Vassily: Perfect Pain - a Bad Boy Mafia Dark Romance

by Alice May Ball

  She doesn’t think like that. I can see it. Some people, when they have something, they can’t bear to let it go, even if it’s something they hate.

  As I pass along the line, Medved stops Marco and pulled his ear down to talk into it. Marco acts like this was just a bit of fun. But now I see the man.

  wait in line to greet Konstantin. I’ll pay him the compliments of the occasion and clasp his hands. I won’t take the moment away from him. All that we have to say to each other, and there’s a lot, that can wait until later. I really do hope that he’s happy to see his daughter married to that scrappy and unpredictable up-and-coming gangster. He’s still just a kid, but nothing that I know about Bruno is encouraging.

  Medved, his father is a solid man, and I respect him. He seems not to care about his greasy hair and he has a shifty look about him, but it’s all deceptive. It’s just the way he looks. Maybe that’s why I have a sneaking liking for him. He’s a better man than he looks like. Better than you would expect, and that’s a rarity in this life of ours. The son, though, all I can only hope is that everything I hear about him is all somehow wrong.

  Marco appears at my elbow. Excited, he’s almost tugging at my sleeve. He makes me angry. I hate to see a man lower himself. It makes me want to slap him. Tell him to have some pride. Controlling my impulses, I allow him to greet me.

  “Vassily. Vassily, it’s so good to see you.”

  “Hello, Marco.”

  “Vassily, I have the most beautiful girl.”

  “Women are not property, Marco.”

  “Wait till you meet her, Vassily. You have to have her.”

  “You sound like a fucking used car dealer, Marco. This is a wedding. Show some fucking decorum.”

  “Of course. But you’ll meet her. You’ll see her, you meet her, you’ll fall in love. Let me fetch her now.”

  “Marco, I’m in love with my club. I’m in love with all of the girls.” I’m still smiling as I take his arm at the elbow so it doesn’t look like anything, “Most of all, Marco, I’m in love with my life of freedom and I don’t ever intend for it to end.”

  I’m not going to make a scene in Konstantin and Medved’s receiving line. So, I make a thin smile as I grip and squeeze his elbow joint until I see his eyes tighten. I feel the space between the bones and I move them. He opens his mouth to say something more but I pinch harder. For all his pretty clothes, he’s a tough man. If I weren’t looking right in his eye, there would be no way to know that he’s in agony right now.

  He’s silent. He won’t give up, but I know that he will at least leave it for later on. Have another try at the reception. If he can’t corner me there, he’ll come to the club. But he will stop pestering me for now. I could let him go. Still, like a musician, I never miss a chance to practice. I move my thumb and press deeper into the joint with my fingers. I don’t know if I could dislocate his elbow with just the one hand, but I can feel the joint and he draws breath as his bones move slightly apart.

  And over his shoulder, I do see her again. It’s her, I knew it. I feel like a thousand flashbulbs went off at once. I loosen my grip of his elbow but not his eyes. He nods in submission. I see him start to say something. I warn him with my eyes. I’m holding my temper but I let him see that. He nods again as he moves away.

  I’m moving my attention back to the fathers of the bride and groom. I feel her though. Coming this way. She has an aura. I don’t even turn and she’s in my mind. And I’m imagining her lips parting. And her dress. And her thighs.

  ~~

  I pay my compliments to the parents of the bride and groom. Konstantin’s wife Caterina presses my hands as she tells me that she wants to see me at the reception. She’s being flirty. Needling her husband. Playfully, though. He takes it well. They’re a good couple. A real team. Everybody calls Caterina ‘the empress.’

  Medved’s wife shoots her a spiky look. Not for the first time I’m left wondering what it would take to please that woman. Grateful that I won’t ever need to know.

  At the end of the line, Marco tries to hold me up. He’s smiling but he’s blocking my path. His girl is only a couple of guests behind me. I’m wondering if he wants to delay me so that he can introduce her. I pat a hand on his shoulder. “You’re going to the reception, Marco?”

  He grabs hold of my hand with both of his. His grip is a little too firm. While he’s trying to hold me back from leaving, I wonder if Marco is in some trouble. In this tight circle, the ruling elite of the New York Russian crime families, Marco is one of the few outsiders allowed in.

  Usually, he’s a smooth operator in the best sense. Easy company and agreeable, he’s discreet and he holds his vodka well. Marco’s Sicilian charm makes him popular with the women, too, although behind his back, some resentment simmers and seethes. Everybody knows that the reason he’s welcomed by the bosses is because of the salon that he runs.

  If wives or girlfriends raise their objections, namely that he runs an escort service, the men will always say that they don’t use his girls. The services of the girls are for business associates or politicians who need to be persuaded or blackmailed. They’ll say. Marco’s girls are known for being extremely accommodating in their range of services, as well as being very beautiful.

