I must have looked that way to him and I hated the way I wanted to giggle and squirm under his stare like some kind of school girl. I wasn't just a girl any longer. I was a woman striking out on her own, and maybe a man like him, who was clearly already established in his life could look at me and see more than just an immature, inexperienced idiot. Just maybe.
I took a deep breath, flustered that I cared so much already.
No way was I going to throw out my routine for him. Even if all I really wanted to do was get to know him better. Have him take me out. Maybe rescue me from some evil nemesis I had yet to come across, and then whisk me back to his castle to marry him.
Because real life worked like that. Oh, God, who was I kidding? I didn't have a clue.
And, hell, what could I know about anything? I'd spent high school learning the greatest ballet routines, humming Chopin and Tchaikovsky and dreaming about the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy when my classmates were into boy bands and indie groups and guys with cool tattoos or cars.
I forced my eyes closed and took a deep cleansing breath.
Yoga was a great start to the day and it kept me as supple and strong as I needed to be to put my body through everything that ballet demanded of me. And I'd been all set to get on my usual routine of sun salutations and deep stretches, breathing through all of them and centering myself for the day.
"In that case, I hope that we will see a lot of each other."
I bit my lip, the realities of the life I was about to launch into hitting me all at once. Being in the Corps meant early mornings and late nights, full days bouncing from rehearsal to performance with barely the time to be at home, let alone anywhere else. I knew I'd be living and breathing ballet day in and day out.
"…I think I'm going to be pretty busy with my new job, actually."
As much as I didn't want it to be true, I knew that it was. However attractive he was, I didn't have time to find out where anything with him might lead
I was the new girl and I needed to show them how seriously I was taking this opportunity and how much I wanted this. There wasn't going to be a second chance. I couldn't afford to jeopardize any of it by going gaga over some guy at the gym.
Valentin let out an irritated sound, and his fist came down against the ball again, rattling it back and forth and he landed another punch, turning back to get into the rhythm I'd broken him out of.
"That is a shame."
Back in New York I'd had plenty of opportunity to fend off unwanted attention, but I didn't have the first clue what to do when it wasn't unwanted at all. Maybe it should have been, because the last thing I needed was any kind of distraction until I'd proved I could hold my own among the other dancers.
Now I was the one who couldn't stop watching. That sudden burst of fury was powerful and unexpected, and I was bewitched. What would he have done if I'd not snubbed him?
Why the hell was my head full of images of him crossing the floor of the gym and lifting me up against the mirrors while I clamped my thighs around his lean, sweaty sides? I'd never even fantasized about something like that, but watching him attack the suspended boxing ball, it didn't feel like so much of a daydream. More like a premonition. Or maybe just a wish.
I pulled my earbuds out of my bag and slipped them in, tracking to my favorite morning playlist on my phone as I set down my tea and prepped my area. He caught my eye and nodded with a solid kind of finality, and I flushed again, thankful that he couldn't read minds.
The biggest risk I took was sparing him another smile, before I got my head back in the game. But it felt gigantic. To me, I guess it was. It was the first time in my life I could remember wanting anything, let alone anyone, as much as I wanted to be a ballerina. How ridiculous was that, after barely even speaking to him?
Trying to shake myself out of it, I transitioned from plank to cobra, arching my spine and then stretching forward and up, into downward dog before jumping forward, and repeating the cycle until I could feel the blood starting to pump enough to let my muscles stretch.
Then it was down to the floor, working on my hamstrings, and then the arch of my back.
I forced myself not to look at him again, but before I was even halfway through my stretches, I saw the motion of the punching ball still. In my peripheral vision, I saw him sling a towel over his shoulders and then he'd walked out of the door.
I let out a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding. What if I never saw him again?
What if I did?
CHAPTER FOUR
Valentin
Timoshenko's deals, when it came to business, when it came to crime, were impeccable and ahead of their time, but the way he disrespected the women he was involved with was beyond my comprehension. From the sidelines I had seen the pattern repeat, over and over again.
I had vowed that I would never be that kind of man, and it seemed simpler to never let the opportunity arise. It had been easy for years, right up until this morning when the door of the studio opened, and there was Mia. Never in my life had I felt such a powerful and instant attraction. And now, I had no idea what to do about it.
Aside from the way Yakov had treated my mother, I could hardly complain about the hand I had been dealt. Early on in my career, when I made my first millions, I bought the building where my mother used to teach her dance classes to little girls across the city. Madame Rozhkov had a reputation as one for the best and I wanted her legacy to live on in some small way.
I refurbished the studio where no doubt she had met Timoshenko one day when he picked his daughters up, or dropped them off to class. I always wondered whether she knew then that he was a gangster, whether he came with the same kind of security entourage then that he travelled with now.
That part of my mother's history wasn't what I wanted to preserve. I wanted to revive her dream of a space right in the culture district for young dancers. Somewhere for them to live cheaply, within easy reach of the theatre where they would perform night after night without respite. And if I hadn't done that, I never would have met the woman of my dreams.
