Prince of the Brotherhood: A Mafia Romance

by K. Alex Walker

  These days, it was everything.

  She went to slip out of bed, but Dom hooked his arm around her middle and dragged her back to him.

  “You’re so beautiful, Eija,” he whispered, dropping a full yet too brief kiss on her mouth. “I hate that you’re so beautiful.”

  They woke up an hour before she had to get ready for another day with Nikolai. He had another long day of meetings. Still, they lay in bed together and watched dawn approach, each stretch of sunlight adding more color to the sky. She lay on his chest, her left hand and his right moving together.

  “Dom, why do we do this? Get all worked up and then not sleep together.”

  “We ‘slept’ together last night,” he teased. “But I wanted to take you to dinner. Be with you. That’s pretty much where my focus was.”

  It was what she’d wanted as well.

  But she also wanted to bang his brains out.

  “I’ve been going through my schedule, looking for things I can move around just to find time to spend with you,” he added. “I enjoy being with you, Eija. That’s the truth. I mean, you can have sex with anybody. Look at Mr. Blond, who you almost got killed last night.”

  She raised their clasped hands to her face and rubbed the back of his across her cheek. Each pass brought an increasingly intense sensation that steered clear of the region below her bellybutton. This, she’d never experienced before. Pillow talk. The rumble of a man’s deep morning voice. She’d had no plans to sleep with the fake Wesley Langstaff. But, for a moment, she imagined what if she had. What if she’d missed out on this? Plus, Dom was somehow warmer before sunrise. The kind of warmth that made people grumble before leaving bed to go to work in the morning.

  “You’re all talk,” she goaded. “You wouldn’t have hurt him.”

  “Try me.”

  For a split second, she’d forgotten who he was.

  “How many times have you done this?” he asked, sliding his fingers along hers. “How many times have you spent hours talking over dinner? Falling asleep in the arms of somebody who’s satisfied with holding you all night? Somebody who wishes they could hold you every night?”

  She’d made sure it never came close to happening. Espionage wasn’t glamorous, and it often required lengthy assignments where the only contact she was allowed to have was with designated individuals at specific times. In the recipe for love, secrecy didn’t make the cut. Lies tarnished the dish. It was the CIA where she’d learned, implicitly, the importance of keeping an ice wall around her heart. Over time, she’d mistakenly come to believe she no longer had one.

  Flighty, fun, and flirtatious Eija had been borne out of necessity. Without strings attached, there was nothing to trip over. But Dom had forced her to see herself as simply Eija for the first time in a long time. He’d forced her to slow down, to derive pleasure instead from good food, laughing, and intimate, nonsexual touches. She’d never known a man tracing her lips could make her heart stop, or that a kiss could both clear and cloud her mind.

  “When I’m with you, I feel like a…treasure,” she confessed. “And I know how ridiculous that sounds.”

  He laughed, low and throaty. “It doesn’t. It just means I’m doing what I set out to do.”

  “You’re kind of wonderful, Dom.”

  “Why do you sound surprised?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I expected you to be charming, but I never expected you to make my heart beat like crazy or be the kind of guy I miss when we’re not together. With you, I understand what happy means. I feel it. I think about things that had been pipe dreams eight, twelve months ago. Hell, five years ago.”

  It took him close to a minute to respond.

  “Eija, there’s something I have to tell you.”

  She pushed up off his chest. “This sounds serious.”

  “It is.” He sat back against the headboard and pressed his thumb to his brow. “It’s not until right this second that I realized I could lose you after saying this, but I don’t feel right not telling you.”

  Eija froze.

  He wouldn’t.

  He couldn’t.

  “Eija, I’m a member of the Bratva. More specifically, I’m known as the ‘prince’ of the Bratva.”

  Her secret was worse. So much worse. He thought she’d walk away from him because of who he was? If he found out all what she’d kept from him, she’d be lucky if she walked away with her life. He kept talking about how much he trusted her, how genuine she’d been with him, and with each word the dagger she’d lodged in his back sank deeper.