  He’s about to start talking and I don’t want to hear it now. Mikhail is nearby and when I catch his eye he heads over swiftly. “Boss,” he lowers his eyelids as he tilts his head. I shrug to Marco and allow Mikhail to draw me away.

  I’m about to thank him as he leads me to a quiet alcove, “Boss, I just heard.” His face is dark, “Vovo had a bad accident.”

  For some things, the most serious things, all of the New York gangs use the same codes, talking in public places. Puerto Ricans, Columbians, Irish as well as the Blacks, Serbs, and the Russians, if someone is arrested, they’re said to be ‘unwell’ or they ‘got sick.’ If they’re attacked, they had an ‘accident.’ When someone’s said to have a ‘bad accident,’ it means they won’t get better.

  Mikhail is watching my face. I dead-pan him. I’m sure he knows, but he isn’t going to ask. “There’s going to be trouble, Boss. Don’t you think?”

  ~~

  The reception has taken over the whole of an old Long Island country club. Before the extravagant sit-down lunch, there are too many people to greet and not much time for more than polite smiles and congratulations. The bridesmaids are all bubbly and bouncy. As I’m moving through the reception rooms, avoiding them is a constant challenge.

  Lovely as they all are, I have business to do. Maybe I can find some time a little later to get my hands up one or two of their organdy gowns. Grab a couple of handfuls of generously spilling breasts. Lift a thigh. Slip my tongue down a throat while I burst wet lips wide open and impale soft eager flesh on the hilt of my cock.

  But not now, thank you, ladies. When I see Konstantin, he carves out a quiet moment for me without me asking. I’m surprised. And I’m wary.

  onstantin guides me to a dark wood-paneled study that looks like a small university library. We go to a pair of leather wing chairs. I let him steer me with his big paw on my upper arm. Konstantin’s manner is fatherly, like always. I’m sure he’s that same way when he’s about to have you cut into eight separate pieces, so everything he does to be reassuring has the opposite effect on me.

  Not that I’m alarmed. If Konstantin wants me killed, especially out here, there isn’t much that I could do about it. I could take him if I had to, and a few of his goons too if it came to that. But, if he wanted me to have a bad accident, one way or another I wouldn’t make it to the hospital. I take his noble host act at face value and enjoy his fine cognac. There are only the two of us here. He hasn’t even brought in a bodyguard. that’s definitely rare.

  As we sit, he says, “I heard that Vovo met with a bad accident.” He doesn’t pause or look for me to respond. He can’t know for certain that it was me. But he’s as sure as he needs to be, I know it. I say nothing.

  He tips hi
s head in a sign of regret and says, “Of course, it’s tragic.”

  It’s a ritual that has to be observed. He goes on, “Still, his passing could almost be like a wedding gift for me. I know he was more trouble for you than he was for me, but I’m not sorry to have that noise off and gone from all of our territory.”

  He’s fishing. I keep a straight face, Sphynx-like. I know this isn’t the reason he wants to talk. He smiles and changes direction. “You’ve seen Marco’s girl, the matryoshka?”

  I ask him, “They call her that? Like the Russian doll?”

  “Marco goes on and on about it. ‘Every time you think you get to know her, there’s another layer, deeper inside.’ That’s what he told me. He says you’re going to buy her.”

  I let an eyebrow rise. “You believe him?”

  Konstantin’s eyes shine. “Well, I know you don’t do that. Not usually.”

  “Not unusually either, Konstantin.”

  “She’s beautiful.”

  I tell him, “Yes. Without a doubt she is. I don’t know why he imagines that he can sell her to me, though.”

  “He said that she would be good for you. Bring some balance and order into your life.”

  I almost let go and laugh at that, “Sure. Marco’s doing it all so he can see me contented. My peace of mind and my happy home is all that’s on his mind.” Konstantin smiles as I go on. “Good old Marco. Not so much a white slaver, more the caring community matchmaker.” Konstantin laughs.

  “I take it you aren’t planning to make an exception and buy this girl then?”

  My head turns once in a shake.

  “Even though she’s pure and untouched.”

  My eyebrows go up at that. “Even if it were true, which, looking at her, I very much doubt,” Konstantin’s sliver of a grin is almost predatory as I go on, “Why the fuck would I want a girl like that? A girl who has no idea how to do anything?” Even as I’m saying it, though, I have an image of the sway of her hips. And the glow in her eyes. She couldn’t look much less like a virgin if she slid up and down a pole wearing nothing but lace and cream. And my cock is pushing up in my pants. Hard.

  Konstantin blinks as his palms turn up. “If you say so.”

  “Why don’t you buy her, Konstantin?”