Every morning since I'd moved back into the apartment building, I came to use the boxing equipment I kept down in the studio. It was just routine, and this morning had been no different. I relished the chance to blow off steam in a physical way that the everyday ins and outs of my job never gave me. Going from board meeting to conference call, shaking hands and making nice with anybody and everybody while I negotiated cutthroat deals, I never got the opportunity to use my fists the way I might have wanted to. The punch bag gave the visceral side of me a badly needed outing.
Usually, a fast run through of routines and a solid round of repeated sets on the speed ball and the punch bag were enough to work the tensions out of me. But Mia had added a whole new set of them.
As soon as I saw her, I wanted her. It took everything I had not to cross the room and push her down against the mat and show her just how feral and uncivilized I could be. At heart I was an animal, and with one look at me from across the room she brought out the beast that I never admitted existed. I wanted to ravage her, to make her mine, to hear her scream my name and know it was the only one she was ever going to think of when she got turned on. And right at the same time, I wanted to show her how much of a gentleman I was, to treat her the way that a woman like her deserved with every single thing at my disposal.
She didn't have to tell me that she was a ballerina for me to figure it out. From the way she flexed her lithe and supple body, pointing her toes with an exaggerated arch, I could tell she was a dancer. But that wasn't the only thing that interested me about her.
Living where I did, I was used to seeing so many dancers come and go, and until I set eyes on Mia, they all seemed to me as sisters. Entirely sexless, in their near prepubescent flat chested-ness. In Mia, there was a different kind of energy, a unique beauty. She wasn't there to simply pose and posture and astound me with the reach of her foot right over her leg. She moved in a way that told me dance was
in her veins.
Her curves were understated and constrained but her body held a lithe Amazonian strength that was undeniably feminine, undeniably sexy, whether she realized it or not. She was what a ballerina was supposed to be, without even trying. She was quietly spectacular and I was going to do everything in my power to make sure that everybody knew it. Mia, this new American dancer was going to be the death of me unless I figured out how to handle my desires.
I practically saw red when she said she had no time to do anything else but work. How could she say such a thing? How could she think it?
No one should have to live a life where work was the only thing, no matter how much they enjoyed it. I wanted to storm down to the Bolshoi Theatre itself and demand that she be released from her obligations so that I could take her out. So that she would let me romance her.
I'd been clenching my jaw so hard my teeth were in danger of popping since I stalked out of the gym, balls going bluer by the second. I couldn't have stayed in there another second without doing something I'd regret.
She had to give me a chance. There was no way that she hadn't felt the chemistry between us. It was off the charts and I'd never been so attracted to anybody so instantly and so deeply. How could she look at me and tell me that she didn't have the time?
Hitting the speed bag only wound me up into more of a rage. The only thing I trusted myself to do was leave, before I grabbed her by the throat and forced her to admit she felt this powerful thing between us too. I'd had to get out of the studio because I couldn't have stayed watching her another moment longer without striding across the room, and forcing her to her feet so that I could plunder her mouth like some kind of caveman and force my body hard up against hers. At least then she wouldn't be able to deny the weight of my meaty arousal pressed against her, desperate for entry into her body where it surely belonged.
But that wasn't how I wanted our relationship to begin. That wasn't the man I was, and I'd never known myself to react so powerfully to anyone.
All but slamming the door behind me, I jogged up the central staircase to the top floor and let myself into my apartment. It took twenty full minutes under a cold shower for the raging of my engorged, hopeful cock to deflate enough to get ready for work. I refused to jerk myself off. I wasn't so desperate. When I changed her mind, I'd have her and it would be worth the ache of not getting what I needed right now.
I'd never met anyone so beautiful that I didn't know how to behave like a human being around her.
The only thing I knew was that she had to be mine. I wasn't going to stand for this nonsense about her new job and having no time. But giving in to my hindbrain was not the way I wanted to start things with the woman I wanted by my side. And that was exactly where she belonged.
If the managing of Bratva had taught me anything at all, it was that brute force should only be a last reserve. I had so many other tools at my disposal to help me get her, and get her I was going to do. But I was struggling with not simply snatching what I wanted, to make her see that there was no job in the world that could have been more important than what was going to be between us. She felt it, I know she did.
The tight, bullet hardness of her nipples beneath the thick jersey of her sweater told me that much. She felt the electric charge between us, I had no doubt of that. So why was she so determined to put me off? I would change her mind; I had to.
And I was going to have to come up with a plan to do it, because at this rate, I wasn't going to be able to think of anything else for the entire morning. I needed a clear head to handle the Timoshenko situation without landing myself in jail on murder charge, but right then, that was the very last thing I had.
In front of the mirror in my bedroom, I tied my tie, smoothing the front of it down over the buttons of my tailored shirt, and I turned on my side as I pulled my suit jacket on, studying my silhouette. Bringing a gun to a meeting wasn't usually something I bothered with, but Viktor was right, from now on I had to look out for myself.
