by Kenya Wright
Dirty Kisses
Kenya Wright
ZachEvans Creative Publishing
Tampa, FL
Dirty Kissses is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2018 by Kenya Wright
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by ZachEvans Creative Publishing, a subsidiary of Jessica Watkins Presents, LLC.
Dedicated To
My Author Assistant Emily
ME: What do you want for your birthday?
EMILY: A Russian Mafia Romance!!
ME: Really?
EMILY: Hardcore Alpha. A boss of all bosses. Slow burn love. No insta-love. Super sexy.
ME: Ok, but it’s going to be a mindfuck until the end.
Emily:
Happy Birthday, Emily!
“The world
is a dangerous place to live
not because of the people
who are evil,
but because of the people
who don't
do anything about it.”
― Albert Einstein
Act One
Definition of Dirty
1: morally unclean or corrupt.
dirty players
dirty games
Prologue
Kazimir
Rumi is dead. Who did it?
Rumi was born with both sexual organs. He liked to brag that he had a big clitoris and penis. That wasn’t why someone killed him, but it was the most interesting thing about him. And I hadn’t flown to New York because I cared about him. He cleaned my money in America, so whoever murdered Rumi was messing with me.
Who killed him?
Every country spawned criminals—poor people with nothing to lose, fighting the world to survive, willing to do anything. Kill. Rob. Traffic. America birthed outlaws—Jesse James to the Hell’s Angels, Bloods to the Crips. Italians not only perfected pasta, they bred the men of honor—the Mafia, Mob, La Cosa Nostra. China gave us Triads. Then, there was the Corsican in France, Mexico’s drug cartels, and the full-body tattooed Yakuza in Japan.
Poor people with nothing to lose. Because the country had taken it from them. Because some societies gave to the rich and bled the poor. Because sometimes evil was necessary and blood should be spilled, and money lured the pure into dirty, filthy things.
Most of the time, souls shattered in poverty.
In Russia, we had the Bratva—the brotherhood. And when someone of this time wrote about the brotherhood, they mentioned me, often dedicating chapters on my life.
New Yorkers should read more, before I level this state down to dirt and dead bodies.
My limo turned onto Furman Street in a posh area of Manhattan called Carnegie Hall.
My stepbrother, Sasha sat on my right. After his mother died, his father married his mistress—my mother. We’d had a rough beginning but eventually learned to love each other.
They’d called his father the King. Long ago, he’d been Vory v Zakone—a thief in law. Later, he ran Bratva and was killed.
By all accounts, Sasha should’ve been the next in line, but I’d gained too much of a reputation by the time of his father’s death. And there was the problem of Sasha enjoying the pleasure of men. The Bratva was trenched in old thinking.
Nevertheless, I loved Sasha.
Many called him the wolf. Within the shadows on a snowy night, he resembled one. His pale blond hair was cut close to his head. He’d received slanted, exotic eyes from his mother.
Although I was dark haired, many thought we were brothers. We both had large frames and broad shoulders.
Sasha turned to me. “This is dangerous, Kazimir. Talk to the witness. Don’t kill him.”
“Someone murdered my top washer in America,” I said. “Sliced him from ear-to-ear and wrapped his intestines around his neck. And even worse, they took my fifty million dollars with them.”
“You shouldn’t even be in the United States right now.”
Sasha was correct, but I’d sniffed out blood and was too excited to be careful. Unfortunately for the killer, I’d been in Toronto for my niece’s christening. Little Natalya was my first niece out of five rambunctious nephews. She was more than worth a visit, regardless of Interpol and the FBI. Had I been in Russia when they killed Rumi, I would’ve never made it in time.
Sasha decided to push the point further. “With this immigration nonsense and their suspicions of Trump-Russian election tampering, they’ll have their eyes everywhere.”
“America’s too busy bullying Muslim families to keep up with me.”
“They’re watching everyone,” he said.
“If you believe that, then you haven’t been paying attention.”
“I’m just—”
“I stay in New York, until everything is solved.”
Sasha muttered under his breath, “Idiota kusok.”
Only my brother could call me a piece of an idiot and not die.
A man's status in the upper ranks of Bratva was measured by several factors—the total of men he killed, the amount of countries that feared him, and his ranking on the FBI’s Most wanted list. By those measures, one could argue that I was a very important man. I had over two hundred kills, was restricted from entering the Americas and most of Western Europe, and by the age of nineteen the FBI had placed me at #490 on the most wanted list—ten steps from Usama Bin Laden.
I was now twenty-seven.
I’d outlived Bin Laden, moved up the Most Wanted list, and headed Bratva.
The limo stopped in front of an upscale building where my dead washer now lay in his penthouse. My men held a possible suspect, waiting for my arrival.
“Kazimir.” Sasha turned to me. “You should fear this country.”