  “What’s the Bratva?”

  He paused. “The Russian mafia.”

  “Mafia? Like crime bosses and things like that?”

  “For the most part.”

  “Does that mean Yuri’s the king of the, what was it? Bratva?”

  Now, she was making herself sick.

  “Yes, but he thinks it’s time for me to take over.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m bound by blood.” He let his head fall back. “It’s what I have to do. By all means, I don’t want to. I’m pretty sure the Bratva’s responsible for my mother’s death.”

  “You mean because Yuri’s first wife killed Aani?”

  A smile drew light to his face. “You remembered her name.”

  “It’s important to you. Of course, I do.”

  He stared at her, wordless for a moment.

  “On the outside, Yuri’s a charmer,” he explained. “But there’s more to the man underneath. Rage. Secrets.”

  Colin’s voice in her head yelled for her to ask Dom what secrets he was referring to. Was it what she’d photographed on Yuri’s desk? Was it something else?

  If she asked, Dom would tell her more.

  He’d tell her everything.

  He trusted her.

  And, because he trusted her, she asked, “Do you love your father?”

  “It’s complicated. Deep down, I want to make him proud, but I also want to kill him. I’m convinced he’s a narcissist without the ability to truly care about anyone, whether it’s me or Nikolai. I’ve spent years trying to expose the man behind the mask, but it feels like I’ve gotten nowhere.” He slid a hooked finger along her jawline. “Anyway, what do you think? Can you see yourself with the son of a killer? A killer himself?”

  “You’ve…killed people?”

  “Yes.”

  So have I.

  I work for INTERPOL.

  I planted a device in your necklace, but I hide it in various places and say it’s Yuri.

  I’m the m—

  “Dom, everyone has skeletons.”

  His thumb slid along the border of her bottom lip. “I have a whole graveyard, Eija.”

  “I still want this with you. I want more than this, if I’m being honest. Back in Grenada, it stung when you left. This second chance with you, it’s been…unforgettable.”

  It was one of the few truths she could grant him.

  “Yuri came to get me,” he said, lying down and coaxing her back to his chest. “I had no choice but to leave with him. If I didn’t, I wasn’t sure he wouldn’t hurt you.”

  Why would he have protected her from the Bratva if they hadn’t even known each other that well back then? And the fact that he’d protected her, essentially saving her life, didn’t she owe it to him to do the same?

  “You protected me.”

  He nodded. “Yep.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it stung to leave you too.”

  She squeezed him. Then, tears came.

  “Dom, I’m a terrible person.”

  “What?” He closed her into his embrace. “No, baby. You’re far from it.”

  “When you left, I thought horrible things about you.”

  Like how I wanted to find you, toss you in a cell, and leave you there for days without food or water. I’d dream up new and inventive ways to torture you. You weren’t human to me, Dom. Not then.

  “Eija, are you upset that I left, or
are you really upset because you now know who I am?” he asked. “You can tell me. I didn’t expect you to take this easily. I mean, part of you probably knew something was amiss when I told you Yuri killed his first wife. Then I showed up bloody at your place. Shit’s not normal.”

  A laugh sputtered between the tears. “I guess.”

  “I know it’s a lot, but you’ve been honest with me about how you feel and what Dostavka means to you. Everything, Eija. You’ve been honest with me about everything. I owed it to you to tell you this.”

  A second, stronger wave of tears came.

  “Eija…what would make you feel better? Tell me, and it’s yours.”

  The truth.

  She would only feel better once she told him every last bit of the truth.

  “Now I know you’re really upset,” he went on. “I was expecting you to answer that question with any word or phrase related to cunnilingus.”

  Another laugh weaved its way through her sadness.

  “Mr. Sokolov, I don’t know how I’m going to let you go.”

