Fuck.
Make that double fuck.
Kolya and Yan are standing in front of my car. The younger guard is running his hand through his long hair as he smokes a cigarette. He offers it to Kolya, but he shakes his head and scolds him in Russian, “Smoking is bad for your health.”
“What are you, my father?”
“I would’ve beaten that habit out of you if I were.”
Yan scoffs since he has absolutely no respect for those older than him. He’s nineteen, reckless to a fault, and Kolya has to clean up after him so that he doesn’t get himself killed by the other senior guards. Especially those my father left behind.
Upon seeing me, Kolya moves to open the door, but I beat him to it. I slide into the back seat and undo the top buttons of my shirt.
Kolya and Yan are inside before I can blink.
“Where to?” my second-in-command asks.
“The Pakhan’s house.”
He nods and kicks the car into gear without asking questions.
While I don’t make it a habit to attend breakfasts at Sergei’s. I need a distraction from the woman I just left upstairs.
A part of me wants to stop the car, open the door, and go back. That part wants to finish what I started, to hear her erotic voice as she comes undone all over my dick.
That part also wants to erase the memory of any fucker who touched her in the past so that her body only remembers me.
But that part isn’t keeping its sights on the reason why I’m doing this in the first place. I’m not getting under Lia’s skin to fuck her. I’m getting under her skin for information.
In my dictionary, information is deadlier than any gun. It’s a weapon of mass destruction, and if there’s anything I learned from my psycho mother, it’s that I need to grab the bull by the horns.
People think whoever has the largest and better equipped battalion wins. What they fail to understand is that if a battalion doesn’t gather enough information about the enemy, they will never get far. They might win a battle or two. They might kill a thousand or a few, but the one with more intel is the winner of the war.
Being raised to never accept any losses has turned me into a master of acquiring information. I’m even better than both my monster parents combined.
I internally scoff at that. Why would I call them monsters when I’ve become worse than them?
But then again, monsters might recognize each other, but they don’t necessarily like one another.
They’re more interested in digging each other’s graves.
In winning.
That’s what I should be focused on—winning. My main mission with Lia Morelli is to acquire information. But the lines blurred somewhere between her erotic moans and the way she looked at me while she came apart around my fingers, and then once again when she licked them as if she’s been doing it for eternity.
I’ve never been as hard as I was in that moment. I’ve lost sight of my mission, like I did when she parted her lips and completely let go.
That’s why I left. I need to play my cards right and that won’t happen as long as I’m in her vicinity.
“Did you find out anything?” Yan asks. He always has a terrible way of broaching subjects.
Kolya shakes his head at him.
“What? That’s what you wanted to ask, too.”
“Shut it, Yan,” my senior guard scolds.
“I don’t see why I should.”
“Yan…” I release a long sigh. “I told you to read the atmosphere before asking. Have you ever learned anything from me and Kolya?”
“I learned that you’re too silent. If I don’t talk, no one will.”
Kolya glares at him.
“What?” Yan retrieves a cigarette and lights it. “You’ve been boring me since birth.”
Usually, I’d tell him to put the cigarette out, but I couldn’t give a fuck right now.
“Then why are you still here?” Kolya asks.
Yan taps a fist to his chest. “I was personally handpicked to guard Boss. That honor doesn’t come easily.”
“Obviously an error on the part of whoever picked you,” Kolya mutters under his breath.
Yan gets worked up and starts enumerating ‘all the shit’ he recently went through in the Spetsnaz Special Forces so that he could come back to serve me. Kolya meets that with cold indifference because Yan only spent two years there, which is nothing compared to the time my second-in-command served.
I let their back-and-forth go in one ear and out the other. I try to use that time to implement my next plan, but all I keep thinking about are plump lips, perky tits, and a soft, pink cunt.
But that’s not all. It’s the way she moaned. The way she stared, dazed after she orgasmed. I want that sight in my brain, not as a spur-of-the-moment thing, but as a constant that I can revisit again and again until she’s completely out of my system.
Kolya and Yan grow silent when we arrive at Sergei’s mansion. I step out, doing the first button of my shirt. Since I spent last night watching and exploring Lia’s apartment, I didn’t get any sleep.
That’s not a first.
I’ve spent all-nighters watching my screens and emailing my hackers, back and forth until I got the information I needed.
My abnormal sleeping schedules started after that day—the day my own mother broke my arm because it would help her get my father to her side. I didn’t trust that she wouldn’t do it again, that to become Georgy Volkov’s wife, she wouldn’t use me, over and over, to get in his favor.
She did succeed and became the lady of the house, even when most of my father’s guards loathed her.
Since that night, though, I’ve always slept with one eye open in case she shows up at my door and takes the life she gave as she promised.
Yan stays by the entrance with several other high-ranked guards of the other brigade leaders. He’s offering Mikhail’s soldier a smoke and teasing Kirill’s, asking how that female-looking guard—Aleksander—got to be Kirill’s second-in-command and not him. Yan sometimes acts like a clown, jabbing and teasing, but his sole purpose is to get deets from them.
He might be reckless, but he understands my philosophy well and plots accordingly. It’s one of the few reasons I keep him close.
Kolya follows me inside the Pakhan’s dining room and it’s clear that we’re the last to arrive.
