British Bratva

by Flora Ferrari

  My nose scrunched up sharply. I hated that she'd even joke about that, but I held my tongue as the waiter reappeared with and ice bucket and two glasses, along with the bottle. I clenched my fist as he set to fiddling with the foil, the wire cage, the cork. How long did it take a man to open a freaking bottle?

  "Just leave it. I'll do it. Thank you."

  "Very good, sir."

  "That's not what I meant at all Elizabeth."

  Elizabeth shook her head, smile still gleaming. She knew, I could tell that, but she wanted to hear me say it, and there was no way on this earth that I wasn't going to. "Isn't it?"

  "No."

  I popped the cork and poured, watching the dense fizz rise up the sides and I plunged the thick, heavy bottle back into the ice before I handed Elizabeth a glass.

  "We're toasting the future. The pair of us together, working side by side."

  "Just working?"

  "Not just working."

  I smiled. I'd thought about saying this so many ways. I'd stayed awake going over and over what it would be like to finally tell her I wanted her, that I was serious about us being together, whatever it took. "I know it's still new to you, but I don't know what my life would be without you in it. I don't want to go back to not having you right by my side."

  Infuriatingly, Elizabeth's face was nearly impossible to read. She was hiding behind her thin glass, and she took a sip calculated just so she didn't have to say anything immediately.

  Like I always knew, she was a clever one. And I loved her for it.

  The waiter appeared again, setting down our plates. Elizabeth looked immensely pleased with the large piece of battered cod on her plate, and plucked one of the fat, steaming chips from her plate to dunk in the dish of tartar sauce, her other hand shielding her mouth as she slipped it in between her lips.

  "Thank you so much."

  Her smile stayed until the waiter left again, and then she leaned in.

  "Are you asking me to stay with you, Max?"

  "I'm not asking. It's non-negotiable."

  She laughed again, softly, but she reached out across the table to curl her fingers into mine.

  "If I stay with you, it has to be because I want to, not because I have to."

  "I agree. You should absolutely want to. I can think of a few ways to make that happen."

  Elizabeth looked down at her glass, her fingers circled around the thin stem of it, playing the lady we both knew she wasn't really, underneath the sheen. "Oh really? Maxim, I don't have anything of my own right now. I literally have the clothes on my back. You burned most of them, and ripped the rest."

  I couldn't wipe the smile off my face. "You say that like it's a bad thing. I suppose I did, didn't I?"

  She nodded, and wet her lips, picking up another chip between her fingers.

  "I walked away from my job. I have nowhere to stay if you kick me out. Nothing's coming to me from Sutherland's will, even if he is ruled dead without a body showing up. I'm not a strong enough fighter to go on the circuit, and that's off the table now they're out looking for me."

  "I know."

  "I don't think you really do. I was geared up for some kind of legal battle. I was prepared to go to prison for ending him."

  "You going to prison would have been a waste, sweetheart. You've got far too much talent for that. It wouldn't be best cultivated in the women's prisons."

  "So what am I supposed to do, Max? You've waltzed in and turned everything upside down. What happens when we're doing tracking down treasure clues and you're onto the next job?"

  "You work with me. I get you on the books, bringing in your own money. You'd be… a kind of apprentice."

  Elizabeth's finger trailed slowly down the condensation on the side of her glass. From the way the fight in her stalled, I didn't think she'd been expecting that. "An apprentice?"

  I nodded. "Teach you what I know. I think you've got natural flare."

  "For… killing?"

  I grimaced slightly, glancing over my shoulder to check no one was within listening distance and I cleared my throat. "Liz, we don't talk about things like that."

  She tilted her head. "I'm terribly sorry, Maxim, what am I supposed to say?"

  "It's called wet work."

  "Wet work. Okay. You think I have a talent for wet work?"

  My brows forged together. "I think you could have. I think it's not something to get into lightly. But you wouldn't have to, if you didn't want to. I have a reputation as a very serious man. It's enough to cover both of us. A team is always more effective than an individual when it comes to reconnaissance, and the information trade. I could use you. Wire you up. Get you close to people."

