Sold: A Billionaire Bad Boy Mafia Romance

by Natasha Tanner

  “OK. You’ll be Polina,” he says when I start panting instead of providing a name. “Any preference for the lastname?”

  Polina, like the female character in Dostoevsky’s The Gambler. How appropriate. Vanina in Monte Carlo like Polina in Roulettenberg, the fictional gambling paradise where the novel takes place. I think about it for a few seconds. Polina Alexandrovna, like in the book? Polina Chekhov? Polina Tolstoy? Polina Turguenev? Polina Karamazov? No, those are silly choices. Any immigration officer with two ounces of brain would see through it, like that idiot who had a fake ID printed under the name MacLovin in that juvenile American movie. It’s difficult to come up with a good idea when you’re being pounded on so sweetly.

  “Uh... oh... a l-lastname... l-let me th-th-think,” I sigh, wobbling my head around as he thrusts a bit faster.

  Then it comes to me: Polina Igrok. Not many people know that Igrok is the novel’s original title in Russian, and among those who know, a lastname simply meaning gambler wouldn’t be likely to raise suspicions. The full name has a nice ring to it, and so I decide that I’ll be Polina Igrok during my trip.

  “Well...?”

  “Well? Aaah!”

  “Have you thought of a lastname?” Ace asks, smiling wickedly as he covers me with kisses and redoubles his underwater attack.

  “Igrok! Igrok! Igrok! Igrok! Igrok! IGROK!” I exclaim, clawing at his mighty back as a series of spasms make my body shake and tremble. My lips close around his chin, his nose, his mouth, his eye, in a frantic attempt to cover him whole, to swallow him just like my legs and the kraken in between are swallowing him down below.

  Then comes what the French call the little death, and then the release, the languor, the happiness, and the beer warming on the tiles.

  22. WRITTEN IN THE CARDS

  VAN

  Exactly the same as two years ago, but in reverse: the United States becoming smaller and smaller, then turning into a carnival of light as the plane rises, drilling into the frozen air of the night, and points its nose at Europe. Something is different this time, though. I’m not alone. Ace Hart rests in his seat beside me, holding my hand between his. He fell asleep as soon as we took off. I don’t know how he does it.

  I’ve never been to Monaco, just as I’ve never been almost anywhere else. But I’m not thinking about wonderful beaches or high hills or luxurious hotels or boats or roulette tables. I’m thinking about healing.

  It’s curious, the way healing works. You never forget the person and you never forget the pain or the fury, but you see it all in an irrevocably different light, in a way it can’t cause you any harm anymore.

  I had been driven to a deep pit of sorrow and despair when Theo Lambert got rid of me. But now, I don’t miss him the tiniest bit. I’ll never forget him, but I have forgiven him already. So this is how it works: you let go of your old love when a new love comes. But no love ever really leaves you if it was true. It becomes part of you, enriching your life. When you look at the dried up tears, you notice that the stain has become a shape that is part of your own shape. That’s when the healing comes.

  And you get hurt again and you become wary, and every time you fall, it hurts a bit more. When I thought Ace Hart was just like Theo, I fell into a still deeper pit. I bypassed the tears and the desire of revenge, and became a woman who lost her soul, like a zombie roaming the streets half alive and half dead.

  I brought my old copy of Anna Karenina in my handbag. I turn the pages slowly, feeling the intensity of the words as my fingers pass blindly over the worn, crinkled pages I know so well. I find the quote almost before I look for it.

  I think ... if there are as many minds as there are men, then there are as many kinds of love as there are hearts.

  But if your heart changes and grows, the love changes and grows as well. The remnants of my old loves have become part of something greater and more intense, I realize. I now love Ace in a way I couldn’t have hoped to love before.

  What if I fail again? What if it ends in a week, a month, a year?

  I’m afraid of the mere idea. You may know the feeling I have right now: This is the one. This is the man I want to spend my life with. A terrible, dark man, hard as iron on the outside, with a loving, tender core that you must find yourself, with time and work.

