by Cole, Jagger
Oleg shrugs and yanks Nikolai to his feet. He claps him on the back and walks away as if he didn’t just throw him to the ground and stick a gun in his face.
Nikolai and I lock eyes. Slowly, he walks towards me with a grim look on his face.
“Lev—”
“Don’t say shit,” I grunt. I peer at him. “Let me look at you.”
Zoey squeezes my hand as I take in the younger man in front of me. Obviously, I’ve never looked for them before. But now, I can see certain things. He has my—well, Fyodor’s—eyes, for instance. And my shoulders, and cheekbones, actually. The rest must be his mother’s.
“Was all of that true? About Fyodor and your mother.”
He nods, and I shake my head sorrowfully.
“I’m sorry, Nikolai. I’m truly sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” he growls quietly.
“I should have killed him years ago. I should have killed him when I was a boy, before he could…” I close my eyes. I take a breath, and squeeze Zoey’s hand tightly. Then I open my eyes again.
And now, I know I’m truly looking at my brother.
“So, we’re brothers.”
Nikolai looks down. “Lev, I… I betrayed you.”
I shrug. “You did, but I understand why.”
“I’ve been working as Fyodor’s ‘double agent’ for a year.” He frowns. “I’ve never given him shit about Kashenko business or interests. Nothing about our people, or anything that could—”
“Nikolai,” I growl and smile wryly. “I believe you.”
“I didn’t want to give you up, man. Not like that at all. But Fyodor was there when you called about the cabin. He knew it was you, and I couldn’t blow my chance for him by clamming up.” He smirks. “Hell, I knew you could take whoever he sent,” he grins.
I roll my eyes. “There were ten of them, you fuck.”
“Well, nine. One was me. I came to make sure they wouldn’t hurt her,” he nods at Zoey, and I nod.
“That means something.”
He winces and points to his bloody-looking nose. “You broke my nose, if that’s any further consolation.”
“Oh, it is.”
He chuckles, and we look at each other for a long minute until finally I shake my head.
“Come here, you stupid fuck.”
I grab him and pull him into a big hug. Nikolai hesitates for a second, but then he’s hugging me back tightly. When we pull away, he grins at me. “Brothers, huh?”
“Apparently.”
“Look, if you were hoping to—”
“It’s okay that it was you,” I growl. “I carry his scars, but it’s nothing compared to your pain. He was yours to put down, and we don’t need to ever rehash that.”
Nikolai—my half-brother—nods. “Thank you, Lev.” But then he grins and turns to nod at Fyodor’s body on the ground. “Well, it should make shopping for Father’s Day much easier.”
“Jesus,” Zoey groans as I chuckle. I turn to pull her into my arms before I stick one out to Nikolai.
“We’re good. I…” I shrug, “I don’t know. I absolve you of your shit.”
He grins. “Thanks, man. Look, I don’t want this to change anything with my place in the organization. I don’t want any special—”
I start to laugh. “You’re worried about being promoted?”
He frowns. “No, I just mean—”
“Nikolai, I have… how old are you again?”
“Twenty-six?”
I grin. “I have twenty-six years of older-brother bullshit to inflict on you. You have no idea the sort of bullshit I’m going to have you doing for the next year.”
He laughs and nods his head. “Fair enough.”
On the other side of the warehouse, Oleg and his men are yanking the doors to the Bentley open and dragging Marvin, Chet, and Zoey’s father from it. I turn back to Nikolai.
“Your first job is to punch each of them in the fucking mouth, gag them with their own soiled underwear, and tie them up in the trunk. We’ll figure out what to do with them all later.”
Nikolai smirks. “It would be my pleasure, broth—”
“Boss still works.”
He rolls his eyes. “You got it, boss.”
He jogs over, and I turn to wrap my arms around Zoey again. I lean down, and before anything else can stop me, I kiss her a hard and as deep as I can. I want to drown in her lips. I want to taste them and nothing else, for the rest of my life.
But when we do slowly pull apart to breathe, she beams up at me, her lips swollen. I grin back as I reach up to brush her hair away.
She nods at the men being dragged out of the Bentley. “What’s going to happen to them?”
I frown. “Zoey, your father—”
“He’s not my father.”
I nod, but she shakes her head.
“No, I mean he’s literally not my biological father. Or, so he says.”
My brow furrows. “Fuck. I’m sorry, lastachka.”
“Don’t be. I—” She frowns and shakes her head. “It’s sort of freeing, in a way.”
I nod and tighten my arms around her. “If you’d like, I can help you look—”
“He’s dead.” She smiles thinly. “Part of me is so mad that I never got to know who he was or meet him. But the other part of me knows that this means I can lay the whole thing to bed.”
“Do you want to try and track down his family?”
She shakes her head. “No. He had his life…” She looks up at me and smiles. “And I have mine.”
I grin as I lean down to kiss her, holding her tight.
“How did you find me, by the way?”
“Your boyfriend.”
She frowns. “What?”
I smirk. “Kevin.”