Timoshenko wasn't going to back down, and that meant I had to assume that he was hostile. I had to be ready to defend myself, if he turned on me.
I decided the shoulder holster was discreet enough and I double checked that the line of it didn't show through my jacket any more than was strictly necessary. I'd seen men shoot each other to pieces just because they'd both had weapons and neither wanted to be the one to shoot last. I didn't need to start a gunfight; I just needed to be prepared.
In Moscow, Timoshenko had friends, and I couldn't say for certain that I had more of the Bratva on my side, even if I knew the men who were key to the business were loyal to me. It would have been foolish for either of us to get into a situation where we were pitching man on man to take each other down. That was a fast way to destroy the organization we had built together, and I hoped the old man wasn't onerous enough to demand that. The strength of the Bratva was in its unity and there was no point in tearing it apart in the struggle for control.
Today there were more politicians and police officials to meet. Tomorrow it was the small-time crooks who ran the day to day scams that mostly kept their own palms greased, but also provided opportunities for international dealings whenever they were needed.
I was very aware that both those sets of people usually came with their own security, their own weapons. They always did, and every time before I had taken it in stride, confident that none of them would be foolish enough to make a strike against me. I was the man who could open doors and arrange everything that they needed to be arranged, be that additional funds for the city, or blind eyes turned.
But since I'd returned from St Petersburg, things had changed. It would be the perfect opportunity for Timoshenko to make a preemptive strike and wipe me out before I made a move, if that was his plan.
With a last glance in the mirror, I headed out of the apartment and down the stairs to the waiting car.
"Where to, sir?"
"Zhivago's. Thank you, Arkadi." My driver had been with me almost as long as I had had need of one, and I was grateful for his solid service. He took me everywhere I needed to go, without a single question. He didn't so much as blink when I had difficult conversations in the back with gentlemen who had to be forcefully reminded of the Bratva way of doing things. He always made sure the car was perfectly valeted, never allowing so much as a speck of blood to remain. And he seemed to have a map in his head linking all the places I could ever need to go together in the fastest possible times.
"Very good, sir."
Zhivago's was one of Timoshenko's babies. A club of kinds, where gentlemen could get whatever they were after. The back rooms followed a theme of train carriages and the women on offer, if you had the funds, were all very willing to pretend to need to be saved in one way or another. The whole thing always left me with a bad taste in my mouth.
As far as I knew, Timoshenko had cut all ties with human traffickers working out of Ukraine, and the mail order bride business, and the women who worked there were feisty enough to make their own choices and take advantage of whatever fetishes the rich and depraved came in with, but all the same, prostitution was a line that I would have rather the Bratva got out of. At least in places where it was illegal. Amsterdam was a different matter, but Timoshenko liked to be able to visit his girls.
Over the years I had been steering us away from the seedier side of things - the things that could never be disappeared away once they came out into the open. All the way through, I'd maintained that the Bratva's moral code should be better than that, and the strength of my convictions came from the fact that I could prove a thousand times over that the risk was not worth the rewards. Still, Timoshenko clung to Zhivago's, even while I moved us over to a more lucrative enterprise. Business deals with the bonus of being harder to trace back to criminal activity, criminal activity that had no paper trail linking back to us.
In record time, Arkadi pulled the car to a stop outside the club, and I nodded my thanks to him, gathering my thin
gs.
"I should be a couple of hours. I won't need you until then."
A woman who introduced herself as Lara greeted me at the door, with a flash of her sparkling eyes trailing suggestively over me, and the hint of a smile at the corner of her mouth as she handed me a glass of champagne.
"This way, Mr. Rozhkov. You must let me know what I can do to make your time with us enjoyable this afternoon. We always love your visits; you are such a handsome and powerful man."
I gritted my teeth and pushed away her attempt to smooth her slender, manicured hands down my arm. The last thing I wanted was to entertain a woman like her. Every time I came, it was a different girl who tried, and each one thought their brand of flirtation would work. Or perhaps Timoshenko thought I would reconsider my plans if one of them got my dick wet.
I was unamused. She clearly thought she could have a man like me wrapped around her little finger, just by pouting her lips and showing off the sway of her hips and the unreal roundness of her breasts. She didn't interest me at all, especially today, when my thoughts were filled with nothing but Mia, she practically repulsed me.
"Thank you, I don't think so."
She raised her perfectly plucked eyebrows. "Oh, but you must be lonely, Mr. Rozhkov. You never have a woman with you. It is not healthy for a man like you to be alone. I could make sure you have a very, very good time."
The only reason I was here was business. Business with the men at the table in the back, who clearly showed no qualms in enjoying all the hospitality Timoshenko's girls were willing to offer. From where I stood, I could see that Timoshenko had his arms spread out across the back of the booth, taking in the performance of a topless dancer, while two others squirmed in the laps of the two middle-aged officials we were supposed to be talking to.
I let out a sigh.
"I don't enjoy paying for my women, Lara. And I don't like to think about how many dicks they have sucked before mine, with nothing but money on their mind."
Bratva Boss Page 3