by Shandi Boyes
He peers at me as if I am foolish. He’s probably right. “You cannot trust Oleg. He’s not like our father. He’s—”
“Not a man who gifts his daughter to another?”
My snappy remark stumps him. He’s truly shocked. I can’t blame him. Up until ten minutes ago, I never thought my father would do this either. Only thirty seconds ago, I realized he doesn’t have a choice. It still hurts knowing he can wash his hands of me so quickly, but the pain is nowhere near as intense as it was when I thought he was doing it solely for him.
After weaving my fingers through Vaughn’s messy bed hair, I tug down his face until it rests in the crook of my neck. Tears reform in my eyes when I recall how long it’s been since we’ve embraced like this. Although my memories are hazy, I’m reasonably sure we haven’t since our mother passed. Perhaps even a little longer.
“No matter what happens, stay focused. This isn’t the end for me, Vaughn. It may very well be the beginning.”
Refusing to acknowledge the whispered voice in my head that I’m delusional to believe I’ll still be alive tomorrow morning, I press my lips to Vaughn’s sweaty temple before stalking down the hallway in the opposite direction our father went. My steps shake more with every one I take, but the wobblier my stride, the harder my spine becomes.
You can’t become fearless without first facing your fear. Just like you can’t embrace your fate if you’ve yet to succumb to the idea of change. My goal was never to live forever. I just had no idea my soon-to-be husband would be the one to end it.
Chapter Two
Asher
I tug my coat tighter when a bitterly cold Moscow wind blows underneath it. I’ve lived here my entire life, but it’s colder than I remember. The sleet and ice are unlike anything I experienced in Las Vegas the past six months. You’d think the stark white conditions would make the Christmas holidays more joyful, but I can’t see six feet in front of me, much less the twinkling lights on the tree children will surround on January sixth as they call for Ded Moroz to bring them presents, or sometimes his granddaughter, Snegurochka.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, families were free to celebrate holidays they kept hidden after they were banned in 1929, but it’s still quiet around these parts. You’ll see the occasional tree and the sprinkling of lights in office windows, but it’s nothing like the hoopla I experienced in Vegas the last week. Even the once stone-cold Popov compound wasn’t spared the wrath of naughty elves. They covered the balustrades in the main foyer with green garlands before erecting a monstrous tree in the middle of the den.
Although sickened by the amount of joy on display, I understood it. The Popov housemaids had reason to celebrate. My American counterpart, Nikolai, and his wife, Justine, welcomed twins fifteen days before Christmas. With the Popov entity not having any children under the age of two since Nikolai was a child, the whores turned housewives went all out. Toby and Mila won’t remember a thing that happened a little over a week ago, but the endless alcohol, drugs, and whores at Nikolai’s off-site compound will be reminisced about by his men for years to come.
Perhaps even by me.
I’m not a man who gets misty-eyed. I was born craving bloodshed, raised to seek rivals more than allies, and I’ve done everything in my power to instigate conflict during my past almost twenty-nine years, but I’m man enough to admit I admire the life Nikolai has created for himself. He has his crown, his queen, and his heirs.
Now it’s time for me to emulate his triumph.
Don’t misconstrue. I don’t want nor need a queen. He can also keep the mini versions of himself that scream all hours of the day and night, but the crown—I want that. I deserve that. And I’m going to do everything in my power to get that.
There’s just one difference between Nikolai’s takeover bid and mine. I don’t need to kill my father to rule my realm. He already has one foot in the grave. He’s so close to death, I’m certain the Grim Reaper is at his bedside, waiting for the inevitable. I’ve just got to play my cards right, to exert patience. In general, patience isn’t something I have in abundance, but when it stands between me and everything I’ve ever wished for, you can be assured I have it in spades.
Until then, I’ve got plenty of other matters to occupy my time. Revenge waits for no man—except the one hunting the culprits responsible for his turmoil. It’s been twelve months since my girlfriend, Dominique, was killed. Despite the delay, I knew one day I would get my revenge. Sooner or later, everyone meets their maker. Today is that day.
