by Cole, Jagger
Fuck, what does this girl do to me? She turns me into an animal. She makes me insane and makes me do equally insane things like what I’ve done today. But I won’t apologize for that. Ever. Not when it comes to her.
I turn to leave her room, when my phone rings. I step out quickly, answering without looking.
“Yes?”
There’s a long pause. But just hearing the slow exhale tells me who it is before Viktor speaks.
“I am going to ask you this once, Lev.”
I arch a brow as I sink back into my chair in the living room, gazing out over the city. “Okay?”
“Was it you?”
“Was what—”
“Lev,” he growls.
“Viktor,” I mutter back.
“The wedding today…”
“How was it?”
“It wasn’t, but why do I get the impression you already know that?”
My mouth thins. Lying to my best friend has never been something I’ve indulged. But for some reason, I feel the need to keep this whole thing under wraps until I figure out what the fuck I’m doing.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, brother.”
He sighs. “The wedding didn’t happen, Lev.”
“My condolences. I hope you got your gift back—”
“Do you think this is a joke?” he snaps.
“Viktor, I have no idea—”
“You think I don’t know the sound of your Chevelle, Lev?”
I frown silently.
“You didn’t think this through, my friend,” he growls.
“Viktor—”
“Do you know who the groom’s family is connected to?”
I roll my eyes. “The Kennedys? Vanderbilts? Rockerfellers? Some other moneyed American dynasty—”
“They’re in business with the fucking Volkov Bratva, Lev.”
My body stiffens. My jaw clenches, and my hand curls into a fist as if on instinct. Because when it comes to that name, it is.
“What did you just say?” I breathe quietly.
“The groom’s father, this Melvin Brubaker. He’s in business with the Volkovs. Specifically…”
Close my eyes. I already know the name he’s going to say, because I’ll always know the name. It’s seared into my fucking soul. It’s burned in cigarette-sized holes across my skin. Through my closed eyes, I see the man he’s about to name—the devil himself.
“Fyodor Kuznetsov.”
I’m silent. Not because I’m scared, or sheepish. Because I’m angry. Because that name induces a rage in me that rattles the fuck out of me.
But Viktor mistakes my silence for fear. “Oh good, I have your attention,” he grunts. “Fyodor is in business with Melvin—”
“How do you know that?” I say quietly.
“How do I know any of the things I know? Because I paid for it. Because it is my business to know the business of our enemies, Lev.”
I say nothing. All I can think of is that fucking name, and the man it belongs to.
“He has a huge investment in the merger this marriage was suppose to bring to fruition,” Viktor grunts. “So,” he exhales. “I sure hope she’s worth it, Lev. Because you may have just started a war.”
I close my eyes again. I don’t want to let this get to me, since I never want to let Fyodor fucking Kuznetsov get to me in any way. But Viktor’s not wrong. This changes everything. I thought I crossed a line before? This is leaping over that line and turning around to piss on it.
I just crossed the devil himself. And hell is about to let loose.
Viktor sighs. “Look, I’m not going to preach to you, because I know you too well to think it’ll do a damn thing.”
“Viktor—”
“Keep denying whatever you want to deny, Lev,” he growls. “But be careful, my friend. You’re in way over your head with this.”
He hangs up, and I do too. I stand and walk to stand by window. I slug back the rest of my drink and then lean my head against the cool glass.
Shit.
6
Zoey
Three Years ago:
The door shuts, muffling the sounds of the raging party beyond it. To most people this is my element. The debaucherously lavish party in the grand mansion, filled with rich, handsome men, drinks, dance music, and drugs.
Except it’s all a carefully cultivated lie, to everyone. Even to my best friend Fiona. It’s all a fabrication to give me this aura of cool, I guess.
It started in high school, when I realized the power that came with popularity. Every kid in my and Fiona’s private school was rich and connected. But the ones—especially the girls—at the top were queens. Being at the top meant you were royalty. And the best part of that was answering to no one. When you’re a queen bee, everyone else are workers.
Getting there though, especially for underclassman girls, usually meant dating an older, popular guy. But that idea… well, it didn’t sit well with me, for obvious reasons. So instead, I found the loophole.
I found James Hilborough.
Captain of the football team, valedictorian, gorgeous, on his way to Princeton in the fall, heir to a chemical industry fortune… and very, very gay in a family that would have crucified him for it.
Our arrangement was one of convenience. James needed a pretty, popular underclassman to keep his lady-slayer image alive until he could get to college, away from his family. I needed a cool upperclassman to pull me from regular cool to queen.
To everyone else, we dated for nine months. I let James brag to the football team about taking my virginity, even though he never actually touched me. But on my side, I got to brag to the rest of the popular girls about sleeping with James Hilborough.
I bragged about what a great lay he was, how big his dick was, all of that. At the end of it, we had our big public blowout breakup. But behind doors, we shook on a great deal for both of us and parted as friends.
James went to Princeton and started slaying it with the local gay scene. And I stayed a queen of the popular crowd all the way through the rest of high school.
