by Nicole Fox
Perhaps I would have, too, if my father, sensing my weakness for Natasha, hadn’t acted on my behalf. And when the scam was up, then she left. Disappeared into the night.
Until now.
Well, fuck that. Fuck Natasha. And the more that I think about it, something else comes to mind, too: Fuck this child. If she is even mine, if she even exists.
I’ve changed my mind; I want nothing to do with another one of that psycho bitch’s games.
I will tell Yelisey to find the girl and get rid of her. I don’t care how—pay social services, bribe a foster family, put her with one of our people—
My phone buzzes.
I accept the call and snap “What the fuck do you want?” without looking at the caller’s ID.
“Well, hello to you, too. Sorry for interrupting.” I swear I can hear Charlotte’s blush. I can close my eyes and picture it, too. She’s so fucking innocent that she still blushes. And that pale skin of her cheeks shows the red so well. I can only imagine how well the pale skin of her ass would show the red of my handprints.
But now is not the time for thoughts like that, as invasive as they may be. I can feel a black hole of anger and torment opening up in my chest. Fucking Charlotte, as satisfying as it would be to finally devour my secretary, would be like slapping a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound.
“I didn’t ask if you were sorry,” I growl. “I asked what the fuck you want.”
She stammers, “I—I just wanted to see if everything at the gala had gone well. I wanted to see if you, uh, needed anything from the office. Before I go home.”
Then, before I can stop myself, I snap, “I have just been informed that I have a fucking child I never knew existed and a dead ex-wife I would have preferred to kill myself. Does that sound like everything went well, Miss Lowe?”
Silence.
I can feel my heartbeat in my throat. I can hear her breathing, too.
The silence is making me irritated. “I don’t like to be kept waiting.”
“And I don’t like to be cursed at,” she snaps back.
I open my mouth to reply and then let it fall closed. I cannot even recall the last time someone talked back to me like that. I should be mad—considering all that has happened in the last few minutes, I can hardly be blamed for being a bit on edge—and yet, I am struck by the most unexpected sensation: I want to laugh.
“You are bold to say that to me, Charlotte,” I whisper into the phone.
“My apologies, sir,” she says, but there is still a lingering note of defiance in her voice. She is normally a quiet presence in my office, efficient eye candy to get me through the day. But I like this side of her I have not seen before. It brings her out of the background of my life, into the spotlight. I can sense that that makes her uncomfortable.
Good. These games are best played on my terms.
“I may not be in tomorrow,” I say to Charlotte. “Cancel all my meetings.”
“Yes, sir,” she rasps quietly. I start to hang up, but before I can, I hear, “And, sir?”
“Yes?”
“Since I’m already being bold … if what you said is true and you weren’t just playing some messed-up joke on me, then you should find your child. Kids need their fathers.”
Again, silence. I’m stunned. I look down at my hand again, eyeing the crusted path of the blood winding from my palm, past my knuckle, past my fingertips.
“That is too bold by a wide margin, Charlotte.”
I hang up before she can say another word.
Next to me, Yelisey wants desperately to ask what the hell that was all about. If I had an answer for him, I might indulge the question. As it stands, I am as speechless as him. How many blows can a man take in a single night? A dead ex, a surprise baby, a secretary who suddenly has a mouth useful for something other than wrapping around my cock? I do not like to have my world shaken so much. Especially not all at once.
But Charlotte surprised me, and despite my inclination to be irked, I can still feel the ghost of a smile playing on my lips. To sass me back and then tell me what to do with my own fucking kin is so ballsy as to deserve my respect.
So I won’t kill her. I won’t make her disappear.
In fact, I might even take her advice.
My world has been turned so upside down that it doesn’t even sound as crazy as it normally might.
I change my mind again.
I will find my daughter. I will keep the girl.
Natasha is dead and all of her games died with her. This is my chance to reclaim the life I once thought I had. I will not let pride keep me from seeing that.
“I’ll bring the girl to the house.” Yelisey’s question is disguised as a statement, and I nod. “Shall I hire someone to care for her?” I probably should’ve thought of it, but that he has is another of the reasons why I pay him.
“Yes.”
He goes on for a minute about something or other as he stares down at his phone screen, but I can no longer hear his muttered rambling. In the blackened window separating us from the bodyguard driving our SUV, I catch the reflection of headlights close behind us. I do not like the look of them.
I push the button that lets me communicate with Geoffrey. “Turn left on Sepulveda.” I lower the window. The light’s red, and traffic’s coming, but I shove his shoulder. “Now.” He screeches through the intersection, narrowly avoiding a Mercedes, then speeds through the turn. The car behind follows. “We have a tail. Lose him.”
The command wouldn’t be an easy one to follow for a normal man, but then again, I do not hire normal men. Geoffrey is highly capable behind the wheel of a car. He swerves, weaves, maneuvers through LA traffic, across lanes, through lights and into one alley and out of another.
Still, the car follows at every turn.
“Sir?” Yelisey, who has finally put his phone down, opens a case embedded into the seat and hands me an automatic rifle. It’s been a while since I’ve had to take a shot for more than pleasure, but I am locked and loaded before Yelisey has his own rifle out. Something about this day has been off from the start, and now I know why.