  “Well,” he chuckles, “Partly because my wife would serve me up my head in a bucket. But also, because I’m out of the flesh game. I still have clubs and houses as you know, but I don’t have anything to do with the day to day running of any of them. I hardly even visit.”

  I know for sure that last part isn’t true. Still, I’m in no rush to contradict him.

  He moves the subject on and I am still wondering what he is heading up to. “Your club is a tight operation. No noise, no fallout.”

  “I do what I can to avoid unwanted attention.”

  “Your girls are happy. Everybody says so. But are you still content just running your little club? What else, only the limousine business? You must be the only man around these families who doesn’t run a drugs operation.” It’s true. My business is the club. I only have the limos so I can give chauffeured rides to members and guests.

  I run some private tables off-site from time to time. Poker, blackjack, and roulette nights. Strictly invitation only. No plus ones, no guests of guests. Even if Konstantin knew about those he wouldn’t let on. But the club is where all my energies focus.

  I look him in the eye, still wondering where all this is leading. He’s waiting so I have to go on. “Like I said, I try to keep the noise down. Each to their own, every man does the business that suits him, but with the drugs business, I’ve seen too many people get buried. All the money starts to gush in and the next thing you know you’re running a small private army to defend your patch of ground.”

  Konstantin nodded. I continued, “For someone who wants all the money in the world and they’re ready to fight every other man to keep it, power to them. I don’t. I’m not in a race to get rich and get out. I run my club so that I can keep on running it. I love it. I love the girls and the men, too. I love the place, the bar, the music. All of it.”

  “The clients?”

  I lift my glass and nod. “Some of them. For now, Konstantin, it’s what I want. I’m not looking to carve off territory from our Balkan brothers or Medved or the Italians.”

  “Or me?”

  “Konstantin, really. It goes without saying. I wouldn’t go against you.” Okay, so I’ll allow myself one lie per day.

  If I had to, if Konstantin came after my club or my girls, I would fell him and topple him like a Christmas tree. I don’t want to, mainly because I’m not a huge fan of gang wars. They’re bad for business. Too much time and money gets spent cleaning up and buying off cops and prosecutors.

  Konstantin is obviously thinking about the same thing when he says, “You heard about the police chief in St. Petersburg?”

  “Horrible business.” I take a sip from my drink. “Whatever it was that he did, what happened to his wife and children was hideous. His two sisters as well, I heard.” My head shakes, “At least that kind of thing hasn’t followed us here from Mother Russia.”

  Konstantin nods. “Not yet at least.”

  I say, “Anyone know who it was?” That’s another ritual. We all know who it was.

  “Nobody knows.” He knows, I know, and we both know the other knows. It was Maleovich.

  Nobody in the States even wants to say his name. He’s like the evil force in some Gothic horror as if saying its name somehow gives it more power. But it was him, we all know it. That kind of brutal savagery could only be the work of the Balkan Butcher and his bloodthirsty general, Leon Kursk.

  “We’ve all come a long way from that barbarism.” Konstantin raises his glass and leans forward. His voice lowers.

  Here it comes. “The vacancy in Vovo’s is an opportunity. His club will need some new management now,” his eyes twinkle. “Maybe a rebranding.” Now he waits.

  I lift the drink and sniff at the balloon glass. A gentle roll of my hand frees the rich smoky scents of the vintage cognac. “I’m not looking for more businesses to manage, Konstantin. I won’t pretend I was glad to see Vovo open where he did. He was directly positioned to steal trade away from me. He deliberately took clients from me both on the way in and on the way out.” I take a sip off the smoky dark caramel-colored spirit.

  “Even that wasn’t so much of a problem for me as his attitude was. I hope I can have a better relationship with whoever takes his business over.”

  Konstantin says, “If they have the same backer you probably won’t.” Vovo’s mysterious backer had been a worry to everyone from the very start. More of a worry than Vovo himself.

  “I’ve thought about that. But there isn’t too much that I can do about it. Vovo was aggressive. Like his purpose being there was more to hurt my business than to build his own.” I lean back into the padded chair. “But for all that, he didn’t do my club too much harm.”

  Konstantin nodded. “You’ve made a beautiful club. People go to Vassily’s for the place and the views, but most of all for the unique atmosphere and your hospitality.” Was he blowing smoke up my ass? Konstantin? It wouldn’t be like him. Perhaps he was just being agreeable and generous on his daughter’s wedding day.

  “I think a lot of clients come for the beautiful girls.” I tell him, “But whatever the reason, the heart of my club is a solid core of regulars. People with full membership who come often, stay for long visits, and they spend a lot while they’re there. Whatever it is that I’m doing right, any joint across the street would have to work damned hard to make a hole in my business.”