Bullseye: Russian Mafia Romance (Minutemen Series)

by L. L. Ash

  “Then kill her,” I said for him.

  He squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed at them, shaking his head.

  “Last resort...but if it’s between her and my wife and baby...”

  “I get it.” I nodded. “Does Vishka want to see me?”

  “Uh, yeah. He wants to give you the whole laydown before you go to Saint Petersburg.”

  “Ok.”

  “Appointment isn’t until tomorrow night.” I shrugged. “Want to go get a drink?”

  “I could use a drink,” I said, stuffing the papers into my backpack and slinging it over my shoulder.

  I’d have to look at them in my hotel room and really get to know the target.

  But for now, I just needed a Goddamn drink.

  “Now, you have to tell me just how the fuck you ended up married.” I grinned, a little more sloshed than I'd meant to get.

  Serge had invited me to his room with two fantastic bottles of Vodka where we went to town, one in each of our hands.

  “She was a client. A client! Can you believe that? How fucking cliché.”

  “That’s awful!” I laughed, having little moments of flashbacks from us in high school. “But hey, at least you got out.”

  “Barely. This place… It’s toxic, man. Vishka is like, two shakes and a meltdown from being a complete psychopath. But I couldn’t do it, you know? I couldn’t just let her go, and I couldn’t keep doing what I was doing. She deserved so much better than that.”

  “Well, you got what you wanted, Serge. I’ll make sure they’re safe. Even if I have to take out Vishka myself.”

  He laughed at my words.

  “The guy lives in a fortress, Max. Good fucking luck with that.”

  I grunted.

  Fortress it may be, but I’ve gotten into much worse and taken down much harder targets.

  “What have you been doing, anyway?” he asked, swishing the bottle up and taking another drink.

  He was hitting it harder than I was, and he was totally hammered.

  “I’m self-employed,” I told him, fingering the cold glass of my bottle.

  “Doing what?” He collapsed onto the couch, the hand holding his vodka bottle dangling off the edge.

  “Freelancing.”

  “Fuck it. Don’t tell me, then.” He took another sip. “But you can do this, right? Do I need to make them disappear?”

  As drunk as he was, his words were sober.

  “I won’t let anything happen to them,” I promised him. “You saved my life once, and now I’ll make sure that they are safe.”

  “That happened so long ago.” He shrugged. “You could kick my ass now in a fight. I’m getting all flabby with dad-bod.”

  Taking in the sharp planes of his muscles, I knew he was exaggerating bigtime, but it didn’t matter.

  “Dad-bod and all, you can take care of yourself.” I grinned as he glared at me from his spot.

  “Do you remember that night?” he asked wistfully, taking another sip.

  “Of course I do.” I nodded.

  How could I forget a night like that?

  I was going home from his house one night when we were about fifteen, and some older teens ganged up on me, pulling a knife. I fought as much as I could, but if it hadn’t been for Serge, the single knife wound in my belly would have bled out. Serge had come barging up, just on the first stretch of his ‘career’ and thought he was some cool shit. But he’d heard the tussle and ran barefoot on a cold night and proceeded to beat up the older boys.

  They’d dropped the knife and ran, two of them holding their freshly broken noses.

  I could remember distinctly the moment he knelt on the ground, tearing his shirt off and pressing it into my wound.

  ‘It’s going to be fine,’ he'd told me. ‘I’ll get some help.’’

  Running to a neighbor’s door, his friend Iev’s house, they pulled me in and got me stable while we waited for the ambulance. All the while Iev’s father stared down at me with this look of distaste.

  He was part of the mob. All of them were. I was surrounded by them day and night. But that day... Serge had saved my life, and I owed him whatever he asked for. If saving his family’s lives was on the table, I’d do it. Then maybe, we’d be even.

  A sharp snore woke me out of my thoughts and I grinned.

  Serge had passed out on the couch, the bottle already rolling on the ground.

  I stumbled a little as I got up and retrieved the bottle before placing both his and mine on the table. After that I found my way to the bedroom. Dropping onto his bed, I closed my eyes and thought about the picture of the beautiful girl I was going to have to seduce.

  Well, either seduce, or kill.

  Mila

  Clenching my jaw, I tried not to let my knee bounce as the car pulled up to the mansion owned by Nico Popov and my fiancé, Kir.

  A whole assembly of guards met us in the circular drive, guns tucked over their shoulders and on their belts.

  Tată was the first out of the car, putting out his arms in a greeting to the two men standing on the expansive porch.

  “C’mon soră, time to meet your new husband.”

  “He’s not my husband yet,” I growled at my brother, but followed him out of the car anyway.

  The moment I emerged into the freezing Russian winter, I saw Tată greet who I assumed was Nico, while the younger man on his side zeroed his ice eyes on me.

  He was handsome, but there was nothing but coldness in his eyes, and that scared me.

  “Come, come my little songbird!” Tată called, waving me forward.

  I did as asked, going to my father’s side as both Popov men looked me over.

  “A beauty.” Nico nodded, his face straight and emotionless, but I thought I could detect some satisfaction in his tone.

  “And she sings like an angel,” Tată said. “She’s been with the opera for three years now.”