  And she didn’t mean let him go to another woman. She didn’t know how she was supposed to let him go to INTERPOL. Let him go to be tortured, knowing he’d never speak out against his father. It was their code, and he felt like he owed Yuri. They’d torture him to death.

  “Let’s not think about that right now,” he said.

  She nodded.

  Poor Dom.

  He had absolutely no idea he was a killer lying in bed with a snake.

  Chapter 19

  Dom’s schedule had intensified.

  Yuri decided he wanted Nikolai to see even more attractions, so he’d added extra stops to the itinerary.

  Nikolai had fallen asleep halfway through the day, but Eija and Pavel had still gone to the locations Yuri had assigned to avoid going back to the hotel before he expected them.

  Later that evening, she’d had dinner with Yuri, Ekaterina, and business associates of theirs in the same room where Dom had sat, a few tables away. Each time she’d looked up, they’d ended up staring at each other.

  It was hard, them being close enough to touch but unable to.

  It felt intentional.

  Dinner had ended with Dom still at his table. As she’d passed it, she’d overheard the group say they still had a lot of work to do, so they’d have to move the meeting into a conference room. They planned to be there for the rest of the night and maybe into the early morning, and at that point, it had felt like punishment.

  Now, it was a little past midnight on their last full day in London.

  She’d showered, slipped into a nightgown, talked to Colin, and then stayed up, hoping to be awake when Dom was done to at least talk to him on the phone. But her eyelids felt hooked by a fisherman’s line. This was a level of exhaustion she’d never experienced, and she’d been in a hostage situation where she was sleep-deprived for seventy-two hours.

  Her phone buzzed.

  Dom: I’m outside your door. Too tired to knock.

  She swung heavy feet over the side of the mattress and dragged herself over to open it. Dom leaned against the jamb, eyes closed.

  “Hi.”

  His lids barely rose. “Hey.”

  “You didn’t have to come tonight.”

  “Yes, I did. I had to see you.”

  Instead of the custom-tailored suit she’d last seen him in, he now wore a long-sleeved white T-shirt and gray sweatpants. And he smelled like soap.

  She took his hand and walked him inside, all the way over to the bed where she undressed him, raising his shirt over his head. He stepped out of his shoes but left his socks on. To get him out of the sweatpants, she had him lie on the bed, untied the string at the front, and slid them off over his legs. His neck was damp, and she didn’t want to believe he’d rushed through a shower just to come see her.

  “Did you eat?” she asked.

  He yawned. “You saw me at dinner.”

  “I mean, after that. Dinner was hours ago.”

  “I’m not hungry.” His eyelids opened to the length of his lashes. “Come here. I’ve been waiting for this part all day.”

  She climbed onto the mattress. “And what part is that?”

  “The part where I get to hold you.”

  Several knots simultaneously tightened in the lowest part of her stomach.

  “Does your father know this side of you?” she asked. “You’re too sweet to be the head of a crime syndicate.”

  “It’s the difference between business and pleasure. I’m Dom with you. I hope you never have to meet Dominik.”

  Eventually, she would.

  Instead of crawling into his embrace, she tossed one knee over his midsection, her head pointing toward his feet. They were both exhausted, and she wasn’t sure if this would even be good or worth it, but she’d left the impression on him back in Grenada that she didn’t do this.

  She lowered the waistband on his underwear.

  “Eija, if you suck my dick right now, I’m going to die,” he warned, already semi-erect.

  “So I shouldn’t?”

  “I believe it was Nietzsche who said, ‘Death is close enough at hand...’”

  “Really? You’re quoting Nietzsche right now?”

  She wrapped her hands around the thick base, and first took time to admire his length. She hadn’t the chance to appreciate its girth and heft before, as they’d been frantic and crazed from anticipation that had built between them over the course of two weeks. Now, she lightly stroked him with her fingers, tracing the prominent vein that stopped at the base of the swollen tip. Then she squeezed the tip, drawing out a creamy dot. Lowering her head, she licked it away and drew him into her mouth, sucking hard and releasing just in time to catch his thigh muscles relax.

