“Hello, Kirill, I didn’t know you were back,” she breathes, pouting her red painted lips and racing her finger down the center of my shirt, straight to my belt.
“I have Maxim and Radimir coming any minute, Sabina,” I grunt as her finger slips beneath the waist of my pants and slides back and forth.
“We could be quick, Kirill,” she murmurs.
My cock hardens at the thought of a quick fuck in my office, but I shake it off.
I have Tati at my home, prisoner to me, and I can fuck her anytime I wish. She’s really the one I’ve been wanting for years. Nobody else can match her in the bedroom, not even Sabina.
“I don’t have time right now. Listen, I have recently discovered that I have a daughter. She’s nine and I have just brought her and her mother to live with me. They need clothes, and my daughter needs to feel at home, which means I want her to have a comfortable room. Can you go to my place today, get their sizes? Then whatever Kiska wants, she gets,” I announce. Sabina quickly removes her hands from me and her eyes widen.
“Your daughter and her mother?” she asks. I don’t verbally respond. Instead, I nod my head in affirmation.
“So you’re with her now? This mystery mother of your child?” she asks before she presses her lips together, obviously displeased.
“Who I fuck is none of your concern,” I mutter, looking into her eyes.
She’s beautiful, sexy, and hot as fuck, but she’s not some innocent girl. She’s a woman with goals, and one of those is power.
“You fuck me, so yes, it is a concern of mine,” she states coolly.
“You are treading on thin ice, Sabina. I have fucked you, I may fuck you again, but you have no say in my personal life. You are not my girlfriend. You are my employee, and as my employee, I am instructing you to go to my house, get my girl’s sizes, Tatyana’s sizes, and buy them appropriate clothing and shoes. Along with decorations for my Kiska’s bedroom,” I instruct, arching a brow, waiting for her defiance.
“Yes, sir,” she grinds out. It doesn’t turn me on, not in the slightest. But when Tati says it, my dick hardens in about half a second.
“Do not test me, Sabina,” I bark as she walks away from me. Her back straightens and she turns to me.
“I wouldn’t dream of it, Kirill,” she purrs as the elevators open.
Maxim and Radimir look from her to me before they step aside to let her into the car. Nothing is said by anybody until the doors close.
“She is going to be a problem with Tatyana,” Radimir murmurs as we walk into my office.
“I am sure that she is. I should know by this evening,” I say as I sit down behind my desk and fire up my computer.
“I sent a woman I fucked over to Haleigh when we were first married. Huge mistake, boss,” Maxim mutters.
“Tatyana is not my wife—she is my bed warmer. I have no need to give her any illusions of how our relationship is going to be. She knows that she’s mine and she knows that I do what I wish. If she doesn’t like that, she is free to go, but our daughter stays,” I state simply. Both men cough and shift their weight from one leg to another, obviously uncomfortable with my statements.
“Speak freely,” I say, waving my hand at them.
“How freely?” Radimir asks, his gaze penetrating.
“Right now, as my friend, leave the Bratva at the door for this conversation,” I instruct. His body sags a bit before he walks over to the chair in front of my desk and sits down. I watch as Maxim does the same.
“Women are not like us,” he begins. I want to roll my eyes.
“Let me,” Maxim murmurs. Radimir closes his mouth and nods.
“This business of ours, it requires a strong woman at our back. It also requires a trustworthy woman. Your Tatyana is neither. Why bring her into your home and under your roof? Do you care for her feelings, or is this a game to get back at her for running all those years ago? She could be spying, and then what? Women can be a fucking downfall.
“You know, I fucked a woman behind Haleigh’s back when we were first married. When she found out, she was devastated, and I felt like a shit. Would your Tatyana be devastated to know your cock is playing elsewhere? Does she even fucking care? This isn’t a game Kirill, this is life, and if she’s going to be sharing your bed and your house, you need to make sure your shit is locked up tight, we don’t need any blow-back from her being immersed in the life,” he points out. His words are valid.