Dominique may have been a whore gifted to me by Nikolai, but she was still mine—as is my right for vengeance. Her death was quick, but those responsible will suffer her loss for years to come. You cannot dupe the man who owns you and not expect to pay for your stupidity. Her death will be avenged no matter how high the collateral.
While climbing down the stairs of my private jet, I feel the darkness rolling in. It’s so dense, no amount of light will ever shine through it. You can’t warm the heart of a man born without one.
As I round the trunk of the chauffeur-driven car my mother most likely sent to pick me up, I raise my eyes to the blonde bombshell making her way down the stairs I just descended. The lightweight coat she donned at the start of our trip does little to protect her from the icy conditions, but she’s got her game face on. She knows her place, and she’ll never do or say anything to indicate differently.
She doesn’t even bat an eye when I shift my gaze to one of the many goons paid to protect my father. “What do you think? Want to take her for a test drive?” Wanting to ensure he doesn’t mistakenly think I’m referring to the car, I nudge my head to the blonde. “You’ve got to watch her teeth; they get a little friendly when you ram your cock too far down her throat, but her tits are natural, and her cunt is tight.” I smirk a slick grin that reveals the cocky bastard beneath my black trench coat, designer jeans, and thousand-dollar boots. “Although it might be a little looser than it was fourteen hours ago.”
The driver hesitates for barely a second before nodding like a virgin with his first tit in his mouth. Twelve months ago, his hesitation would have been warranted. If any of my crew so much as looked at Dominique in the wrong manner, they paid for their inanity with a few teeth, but things change. People change. I’ve changed. The whore Nikolai gifted me from the stockpile of many he uses to keep his men happy was purely for entertainment purposes during my flight. There’s no obsession attached to wanting something I can’t have, or the desire to steal another man’s favorite plaything. She was to serve one purpose: me. Now that she’s done that, it’s only right she is passed on to the next man in a long line waiting their turn.
After plucking my keys from the eager driver’s hand, I slide into the driver seat of my Pagani Huarya. As the engine of my pride and joy roars to life, the blonde is guided into one of the SUVs that will flank me on my trip home—if they can keep up.
The spiked chains on my tires do little to slow my speed as I race for the exit of the private airstrip my father owns. I’ve always been an adrenaline junkie. Bungee jumping, cliff-diving, demolition derby, skydiving—if it creates a mass surge of adrenaline, I’ve done it. Nothing can replicate the high of watching a spineless man take his last breath, but if I killed as often as the desire popped up, Russia would be void of a single male over the age of thirty.
When I reach the guarded gates of my family compound forty minutes later, I lower the revs of my car. The electric gates pop open without me needing to roll down my window. It could be because my car is highly recognizable since it’s only one of three in this area, but I doubt that is the case. The sleet coming in sideways means the guards are less than eager to leave the confines of their office, much less endure my wrath for making me wait.
When I’m home, the gates remain open. If my enemies want to contend for my title, I don’t want anything standing in their path. Come at me, bring the wrath, and watch me bury it right alongside them when they pay for their stupi
dity with their lives.
My father isn’t as willing to go to war as me. He has the title, so he has no reason to fear retribution. Going against him is the equivalent of poking a bear. Death will be the nicest thing that comes to you if you awaken the bear. My father is a horrible man. Before I capped his number last year, his death toll was the highest in the soviet region. No one was spared his wrath. Age, gender, or equality didn’t factor in any decision he ever made. He would have killed his own parents to make an example.
Now... now he’s weak. He doesn’t crave bloodshed or the thrill you get from an unexpected victory. He’s happy sitting on his throne, looking down on the men who keep his honor at what it once was.
The tables will turn if his enemies ever discover he is sick. They don’t see the withering old man I do, or the one who let the wind out of his sails long before emphysema did. They see a monarch, a man so strong not even a debilitating illness can take him down. They see a man I will forever fear more than I’ll ever love.