  “Are you awake yet?” she asked.

  He responded, but she was sure he hadn’t used actual words.

  With the fingers on her left hand wrapped tight around the thickest part of him, she used her right to cup and massage his sac. When she took him in her mouth again, he dragged out a long moan, sending a tight pulse to her nipples. The corners of her mouth stretched, dribbling as she took him to the back of her throat, going deeper with each pass.

  The slurping sounds she made, combined with his hisses and curses, drowned out the rest of the noise in the room.

  “Eija…” He hooked one hand around her right thigh. “Fuck, baby.”

  The middle of her panties went from damp to drenched.

  “How did I know this would turn you on?” he asked, pushing up her nightgown and chasing his fingers over the wet spot.

  She let him slip from her mouth. “The fact that I can hear how good I’m making you feel makes me want to do this more often.”

  “Oh no,” he said, voice light with sarcasm. “Please don’t.”

  She laughed and swallowed him again.

  He tugged the middle of her panties aside and slid his thumb over her clit. She moaned, which came out as a hum with him deep in her throat. Spurned on by her response, he slipped two fingers inside her. As the pressure of climax built, she increased her pace.

  Suddenly, her hips were in the air.

  When her knees met the bed again, they were on his pillow.

  Right.

  The pussy monster.

  She looked down but had to look away when she saw his tongue between her legs, pink and lapping and licking. Soon it became a competition, who could make the other come first. She gagged and swallowed, but he had her latched to him, arm locked at her lower back. He took his time, dragging his tongue along her slit, sucking at her labia, slipping his tongue inside her, and soothing every spot she ached. Then, right when her orgasm crashed into her, he stiffened and released in her mouth.

  Orgasms, especially when exhausted people had them, usually meant sleep. She wanted more.

  Their breaths slowed.

  She brought her knee back over his middle, turned, and sat back on her legs, facing him. He reached along
the side of the bed for his pants.

  “I’m going to be tired as hell in all my meetings tomorrow,” he said.

  She knew the answer, but still asked, “Why?”

  He came back with a condom, and she snorted a laugh. Now, instead of his hands shaking like they’d done back in Grenada, she had to hide hers under her legs so he didn’t see how nervous she was. It had never happened before, so she wasn’t sure what to do with them.

  The minute the condom was in place, she climbed over him again, positioned the head of his somehow already revived erection, and slid down until she could go no further. He mumbled something in Russian, too low for her to pick up on it.

  “How are you still this hard?” She squeezed her thighs, raising and lowering on top of him. “I’m…sorry I…made you…wait.”

  He pivoted his hips, catching her rhythm, and lapsed into another stream of low, coarse Russian. Those eyes of his, poisonous and addicting, held her in place as firmly as his fingers sinking into her hips. Each strike of their bodies coming together sent a jolt of pleasure through her and made her breasts jump, her nipples rubbing against the smooth fabric of her nightgown.

  “Dom, can I have you on top of me?”

  What she couldn’t bring herself to ask was if he could hold her while he was inside her. If he could lock her in, make her feel his hardness, his warmth. Make her feel his trust.

  They changed positions.

  Another night, she’d ask for fast and hard. This, full and slow, their bodies touching and eyes connected, was what she’d needed for a long time.

  “I missed you,” he said, his voice quiet and straining.

  There it was, the beginning of her heart slowly becoming his to do with it whatever he pleased, even if it was throw it away once everything was out in the open.

  “I missed you too,” she whispered back.

  There was no sense in holding anything back now. She didn’t know how this was going to end, but it would end. It was better that he knew how she felt. One day, when they looked at each other from the other side of a dinky plastic table, he would doubt whether she’d truly felt the way she said. She could only hope, even with that doubt, he’d never forget this moment.