The King: Bratva Blood: (A dark mafia romance)

by SR Jones

  “Told you his henchmen were hot. How gorgeous are those cheekbones,” Suzy whispers in my ear, smoky breath making me want to gag.

  “He is hot, but he smokes, so he’ll smell like an ashtray, as do you.” I purse my lips at her, and she shrugs.

  “I’d lick an ashtray if he licked me after.” She winks.

  “I swear you’re the lewdest woman I know,” I tell her.

  “Lewd? Oh my God, did you travel back to the nineteen-fifties in your mind again, Cassie?” She laughs, and I join in. “And I might smell like an ashtray, but you smell like a tin of old biscuits left out in the sun. What the hell? Have you ground digestives all over your skin and sprinkled some rich tea on there?”

  “It’s the tan. They said it smelled of coconuts.”

  She bursts out laughing. “Nah, definitely moldy biscuits.”

  Suzy can be cutting, but she’s always there for me. She offered to spike Tim’s morning coffee with laxatives and was dead serious. Only a bestie does such a thing. When I declined, she offered to spike his bimbo mistress’ coffee instead. When I declined again, she offered to roofie her and shave off her eyebrows. I think she meant that too, which is why I will never willingly get on her wrong side.

  I watch the man who is smoking as he blows out a perfect smoke ring, before dropping the butt on the floor and stamping it out with his heel.

  Then he picks it up and throws it into a nearby trash can.

  He stares out into the brighter center of the courtyard where a lone tree stands, its roots planted in some soil below the concrete, a sign of life in this sterile brick quad.

  His eyes are blue, I can see as much from here. A trio of blue-eyed men? I can’t tell from this far if the blond’s are blue or green, but they’re light. Konstantin’s are blue but dark, and they change. I’ve watched his eyes a lot, and they can go from an almost washed out gray, to a bluey hazel-like color, to a deep, dark blue. Dark like his hair, and dark like his soul. The one Suzy is admiring has eyes that are lighter, and they stand out against his hair and skin. He’s striking, great bone structure, great eyes, but he does nothing for me compared to the charisma whirlpool that is Konstantin. Plus, he smokes, and I hate that.

  “There’s something deadly about those men,” Suzy whispers, her voice low for once.

  Surprised at what she’s said, I turn to her. Does she know something? “What makes you say that?”

  “Oh, come on. The big Kahuna on his own was different enough for me to believe he’s something more than simply a wealthy man. Then these two turn up? I’ve seen the ink on pretty boy; it’s Russian.”

  “Yeah, so? Konstantin is Russian, isn’t he? Why is that such a shock?”

  “It’s not, on its own, but I looked it up on my phone. One of the tats he’s got is a Russian prison tattoo. I think Konstantin’s friends are very bad boys indeed. Maybe they’re his friends from his previous life, before he got rich and famous. Do you think they’re here to do some sort of shady job for him?”

  “I have no idea. I think your imagination is running away with you, though, for sure.” I’m suddenly scared for Suzy. If Konstantin is a mob boss, he might harm her if he thinks she’s onto him. Suzy is being her usual overly imaginative self, but this time she’s right. And being right could be dangerous.

  “Listen,” I tell her. “Don’t say this shit to people. You could get yourself in trouble.”

  “Oh, Cassie. So good.” She sighs and pouts. “Always with the goody-two-shoes act, telling bad little me off.”

  “No, not this time. This time I’m telling you the truth. I’ve been doing something top secret for Konstantin, and let me tell you one thing I know. He’s a shark. He’s not a nice guy, Suzy. Ruthless, unforgiving. I’ve found out enough about him to know he’s not someone you should talk about at all. He doesn’t take kindly to it. People just find themselves fired if they fuck him off. Be careful.”

  “Okay, I will.” She’s serious for once, for a moment.

  “And be careful of his friends. Maybe they’re as bad as you seem to think, and if so, that’s not good, right?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I’ve always wanted to walk on the wild side with a bad boy.”

  “Be careful what you wish for, Suze.”

  She smirks at me and then glances around. “Oh well, better get back to the grindstone.”

  She heads out of the shade we’re in right toward the sunny center of the courtyard, heading for the trio. “Suze?” I hiss. “You’re going the wrong way.”