Zoey winces. “You didn’t hurt him, did you?”
“Please, what sort of man do you take me for?”
“The Russian mafia type who would absolutely beat the living hell out of someone to find out where I was?”
I nod. “That’s…”
“Accurate?”
“Extremely,” I grin. “But no, I didn’t. He was happy to use his diplomatic connections to lean on Homeland Security for Fyodor’s whereabouts.” I shrug. “They’ve been watching him as a possible trouble point.”
She smirks. “Is it going to be a problem that Nikolai just shot him in the head?”
“If it is, Kevin can take care of it. He’ll find a way, believe me. I gave him something very useful for his help.” I frown. “Well, not useful to him, per se. But useful to not be out there in the hands of those who would use it against him.”
“Compromising pictures, I’m guessing?”
“What has been seen cannot be unseen.”
She giggles and leans in to kiss me slowly. She pulls back, her eyes shining as she looks up at me.
“I love you.”
The second she says it, her eyes widen and her hand flies to her mouth.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to just—”
“Zoey,” I growl as my hands move to pull hers from her mouth and cup her face. I lean into her, my heart racing.
“I love you, too.”
My lips crush to hers, and my arms close around her.
Mine. Now, and forever.
Epilogue
Zoey
“Holy shit, girl…”
Fiona’s jaw drops as we step out of the elevator. Lev’s old penthouse was stunning. Our new one is a dream.
Three floors, and three-hundred-and-sixty-degree views of the lake and the entire city from the top of one of the newest luxury buildings in Chicago. Also, the glass is mirrored on the outside. Which means all the views, none of the privacy concerns.
Which is great, because hasn’t been a whole lot of wearing clothes happening since we moved in two weeks ago.
“This is fucking incredible!”
I grin. “Plenty of guest rooms if you and Viktor ever want to come in and spend the night in the
big city sometime. Or like, several nights.”
She sighs. “I can’t believe he sold the place out by us.”
I roll my eyes. “Well, we were never there, and c’mon, that house was huge—”
“Dude, how big is this place?”
I wince. “Ten-thousand square feet?”
She laughs loudly and rolls her eyes. “Yeah, okay.”
“Well, selling it let us buy this place.”
She turns around and around, drinking in the views. “Yeah, I love our house, but I would not be mad at this. I mean, damn.”
I grin as my best friend turns back to me and rubs her hands together. “Okay, I gotta see it!”
I giggle as I grab her hand and yank her up the curved staircase to the second floor, then down the hall to my office.
Bill was right about some things, and wrong about others. He isn’t my father, in any sense of the word aside from paying for things when I was growing up, and for college. After everything happened, Lev cut him a check for “what he was owed,” plus a little more, and told him to fuck off from my life forever.
There’s been no tears on my end, trust me.
But one of the things he was very wrong about was that I had nothing to offer—that I was just this rich, pretty girl who was good for being a trophy wife and nothing more. I may have floundered though school with average grades. I might have spent way too much time trying to be at the top of the social ladder. But being there left me with some skills that you just can’t teach in a classroom.
Currently, I’ve six months into my new career as one of Chicago’s top public relations and image management reps for the wealthy and famous. Aside from friends of the Kashenko organization, I don’t deal with criminals. And I don’t at all deal with scumbags. So, no, I’m not going to help the next Chet Brubaker “fix” his image of a serial sexual assaulter. Not a chance.
But women who’ve been divorced by their philandering rich husbands for a secretary and then been trashed by the tabloids? Oh, I’ve got plenty of those. Men like Kevin who hid who they were but then want to come out? Lots of those too.
Including Kevin himself. Kevin finally decided he was tired of living two lives. With my help, he publicly finally came out as gay, and he’s never been happier. We obviously swept stuff like Muppet gangbangs under the rug. But some things are best left to privacy anyways.
He and Elise split amicably, and she moved to Spain with her painter lover, Raul. We’ve got two of his pieces in our new place.
Inside my office, Fiona is practically hopping from foot to foot. “Put it on! I’m dying here!”
I laugh as I grab the garment bag and slip into the bathroom. I unzip it and grin at the white dress within… my second, and definitely last wedding dress.
“So, you saw the news, right?” Fiona calls through the door as I change into the dress.
I smirk. “Yup.”
“Good riddance. Fucking creeps.”
Both Marvin and Chet Brubaker were both arraigned today in Cook County Federal Court. Marvin, obviously, for colluding with Fyodor Kuznetsov, corruption, securities fraud, intimidation, witness tampering, and bunch of other shit.
Through that investigation, all of Chet’s hidden skeletons came tumbling out of the closet. Pretty much all of his family’s “payoffs” to women he’d assaulted, and the gag-order contracts they’d signed were shown to be illegal. Basically, his creep past came back to bite him in the ass, hard.
Bill Stone won’t be going to jail for anything, sadly. He didn’t actually do anything illegal; he was just a shitty person. But on the plus side, all of the investigations into his “alleged collusion” with disgraced hedge fund CEO Marvin Brubaker ruined his reputation. Two months ago, the board of KRV Financial voted to boot him out of his own company.