  "A honey trap."

  I see-sawed my head. I could tell she wasn't thrilled about the idea. "You'd be good at it. But no, you'd be more than that. They'd be your leads as much as mine. We'd bring everything in together."

  "So, you're going to teach me to be a spy?"

  I gritted my teeth again, sparing another look across the restaurant floor. "Darling, please."

  She rolled her eyes. "Nobody here is going to think you're serious. We're drinking champagne and eating over-priced fish chips in the middle of the day like we have nowhere to be but right here with each other. We don't look like we're up to no good, except when you keep looking shifty."

  She had a point. I should have realised as much myself, except when it came to her I was on hyper alert.

  "Then yes, I plan to teach you to be a spy."

  Her smile warmed her entire face and she took a long swig of her £250 champagne. "I knew there was a reason I liked you."

  "Just the one?"

  "Hmm maybe more than one."

  She reached across the table, and hooked a finger into the collar of my shirt. I let her pull me towards her across the table and kissed her solidly enough to give her something to think about. It was certainly going to be on my mind all day, until we got somewhere with some more privacy.

  She let out a sigh against my lips as she let me go. "You really want to do this?"

  "I definitely want to do this. I think I'm the one who should be asking you that. I am the guy who's been stalking you for the past month."

  Her eyes glowed and she bit her lip, looking down at the table, as though maybe she had some bashfulness somewhere in her. I knew for a fact that wasn't true.

  "You do make a very good stalker. I wouldn't have wanted to be stalked by anybody else."

  "I should damn well hope not."

  CHAPTER 22

  Elizabeth

  Left to my own devices for the morning with the credit card Maxim had left behind in my possession, I took it upon myself to make a trip to Sloane Square.

  I didn't even have underwear, let alone workout gear. Shopping was a necessary evil, given he'd set fire to my house. I couldn't borrow Maxim's t-shirts forever. As appealing as that thought was, on a certain level.

  Cassie would have beaten me around the head to get some sense back into me if she knew I was even vaguely considering a future existing mostly naked, in and out of his bedroom.

  But no one was going to take me seriously in my own right if I permanently looked like I'd crawled out of his bed. I wasn't some kind of crack whore, and he wasn't some kind of pimp. I wanted people to see us together, side by side, and think that we made sense.

  For that, I needed to dress the part. And I hadn't really had the funds to do that since Mum was alive, when we used to go shopping together. Some kind of stupid sentimentality had made me call Cassie and so I was standing outside Peter Jones, trying to look like I wasn't loitering, waiting for her to arrive.

  "Sorry pet, bus took ages." She gave me a quick once over. "You weren't joking about this being an emergency, were you?"

  "Max didn't exactly have a whole load of stuff in size eight just lying around."

  Cassie laughed, shaking her head. "Come on then. Let me supervise this shopping spree."

  Replacing everything I owned felt
like too much, but Cassie talked a great deal of sense when it came to picking things out. She went for quality where it mattered and decent basics where it mattered less.

  "If he cared about the amount, he'd have set you a limit. The card doesn't even have his name on it Elizabeth, for crying out loud. Live a little. When are you ever going to get this chance again. If you don't take advantage, I bleeding well will."

  I picked up some workout gear first, going for the expensive leggings and matching sports bra set that usually I would have avoided out of sheer frugality. Today, Lululemon it was.

  Cassie rolled her eyes. "Right, wonderful. You're all sorted for going to the gym and punching everyone's lights out. What about the rest? Love you to pieces Elizabeth, but my shift starts in three hours and so far all you've picked up is lycra."

  "Fine. Okay! Let's go and look at some other things too."

