Initially, I was eager to become involved in all the nefarious activities associated with the Bratva; enforcing, breaking legs, guarding shipments of drugs or weapons—I wanted to be a part of all of it. I didn't really care that it was all illegal. There were always women around, women who thought being with a Russian mobster was hot. But they were all there of their own free will.
About a month into the summer, I walked into the basement of the building we own as a front for our illegal operation and I saw a girl sitting in the hallway. She looked very different from the girls that usually hung out there. Those women were usually put together, trying to get themselves a guy who brought not only the thrill of danger, but also the thrill of expendable cash. This girl looked strung out, broken and young.
She looked so young. Too young. Like she belonged in junior high, not a dirty hallway with makeup smeared on her petite features, her eyes glassy and vacant, wearing a cheap, baggy dress. At first, age aside, I thought she was just on drugs, and she probably was, but that wasn't the problem.
After I asked her a few questions, I realized she didn't even speak English. She was Russian. After more questions, she gave me a few mumbled responses with tears rolling silently down her pale cheeks. She’d been abducted from a town near St. Petersburg. I didn’t have to ask what happened after she was taken. It was obvious what happened, and it hit me like a two by four to the chest. I knew we were into illegal shit—it was the mob, it came with territory. But this was fucked up, next level shit. I felt helpless as I looked at her, how damaged she was. I asked about other girls. She didn’t speak, just slowly and sadly nodded her head.
I got her out—I couldn’t just leave here there. I used my own money and connections to get her an ID and managed to get her back to St. Petersburg. However, I never found out where they kept the other girls. My father had always been a rotten motherfucker, but this was a new level of depravity. Human trafficking. Every time I thought back to that girl's traumatized, empty expression, I wanted to punch my fist through a brick wall.
At the time, I felt helpless to do anything more extensive about the situation, so I pulled myself back from the syndicate, told my father I wanted to enjoy my youth and finish high school. In the back of my mind, though, I had always planned on stopping my father, but I needed to distance myself from the Russian girl's disappearance.
Obviously, I didn't distance myself enough. And Drago had covered for me.
"You know about the trafficking, too?" I stared intently at him to take in his reaction. Other than clenching his jaw in a way that made his vicious scar turn white, he didn't give much away.
"Of course, I know," he gritted out. "He mentioned it to me months ago, and I told him it was terrible idea. I told him people are too unpredictable. Drugs, weapons, information; those can all be handled with a certain degree of control.” Drago's tense explanation indicated he was against it for logistical reasons, but his revolted expression conveyed his opinion of human trafficking.
“What’s going on, Drago? Why are you bringing this up now?”
Drago shot me a thoughtful look, as though still considering my trustworthiness, then sighed. "Your father has made a move that is so irresponsible, I'm going to be untangling us from it for months,” Drago said, frustration and disbelief evident in his tone. He paused and gave me an intense stare. “I think you understand what it means that I’m sharing this with you?”
I nodded my head soberly. It meant Drago was planning to take my dad out. “What has that fucking psychopath done this time?" I asked in resignation. It’s not like I had to hide my disgust from Drago anymore.
"He thinks he is untouchable. Dmitri owes him from when they were in Ukraine, so he feels like he can do whatever he wants,” Drago bit out, taking periodic scans of the area to make sure he hadn’t been followed. Dmitri was the boss in Moscow. I had a feeling his charity toward my father was only going to extend so far, but my father had gotten away with a lot of shit under Dmitri’s watch.
"Your father started this trafficking shit against the suggestion of the New York syndicate. And Dmitri and the Moscow syndicate.” My brows shot up at that. My father had done things without permission, requiring him to make restitution to Moscow, but he’d never ignored a direct order. “He thought if he could use it to dominate the other crime organizations in Chicago, he could take over all their business. He thinks he can use this to explain to Dmitri why he disregarded a direct order.” Drago stopped talking, and his jaw tightened noticeably. His scar bleaching white under the pressure. "So, he abducted Emilia Rossi to be trafficked."
My jaw dropped. "Are you fucking kidding me? Why?"
Emilia Rossi was the daughter of Antonio Rossi. He was head of the Italian mob, and his organization stretched across the entire Midwest. Taking the Rossi girl was basically the same as declaring war. My father had to have known this.
"Look, Nikolai, your father has been using cocaine for decades." This was not news to me. “He wasn’t completely rational in the first place, but now I think it's starting to eat away at his frontal lobe. His decisions are becoming increasingly impulsive, ego-driven, and illogical. He is using low level soldiers to follow through with his orders because he knows his lieutenants disagree or disapprove of his decisions—this Rossi thing being the latest. He’s drunk with the perception of his own power,” Drago continued, openly displaying his contempt for my father. I didn’t think Drago had ever really liked my father. “I’m not the only one who’s starting to become uncomfortable with the direction he is pursuing." Drago looked at me meaningfully but neglected to mention who he was talking about. I was sure he thought I would prefer not to know at the present time, and he was right.
“Your father pulled this move with the Rossi girl last night, so I have to get control of things rapidly. I don’t think I need to spell out to you that you and Katya are going to be at risk until we can contain the situation and return the girl.” Katya’s father, Sergei, was my father’s right-hand man.