  “Going in the back door. Need to see Janet in the microfiche room in the basement.”

  Of course she does. Not. Jesus, she’s a nightmare.

  I dither for a moment, not sure whether to follow her or go back the right way. In the end, my worry for her makes me follow.

  As we near the three men, they lift their heads as one, like some mighty, dangerous beast, and the one with the light eyes and dark hair flares his nostrils as if he’s scenting Suzy’s love of danger on the air. Like a wolf scenting prey.

  She slows as we near and swings her hips, looking right at him as she passes by.

  He says something in Russian, and the blond one laughs. Suzy flicks them a smile, but it’s unsure and tinged with embarrassment. Are they laughing at her? At us?

  I glance at Konstantin, unable to stop myself, and he’s staring at me intently. He’s looking at me as if … as if he’s angry with me somehow. It doesn’t make sense. Why would he be angry?

  He says something under his breath, and I catch it on the breeze.

  “My sunshine is back.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Konstantin

  “She’d suck your cock like a vacuum cleaner,” Denis says to Vasily about Cassie’s friend.

  “Yeah, she would, but she’s too obvious. Prefer the shy blonde myself. I bet she’s all quiet and timid, and then you’d open her up like a flower and get to see what she’s made of inside.”

  “Don’t fucking talk about her that way,” I growl before I can check myself.

  Vasily turns to me in surprise, his glassy blue-green eyes cold as the material they resemble. “Sorry, boss. Didn’t realize you were fucking her.”

  “I’m not,” I say with a shrug. “She’s important, though, and she is working for us; I mean really working for us.”

  I let that sink in. Denis blows out a long breath. “You picked some hot little thing to join the dark side, Kon.”

  “Focus on work,” I snap.

  Denis sighs, but nods. “So you want us to go see this guy, put the fear of God in him, but don’t actually hurt him, yes?” His voice is low, a deep murmur that I strain to hear. We’re speaking in Russian anyway, no one here will understand us, but it never pays to talk loudly enough for what you’re saying to be picked up by anyone who might be listening. You can’t be too careful.

  “Yep, that’s about it. The more of Popov’s loose connections we can put the fear of God into over the next few weeks the better.”

  “Is this going to mean a lot of trips to London?” Vasily asks. “Because really, that shits going to get old. Isn’t it easier for you to find someone you trust here?”

  He asks a good question because up until now, my dealings here have been mostly legitimate, and it’s meant I’ve needed Vasily and Denis where they are, in Moscow. But Vasily has built up a great team of men out there, a good team. He trusts them. In particular, he trusts Bohdan, a guy I don’t like because he’s too good looking by far. He’s the kind of man that women fall over for in the street. He’s the kind of man that eclipses me when he’s around, and that’s a fucking first. His name also means God’s gift, which is ironic. He must have fucked hundreds and hundreds of women. He never dates. Never. He simply screws.

  Thing is, though, he’s trustworthy when it comes to business, and he’s clever. Got a real head for numbers, and an ability to see through a person almost instantly. I think that’s why he doesn’t date. It’s as if he’s got x-ray glasses that see into
a person’s soul, and let’s face it, most people’s souls are greedy, jealous, dark dens of iniquity.

  “I’ve been thinking,” I say.

  “Oh, yeah?” Vasily raises his eyebrows and takes out another cigarette, a sure sign this convo is stressing him.

  “Yeah. You run Moscow well. No complaints, but…”

  “But?” His eyebrows go higher.

  “If things get hot with Popov, I’m going to need backup I can trust. He’s got a lot more men on the ground here than I realized. I won’t know the extent of it until my source reports to me, but from what I’m hearing, his operation is more widespread than I realized. I don’t want to have to recruit guys over here and train them myself. I haven’t the time, not while I’m running legitimate stuff too. So I might need you guys here.”

  “Fuck, boss.” Vasily shakes his head. “I can’t leave Moscow. No fucking way.”

  “You can…to Bohdan, let him take over for a while.”

  “Nah, he’s not ready,” Vasily argues.

  “I think he is. Hell, there are others who could take over, too, if we really need it, for a while at least. You’ve built a solid army. You just don’t want to leave.”

