No, what? No. It had nothing to do with his weight. He was ... horrible. He would grab women’s asses, and just, he thought everyone owed him something, and he was not a very nice man. I’m not shallow.”
“So, you’re saying if he had been a nice and kind man, you would have married him?”
“Yes,” Anastasia said. “Don’t look at me like that. I know people think looks are everything, but trust me on this, looks fade, okay? I used to hear my grandparents talk about it all the time. The ones that died before you killed my family.”
He was not going to feel guilty for following an order. Only now, six months later, he was a little doubtful as to the reason the Babkin family had to be removed.
“What did your grandparents say?” he asked. He loved to hear her speak.
“It was my grandma, actually. She would look at movie stars or whatever actor and actress was on television, and she would say, ‘looks are not everything.’” She laughed. “She would then say, ‘This is not because I’m an ugly person. I’m seventy years old, and my Ivan was a king, a hunk, and now his looks are gone, they are faded, but that love stays.’” She had a smile on her face. “Ivan and Lottie Babkin. They had met when she was sixteen, and he was twenty years old. She refused him, and he continued to chase her. They married when my grandma was eighteen, and it was a love match. That love never diminished. She would always tell me, ‘fall for a man who makes you happy, makes you laugh, makes you angry. Fall for the man who makes you feel so many different things, and even if he is ugly as sin, marry him, because he’s the one for you.’”
Dmitriy watched as she wiped a tear away.
He had not killed those grandparents, but he had known they had been killed in a car accident. At the funeral, he had attended, because from the moment he had seen Anastasia, he couldn’t get her out of his mind.
He always found a means to be close to her, even if she didn’t know it. She had sobbed at her grandparents’ funeral, and if it hadn’t been for her father and brothers consoling her, he would have stolen her away, right there and then.
****
It had been a long time since Anastasia had thought about Grandma Lottie. They had died when she was eighteen and a half years old. The news had been devastating. It had broken her heart to know her grandparents had died.
She had known true heartache, and through it all, she kept reminding herself of all the advice and wisdom her Grandma Lottie would bestow onto her.
Throwing off the blankets, she grabbed a robe and wrapped it around herself. It was nearing winter, and the cabin was getting cold once again. Through the summer, it had been hot as hell, and she had no choice but to leave the windows open. The only problem was the animals that somehow got inside. Waking up to find a bunny in the living room had been adorable. At one point, there had also been a deer poking its head in the window. That didn’t matter, though. What mattered was, it was cold right now, and she needed a hot chocolate, or some warm milk.
She kept thinking about her grandmother’s advice, and she couldn’t help but keep putting Dmitriy in that place. He was no knight in shining armor, even though he had helped her live. Dmitriy didn’t need to keep her alive, yet he had done so. The anger and hurt were gone, and now she was grateful to him.
