Another defiance.
My little way of belonging to myself. At least for now.
I adjusted the sleek corset, reaching down to hook the garters to the lace-crowned stockings. The silky green dress slipped over my body, falling to the ground in a waterfall that hugged my every curve.
Ivan would want my hair down, left in seductive red waves. But tonight, I pulled it up in a fashionably messy French twist with curls spilling around the top of my head. I searched through my jewelry until I found the gold hair pen with the bird with emerald eyes. It was my mother’s. I slipped it gently into the updo, knowing how the jewels would twinkle and catch light, matching the dress beautifully.
Taking a deep breath, I walked out of the room, shoulders straight and head held high. If Ivan noticed the hair ornament, he’d remove it. My family was a taboo subject, and things that smacked of them weren’t allowed. I was lucky he’d let me keep the vanity. Another thing he liked to throw in my face. I allowed you that piece of your parents, remember that. I can easily change my mind.
But I needed my little push backs.
The secret pieces of self that I held tightly against my aching heart.
I descended the stairs; Ivan was waiting at the bottom, his fingers flying across his phone. He only looked up when I stepped off the final riser.
He nodded, then twirled his finger. “Turn, let me see.”
I moved carefully, in a slow full circle, hoping his eyes would stay glued to my figure and not be bothered by my hairstyle.
“Take the hair down.”
“It looks better up,” I countered, lip quivering, already knowing that arguing was worthless.
He walked forward, shoving his cell phone into his inner jacket pocket. “I said take it down.” His fingers moved to the back of my head and roughly pulled out the hair pin. “And this,” he waved it in front of my eyes, “is not allowed.”
Ivan tossed my mother’s bird ornament to the floor. It rolled, clinking against the marble. One emerald popped out of place and the now one-eyed bird stared up at me longingly
My heart pounded, words struggling to be heard. A scream threatened to burst from my chest, but as usual, I crammed the scream down. Swallowing it into the pit of my stomach.
“Let’s go.” He took my hand and pulled me towards the door.
“Is Decatur driving us?” I asked, anxiety fluttering in my chest. If the chauffeur was taking us, it meant that Ivan would have both hands free on the way to the party, and on the way home. He treated me… like a working girl in the back of our car with the privacy partition, or in the back of the limo.
“I am driving.” Ivan said brusquely, continuing to yank at me.
I glanced back into the house, down at the floor to my mother’s broken hair ornament.
I was done.
I did not know why seeing the loose emerald stone sparkling sadly on the floor undid me completely. But it did.
My hate for Ivan was no longer something I could keep below the surface. I had to leave him, had to get away. Or the last bits of my soul would finally break.
Chapter Three
Alexander
The party was busy, families from all over New York had traveled to the Brooklyn Bridge Hotel to pay their respects. It was someone’s birthday. Perhaps an aunt, or an uncle, I couldn’t recall now who my father had said. It had to be someone semi-important. The cost of renting out the rooftop and lounge wasn’t cheap. And those who didn’t get the honor of staying in the hospitality suites would shell out several hundred for a basic room. Those who wanted a suite… it’d cost them more than a cool grand. Money well spent though. The views of the Brooklyn Bridge were dynamite.
Of course, a party was never just a party with the Bratva. Parties like this were always a perfect cover for the sort of business meetings better kept far under the radar. There would be one later.
But now wasn’t later.
The view inside the event space wasn’t half bad either. Maybe not Brooklyn Bridge quality, but thankfully here were plenty of eager women for Nikolai and me to get our hands on, because I wasn’t sure he’d forgive me for bringing him to another awful party filled with only old rich people. This time, I’d kept my promise. Pussy as far as the eye could see.
As Nikolai liked to frequently remind me, our days were numbered before we were one of the old rich husbands instead of the rich playboys. And neither of us wanted to waste a minute of the bachelor life.
He gripped my shoulder and squeezed. “You didn’t play me for a fool this time, Alexander,” he laughed.
I laughed back. “You play that part well all on your own, Nik.”
He raised his glass of vodka and smirked, knowing full well that I was right. Not that he’d ever admit it. I’d had to bail him out of enough scrapes thanks to his tomfoolery… and his wandering hands.
“Where’s that little sister of yours tonight?” Nik changed the subject, his gaze roving the crowd in search of Katya.
“She’s here somewhere, she came with Mother and Father, I think.” I shrugged, my gaze on a sexy girl in a short black dress balancing on what had to be four-inch heels. She smiled shyly as she passed. I liked my women just like that; ripe and ready for the picking. I’d never had to work for sex, and I wasn’t about to start. “What about her? She may have a friend, and if not, we could share her if she’s down for it.”
Nik and I had shared many a woman. I’d seen his cock more times than most women over the years since he rarely went back for seconds with a woman.
“She’s only 15, Alexander. Her father would cut off your dick and feed it to you if you touched her,” he barked out a laugh.
“You’re fucking kidding me, right? 15? Jesus, what are they feeding women these days? And who the fuck is buying a 15-year-old a dress like that? I’m all for women dressing as they please, but she’s still just a kid.”
“Not in our culture,” he replied.