  I squeeze his hand so hard that I fear I’ll wake him up.

  23. MONTE CARLO BLUES

  ACE

  Monte Carlo is just as magnificent and luxurious as in a James Bond movie. I don’t feel like James Bond, though. As I gently graze Van’s back, exposed through an opening in her exquisitely fine dress, I catch sight of Zhurov, who’s betting at the roulette while he waits for our private room to open.

  “Have you spoken to them?” I ask Harlan.

  “The casino? Everything’s in order,” he says. “Zhurov is alone, if you were wondering.”

  “Oh, I like that.” I kiss Van in the cheek as I point out at the Russian jerk discreetly. “Want to try your luck?”

  “Why not?” she says, and walks towards the roulette table with a feline gait that makes my blood boil in desire.

  “Harlan, I hope you’re looking elsewhere.”

  “Of course, boss,” he chuckles, turning his head as quick as lightning.

  “Good. What about Manhattan? I wouldn’t like Zhurov to be here while his guys are there making a mess of things.”

  We don’t make eye contact, instead looking around at the big hall as we speak, registering everything, taking note of any potential signs of trouble.

  “Pip says everything’s quiet. Jack is outside anyway, looking.”

  “What about Tara?”

  “Still nothing from her. Stays awake all night every night. She’ll find it.”

  “Have you fucked her already?”

  Harlan looks at me and blushes instantly. He is about to say something but seems to decide otherwise and turns his head again. The white collar of his shirt contrasts sharply with the deep red in his neck and above.

  “Well?”

  “N-no, of course not.”

  “Not for lack of trying, I guess,” I tell him with a wink, pat him on the back, and go meet Van at the table. She’s put everything on red, and she’s just won. Zhurov made a complicated bet instead, putting money on the zero, eleven, and four other black numbers, so he lost everything.

  I wave at him, and when we make visual contact, I make a playful gesture. Don’t lose all your money here; we need to play poker later.

  * * *

  VAN

  The weight of half a dozen chips in my hand is satisfying. Most of them have right edges, each one worth twenty-five grand. The sound they make when they rub into each other is almost sensual. I started making stupidly safe bets, never risking much but never winning much either; but after half an hour or so, I got audacious, and the ball paid me well.

  That must be why there is a wide smile on my face when I stand up to leave the table. Zhurov is serious, having lost a bit of money —around six hundred grand if my estimate is correct, just a drop in the sea for him, but a net loss anyway.

  “I hope you’re luckier at the game,” I tell him, unable to adopt a serious expression. “Or rather not.”

  Zhurov nods silently. He’s been hitting on me here, too, for the first few minutes. As the ball kept rolling and hitting all the wrong numbers, he became quieter, until he stopped talking altogether.

  Where is Ace?

  Harlan is standing near the entrance of the private room. There are already some people inside. Some of them are the casino’s men; the others must be players. Zhurov walks into the room, too. I glance at my watch and realize that the game is about to start.

  I look at Harlan and raise my eyebrows. He points to a corner of the hall where Ace is speaking to someone on his cellphone. He seems irritated, maybe even alarmed. I get closer and get a few bits of the conversation.

  “Tara?” he says. “What happened to her?” And after a few seconds: “They weren’t supposed to
get to her. You should have never taken her to Chicago.” A new pause, and then: “It’s all the same. If anything happens to Tara, I’ll rip your balls off. Do you get it?”

  He hangs up angrily. I see Harlan still standing indecisively beside the door of the designated room, waiting for Ace. All the other players are already inside. But Ace doesn’t move.

  “What’s it?” I ask him, putting my hand on his arm.

  It takes him a few seconds to answer. Then:

  “I have to go.”

  “OK, I’ll wait for you here. Is it serious?”

  “You don’t understand,” he says. “I have to go... back to the States.”

  “What? Why? The game is about to begin.”

  “I know. I’ve stated my bet already. I’ll lose a billion if we desert.”