As I clamber out of my car, I dig my ringing cell phone out of my pocket. I smirk when I notice who is calling me. It’s late afternoon in Moscow, so it is early morning in Vegas. I guess time means nothing to a father of brand-new twins.
After sliding my finger over the screen of my phone, I raise it to my ear. “Still chasing the sun?”
Nikolai’s laugh while ribbing me about a supposed limp-dick and receding hairline musters up more than a smile from me. It also stirs a person whose cooing sounds much too young to be up this early. It’s the murmur of an unsettled baby.
“Still opposed to getting a nanny?”
I hear ruffling, like Nikolai is shifting one twin to one side of his chest before accepting the other. I swear since the day they’ve been born, they’ve slept nowhere else except their daddy’s chest. Once he’s happy he has them settled, he returns his focus to me. “I was raised by nannies. Enough said.”
My lips purse. “True.” After giving him a second to settle his laughter, I ask, “So what’s with the late night call? Miss me already?”
His laughter gets a second wind. “Not exactly. Those contacts Kostya mentioned last week came through. He, uh, passed on some information I thought might be of interest to you.”
The mirth in his tone shocks me, as does his hesitation. Nikolai doesn’t hesitate, and with the exception of his one and only joke about my alleged failing manhood, he rarely finds anything funny. If you take away the gleam his eyes get any time he talks about his wife, you’d swear he was without a personality.
I’m about to ask him what the fuck has him acting so weird when he discloses, “I thought the only time I’d be standing at your side this year was when you’re claiming the life of the man responsible for Dominique’s death.”
The crackling of laughter in his voice subsides before he mentions Dominique. It’s been a year since she was killed, but he’s well aware neither vengeance or grief wane with time. If anything, they propagate.
“Trey guaranteed Anya would keep you occupied on your flight home, but we don’t marry whores, Asher. We fuck them, fill them with our seed, then go home—alone.”
Nikolai’s claims that Justine can speak multiple languages ring true when she scolds him for his filthy tongue. There’s no sting in her words, especially when Nikolai tells her the only cunt he’ll ever want belongs to her before adding on, “It’s also the same tongue that will have you screaming my name later today, Ahren.”
“Seriously?! She only popped out your kids a couple of weeks ago. Give the girl a break.”
I sound jealous. Rightfully so. I am. Anya’s pussy sucked my dick as well as her lips, but my cock is still restless. There’s something you can’t get from a willing and able participant. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying I take without permission, but the forbidden... that’s a different story. My dick twitches at the thought of fucking a taken woman. It’s like the ultimate contest. One I strived to win time and time again before Dominique entered my life.
Some say my wish to bed her was only a contest. I’m not so inclined to agree. Yes, she was forbidden. Yes, she belonged to another man, but the thrill of the chase didn’t fade once I won the game. It was as strong and as addictive as the many times I noticed her watching me through hooded lids years before Nikolai gave her to me. Our relationship went further than fucking. I wanted Dominique for reasons no one will ever know, and they are why I refuse to sweep her death under the rug as my father has requested many times the past twelve months.
With that in mind, I redirect my focus to the purpose of Nikolai’s call. He wouldn’t reach out unless it is important. “What did Kostya hear?”
It’s most likely hearsay. Kostya is the equivalent of a Russian bitch. If he isn’t taking shit from one of the men around him, he’s starting it.
There’s not an ounce of humor in Nikolai’s tone when he answers, “That your father has had enough of you sowing your oats, so he’s arranging a wife for you.”
I try to speak, to say something, but I’m stumped. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard rumors like this. My father grew tired of my playboy ways long before I was a man, so it’s not the reason for my choking response; it’s the words Nikolai speaks next: “By the end of the month.”
“The end of the month?! To who?”
I can’t see Nikolai, but I can imagine him shrugging when a second ruffle sounds down the line. “Kostya didn’t go into details, only that he dropped her at the Yury compound thirty minutes ago.”