“Fear is an illusion. The only way fear can breathe, is in our thoughts of the future.” I touched the side of my head. “We choose fear. But, it’s a product of our imagination. Not our reality.”
“Fear can be rational,” he countered.
“Sure, when the bear is in front of a man standing on a mountain, he fears the beast and jumps into action. But the problem with humanity is that the man fears the bear right before he even goes to the mountain. Thus, never climbing up. The man stays where he is. He hides, and he says to himself, I’m safe because the bear is on the mountain. But what if the bear is right behind him?”
“Mne vse ravno,” Sasha muttered. “I don’t care about your damn bear, I want you safe.”
“You put too much value in this country. America is neither a bear or a mountain.”
“Nevertheless.” Sasha climbed out of the limo. “I could’ve handled this.”
I followed. “I like New York.”
“No, you don’t. You came because you don’t trust me to get back the money and find the one responsible. You never trust me.”
Because you always fuck it up, and people only respect you because they’re afraid of me.
I thought back to an argument I had with my sister days earlier.
“You should wait a few days, and then I can come with you,” Valentina said.
“No.” I held my niece. “Spend time with your daughter. You never get a rest with our world.”
“I don’t like Rumi being murdered. It makes me nervous.”
“Everything will be fine.” I handed my sleeping niece back to Valentina. “Keep her safe. We have too many men in our family. We need more women.”
Already I missed my niece.
&n
bsp; It was odd that something so small as a newborn baby could capture my attention and make me leave Russia. The years had passed. I’d lost count of the days. The sun became the moon, and then the moon became the sun. Money and power had come. And yet, when I turned twenty-seven, I wondered what else I would do with my life.
What else is there in life?
I paused and looked up at the night sky, barely able to see it with all the tall buildings. “It’s a full moon tonight. They say it’s a super moon.”
Sasha snorted. “Must we talk about your moon?”
“Everything is connected.”
“It always is with you.”
“The Moon, Earth, and Sun are aligned,” I said. “There’s a major gravitational pull happening. That’s why there are tides in the oceans, when there’s a full moon.”
“So, this isn’t a good time to fish?”
“Or kill,” I admitted.
Sasha raised his eyebrows. “Why?”
“If the moon can move the ocean, surely it can move us. We are 75% water.”
“Then, good. We don’t need to kill this guy. Keep him alive.”
Our conversation ended as two men walked up to me. They didn’t need uniforms. I could smell the politsiya all over them.
Plain clothes NYPD.
Fortunately, they were also my cops—on the New York payroll. They handed my brothers information, when necessary. They destroyed evidence and cases, when required.
Both men appeared uncomfortable. One kept checking over his shoulders as if hoping his fellow brothers in blue wouldn’t catch him working with the enemy. The other looked young, probably early twenties. He held his stomach with both hands like he’d just eaten bad uncooked meat and was close to doubling over.
I turned to Mr. Nervous. “What do you have for me?”
“A coroner friend owed me a favor and looked it over. Rumi died last night from blood loss. Mainly from all the stab wounds to his groin. There weren’t many fingerprints where they killed Rumi or security, but we grabbed something. The photos of the scene are with your men upstairs.” The nervous one checked over his shoulder again. “I might have a lead.”
Sasha inched forward. Mr. Nervous pulled out a small note pad and flipped it open.
“Rumi was a top customer with a high-end brothel in SoHo managed by a Penelope Fairchild. My understanding is that this one is affiliated with your. . .organization.”
Sasha nodded.
“Good,” I said. “We’ll go talk to this Penelope later.”
Mr. Nervous continued, “Rumi had a woman delivered every night at ten pm from the brothel. The madam, Penelope had a key to his place that she gave to the girls so they could just let themselves in, go to his bedroom, and pleasure him.”
He always was a lazy bastard.
The cop read on, “The girls were always eighteen or older, but Rumi liked them to look young. Tonight, he didn’t cancel. Penelope sent the girl in a limo. According to the limo driver, the girl went into the building and phoned that she was in the condo. Two hours passed. She never came out. The limo driver was the one that found the body. Rumi’s door was opened and the girl had disappeared.”
A dead washer and a missing hooker. New York is always full of surprises.
“Anything else?” I asked.
“As far as finding prints or the killer’s DNA, the clean-up job was professional. I doubt I’ll have something. The killer took the footage and somehow bypassed the building’s high-tech security. But the murder. . .I don’t think it’s. . .” Mr. Nervous lowered his voice. “I don’t think it’s mafia related. This looks emotional. The stabbing was done with rage. Jagged and very messy. What the person did to his. . .private area was brutal.”
The young one holding his stomach spoke up. “Sick. The intestines. . .and. . .smiley faces.”
He doubled over and vomited a little onto the sidewalk.
Sasha frowned.
We walked a few feet away.
Mr. Nervous shook his head. “Sorry. He’s new to shit like this.”