“Things need to change.” I threw my drink to the back of my throat and nodded towards the small bar area while shaking my now empty glass in the air between us. “I need another. Are you coming?”
He chuckled and nodded, and we made our way over and ordered two more drinks. We stood casually watching the women and figuring out who would be our dates for the night. Both sons of powerful men, though Nik’s father died years ago, we could have pretty much any woman that we wanted. It was only choice that hindered us. Of course, even if Nikolai had his eye on a piece of tail I wanted, he wouldn’t stand a chance against me.
Vasiliev royalty was my trump card. He’d always be second best, though it never seemed to bother him. He took the devil-may-care to a level even I envied sometimes.
My father and mother were sitting at a large table near the front of the room and were surrounded by powerful businessmen and their wives. Every once in a while, my father and the man he was talking to would look over at me and I knew that they were discussing me settling down. The guy probably had a daughter that was of marrying age and so was trying to pin her to me, the son of Eduard Vasiliev and prince of the Bratva. I was without question a good catch for any woman. You couldn’t really blame the guy for trying.
Not that his efforts would bear fruit. If the future held a wife for me, then she would be of my choosing… and a damned goddess.
I’d do anything for my father and the Bratva. Anything at all. This was my father’s legacy and my future, but marrying for fucking business reasons was where I drew the line.
My twin sister, Katya, passed between some tables, briefly stopping to talk to some friends before heading in our direction. Her long dark hair was swaying at her waist, fresh highlights catching the glow from the lanterns overhead, and her figure-hugging burgundy dress was too short and too tight for my liking, but there was little point in telling her that. She had the same defiant streak I had, and I’d only be playing into her hands by bringing it up. She relished controversy, lived and breathed it like the wild child she was.
Things were even harder for her though. Father respected me enough to let me have some say in my future. I was prince of the underworld, soon to be King, but Katya was the Bratva princess, and her kingdom cage was smaller than my own. I had big plans to change things when I was in power. As much as I respected my father and the Bratva, things needed changing. We weren’t living in medieval times now.
I loved women, and it was that love of women that wanted them to have some say in their own lives.
“Brother,” she said, eyeing my two-thousand-dollar suit, “could you not be bothered dressing up for the occasion?”
“Katya,” Nikolai replied, drawing her attention to him. “Could you not be bothered looking for a dress that fit you?”
“Is there something wrong with my dress, Nikolai?” she said with a bat of her long black lashes and I rolled my eyes at the two of them.
“Is it a child’s dress?” he asked, and I smirked at his retort.
She traced her hands over her hips and Nikolai watched with greedy fascination. Her hand reached out to stroke along the lapel of his suit. “Do you really think I should cover all of this up?” she asked, stepping closer to him.
“Well, you don’t want to be mistaken for a hooker now do you, Katya?” he replied, gripping her hand in his and kissing her knuckles.
Katya’s eyes narrowed and she threw us both dirty looks before storming away, leaving Nikolai and I laughing between ourselves. It had always been this way with the two of them. My best friend and my sister hated one another, and that was fine by me. I couldn't imagine anything worse than the two of them hooking up.
“I think I won that one,” Nikolai smirked.
“Yes, but she’ll make you pay for it at some point. I don’t know why you waste your time arguing with her.”
Nikolai’s gaze was still on my sister as she walked across the room and I cleared my throat drawing his attention away from her swaying hips.
“Sorry,” he shrugged with a smirk, “can’t deny that she’s hot, even if she is the most annoying woman on the damn planet,” he laughed.
Nikolai was still laughing as Ivan Volotov and his wife of little more than a year came into the room and all eyes turned to them. I didn’t know much about the woman, other than her family had been disgraced and Ivan had swooped in to save the day before she met the same fate they did. A quick, brutal death. The judgement had happened while I was overseas, so I hadn’t had the pleasure of meeting her during that time and the execution had fallen to other trusted soldiers.
Ivan was powerful and influential among our family. Few others could have gotten my father to show mercy. It didn’t matter that the daughter had been off at school, that she didn’t have much to do with the Bratva. Her parents were betrayers, and she was forever stained because of it.
But Ivan headed a lucrative division of a shell company, and he was late to settle down with a wife, so my father did him the favor of sparing the woman. Marriage came to us all in the end, even Ivan, who’d seemed like the eternal playboy. Other than my own father, I’d always respected him in the sense that he brought good business to the family. Yet, I’d never trusted him, or particularly liked him. Similar to most Bratva men, he was a tireless chauvinist who treated women as possessions. But beyond that, there was just something about him… something below the surface that gave me pause.
Yet in that moment, mistrusting Ivan was the last thing on my mind.
Because the woman tucked against his side was fucking breathtaking.
I could see why he’d saved her, and I could see why he’d kept her somewhat out of the spotlight while the dust settled. Hell, I’d hide her away from the world regardless, though I’d heard that she’d accompanied him to a few Bratva functions. Ones I had not attended, either away at business or too consumed with being the unredeemable playboy.
“He’s really lucked out with her, huh?” Nikolai said from next to me, but I ignored him, barely able to take my eyes off the beauty on his arm. “I had to stop by one of the Antonov parties a few months ago and she was there. She only spoke to the wives, though they didn’t seem inclined to include her.”