  “Hm, seems like a waste of time. Not what a woman is for.” Nico frowned at me, then turned to his son. “What do you think?”

  “A beauty,” he replied, same as his father, but the satisfied tone was more lascivious from the son.

  This is the man I’m supposed to marry?

  Was I supposed to...thank them?

  “She speaks Russian?” Nico asked Tată.

  “Mila is very skilled in language,” Tată answered.

  And it was true. I could speak seven different languages, including Italian, English, German, Russian and others. If there was an opera in the language, I learned it so that my performance could be real and true and I could sing from my heart, not just strange words I’d memorized.

  “Good.” Nico nodded, then turned to his son and murmured under his breath at him.

  “Be good,” Tată said to me while the other men were momentarily occupied.

  I nodded like a good girl and agreed when Nico insisted Kir and I had time to ‘get to know’ each other.

  “Priyti,” Kir said as Tată followed Nico into the mansion.

  I walked forward, obeying the order to follow him.

  “You speak my language?” he asked in brutal and beautiful Russian.

  “Da,” I nodded, keeping my eyes down and on the frosty pathway in front of us.

  “You sing?” he asked now, still in his home language.

  “I do.”

  Pausing, he looked at me, eyes flicking from my patent black pumps to my fur hooded parka.

  “You don’t talk much?” He tilted his head a little.

  “Not much,” I agreed.

  “Mmm, good.” He nodded with a tilt of his chin before moving forward again.

  What was I supposed to say to that?

  This man left me speechless, but not in a good way.

  “The wedding is in three weeks,” he said simply, waving his hand at the first bench we came to, overlooking an expanse of trees and bushes that were all covered in snow.

  “I know,” I breathed, trying to tamp down my panic.

  �
��You’ll be a good wife. Obey?” He lifted an eyebrow. “I don’t allow rebellion or talk back.”

  “I’ll...I’ll do my best,” I told him.

  “Good. One punishment and I’m sure you’ll be the consummate wife.”

  I bit back my retort.

  Punishment? What kind of punishment?

  “Will you let me keep singing?” I asked him, speaking up for the first time.

  He looked down at me, still standing even though he’d told me to sit on the freezing cold bench.

  “It depends.” He flicked his eyes over me again, slower this time, and assessing, “on how you behave. My father thinks it’s a waste of time.”

  “But don’t you like a happy wife?” I tried.

  He grunted and chuckled.

  “I do, actually. I won’t take pleasure in hurting you, and I only will if you make me. Obey, be good, know your place, and we’ll be fine. You will have a good life here.”

  “It’s all I care about,” I said, wondering if that was going to come around to bite me for telling him my one weakness.

  “If you can work it around raising our children, and you do as I ask. Then fine. Don’t bring it up again.”

  His tone was biting and I wasn’t about to anger him over it. Not when we’d just met.

  “How many children do you want?” I asked quietly, hoping to get a feel for what he expected of me.

  “As many as I want,” he clipped. “I thought you didn’t talk much?”

  Swallowing hard, I held back any other words or questions.

  He eyed me for a moment, then went back to staring at the huge garden, just a small part of the expansive land surrounding us that the Popov family owned.

  It was awkward silence between us until he eventually motioned for me to stand again and we walked back to the house.

  Well, that was an...interesting and somewhat productive introduction.

  “Songbird!” Tată smiled at me as I followed Kir into the office where our fathers were sitting and having a drink and a smoke.

  “Tată,” I said to him, putting on a smile as I always did.

  He tried so hard to be a good father, but there was only so much he could do in the dangerous business he ran. But he loved me. I knew he did, even if he was intending to sell me off to the Russian Brotherhood.

  ‘It’s a good opportunity,’ he’d told me a week ago. ‘You’ll be safe and cared for there, as long as you’re my good girl. You’ll be my good girl, won’t you?’

  Of course I knew how to be a ‘good girl’. I’d been trained for exactly this since I was a young girl.

  Boys were good for the family business, and girls were good for securing business connections and having babies. Neither of which I was interested in.

  Not that it mattered. My opinion was taken away from me the moment I was born without a cock dangling between my legs.

  “She’s chatty,” Kir said with a frown as he took a chair beside his father just to the right of Nico’s desk.

  Tată laughed and nodded.

  “Yes, but she is a good girl. All women are chatty, Kir. You’d best get used to it.”

  Nico rolled his eyes and nodded, though he looked me over again.

  Why were they assessing me like a prize animal?

  “Yes. But you can train her out of it,” Nico said to his son, though it was loud enough for me and Tată to hear.

  Tată looked at me, a little tinge of regret in his eyes.

  Maybe, finally, he was understanding just how bad this would be for me. Maybe I should have been more worried than I realized, if Tată regretted the decision to sell me off to these men.

  “Songbird, why don’t you find Danny? I had him bring your things in.”

  “I thought—”

  Tată put up a hand to stop my speech and I froze.

  We were staying in the mobster’s house? We were supposed to stay in the city.

  “Go,” he said, his happy face turning serious and deadly.

  It was his business face, and I knew my protests were pointless. He was no longer Tată and was now the drug lord Ilei Vasile.