  I don’t get what he means at first. But when he starts walking briskly toward the room, I suddenly realize it.

  “No, no, no, no,” I say, walking behind him. I try to catch him but he’s too fast. “Ace, I’m going with you.”

  “Of course not,” he denies. “You’ll stay with Harlan.” We are now inside the room, and everyone is staring at us, including Zhurov, who’s already sitting at the table with a glass of vodka. “There’s a change in the table,” Ace announces out loud. “Vanina Vokhtazin plays for Ace Hart.”

  His words are still echoing inside the room when he walks out. He’s kissed me briefly before his exit, but it’s been all so fast that I feel the touch of his lips when he’s already gone.

  Vassily Zhurov smiles.

  24. TAMING THE BEAST

  VAN

  We fly back to the States with Harlan. First we take an helicopter to the Nice airport, then a plane to Paris, then the long flight home. He drives me from LaGuardia to Tribeca and leaves me at Ace’s. The whole trip is a test for Harlan’s nerves, because I’m furious and exultant at the same time, and surely unbearable.

  I’m exultant because I got the hang of the game last night. I called every bluff of Zhurov’s, every reverse tell, every attempt of bullying and wooing. I read the man so well that he never had a chance. I risked Ace’s billion, and left the casino with two.

  I’m furious because Ace hasn’t answered my calls, and the last thing I heard from him was that he was flying to the United States to protect the blonde bombshell I met that poker night in Chicago.

  Was I wrong in trusting him? Should I have listened to Tsvetaeva about the wolf and the woods? I feel so outraged that I feel my breath accelerating as I walk around the house looking for him.

  I find him at the gym, working out. He doesn’t notice that I’m there until I talk. He’s lying on a bench, lifting a weight so heavy that if he let go of it, his chest would probably be disintegrated.

  Not that he wouldn’t deserve it.

  “What do I mean to you?”

  I take him by surprise and the chest-crushing scenario almost comes true. He lowers the bar into its support and sits up. He’s sweaty and breathing heavily.

  “Van,” he says, and quickly regains his cool. “You mean a lot to me. What is it? Are you angry about something?”

  “Tell me.”

  He grabs his towel and wipes the sweat from his handsome face.

  “Tell you what?”

  “What do you truly feel for me?”

  He stands up and comes to me. His manly scent reaches me before he does. I nearly fail in my resolution, but I stay strong.

  “Baby,” he says, reaching out with his massive arms. I try to give him a severe look, but I’m aware that something else transpires: insecurity and fear. I need to be reassured so much. He’s never said it. Only I did.

  “Tell me.”

  He’s towering over me now, his piercing blue eyes revealing something strong and hard, but also a softness behind it all.

  And now he kneels down and looks at me from below.

  “I love you,” he says. And it’s enough. Almost.

  “You love me, but you run to save Tara when she’s in trouble? And you leave me alone in a country I’ve never been to?”

  His face changes now. His lips curve upward, tiny wrinkles form around his eyes. He’s smiling. I want to kill him, but I must know first. Does he find this funny?

  “Tara was in danger. I had to save her, find out what was happening. She’s a very valuable asset.” The irony vibrates in his voice and reverberates inside me like a knife made of sound. I feel so betrayed that I am about to punch him.

  “An asset? And I’m an asset too? How much am I worth? Is she more valuable than me, asshole?”

  Now he smiles openly, inching ahead on his knees like a little boy going for his mother. He grabs me by the hips and kisses my navel. Oh gods, I swear I will kill him. My voice comes out weak.

  “So...?”

  “I can’t overestimate how valuable Tara is... as our computer whiz,” he says.

  “As... as what?”

  He kisses my navel again, then the rest of my belly, with little touches that feel like butterflies hitting me with their little wings.