“You never mentioned her,” I replied, my mouth dry and my eyes focused solely on her.
Long red hair trailed down her slender back in soft curls. Her dress was green and figure hugging, showing off her magnificent curves. But it was her mouth that did me in. No her lips, her lips that were full and painted in a rich plum color making them look plump and ripe and I hardened at the thought of them wrapped around my dick. The fantasy came unbidden and I cleared my throat and took another long sip of my drink, barely tasting the alcohol as it slipped down my throat.
“You okay there?” Nikolai said.
“Yes,” I replied and forced myself to look away from her before I came in my pants.
Nikolai looked at me, his head cocked to one side. “I know that look, Alexander. It spells trouble.”
“Nonsense,” I scoffed indignantly.
“She’s off limits, my friend. I had the same thought the first time I clapped eyes on her, but pick a different woman, brother,” he joked, but there was an element of truth in his words. “Any woman at all can be yours. But not her.”
Yes, I needed to pick a different woman, because Ivan’s wife was out of bounds and not even my connections would change that.
“I know that. I can still admire her, can’t I?”
“Admire, yes, but don’t touch or those greedy fingers of yours will get burned.” And he wasn’t talking theoretically. Ivan had a temper on him, and he’d been known to burn a man’s fingers to the bone for even thinking of stealing from him. I wondered what he would do if another man dared to touch his beautiful wife.
I respected his business prowess as much as his brutality. But that didn’t stop me from continuing to picture her plum lips in my mind.
“I spy beautiful women,” Nikolai said, thankfully changing the subject. He gestured to two blondes on the far side of the room.
Yes, they were beautiful. Curvy, attractive, with legs for miles, and staring at us with lustful gazes. Yet I found my gaze still slipping to Ivan’s wife for one more look as we made our way over to them.
It was only a look and looking couldn’t do any harm.
Chapter Four
Marisha
Ivan led me into the room. I was still unused to the way heads turned wherever he went; power and influence dripped from his pores. Lucky for me, it was Ivan’s position within the Bratva community that had saved me.
Before my family had fallen upon hard times, we were rich and powerful too. My family were part of this life, however they had tried to shield me from it as much as possible by sending me away to school and keeping me out of the limelight. None of that had mattered in the end though. I had ended up exactly where they had hoped I wouldn’t.
Ivan cut a line through the room of dangerously beautiful people and a thrill of terror through shot through me.
As we approached the head table to greet Eduard and Evelina Vasiliev, my chest tightened. Knowing that they would have buried me alongside my parents made me feel sick to my stomach, fear and anger running through my veins. Seeing them made me fear the worst had only been delayed. Though I was innocent, away at school with little knowledge of the family workings, I was still considered bad blood by the Bratva and, by all accounts except Ivan’s, I should bear the sins of my mother and father. Root out the seeds of betrayal, even if it was an unborn child.
I glanced over at Ivan. His eyes were trained forward, steady and controlled.
He’d kept me from a shallow grave.
He’d saved me.
I should be grateful.
But, in the end I recognized that I was likely trading a fast death for a slow one.
Ivan sought to control my every movement, from the clothes I wore to the things I was allowed to do. I had to speak to the correct type of people and go to the right type of places. We lived a comfortable life together; me teetering
on the edge waiting for him to snap, and him forever reminding me that I was in his debt. I mentally sighed in frustration, trying to keep a demure smile plastered upon my face.
It was a loveless existence, and my moments of small defiance were always laced with fear.
Because the truth was, I was tied to Ivan indefinitely. If not… if Ivan abandoned me, who would protect me?
I didn’t want to be that woman. The one that required a man to keep her safe, but the Russian mafia world was one where I did not belong—not on my own, not as a free and valued individual with such a black mark upon my name—and as such, I needed to tread carefully. In time, I could only hope that the stain on my reputation would fade. Though I knew it would never wash out completely.
We were nearly to the table when movement caught my attention. Two men, tall and beautifully suited—though neither wore the sort of bespoke suit Ivan favored. They were both attractive, one more so than the other. And that second man, who seemed to be surrounded by an aura of unbridled sexual heat, mesmerized me.
Dark brown hair shorn short on the sides, but longer at the top where two parallel braids snaked from his crown and down the back of his head. His beard was neat, oiled, hints of defiant curls fighting through the brushed straightness. Thick, manicured eyebrows were set over piercing brown eyes.
Brown eyes that flecked with gold when he looked at me, catching me staring at him. His mouth quirked, mustache rising a fraction as he acknowledged me. I felt flame enter my cheeks, rushing down in a wave of heat to warm my lower, wetter places. I clenched my thighs together, a thrill running through me.
I looked away quickly.
Ivan would kill me if he caught me so much as looking at another man. I had to be careful. I reached up and pulled my long coppery hair over my shoulder. The curls bounced, obscuring my peripheral vision so I wouldn’t be tempted to find his face again. But god, the temptation to push the strands back away so that I could see those eyes one more time…
Deviant Prince: A Forbidden bad boy Mafia Romance. (Born to Darkness Duet Book 1) Page 2