“Tati is mine. She is my betrothed. The contract was signed when I was fourteen years old. She was eight. It was a deal between her father and mine.” I look right at Radimir before I tell him the truth of who her father is. “A deal between her father, Sergei, and mine.”
“What?” he breathes in shock.
“Sergei abandoned her here, afraid she would be used against him, and she would have been. She has no clue who her father is; she only remembers bits and pieces of him, as he left when she was eight years old. The day the contract was signed. So, you see, it doesn’t matter how trustworthy she is. How strong or weak. She is mine, and she has no choice in the matter. I have been generous and given her a choice. She can live on her own, or she can live under my roof with my rules and her daughter. She’ll be what she needs to be for the public, and she’ll do what she needs to do for me in private,” I explain. I get nothing but curt nods from my men, my closest advisors and my friends.
“How in the fuck did she get away from you then?” Radimir asks, his eyes narrowed on me as if I did not do my job correctly.
“Agent Green has had an obsession with me for fucking years. He got into her head when she was eighteen. Scared her. She ran. He then faked her death. She claims to know nothing of that part of the plan, I believe her for now. Nevertheless, I thought her and my baby dead for years,” I say.
“We have to figure out who is on the inside,” Maxim announces. I agree.
“I think it’s Cartel. Someone is in the FBI database or is paying off an employee. How else would she have been found and I’d been given a warning, that fucking e-mail of a warning?” I say, thinking out loud.
“I agree. They want our business, our territories, and they want to scare us,” Radimir announces.
“What is our plan, then?” Maxim asks.
“We beat them at their own game,” I say with a grin.
“How do we do that?” both Maxim and Radimir ask simultaneously.
“They have a Motorcycle Club called Notorious Devils running their drugs from Mexico to Canada for them. Their guns, I haven’t quite figured out where those are coming from, but my concern is the drugs. They haven’t been a problem in our territory, but since we’ve been on minimum supply, they’ve been encroaching,” I explain.
“What about authority?” Maxim asks, knowing that they have been watching us closely as well.
“Do they watch to arrest us? Or are they watching to report back to the Cartel? I don’t know, this is a problem. We need to intercept their drugs and we need to find out intel,” I murmur, looking at my blank computer screen, thinking.
“Oliver, my old Byki, Alex’s, lover. He is a computer genius. He’s also not in the Bratva, only connected by Alex. I bet he can find something out for us,” Maxim suggests.
“He is in Russia, though,” Radimir points out.
“I can get him here,” I say. They both look at me curiously. “Sergei told me he would be coming shortly; he wants to see Tati now that I’ve found her. He, too, thought she was dead all these years.”
“Private jet,” Maxim murmurs.
Immediately, I pull out my burner phone and I call Sergei. I don’t say much, in fear my lines have been tapped, but I do tell him that I wish he brings Maxim’s old friend Alex and his lover with him to the wedding—that we will all be so disappointed if they do not attend. Lucky for me, he catches on quickly and informs me that they will be stateside within the next week or two, never giving me a date, but at least a timeframe.
“What do we do while we wait?�
�� Maxim asks.
“We contact those bikers and set up a meet. Then, we slowly fuck the Cartel up the ass.” I grin, leaning back in my chair, proud of the way the three of us have handled this situation. We’re going to figure this out; and once the heat has simmered, then we can all go back to living our lives the way we were meant to.
I JUMP WHEN THE door opens and I am met by a man who looks around my age, maybe younger. He has light brown hair and a freshly shaved jaw. He is tall and thin, but I have no doubt he’s packed with some kind of muscle. He’s handsome, in a boyish way, and I wonder if this can be the Ziven that Kirill told me would be here as protection.
“I’m Ziven,” he says, confirming my suspicions. His deep, rich voice doesn’t exactly match his looks, but I smile and shake his hand anyway.
“Tatyana, and this is Kiska,” I say, pointing to my daughter, who is completely oblivious and immersed in a book on the sofa.