  “Tara is in charge of keeping track of everything in our network,” Ace explains, smiling again. “Who owns what, how much they bet, who wins, who loses, who has already paid and which transfers have failed. She designed the software and she maintains it. The Chinese have been trying to poke holes in her system for months, but until now, nobody knew who she was. Now her identity has been leaked somehow. If anything happens to her, it will be a catastrophe for Little Vegas. We’d have to stop all operations for months, or maybe indefinitely.”

  “The bombshell— the bombshell is the nerd?” I ask, incredulously.

  “You can’t catch ’em if you can’t see ’em,” Ace replies. He’s still smiling, but I don’t want to smash his face anymore. Now, I find his smile charming, just like before. “Remember the night you saw her in Chicago? Yeah, well, she doesn’t normally go to the scene. She’s always on the computer, doing her thing. But we’ve had several problems with people trying to hack the system, and they are pretty advanced, so she needed to actually be there and quietly observe the computers to see who could be manipulating them. You know, through a hooked cellphone or something.”

  “I don’t know much about that,” I confess.

  “Me neither. The thing is that nobody is supposed to know that, as you said, the bombshell is the nerd. But someone knew. Because the other night, while we were in Monte Carlo, they put something in her drink, and she had to be carried to the hospital.”

  “Really? Who did that?”

  “The Chinese, I bet. But I hope you understand why I was so worried.”

  Part of me wants to just call him a liar and punch him in the face. But I have to admit that he doesn’t seem to be lying.

  “Are you telling me the truth?”

  “Of course I am. Haven’t I just told you that I love you? That must account for something,” he whispers, and stands on his feet once more. He holds me in his arms. His lips are so close to mine that his minty breath fills my nose and mouth as he speaks. “You are much more than an asset to me. I still care about money, but you have made me care about other things more.”

  That’s it. The softness under the iron shell, the tender core that you can only find if you dig deep... or push hard. Ace sounds unnatural saying this kind of thing; he speaks the language of love clumsily. But he’s authentic. I see it in his eyes.

  “Other... things?” I ask, because I want him to keep talking this way. It makes me feel safe again.

  “Other things... like being with you and never, ever, leave you again,” he says, and he’s already kissing me.

  25. A SECOND CHANCE

  ACE

  “OK, it’s decided. Do it.”

  “The button?”

  “The button.”

  Tara stares at me as if she expected me to change my mind. But I won’t. It’s decided.

  “It’s because of the girl, right? The Russian?”

  I nod. There’s no need t
o argue the finer points. I’m doing it for me, but because of her.

  Tara sighs. “I knew it would be something like that. Well, I guess I don’t have any reason to care. I will say that you’ve been a good boss.”

  “Thanks. But Harlan will be a good boss too,” I reply.

  She rolls her eyes.

  “I hope you burn in hell for leaving me at his mercy. The man won’t get a clue. I suspect he thinks I’ll want to marry him when he gets the promotion. Yuck.”

  I just have to laugh.

  “Well, I hope she’s worthy,” Tara adds. “More than the other one.”

  Ouch. “That hurt.”

  “I’m sorry.” She lets out a deep sigh. “Fine, I’ll press the button for you. But you absolutely need to go to Panama first.”

  I nod. “Can you make me a list?”

  “It’s already done.”

  We first talked about this a couple of months ago. By then, I was ready to accept that something had changed inside me. I could no longer live by simple rules. Vanina had come to mess with everything, make the simple complicated, and generally ruin the order I had established so carefully. So I wanted to try again. I wanted out.

  Tara spent weeks designing the button. I told her that it was “just in case”, a thing we should have ready for eventual future use. But the truth was that I wanted to use it as soon as it was possible.

  The button is not a real button, of course. It’s a metaphor. What Tara built was a simple process that would let me disappear in an instant. Cut all my ties with anyone commercially related to me, transfer companies and other properties, convert in cash whatever could be converted in cash, wipe my calls, emails, Internet history, erase my address from any records, and leave me as the sole proprietor of a brand new account outside the country that would let me start a new, isolated, affluent, untraceable life. All of this, with a single computer script that she could run at any time.