But even after graduating, I’ve kept the same arrangements. I know it would be easy to just fuck someone and get it over with—to just rip the band-aid off, I suppose. But there’s never been anyone who makes me want to do that.
All the hot, rich guys—the cream of the crop of Chicago upper-class—at my fingertips. And I want none of them. And that includes the man currently dragging me into the dark bedroom and slamming the door shut as he loudly tells me to bend over.
When the cheering of his friends gets silenced by the shut door though, the act drops. Kevin sighs, stepping away from me and wincing.
“Oh my God, I’m so so sorry. I think I got carried away just now.”
I smirk. “Don’t be. So, we’re on the same page?”
“Yes, but…” he frowns. “You’re sure about this?”
“I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t.” I smile and reach out to touch his arm, trying to sooth his obvious nerves. But Kevin’s nervousness isn’t that he’s a man in his late forties in a bedroom at a party with a nineteen-year-old girl.
“Look, I know what I’m doing, okay?”
As it turns out, the real world is just like fucking high school. Especially the cliques and the stupid who’s fucking who drama and bullshit. And it’s worse within the world of finance.
My new friend who I’m currently sharing a bedroom with is Kevin Macintosh—one of the new “it” guys in the Chicago finance world, with aspirations of a political career too. He’s rich, handsome, has impeccable fashion taste, and is married to a stunningly beautiful former Victoria’s Secret model.
Kevin is also heavily into BDSM group sex with leather daddies in underground gay clubs.
Just like James, it’s all a stupid act. In Kevin’s world, being gay is still seen as a weakness. And being gay and also being into bearded guys in motorcycle gear tying your balls up while they insert horse-sized dildos into your rectum is�
� a step or five beyond that.
So Kevin plays the role. His “wife” is in on it too. She plays the jaded wife of the consummate playboy. Kevin plays the part of the rich middle-aged guy who spends his weekends sleeping with every pretty young thing who bats their eyes at him. And as gross as it may sound, his finance career and political aims are all the better for it.
And me? I maintain my crown as the reigning queen of the Chicago social scene by being seen slipping into a bedroom at a lavish party with Kevin Macinstosh.
It’s so fucking stupid, I know. But, we play the roles we play.
“Okay, so, what happens now?”
I shrug and pull a flask of vodka out of my purse. “Drink?”
He smiles. “Yeah, sure. But I mean… how long do we…”
“Oh, I got this.”
I flip to a track on my phone and turn the volume up. Instantly, the sound of a girl moaning fills the room. Kevin blushes.
“It’s not me,” I shrug. “She’s a voice actress I found online.”
He laughs nervously and takes a drink. “You came prepared.”
“Not my first rodeo.”
He frowns. “Why do you do this?”
“Pretend to sleep with rich closeted gay guys?”
He blushes and rolls his eyes. “Yes. I mean we both know why I’m doing this. But what do you possibly get out of being seen as…”
“A gold-digging slut?”
He frowns. “I did not say—”
I laugh. “Relax,” I shrug. “Are you okay with the world seeing you as one thing when you’re really something else?”
He looks down. “I have to be.”
“Same. I didn’t aspire to be this, but it’s….” I look away. “It’s how it works for girls like me. I’m pretty, my dad is rich, and I’m going to be judged on those things and nothing else for the rest of my life until I become some trophy wife.”
Kevin wrinkles his nose. “That seems bleak.”
I shrug.
“Can I give you some advice?”
I hold a finger up and nod at my phone. “Hang on, this is the good part.”
“Oh yeah! Oh fuck yeah baby! Fuck that ass! Fuck it hard!” the recording moans loudly.
Kevin stifles a laugh.
“Sorry, go ahead. What were you saying?”
He sighs. “I was going to give you some advice if I could?”
“Sure?”
He smiles at me. “You’re living a double life you say.”
I nod.
“So live that double life. Honey, I do all of this so that I can go out later, after all my friends are coked out of their minds and go be me. The real me.”
“Spank me harder, leather-daddy?” I grin.
He turns red, smirking. “Laugh all you want, but I’m free when I’m me.”
“So you’re saying I should go find some bearded tubby guys to spank my genitals?”
He rolls his eyes. “You know this would be borderline offensive if you weren’t so much fun.”
I grin.
“I’m saying go out and actually have fun, Zoey. Why pretend you’re sleeping around with guys like me?”
“Because I haven’t found anyone I actually want to sleep with?”
He frowns. “Ouch, sorry. In how long?”
I look down, and Kevin gasps.
“Wait, ever?!”
“Relax,” I scowl.
“Oh honey…” he shakes his head. “You’re young, gorgeous, and a lot of fun to drink with. You haven’t found anyone to fuck?”
“Not anyone I want to,” I grumble.
“Zoey, you need to go out there and find them. They’re out there, believe me. Let loose. Life is too hard to not have fun, even if you have to do in secret.” He smiles sadly. “Trust me, I know what I’m talking about.”
The recording suddenly hits a crescendo of female orgasming sounds that would make a porn star blush. Then I reach over and turn it off with a sigh.
“Okay, should we do this?”
“I defer to your expertise.”