  “No, I don’t. It’s my baby. I come over here and what? Be a glorified lacky, training up a load of goofy young idiots to be your new army?”

  “No, you come here and be my second, and work right by my side as we defeat an enemy and take over this area. Fuck, Vasily, come on; this is London.”

  “Yeah, and it will be yours, so…”

  He stares at me, pissed.

  What’s he saying? Does he think Moscow is his? I’d cut the throat of anyone else who even hinted as much. Moscow is mine; he just works there for me.

  “So? I don’t get where you’re going with this. And think very fucking carefully before you answer, because if you’re saying what I think you’re saying, then you’re saying something major here, and we might have issues.”

  He sighs. “K, I know I run Moscow for you. I’m not saying otherwise. But I do it well. It’s my territory, where I’m at home. Not this place. Not London. I hate the British.” He takes out his cigarette packet and taps out a cigarette before lighting it.

  “What?” I stare at him, nonplussed by his bizarre statement. “Why?”

  “They’re so … flat. Stupid. All they do is drink shitty beer and tell bad jokes.”

  “All Russians do is drink shitty vodka and tell bad jokes,” I say with a laugh.

  “I don’t know, K. I’m someone in Moscow.”

  “You’ll be someone here, more than. If we take over Popov’s empire, someone has to run it, yes?”

  He nods.

  I put it out there. The thing I’ve been thinking for the last two or three days. “I’ve gone over and over this. Do I let Allyov take over? Do I do it? Do I let the Greeks have the territory? I don’t trust Allyov to take over, but at the same time, we’ll need to work with him. That means I can’t just put a lacky in Popov’s place because whoever does this needs to be able to work with the snake Allyov.”

  “Christ, Allyov.” Vasily grimaces.

  “Exactly,” I say.

  “Don’t really know anything about him, other than he’s a Bratva Pakhan.” Shrugs Denis.

  “You know Andrius?”

  Denis crosses himself, and I smirk. Some people still do that when you mention the fucker’s name. Good job he’s on my side. “Well,” I go on. “Allyov was his boss here, sort of. It was complicated, but anyway, Allyov couldn’t get Andrius under his thumb the way he wanted him. So he kidnapped a waitress, one of his own waitresses I hasten to add, off the street, and gave her to Andrius.”

  Denis frowns, I can see the cogs turning. “But… I mean, the two things I know about Andrius are he’s so fucking cold he’d cut your tongue out, fry it up, and make you eat it. And he hates anyone who hurts women, so that doesn’t make sense, boss.”

  “Exactly, that’s how fucking unhinged Allyov is. He stole his hitman a woman, when his hitman spent his whole life seeking vengeance on people who do that shit. As it turned out, they fell in love.” I laugh. “Couldn’t make it up. She’s fucking adorable, though.”

  “She’s fucking hot is what she is,” Vasily says.

  I whip round and smack the cigarette out of his hand. “Don’t fucking disrespect my friend’s wife,” I snap.

  He glares at me, and I can see he wants to make something of it, but he won’t. I’d cut his fucking balls off. Then we both glance around as I realize I’ve just lost my cool in a courtyard of a legitimate business where people probably don’t go around slapping their employees. Vasily laughs as if it’s a joke, and then punches my arm.

  Fucking hell, I need to remember to keep the mask in place. I let it slip too easily when these fuckers are back in my life.

  “So … Allyov,” I say, getting us back on track. “Allyov, Popeye, and the question of a vacuum that needs filling. I could do it myself, but I don’t want to. I’m too focused on the legit side of things. The Greeks? Stamatis seems like a good man, but he won’t want this. Andrius is far too busy with his little woman and their baby. So that leaves this fucking vacuum, and as Andrius rightly said, nature abhors a vacuum.”

  Vasily shifts his weight from one foot to the other and takes a deep drag of his cigarette, the third he’s lit in a short space of time. He needs to cut this shit out before he fucks his lungs for good.

  “I thought there was no solution,” I say to him. “Thought you were needed in Moscow, but then I read through your last ten or so reports again, and I saw that you were delegating more and more to Bohdan. We know him, right? Trust him? I’m not saying you leave Moscow all together. What I’m saying, Vasily, is how about you step up and take over a much more lucrative area. London. And you, Denis, you step up and work for Bohdan to help him run Moscow?”