  Nodding, I left the men to their talk and went to find Danny.

  Chapter Three

  Maxim

  “Ready?” Serge asked me as we approached the New York arm of the Bratva. Vishka’s domain.

  “Of course.” I winked at him, not letting the pain of my hangover show.

  He didn’t either, to give him some credit. Being out of the business hadn’t in any way made him soft. He was still slick like a viper and knew how to be sweet and deadly in their own time.

  Men let us into the compound, walked us to the front door and led us down hallways until we were in an office with Vishka.

  It’d been many years since I’d seen him. While Serge and I were in the same class, he was a couple of grades ahead, though we shared the same high school for a short time.

  “So?” Vishka looked irritated to even see us in front of him.

  And while he was a big guy in his circle, he didn’t know who he was talking to. I was more than his equal. I’d hid from the entire United States military and special forces, I’d taken down politicians all over the world and ended feuds with stronger, more powerful men than him.

  My being there was truly lucky for him, because with me, the job will be done. One way or the other.

  He hissed from the side of his mouth as he looked me up and down.

  I knew I didn’t look like much, but it didn’t matter. I was strong enough to get any job done, and my intelligence far made up for not having thighs like tree trunks. A lean, active body beat out gym muscles in my occupation, handsdown. Unusable bulk could get you killed if you had to scale a building to get away clean.

  “Can you do it?” Vishka asked impatiently.

  “Of course I can.” I lifted a brow, blinking at him like he was a moron.

  He wasn’t, but he had a stick up his ass and he overestimated how important he was.

  “This is what you think will seduce a girl away from the Brotherhood?”

  Vishka turned on Serge like he was crazy.

  “Max is the smartest, most capable man I’ve ever met. And that should say something.”

  “Doesn’t mean anything to me. Who the fuck are you, anyway? A prostitute?”

  I choked on a laugh.

  He didn’t know who I was? No wonder he looked at me like I was some balding stray dog he found going through his trash.

  “Ghost,” was all I said before his eyes narrowed.

  “Ghost? What kind of name is that.”

  “All you need to know is that I will get the job done, and you don’t put a single mobster finger on Serge or his family. Is that understood?”

  Vishka’s eyes narrowed further, lip twitching in anger as he shot a glance to the men at our sides.

  Three men came at me simultaneously, and it didn’t take much effort to take them all down, throwing an elbow in the gut of one and yanking his rifle out of his hands before slamming him in the back of the head with the same elbow.

  Another got the butt of the gun to their face before dropping, groaning and gushing blood before my steel toed boot smashed their head and made them pass out. The third, well, I just shoved the end of the rifle under his chin and turned to Vishka.

  “Sic ‘em? Really? No respect.”

  “I don’t know who you think you are, but these people that we’re going up against are...”

  “I know who they are,” I interrupted him. “Ilei Vasile, head drug lord in Eastern Europe is marrying his unfortunate daughter to Kir, son of Nico Popov, head of the Russia arm of the Brotherhood. Someone you should be loyal to, shouldn’t you?”

  He blinked back at me.

  “Their marriage is in three weeks on February 10th. You need me in there to extract the girl, Mila, from the Kempinski Hotel in Saint Petersburg before then so that her father doesn’t sign into contract with the Popovs. They do that and you’re royally fucked. Nico will
eventually figure out you’ve been plotting against him, and you’re dead. Your family is dead, and everyone you’ve ever even looked at, is dead. Is that a good enough picture for you?”

  Vishka almost looked shocked.

  “How do you know where she is? Serge, what did you tell him?”

  Serge just burst out laughing, then covered his mouth with his hand.

  “He’s just...good,” was all he said to the mob boss. “This is what Max is good at.”

  It’s true.

  I’d woken up shortly before our meeting and done enough digging to find the address where her family was staying while in Russia.

  “Fine. You know the consequences if you fail, then.”

  Vishka’s words were harsh, but quiet.

  “I won’t,” I told him simply. “I have three weeks. You’ll hear back from me before then.”

  “Fine. Misha, give him what he needs.”

  “I already have your number,” I told him, which just pissed Vishka off. “You’ll be hearing from me.”

  Just like that, I left the man in his comfy chair and heard him growling at Serge.

  “Who the fuck is that? Ghost? What a stupid name?”

  “Maxim Kovac,” Serge told him, voice even, but he still knew his place in the company of The Boss.

  Unlike me, Serge was just a prostitute who knew how to take care of himself on the street. He was smart, yes. He was a good businessman, but he wasn’t a match for Vishka and his men. Not like me.

  “Everyone knows him by ghost because that’s what he is. Ask around. People will have heard of him.”

  Vishka didn’t say anything else, but Serge emerged from the office, evidently excused by the mob boss.

  “I’ve got a flight booked for tonight,” Serge told me as we went out the doors into the blizzardy weather. “And I’ve got us a reservation at The Redhead, so I hope you’re hungry.”

  “Always,” I huffed with a smile on my face.

  I missed my friend, and I never even realized. Just having someone to talk to after so long of going undercover was...awesome.

  “C’mon. Be Max for another couple hours,” Serge said, waving me toward the street where we caught a cab.