  I shouldn't have felt bad picking things off the rack just because I liked them, but I found I kept putting things back, not wanting to go overboard. Until Cassie took me by the shoulders. "Look at me. If I was you, I wouldn't feel the need to be budget conscious. The guy's just destroyed your family home and everything you owned. It's only right for him and his to comp at least some of this. It's not like you can run off to the insurance company, is it?"

  I rolled my eyes, but I had to agree and the sense of vague guilt lessened when I stopped looking at the price tags on everything. I didn't need to think about how many hours at the hotel that would cost me, or what Maxim was going to ask in return. He wasn't that kind of guy. I knew there was no sense of me owing him anything at all for this. If anything, he was levelling the field again. He wasn't trying to buy me, just paying me back.

  His name wasn't even on the card and I had a strong suspicion that money was a fluid concept to the Bratva. I only hoped this wasn't some kind of deal with the devil, where if they owned the clothes on my back they got to keep my soul. At least, only if they had Maxim's soul too. I wanted to be with him, and I needed them to see I could be just like him rather than some kind of threat to be contained and controlled.

  The only reason I trusted them, was because I trusted Maxim, and as many times as he told me that was one and the same, I didn't really believe him.

  We shopped eclectically along Kings Road. Dipping into chain stores, brands and high street, as well as the charity shop down the end, away from the Saatchi Gallery, that stocked solely designer goods, until I had a wardrobe that made me look innocuous enough. Not too trendy, not too conservative. Smart but not too smart.

  I couldn't resist a butter-soft navy leather jacket from Massimo Dutti that made everything else look just that little bit cooler. Or a pair of kickass boots. It wasn't every day I was handed a card without a limit. I thought I was pretty bloody restrained.

  In Ghost, Cassie talked me into buying a long, elegant evening dress, silky and sleek. "Come on, you've got to have it Elizabeth. I would if I had your figure. You'll look like Kiera Knightly in that film where she ruins that dress in the fountain. You know the one I'm talking about, with that scene in the library of that big posh house. I bet your fella wouldn't call it a waste of money."

  I looked at myself in the mirror, admiring the way it hung off me. She was right, it really made me feel like I was stepping out onto the red carpet, and I knew it would make Maxim come right in his pants. I smoothed my hands over the silk skirt, wobbling a little on the excessively high heels the shop assistant had let me borrow to try it on. She was standing a little out of the way and she smiled at me when I caught her eye in the mirror.

  "You do look very good in it. I always think that gold's such a risk, but it works so well on you."

  I couldn't say no to the pair of them. It was ridiculous. Maybe I was such a pushover because I kind of hoped I'd get the chance to go to at least one of the swanky parties I'd seen Maxim at, in those pictures I'd found online. And this would be just perfect for it.

  Espionage was meant to be glamorous when it wasn't all about staying hidden. Or at least, it looked that way in the movies. I wasn't about to let myself get shortchanged, or upstage a man who looked like he'd been born knowing how to fit in and play a part.

  I thought he might enjoy it nearly as much as me.

  Rigby and Peller wasn't a shop I'd been into before, but Cassie said it was a must, and I let the shop assistant guide me through the silk and lace, plunge lines and padding while Cassie took herself off to browse at the other end of the store.

  "No offence pet, but I'm not helping you pick out your bedroom clothes."

  "No argument from me there, Cass."

  The things I picked out were sexy and I came out with a bra in a rich dark green satin and black eyelash lace, with matching french knickers that had lace all over the crotch and made me feel like some kind of burlesque dancer, I wanted Maxim to see me in them, and take them off slow. But no way did I want anyone else with that image in their heads, especially not my boss, even if Cassie was more like an aunt to me.

  Hopefully Maxim would manage without ripping through them with his teeth, because I didn't think the Bratva were going to make an underwear allowance a part of my regular payment. Especially not while I was only training. And this was the most expensive bra I'd ever seen in my life.

  Maxim

  While Elizabeth was out I told Valentin about our failure with the left luggage lockers over Skype. Knowing him as well as I did meant I saw the flicker of irritation in his eyes, but a stranger wouldn't have. The man was remarkably cool and always had been.