So yes, good riddance to them all.
“Okay, ready?”
“Yes!”
I take a breath, smooth the dress down, and the open the bathroom door. I waltz out and do a twirl. Fiona gasps.
“Oh my God, it’s gorgeous!” she gushes and walks over to fluff out some of the lace on the dress. “Zoey, it’s fucking incredible.” She grins and hugs me. “I’m so freaking proud of you!”
Her phone buzzes, and she frowns as she takes it out. “Oh, shit,” she groans.
“Work?”
“Yeah.” She scowls. “Sorry, I totally forgot about this meeting in twenty minutes.”
Fiona and Viktor’s new Free Them Foundation which hunts down human traffickers around the globe, has been keeping her extremely busy. But my genius friend flourishes with that kind of pressure and workload. And they’re doing amazing work.
“Go, it’s fine.”
She groans. “We were going to hang though!”
“Tonight?”
My best friend grins. “Perfect. Dinner maybe?”
“Totally.”
I head downstairs with her, hug her, and wave her off as she steps into the elevator. When the doors close, I head back into the huge living area to look out over the city. I twirl in my white dress, grinning when I think about the upcoming wedding.
The elevator door dings again.
“Forget something?”
“I’m not sure I could ever forget this sight.”
I gasp as I whirl to see my fiancé standing grinning in the foyer.
“You’re not supposed to see me in this!”
Lev smiles as he puts a hand barely over his eyes and walks towards me. “Maybe. But I’ve seen you in a wedding dress before.”
I blush. “But it wasn’t my real actual wedding dress.”
“Well, it was before I fucked that all up.”
I giggle. “Close your eyes! C’mon, Lev!”
He sighs, chuckling as he turns around. “Fine. If I can’t see you in it though…” he turns back and grins with his hand over his eyes. “Then perhaps it should come off.”
I blush and rake my teeth over my lip. “What a selfless idea…”
He chuckles, but I can feel the heat in the room growing. I swallow as I slip the straps off the dress, carefully undo the hidden zipper, and shrug out of it. Gingerly, I carry it into one of the spare bedrooms off the living area and drape it across the bed there. I step out in just my bra and panties and let my eyes settle on my gorgeous, incredible fiancé.
“You know, it’s probably bad luck to see the bride in her wedding lingerie before the wedding too.”
Lev groans. “You’re also wearing your wedding lingerie?” he growls hungrily.
I glance down. I’m not.
“No, but…” I grin. “We’d better practice.” I slip my bra and panties off as I step towards him. “Okay, we’re good. It’s safe to open your eyes now.”
He pulls his hand away. His eyes narrow hungrily as they slide slowly over my nakedness. He growls deeply.
“Safe, hmm?”
I blush. “Um, yeah, except you are way way overdressed for this occasion.”
Lev smirks. “I must have forgotten to check my calendar. What’s the occasion?”
“The occasion where I need you naked and on that couch in four seconds so I can ride that big, beautiful cock of yours?”
Lev growls like an animal, and I barely have time to gasp as he swoops into me. I moan when he scoops me into his arms, my legs around his waist. He kisses me, carrying me towards the sofa as he ditches his clothes. By the time we fall onto the couch in a tangle, we’re both naked.
I moan and slide into his lap. My hands drag down his muscled chest as he eases his head against my slick, dripping wet pussy. Most of the time, we’d be teasing each other with fingers and mouths for ages before he actually takes me. But I think we’ve both been aching for each other all day.
With his head nestled between my lips, Lev grabs my hips and sinks me down. I cry out as he slides into me deeply, moaning as I take every inch of him. But when he’s deep inside, he stops and just holds me.
I smile as I look down into his eyes. “What
?”
“Nothing,” he groans. “Just that I love you.”
I moan and lean in to kiss him deeply. “I love you too, I whisper.”
Our lips crush together, his hands tighten on me, and I squeal as he suddenly flips us over and pushes my hands above my head.
“And now, you’re all mine.”
“Promise?” I gasp.
“Always.”
He moves into me, his lips take mine, and he’s right; I’m all his, forever.
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Chapter 1
Fiona
This party sucks.
I fidget to myself, glancing around the crowd. It’s a lot more people than I’m used to seeing, which is having an effect on my nerves a little. There’s only maybe forty people here, but still. For me, with the walled, ivory tower life I lead?
Well, it’s a lot.
What’s worse is that the party is my party. Or at least, it’s being thrown for me by my father. And when Chicago District Attorney Thomas Murray says jump? Well, you jump. Or show up to his daughter’s graduation party, as the case may be.
But the premise and the invitations are wrong. This party isn’t really for me. I mean on the surface it is. But just like everything when it comes to my father, this all boils down to his own political agenda. Everything always has. Where I attended school. The friends I had. The boyfriends I wasn’t allowed to have. Smile for the press, Fiona. Make sure you’re on the debate team at school—the press will eat it up when they see you following in my footsteps.