“Kirill said that Sabina will be by shortly to gather information. I’m here as your protector until your Byki are assigned,” he murmurs.
“Have you known Kirill long?” I ask, trying to drum up conversation.
“A while,” he deadpans and just stares at me.
I don’t continue with questions; instead, I walk over to the large window and look out at the cityscape. If I thought that leaving him all of those years ago was the biggest mistake of my life, I was fooling myself. Coming back and being this thing to him, it’s excruciating.
“Hello,” a woman’s voice calls out. I turn around to face her.
“Sabina?” I ask as she walks into the room.
“Yes,” she confirms with a grin.
Sabina is tall, very tall, and extremely thin. Her breasts are big and her dress is a low-cut, wrap dress. Her black hair and dark eyes make her porcelain skin that much more lovely. Her dress is very short and extremely tight. Her high heels are much like the ones I wear to dance in, tall and impractical. She looks nothing like a personal assistant and everything like a personal play thing.
“Kirill has informed me that I need to purchase some appropriate clothing for both you and your daughter, Kiska. I’m also to help decorate her bedroom for her,” she says, appearing to be all business as she takes out her phone and starts pushing buttons.
“Now you’re what, a size ten?” she asks, arching a brow. Ziven clears his throat.
“I’m a size six,” I say.
“I’m a woman, you can tell me the truth,” she snickers.
“The truth is, I am a size six; and if you wish to know my bra size, I’m a natural thirty-two double D,” I grind out through my clenched jaw as I stare at her obvious fake breasts.
“Fine. When they don’t fit, do not blame me. What size is the girl, then?” she asks. I take in a deep breath and tell her all of Kiska’s sizes, including shoe size.
Kiska interjects when it is time to talk about her room decor. I turn away from them and take my place at the window, looking out at the city. It’s dusk, and I’m excited to see what it will look like after the sun completely sets.
“You know, I expected you to get all up in her shit,” Ziven murmurs from next to me. His back is against the glass and he’s watching Sabina and Kiska chat about decor.
“Why would I?” I ask.
“Because he fucks her on a regular basis, obviously. She wants to be right where you are. She’s being decent right now, but it won’t last long. Sabina is manipulative and ruthless—a true Russian cunt of a woman,” he chuckles.
“Kirill can do as he wishes,” I whisper, not wanting for a word of what I’ve said to be the truth, but knowing that it is.
“Maybe he can,” he shrugs. “Maybe he doesn’t want to, though. Maybe he wants you to stand up to him.”
I snort at his words.
“I have already learned what happens to me when I stand up to Kirill Baryshev,” I humorlessly laugh.
“And what’s that?”
“He backhands me; then he fucks me and reminds me that he’ll take my daughter from me,” I say.
The words sound so harsh, so cruel, but they’re true, and that is the harshest reality I have ever known.
“He wouldn’t hit unprovoked. I have never known him to beat a woman just because,” Ziven justifies. I want to laugh.
“You’re right. I slapped him after he informed me that he would be choosing my daughter’s spouse when she was old enough.”
“This is normal for our culture,” Ziven shrugs.
“It’s fucked up and it pisses me off,” I inform him. He starts to laugh.
“You are not what I expected, Tatyana,” he murmurs.
I turn to finally face him with a questioning look.
“When he told me he had found the long-lost mother of his child, and that she was coming home with him, I thought you would be some weak girl. He always described you as such. But I don’t think that you are. You’re stronger than people give you credit for, Tatyana Orlova,” he says before he pushes off of the glass and walks away, leaving me to stare after him. Sabina leaves a few moments later as well, and I am alone with Kiska.
“I’m confused, mom,” she says after everybody has left the room.
“Yes, Kiska girl, what is it?”
“Sabina, she said she was papa’s girlfriend. I thought you and papa were together and that you were going to be married,” she mutters. It breaks my heart.
That skinny bitch.
“Don’t concern yourself with her. She works for your papa, nothing more,” I murmur before I switch topics and ask her if she is hungry.