Sergei sits at the head of the table, Vladimir on his left, while my chair on his right is empty. Mikhail, Igor, Kirill, and Damien occupy the rest of the seats. Their senior guards stand behind them like sturdy walls, all scowling, sometimes at nothing, other times at each other, depending on whether their bosses are making a fuss.
“Adrian.” Sergei doesn’t hide his bewilderment upon seeing me. “What a pleasant surprise.”
“I thought I should have breakfast with you, Pakhan.”
“Yes, yes. Come.”
“Very benevolent of you to show us your noble face, Sir Volkov,” Damien mumbles.
“It’s a surprise, indeed.” Kirill takes a sip of his coffee, watching me from beneath his glasses. I can feel his head spinning in a thousand directions to analyze why I showed up today.
I ignore them both and take my seat. Soon after, a maid rushes in with a cup of black coffee and places it in front of me before leaving.
There are different pastries, along with eggs, ham, and bacon on the table, and I have no doubt it’s to appease Damien’s gluttony, because his mouth is chewing something as we speak.
“Where were we?” Igor continues, ignoring my cutting him off. He’s a pillar of the brotherhood and has been around since my father’s time.
He has some of my father’s traits—namely, ruthlessness—but unlike Georgy Volkov, Igor Petrov is wiser and knows which cards to play and which to keep hidden. He, Kirill, and Vladimir are the ones I watch the most. They’re calm on the surface, but when they hit, no one sees it coming.
“Strengthening our alliance with the Italians,” Mikhail grumbles with clear impatience.
“I think we should watch some more before making any decisions,” Kirill says casually.
Damien points his fork at him. “Watching is for losers, Kirill.”
“Watching allows us to read others,” the latter shoots back.
“Action lets us take care of them.” Damien’s eyes gleam with the promise of violence.
“Leave your fists out of the equation for once, Orlov,” Igor reprimands him.
“My fists brought us new territories, so how about you take my example and awaken your own fists, old man. You, too, Mikhail. You’re pussy-whipped by your whoring business.”
“You fucking—”
“Orlov,” Sergei scolds, cutting Mikhail off.
“What?” Damien swallows his mouthful of pastry and licks his fingers. “Just stating facts, Pakhan.”
“Learn some respect.”
“Respect is earned, not learned.” He grabs a muffin and points at me with it. “Look at Volkov here being a mute little princess, but everyone at this table will stop and listen when he actually speaks.”
I lift my coffee to my lips and take a sip, paying him no attention. Maybe showing up here was a mistake after all. I could’ve worked out with Kolya, Yan, and the rest of my guards to ward off the tension. Now, I’m forced to participate in their endless—and as usual, useless—fights.
“Do you have anything to say, Adrian?” Kirill asks in his suave voice.
“About?”
“The Italians. You’ve been looking into them, haven’t you?”
“I’m getting to know the Luciano family’s dynamics, yes, but I’m not close enough to make any statements.” I stare at Sergei. “The Pakhan will know if I make any progress.”
“I don’t like to rush you,” the Vor says. “But we need the Lucianos, Adrian.”
“They’re making deals with the Colombian cartel and we need in,” Vladimir elaborates as if I don’t know that already.
Just because I don’t attend morning meetings, doesn’t mean I’m not privy to the brotherhood’s affairs. I have a direct line with Sergei, as I previously did with his brother, Nikolai. Nothing is discussed at this table before the Pakhan asks for my opinion about it.
Igor interlaces his fingers in front of him, meeting my gaze as if I’m the only one in the room that he cares about. “If the Lucianos have all access to the South American cartels, they will have more power. They already cleaned their territory by wiping out the other families from New York, except a few Rozettis scattered about. Lazlo Luciano is power-hungry enough to come at us to ensure no one breathes in their presence.”
Damien slams his fist on the table, rattling the coffee cups. “Let him come and I’ll erase him and his little fucking soldiers.”
Kirill releases an exasperated breath. “War is the last thing to think about, not the first.”
“Maybe we should kill them all before the Colombians get involved.” Damien widens his eyes as if he’s come up with the most genius idea.
“Declaring war on our allies is a sure way to have everyone riot against us,” Vladimir explains calmly, slowly, as if he’s speaking to a kid.
“We’ll kill them, too.” Damien grins.
“Shut the fuck up, Orlov,” Mikhail snarls.
“Or what? You’ll unleash your pussy-whipped soldiers on me?”
“My pussy-whipped soldiers, and even my whores, have more common sense than you.”
“Point is,” Igor cuts off Damien and Mikhail’s quarrel. “We need that partnership with the Italians.”
“I’ll have something for you soon, Pakhan,” I say.
“How soon?” Sergei doesn’t hide his pleasure.
“Before the deal with the Colombians.”
“Now we’re talking.” Kirill smirks. “What’s your method?”
I take my time sipping from my coffee, letting its bitter edge coat my throat. “That doesn’t matter. The results I bring do.”
“As usual.” Sergei raises his glass of juice in my direction and I raise my cup.
Kirill is still watching me, no doubt wanting to figure out my method, but no one will know my in with the Italians.
If it were a few days ago, I would’ve told them all about Lia Morelli, but after today, she’ll remain locked between me and myself.
She’s now my secret.
Dirty.
Dangerous.
And entirely fucked-up.