I kept my gaze on Mr. Nervous. “Smiley faces?”
“For some reason, the person drew smiley faces all over Rumi’s legs. I don’t know what it means. I’m doing a search to see if other victims were found this way. We’ve already got a psycho running around the city killing men in hotels. We’re calling him the Tinder Killer. What we don’t need is another serial killer in Manhattan.”
“Let me know anything else you find.” I walked off.
The young cop continued to retch behind us.
“Maybe you’re right about the full moon and its effect on people.” Sasha followed. “The tide was definitely working with that one.”
“Not everybody’s made for this.” I entered the building.
Our armed men led the way. Silence filled the elevator as it took us up.
I turned to Sasha. Fear radiated off him. It was subtle, but I’d known him all my life. He wore a neutral expression—the one I called the mask. It covered his face—gaze straight, the mouth barely formed into a line, no movement in his shoulders as usual.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
He continued to stare at the door. “You’re being reckless.”
I smiled. “The world belongs to the bold.”
Sasha said nothing.
Chapter 1
Kazimir
The elevator doors slid open to Rumi’s stunning loft. It had floor-to-ceiling windows showing off endless water and sky views. I made out the Empire State building off in the distance. We turned right into a ballroom-sized formal living room with an adjacent casual office.
Paintings of naked angels decorated the walls, but these angels were young girls. Barely developed. Budding breasts and hairless vaginas. My stomach twisted as we moved on.
They said Rumi was a pervert. Was he the disgusting type?
The Bratva didn’t have many rules, but many frowned on homosexuality and pedophilia. And when the Bratva frowned, many died.
“I don’t think it’s mafia related,” the cop had said. “This looks emotional.”
I didn’t care about a man being gay, but I enjoyed killing molesters. If Rumi had been a pedophile, lucky for him. He’d hid it well. If I’d known, I would’ve done more than intestines and smiley faces.
On the left, there was an enormous kitchen near a formal dining room that could seat about twenty people.
In every country, I kept my washer in an upscale place. They had to play the part of the rich while cleaning my dirty money. Of course, I owned the property and kept it monitored by cameras and round-the-clock personal security.
Rumi’s security guy was an ex-NY cop.
We walked to the back, found the security room, and stepped inside.
The police had done a lousy job with clearing the area. Blood stains remained.
One of my men covered his nose from the stench and handed me a folder of photos. “This is what the guy did to the security person and Rumi.”
I opened the folder. “Interesting.”
In the photos, the cop floated in a pool of his own blood. A burnt-out cigarette rested between his cold, stiff lips.
I checked the images of Rumi.
He lay on the floor. There was a bloody smile cut into his face and tattered with pink ripped flesh at the corners of his neck. A cross was carved into his chest. His intestines were wrapped around his neck. The other end of the slimy length was still attached to the inside of his gut. His eyes had been frozen open in shock. There’d been more knife wounds on his chest. And as the cops had told us, tons of smiley faces were drawn in blood, all over his legs.
But what the person did to his groin. . .even I found it difficult to look at.
“These stabs aren’t precise. They’re crazy. All over the place. More jabs.” I pointed to one of the wounds, showing Sasha. “Look at that. With a sharp blade and with precision, it would’ve just been a line and scarring with blood leaking out. This one has the flesh yanked o
ut. It’s almost like two people did it.”
Sasha rolled his eyes. “Probably a hook knife too. And what are you doing. . .investigating?”
I ignored the comment. “Where’s Rumi?”
My men took me down the hall. Hundreds of dildos and cracked wine bottles covered the floor as if someone had scattered them around. Shelves were slung on their sides. It looked like an orgy that had gone bad.
One of my men pointed to the room. “This way, sir.”
I stepped over the dildos. Many of them were two to three feet long. I couldn’t imagine any women enjoying them.
Did you like them, Rumi?
Sasha and I entered the room. A large tube of lube sat on his office desk. A leather suit rested on the chair.
Sasha grinned. “A man after my own heart.”
That’s the other reason why I’m doing this myself. You have no discipline.
I walked to the other side of the desk.
Sasha remained where he was, studying the leather.
“The killer had no control.” I looked up at one of my men and asked in Russian, “Did you find anything?”
“Just a wig under the desk,” he replied. “Everything was wiped pretty clean, but we’ll keep looking. We’ll find something.”
“Where’s the guy who should have answers?” I asked.
“In the game room.” They led the way.
I followed. “Good. I’ve always been a fan of games.”
I walked into the room and stood in front of a crumbled man—beat up by life, beat up by my men. Brown skin. Bald head. Lots of muscle. Probably could’ve been a boxer or a football player had anyone cared about him.
With some people, childhood pain raged within the eyes, settling at the core of angry pupils. He had those eyes. He’d probably been unlucky since the day he was born.
The fact that I stood in front of him meant his luck wouldn’t improve.