I frowned, and Drago answered the question before I asked it. “Sergei is with your father on all of this, so he’ll have to go, too.” I nodded at Drago’s casual mention of Sergei’s death. Katya’s dad was a dick—almost as bad as mine.
I frowned at Drago. “Why are you giving up so much information?” I asked in a tone that fell somewhere between curiosity and suspicion. “You could have told me about the threat of the Italians without mentioning your opinions about my dad.”
"Because, Nikolai, I have plans for your father, and I'm going to need men I can trust.” Drago shot me a cold smile. “I never really cared for your father, but I’m loyal. I believe in hierarchy, so I waited. Waited for him to fuck up, which I knew he would.” Drago shook his head, as if still unable to comprehend the extent to which my dad had fucked up.
He gestured his chin in my direction. “You. I always saw potential in you. You think you've been playing it cool with him, telling him you want to finish school before you join us, but I see your face when you look at him. You're disgusted by him. You and I, we think alike.”
Now, this was irony. Drago was fucking ruthless. He was a former Russian soldier, trained to deliver pain on the human body in unspeakable ways. I'd seen him threaten, torture, and murder more than one man. The fact that Drago was disgusted by my father’s behavior was saying something. It was strange to think of ethics in relation to the Bratva, but my father’s actions had moved past morally reprehensible, into dangerously unstable and bad for the organization. While a bad character may be tolerated, breaking ranks and acting recklessly would not be.
Drago looked at his watch and pinned me down with his icy stare. “I need you to keep your eyes and ears open, Nikolai. I think your father knows I don’t approve of what’s going on with the Rossi girl, that’s why he didn’t tell me or the other men. He’s going to be paranoid, so I need you to keep your eye on him and tell us anything you might pick up.” Drago rubbed his hand down his face, the lines around his eyes appea
ring more prominent, even though he wasn’t even thirty years old. “I know you’re technically still a kid, Kolya, but the organization needs you. Pay attention to what your father is up to, and for fuck’s sake, watch your back.”
With his words of warning still hanging in the air, he turned and walked back to his black Mercedes parked a few rows away.
I leaned against my car and absorbed this unexpected turn of events. If nothing else, this fucking mess definitely took my mind off of Hannah.
Chapter 17
Hannah
I stared at my reflection in the mirror and could barely believe my eyes. I’d never looked this good in my life. I was wearing the first outfit I tried on for Nikolai, the embroidered top and skinny black jeans. I think I chose it based on the stare he’d given me when he first saw me in it. It was a pretty outfit, regardless. My hair was long and loose, and I had kept the same makeup, and added a tinted lip balm that Katya had suggested would complement my skin tone. It left my lips a dark rose color that made my violet-colored eyes pop.
I looked around my small room and tried to figure out where I was going to fit all my new clothes. My room was seriously tiny. It was probably about eight feet by ten feet and had one lone window. My twin bed sat to the right of the window beside a small, battered nightstand that still had some old stickers on it from my childhood. I looked at the peeling and torn remnants of unicorns and My Little Ponies and cringed at how shabby it looked, of what Nikolai would think if he saw it. I guess it wasn’t likely that Nikolai would ever be in here, so who cared how my nightstand looked? I had a dresser on the left wall and a very small closet to the right of it. I was going to have to get creative with my storage. I had a very bad habit of not ever throwing anything out, but I might have to break my tendency towards hoarding in order to properly store everything.
My mom walked into my room, frowning slightly. “Honey, there’s a car in the driveway. Is your date going to come to the door?” She said this mildly, but there was definitely a tone of censure for anyone who would come pick up her daughter for a date and not come to the door to get her. I glanced at my mom and realized how much we looked alike. I had her dark hair and light skin, but her eyes were brown. My sister, Emmy, also shared the same similarity in hair and skin tone but had hazel eyes that were blue with yellow towards the center. I was the only one to get my dad’s eye color. That was about all I ever got from him. He left right after my sister was born, when I was two. I didn’t know where my sister’s eye color came from, now that I thought of it.
“It’s okay, Mom,” I said as I jammed the lip balm in my pocket and ran a brush through my hair one last time.
She looked doubtful but didn’t say anything more. Before she could start a whole lecture on boys, which I had avoided until now because there’d been no need for it, I gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and ran out the door.
Chapter 18
Nikolai
As I sat in the car waiting for Hannah to come out, the conversation with Drago still weighed heavily on my mind. I was so fixated on the shit with the organization, I’d forgotten until now that I had left Hannah half-naked in a women’s dressing room after making out with her.
I stared at her shitty, ranch-style house, trying to figure out how to handle her. I had to act like I was dating her tonight. How was I going to keep my distance, but still act like I was into her? Although, if I was honest with myself, I would probably have no problem acting like I was into Hannah. I was having a hard time of getting the image of her naked tits out of my head, and the taste of her skin still lingered on my tongue. It was the distance part I was struggling with.
Suddenly the screen door to the house opened and Hannah sprinted out, waving to whoever was in there, as she jumped in the passenger seat of my car. She’s wearing that embroidered top with the wide neckline that falls off one shoulder. I could see it moving around as she ran, and I remembered kissing the soft skin over her collarbone, kissing the few freckles she had on her right shoulder.