  Vasily stares at me. “It rains so much here.”

  “Yes, it does.”

  “The women are okay, but they aren’t a patch on the Russian girls.”

  “Maybe, but they have fire. They’re more direct, dirty. They like to drink and fuck, and they don’t hide it.”

  He smirks.

  “Come on, Vasily. It will be like the old days, you and me together. Haven’t you missed me?” I mock pout, and he barks out a laugh.

  “I have missed you like the nail they had to remove from my foot all those years ago.”

  He’ll come if I order him to, but I want Vasily to choose this. He’s a great second, but he’s moody, and he will work better here if it’s where he wants to be.

  He stiffens, alert suddenly, and I follow his gaze to see him staring at Zoey as she enters the smoking quad. She walks to the middle, to the tree, stares up at it with her face tilted to the sun, then she throws her arms around the tree and hugs it.

  We glance at one another, then turn to stare at the woman hugging a fucking tree in front of all her colleagues as if that shit is normal.

  After a moment or two of hippy-dippy tree hugging, she wanders over to a bench on the left side of the yard, and sits on it, her feet on the bench, knees drawn up and her head tilted up to the sky.

  “Who is that?” Vasily asks.

  “That is Zoey, with a Y,” I say.

  “She’s….”

  “Yes, she is,” I reply. I know what he means. She’s no Cassie, but Zoey with a Y is a striking and unique young woman. She’s kind of aloof, and she’s also in a world of her own much of the time.

  “You should see her artwork,” I tell him. “Astonishing.”

  “I’d rather see her pussy,” Denis snorts.

  Sometimes he’s a total fool. Denis isn’t the brightest tool in the box, but he’s built like a tank with deadly skills, and he intimidates anyone, so I keep him around. Plus, he’s as loyal as a dog. Just what I need in this fucked up world.

  “I’ll leave you gentlemen to stare at my employees like slathering dogs,” I tell them. “You’re staying for a few days, at least,
so get comfortable, and make sure Bohdan is on top of things back in the homeland, okay? And stop eyeing up the staff, Jesus.”

  Vasily rolls his eyes, but he’s still looking at Zoey.

  “She’s an important asset. Don’t you dare fuck her and cause issues,” I tell him.

  “Yes, sir,” he says sarcastically.

  I turn on my heel and leave them to it, heading back into the building.

  Cassie came this way minutes ago, and I think about her now. I’m pissed at her for turning the clock back and becoming that golden girl I fell for all those months ago when she was a barista.

  My phone goes, and I glance at it to see Damen’s ugly mug pop up on my screen.

  “Yasu malaka,” I say.

  He laughs and returns the greeting in Greek, which basically means hello, wanker.

  “So,” he says in English. “You want to know something that I found out today?”

  “Yes?” I reply.

  “You’re hacking into Popov, and whoever you’ve employed to do it is a stupid amateur who is going to get caught because they’ve left digital breadcrumbs that anyone half tech savvy could follow. Stupid shit, like slowing down a browser, that a paranoid person would be looking for. Digital footprints in the dirt, if you will. I know it must have come from you, and I know because I managed to trace it back to an organization you’ve recently purchased.”

  “What?”

  My blood runs cold. Cassie lied to me. She told me she knew how to do this undetected.

  Rage hits first, then fear—for her.

  “How the fuck do you know?” I demand.

  “Because I decided to look into Popov and saw the mess whoever you hired left. Oh, and by the way, I should be deeply offended you didn’t trust me enough to do it for you and share the information, particularly as you want us to work together.”

  “Cut the crap, Damen, what did you find?”

  “Oh, now you trust me?”

  “What did you fucking find?”

  “You’ve hired someone to dig, which they did, but badly. In fact, only Popov being so damn stupid has kept them safe so far. It won’t forever. Now I got out of there, and I haven’t done anything that will alert him to your digging, but sooner or later? Your hacker will be found out. I’ll leave it up to you what to do about that. You need to do something, though, because unless your guy is some sort of military operative, which with their shitty skills I very much doubt, if Popov gets to them, they’ll sing like a canary. This will lead Popov right to you.”