Together we walk into the kitchen and start to look for something to make for dinner. After a complete investigation of Kirill’s kitchen, we both decide that there is absolutely nothing to make. I go in search of Ziven to either take us grocery shopping or order takeout.
Kiska informs me that she’ll be finishing her book in her room, since the couple is finally going on their first date. I make a mental note to check the books that Kirill added to her device for content.
I call out Ziven’s name a few times but cannot find him. That is, until I see a puff of smoke come up from a chair overlooking the pool and the city outside. I find the sliding glass door and join him, sitting on the lounger next to his.
“You found me,” he states.
“Kiska is hungry. I went to make her something to eat, but the cabinets are bare. I was wondering if you could take me to the grocery store, or maybe order some takeout? Either is fine,” I say. He nods.
“Does the printsessa like pizza?” he asks with a raised brow.
I smile and nod before I tell him our order. Once he finishes ordering from his cell phone, he snubs out his cigarette and sighs.
“You are a very beautiful woman, Tatyana; you know this right?” he asks.
“No, but continue,” I grin, shaking my head as I look out at the twinkling lights of the city. They are lovely too, just as I predicted them to be.
“I want to believe that Kirill knows what he’s doing, that all of this is for a reason, his threats and his promises and all that shit. But when I look at you and that girl together, when I see how much you love her and how fucking sad you are, I wonder if this is what is right,” he murmurs.
“Sad? I have this beautiful house to live in and I’m getting a whole new wardrobe, how can I be sad?” I ask, feigning a cheery attitude.
“Don’t bullshit me,” he chuckles.
“I think it all happened so quickly. I gave up my job and my apartment and my entire life and left with him because he threatened to take Kiska away. I panicked and I didn’t think anything through. And my guilt, my god, my guilt,” I whisper unsure of why I’m telling a complete stranger all of this. Maybe I just want someone to talk to, anyone.
“Sabina is a bitch and Kirill knows that. I don’t believe for one minute she’s ever climbing back into his bed now that you’re here. You take care of yourself, yeah?” he says as he stands and bends down to kiss my forehead.
> “What the fuck is going on here?” Kirill’s deep voice rumbles.
“Just leaving, boss,” Ziven murmurs.
“Stay where you are,” Kirill says pointing to me before he walks out with Ziven following.
I exhale a sigh and continue to stare out at the city. The warm feel of Ziven’s soft lips linger on my forehead and it makes me blush slightly. He’s not my type, but in his own way, he is sweet. He makes me feel less lonely. Even if I only see him on occasion, at least I will have him to talk to in a crowd. He’s calm and nice, something I haven’t had a lot of in my life.
I walk outside to Ziven’s car quickly. I try to calm my ass down before I pull out my gun and just shoot him in the head. His lips were on Tatyana—my Tatyana. Fuck. No.
“What is your problem, then?” Ziven murmurs as he walks up behind me.
“What was that?” I demand.
“What was what?” he smirks. I want to punch him in the face until he bleeds, just for being a fucking smartass.
“You and Tati,” I grind out.
“She’s sad. You sent your bitch of a whore over here and I could tell it upset her. I was just being friendly. She has nobody,” he points out. Though he’s right, it still pisses me off.
“Don’t be friendly with what’s mine,” I grunt.
“She know she’s yours?” he asks as he takes a cigarette out of his pocket.
“She knows,” I nod as I watch him light his smoke.
“Does she want to be yours?”
I don’t know what he’s getting at, but I wish he wouldn’t beat around the bush. It’s really starting to piss me off even more. I’m so fucking irritable and irrational.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say, taking a step back from him.
“You cannot force women to do anything, Kirill. You might have her holed up in a corner and she’ll oblige you, but she’ll never be yours if this is the way you plan on keeping her, by threatening her.”
“She was given to me when she was eight-years old. She has no choice in the matter. The contract was signed. I could give a fuck how she feels,” I lie.
I lie to him and I lie to myself.
Dancing for the Badman (Russian Bratva Book 3) Page 8