God, what was happening to me? Since when did I lose my mind over a fucking shoulder?
I shook my head in disgust. I had to take control of the situation right away. I had to tell her immediately that although I might have to touch or kiss her tonight, it didn’t mean a fucking thing and it was not leading anywhere.
“Hey,” I finally said once she closed the door. God, she smelled amazing, like one of those fancy lotions you get in the mall. Did she smell like this before?
“Hi,” she said softly, smiling cautiously. God, one word and now my dick was hard.
“Hey,” I repeated, my voice cool, clipped.
Hannah frowned slightly, and made a move toward the radio, probably to distract herself from my cold attitude. I was trying to discourage communication between us as much as possible. I wanted to put on this ridiculous display, get the night over with, and get my life back to the way it had been as soon as possible.
Hannah, obviously sensing the tension, took a deep breath. “Nikolai, I think—”
“Look, Hannah,” I cut in before she started talking about shit I didn’t want to talk about. “Let’s get things clear between us. We’re going to go to this party tonight, act like we’re interested in each other, let Connors know you’re off limits, and then finish this up as fast as possible.”
“Right, I know,” Hannah replied, indicating she understood, but her expression appeared deflated. I knew fucking around with her in that dressing room had probably put thoughts in her head. Thoughts I needed to squash.
“So, any ideas you may have gotten based on what happened earlier…forget them. When I said that I don’t date, that wasn’t a lie. I don’t date. Anyone.”
I shot Hannah another look, but she was rubbing her hands on the top of her thighs and looking out the window. I realized I was probably hurting her feelings, but I knew it would be a lot easier doing this now, before she’d developed any expectations. However, I had these annoying feelings about her, feelings I had no intention of exploring or really acting on. These same feelings made me feel fucked up that she was sitting over there feeling rejected.
“Hannah, it has nothing to do with you,” I started, trying to salvage her self-esteem a bit.
Hannah’s head whipped around, and a surprised laugh escaped her. “I know that, Nikolai. You may not have noticed me before today, but I definitely knew who you were, and your reputation.”
I frowned. “What’s my reputation?”
Hannah outright laughed at that question. “Are you serious?”
“Yes. Tell me what you, and everyone else, thinks they know.” I knew I was popular in school, but I had always hated being the subject of gossip. I was certain half of it was made up anyway.
Hannah wiggled in her seat as if warming to the new direction the conversation had taken. Although I wasn’t thrilled to hear whatever load of bullshit was being said about me in school, her knowing smirk was definitely better than her sulking pout. For the most part.
“Okay, well, everyone already knows you don’t date, so that’s hardly a revelation. There are tons stories about girls who thought because you slept with them that you’d start dating. Especially the girls you slept with more than once.” Hannah shot me a pointed look, as though implying it was my fault these girls were picking out china patterns because I had fucked them more than once. I rolled my eyes at her insinuation.
“Tons? I doubt I’ve fucked tons of girls.” I supposed the term was subjective.
“Okay, so how many have you slept with, and I’ll decide if that’s tons?”
“I’m not fucking answering that. That’s how these rumors get started in the first place. I guarantee I haven’t fucked as many as you think, though.” That was probably true because I had slept with a lot of women through the organization, so I hadn’t messed with that many at school. Now, Jack on the other hand…
“Well, I guess we’ll never know, if you won’t tell me,” Hannah responded primly. Then she shot me an
other calculating look. “I do know the names of some of your conquests, though.”
Shit, I was losing control of this conversation fast. I needed to change the topic.
“Aside from sexual history,” I shot her a pointed look, basically demanding she drop it, “what else have you heard? Don’t feel the need to mention the mob thing, because we already covered that earlier in the week.”
Hannah looked thoughtful for a second, then started holding up her fingers, ticking off each topic with her finger. “Okay, we covered sex, mob…the last, I guess, would be fighting.”
I nodded silently, not sure what she’d heard about that.
“Why do you fight so much?” Hannah looked genuinely curious, rather than judgmental, as I imagined she would be about his subject.
I sighed. “Because I like it.”
Hannah digested this, and after about a minute responded. “Why?”
If she’d been more antagonistic about this topic, like many girls had been before her, I would have blown her off. But she seemed very sincere in trying to understand why I liked fighting. It was irritating and endearing at the same time. Like Hannah herself.
“Fighting serves a couple of purposes for me. I love the adrenaline before a fight—it’s like being high.”
“I’ve never been high.”
No surprise there.
I shot her a droll smile. “I can’t say that shocks me, Hannah.”
She squawked in mock outrage and reached out and socked me in the arm playfully. I couldn’t help but smile at her silly behavior.
“Anyway, aside from the rush, it’s also a way to channel my emotions, mostly my anger. Even if I get my ass kicked, which does happen from time to time, I feel better after. It’s a major release in a way.” I was shocked I was sharing this much information with her. “Similar to sex, actually,” I added, just to see her reaction.
“Hopefully not too similar,” Hannah said in exaggerated horror.
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