“He brought her here?” I look at the compound that is as cold as the anger draining my veins of empathy. “To Yurys?”
An agreeing murmur vibrates through Nikolai’s lips. “He said she was wearing a bar pendant necklace. He didn’t know if they’re her initials or her name, but it had ARI engraved on it.”
My heart does an elongated beat. “Ari? There’s only one Ari I know of—she died years ago.” I stop talking as excitement brews in my gut. “Unless he meant Zariah, daughter of Stepanov Volkov? She was occasionally referred to as Ari when we were kids. Could it be her?”
I don’t know why I’m asking questions—Nikolai is in the dark as much as me—but if my intuition is right, and the woman my father wants me to wed is Zariah Volkov, my night went from dull to interesting in under ten seconds.
I’ve known Zariah since I was a child. For years, she was the shy little mouse no one paid any attention to. Shortly before our families switched from friends to enemies, she vanished. No one has seen or heard from her in over a decade. At one stage, I tried to palm off her dark oval eyes and picture-perfect face as figments of my imagination. I did have long stints of drug use in my adolescence, so I brushed off any knowledge of her as a fantasy I conjured up during drug-fueled benders.
I would have stuck with that notion if her name hadn’t popped up during initial inquiries into Dominique’s death. Not only is Zariah’s name on my hit list of suspects responsible for Dominique’s demise, it’s at the very top.
And here I was thinking I’d have to lure her out of hiding to kill her. I had no idea she’d bring the fun to me.
Chapter Three
Zariah
Fear guides my steps when I’m shoved into a dark and isolated room. It’s as black as the sludge sitting in the bottom of my heart, and as cold as the sendoff I was given when collected by a stranger to face my fate alone. My middle-aged driver is the only person who has spoken to me the last two hours. The people around me understand Russian; they speak it as well as I do English—they just refuse to talk to me.
I don’t know if it is their fear informing their ignorance or mine. I swear my legs have never shaken as they are now. I’d feel stronger if I had my belongings. I’ve been stripped bare, my clothes removed from my body as quickly as my luggage was torn from my grasp. The windowless space they shoved me in is insulated from the bitterly cold weather outside, but my skin not hidden by my bra and panties still has goosebumps on it.
Even if I were cover
ed head to toe in a thick fur coat, I’d still be cold, because it’s not the weather instigating my body’s responses, it is fear. I can’t see two feet in front of me, but I’m confident I am being watched. There’s a spicy yet sensual aftershave lingering in the air. It’s potent but almost undetectable since it’s shrouded by testosterone.
“M-Mr. Yury, are you in here?”
I hear someone suck in a deep breath— or are they stifling a chuckle? —when I brace my hands in front of my body to guide myself around the room. I’m seeking a light switch, although I’m not convinced I’ll turn it on once I find it. I’ve never been in these dark, moldy rooms all families in my industry have, but I know what they’re used for. No amount of bleach can hide the smell of death, and it’s the most pungent I’ve ever smelled in this room.
“Oleg? ... Asher?”
You’d think I’d be more fearful of facing the kingpin of the Russian bratva than his son, but I’m not. I really hope it is Asher’s father delivering my punishment because he is known for quick, painless deaths. Asher... if the long stares he gave me when we were kids are anything to go by, he’ll prolong my torture for as long as possible. He’s always been a little barbaric.
I jackknife to my left when a shadow competes with the darkness closing in on me. I can feel my nerves getting the better of me, wanting to leap away from the plan of attack I talked myself into on the way here. I can’t let them win. If I don’t do this, Vaughn will take my place.
I refuse to let that happen. He is my little brother, and I pledged to protect him long before I realized my protection would come without the vast militia we had prior to my father’s downfall.
A grunt parts my lips when I crash into a large rectangular object. Although I’m in a space originally designed to be a bedroom, I’m reasonably sure the cool steel my hands are running over isn’t a set of drawers. More like a table used to house painful instruments.