  He leaned forward, steepling his fingers together as he focused in on the screen. "Show me the key again."

  Dutifully, I dangled the neat fob in front of him and he let out a slow, ponderous breath.

  "This is a needle in a haystack, Valentin. It's a waste of our time. The man's dead and I need to focus on his publicity agent. She's in charge of when the manuscript hits the publisher, which means she has to have a copy."

  "I understand that. You need to do both." My handler's eyes darkened in a way that I recognised meant he was distinctly unamused. "We need his notes, Maxim. I am not going back to the Kremlin without one hundred percent assurance that those names are not going to get out."

  "You tell me where to look then. Am I going to go to every single locker in the whole of London?"

  Valentin scowled. "You better think of something, Maxim. If you've fucked this up because of a woman, I'm not going to be able to protect you."

  I gritted my teeth. That wasn't reassuring, but it was exactly what I'd have been telling anybody else who'd done something as stupid. Saving Elizabeth had been the only thing I cared about, but if I'd done it at the expense of the job that needed doing, then we were all screwed.

  But I didn't care. The animal side of me said she was the only thing that mattered and I'd take on anyone who said otherwise.

  "I need a training budget." It was a struggle to stop myself from growling, to keep myself inline, but the primal side of me wasn't going to let Valentin get away with a single word against her, even though he was my boss.

  Valentin blinked pointedly and leaned forward. "I don't understand, Maxim."

  "I have an apprentice. I need a training budget."

  "You've always worked alone. Who is this person? We will need to have them vetted."

  "She's fine."

  Valentin sat back heavily in his seat, hands falling weightily onto his knees. "She? Oh now I see."

  "I don't think you do. She's shown real promise. She's a natural."

  "Elizabeth Harrington? She's the reason you're in this mess, chasing your tail."

  "How did you-?"

  "Who else would it be? You're married to your work, Maxim, she's the only woman you've looked at in months. How do you know she's not a liability?"

  "She was the one who killed Sutherland."

  "Before we needed him dead. That's called a fuck up, in my book."

  "I should have stopped the situation developing. But, my
point is, she could do it again."

  "You want to make a murderer out of her?"

  "She is a murderer."

  Valentin shrugged. "One doesn't make a pattern. Doesn't make a committed criminal."

  "She wants to learn the craft."

  "You want to keep her with you."

  I gritted my teeth. "Is there a place for her, or not? I want you to give Elizabeth a shot."

  "You're serious?" Valentin was staring at me like I'd gone crazy and I could see the irritation building in his features. "She's the stepdaughter of the man you were supposed to prevent from exposing our financial entanglements. She doesn't get to join the team because you've decided to fuck her."

  I growled. "Good luck getting anyone to finish this off without her. You give her a trial, or you don't get this done."

  "You're threatening me now?" Valentin laughed, and I nearly put my fist through the screen of the laptop. "Toropov the Torpedo has finally fallen for someone. My God, the world is ending. This isn't some kind of sports club, Maxim. We don't do trial periods."

  "I'll be accountable. If it's a mistake, I'll take care of it."

  "You'll take care of it? You're telling me you'll tidy her up if it doesn't work out?"

  "That's what I'm saying." I had complete faith in her. Our connection was more powerful than anything I'd felt in my life and she wasn't going to walk away from it. The Bratva was my life, so the Bratva was going to be hers. I knew she already embraced that. "She needs a passport, a new name. To get out of here without any questions asked. You need her to get what we're after. It's a simple business exchange mate, don't make it more complicated than it is."

  Valentin shook his head, showing me his teeth in an animal glare. "You don't push me about Maxim. That's not how this relationship works."

  "Then don't make me. You know how loyal I am. This is what I'm asking for."

  He shook his head again, but I watched Valentin pull out his phone and put a call through. When they picked up, he rattled off something in quick-fire Russian that I was too rusty to pick out. He ended the call just as abruptly as it had started.