I smile and stand. I shake my hands through my hair, messing it up terribly. Then I put on some fresh lipstick and step over into Kevin’s personal space. I give his collar a sloppy, pink-lipsticked kiss and yank his tie off. I leave it tied to the bedpost as he smirks.
I slip down one strap of my gown and reach over to rip one of the buttons from his shirt.
“Hey!”
I roll my eyes as I turn to the door. “Calm down. Oh, shit, hang on.”
I pull a pair of lacy black panties out of my purse and hand them to him. Kevin makes a face.
“Relax,” I smile. “I bought them this afternoon.” He frowns. “I haven’t worn them, Kev!”
He grins. When he puts his hand out, I shake it.
“Pleasure doing business with you, Zoey Stone. We should really do this again some time.”
I grin. “Pleasure doing business with you, too. Now, shall we do this walk of shame?”
“Yes, leather daddy.”
I giggle as I reach for the door
Present:
I wake up confused. I frown and look around, trying to place the unfamiliar surroundings before it all hits me as sleep fades away. But so does the memory of the especially hot dreams I’ve just had. Which were of course all about the man who’s taken me.
I don’t remember falling asleep last night. But I look down and realize the covers are pulled up over me. I’m still in the stupid wedding dress, too. I groan and slide from the bed. The apartment seems utterly silent, as I trudge over to door. I blink in surprise when I realize it’s unlocked.
Slowly, I crack it open and peer out. There’s no Lev out there keeping guard or anything. And still, the house is completely silent. I open the door wider and step out. Then I start to tip-toe down the hall towards the main room and the entryway.
But suddenly, I gasp and almost jump out of my skin as I round the corner.
His back is to me, sitting at the kitchen counter with his laptop in front of him. I frown, peering at the screen to see what he’s doing before my brows raise in surprise. It’s pictures of me.
I groan inside. Yeah, it’s pictures of me from socialite blogs and other paparazzi bullshit. Me on the arms of a lot of wealthy, older, elite Chicago men. Some of them are gay. Some just need the image boost of pretty young socialite on their arm. I can’t read them from here, but I already know that every caption and headline claims I’m dating them, or that I’ve slept with them.
* * *
And every one is a lie.
But seeing Lev pouring over them makes my heart sink. I don’t know why it bothers me, but it does. It makes me feel ashamed that he’s seeing this litany of bullshit—these fake notches on a post of a bed I’ve never even slept in.
But I shake it off. Why do I feel that way? I mean who cares? Yes, he happens to be the man I lost my virginity to. But so what? He’s also the man who just kidnapped me from my own fucking wedding. And on top of that, he’s also a vicious, brutal Bratva gangster. And he’s my captor.
I glance past him and spot a door that must be the entrance to the apartment. My eyes shift back to him. He’s busy; distracted. I chew my lip. I could get out and scream for help, or… something. If I walked slowly, or maybe ran really fast, I could get to the door before he got to me.
I swallow, taking a breath and readying myself as I gauge the distance to the front door.
“You are a very loud breather.”
I gasp. My eyes whip back to him sitting there at the counter. Slowly, Lev turns, and those piercing blue eyes level with me.
I bristle. “What?” I snap.
He smirks. “The door? That was your plan, right? Run and scream for help?”
I glare back at him, and he chuckles.
“That door leads to a maintenance room and the trash chute to the compressors in the basement of the building. Even if it were the front door to the place, which I’m assuming you thought it was, I have n
o neighbors on this floor.”
“What’d you do, kill them?” I sneer.
He rolls his eyes. “Yes. And I ate them, actually.”
I blush, biting my lip to hide a smile.
“The whole place is soundproofed, too. If that changes any of your grand plans.”
“Wow, yeah, that’s not creepy at all. Definitely make sure you tell all the girls you bring here that it’s soundproofed.”
He says nothing and takes a breath.
“You want to run.”
“That’s typically the reaction to being kidnapped, yes.”
His jaw grinds. “So, I took you.”
“Can I get that on tape, or on the phone to the cops?”
He smirks. “What was happening to you yesterday otherwise?”
“My wed—”
“What was really happening to you?”
I frown at him.
“You were being taken, da? Kidnapped, in a sense?”
“I hardly think—”
“Yes, you do.” His voice bites through the air, making me tremble. “That…” he scowls deeply. “That man…”
“Chet.”
“Yes, this Chet. You were marrying him because it was true love, yes?” His voice drips with sarcasm.
I scowl. “What’s it to you?”
“Well, being that you were moaning for me not three weeks ago…”
I blushed deeply.
“Call me an interested party.”
“Jealous, Lev?” I sneer sweetly.
“Of?”
“Chet.”
He smirks, then he chuckles. “No, lastachka, I am not.”
My brow knits. “You keep calling me that.”
“What, lastachka?”
I nod, and his lips curl slightly.
“It means little swallow. A little bird.”
I blush. “Oh.”
No one’s ever called me any sort of pet name before.
“And I am not jealous of him. We both know why you were marrying that man.”
“Oh really?”
“Because your father willed it. For business, yes?”
I don’t say anything.
“In Russia, this is common. Not so much here, is it?”