“Get us out of town.”
We’re already on the outskirts, but it appears that our pursuers will not be shaken so easily. The SUV is roaring along at one hundred and thirty miles per hour, yet they stick closely behind.
“There,” I indicate, pointing towards a large, abandoned industrial park. “Pull in. Turn around.”
Geoffrey swings the SUV around and heads for where I’m pointing. He blows through the chain-link fence and spins us so we’re facing the oncoming Escalade that plows through the hole we made in the fence, then comes to a screeching halt. Its occupants throw open the doors and climb out.
I roll out of the car and fire the first shot. It’s answered by three gunmen who use their vehicle for cover. Bullets slice through the air to pierce metal or whizz past as they miss me and my men.
Glass shatters. Air hisses from punctured tires.
Geoffrey is low, Yelisey is high, and I’m crouched off to one side, adrenaline washing away apprehension. No man lives to tell of shooting at Kostya Zinon.
The SUV takes round after round, but the firefight is over almost as soon as it started. It takes only one last shot from my rifle, a shot in the middle of the last man’s thigh, to end this unexpected confrontation. I have the opportunity to put a bullet between his eyes, but I need one alive.
For a moment, anyway.
I hold the rifle down at my side and walk to where he lies prone on the ground, blood pooling beneath him. I kick his gun away and crouch beside him. I want to kill him, to watch the light leave his eyes, but I need him. Goddammit. I need him to give me answers.
“Who the fuck are you?”
Young and dumb, his mouth is drawn into a tight line, but I know his tattoo. I grew up knowing it.
1919, it says in a tight serif font along the base of his throat. It was a significant year, if you happen to be Irish. The year that Ireland si
gned its Declaration of Independence.
That means one thing: the bastards are from the Whelan mob. My Bratva’s bitter rivals. Callous motherfuckers, down to the last of them.
“You want that I shoot him?” Yelisey slips back into broken Russian. It always happens when stress takes hold. Probably the only endearing thing about him.
“No. Lock him up. We might find a use for our little redheaded friend.” I nod to Geoffrey who is rifling through the pockets of the other men, looking for clues or evidence. “Get their IDs. Cut off the hands. We need to send a message.” I look down at the moaning Irishman. “Then burn it all.”
First a party, then a child, now an assassination attempt.
I need a fucking drink.
Charlotte
I am so late.
Mom is probably half through a good ranting and onto a particularly disgusted raving to whatever stranger had the misfortune to choose the table beside hers. But once I sink my teeth into one of Bianchi’s avocado chicken paninis and all that cheesy melted goodness hits my tongue, it’ll be worth all the trouble she’s going to give me.
If only the line would move a little faster.
The smell of herbs and spices makes my mouth water. I’m distracted by the aroma, mid-drool, when someone taps on my shoulder. I almost jump into the ceiling as I let out a surprised little shriek.
“Excuse me, miss. Have you been here before? I’m trying to go vegetarian. I’m debating between the veggie panini and the herb spring salad.”
What I really recommend is not going vegetarian. But instead of shooting down his try at eating healthy, I clear my throat and look up at him.
He’s cute, in a Jim from The Office kind of way. His tie is slightly crooked, and it matches his smile. “Can’t go wrong with a panini,” I mumble. And then, like the dork queen I am, I spin away from him too quickly and bump into the woman in front of me. “Sorry.”
She shoots me a textbook Orange County glare from behind her not-quite-dark-enough sunglasses and huffs around to face the front.
The guy behind me, the one who tapped me on the shoulder, chuckles. “Some people, right?”
I would agree, but I probably wouldn’t have liked being accosted in a line that doesn’t seem to be moving, either. Instead, I give him a smile as my cheeks burn.
One of the women in the line next to ours looks him up and down and licks her lips without even a smidgen of humility. It’s a little over the top—okay, a lot over the top—but I can admit, he’s nice to look at.
And Lord knows I should be looking. I’m thirty-two, single without a prospect of changing it, and tired of going home alone every night. I blame it on my lack of sex appeal. And my social ineptitude. And the fact I can’t stop comparing every man I meet to my boss.
Stop that, I scold myself, in what has become a near-constant ritual that makes my grandmother’s ceaseless clacking of her rosary beads look like a one-time quirk. Fantasizing about Kostya Zinon is, at this point, a low-level mental hum that I’ve forgotten I ever lived without.
It makes sense, for a variety of reasons. After all, Kostya is a six-foot-four-inch sigh of a heartthrob with eyes that strip me naked every single time I walk into his office. I can’t even count how many seconds I’ve spent standing outside his doorway, steeling myself to walk in and not make a fool of myself in his presence.
Not that that ever works. Being near him is like taking a drug that turns the simplest action into the most complex athletic endeavor that anyone has ever attempted. I’ve become an Olympic gold medalist in stacking papers without knocking them over, in carefully delivering cups of coffee without spilling a drop on the pristine furniture.
I’ve been keeping notes of how many days I can go in a row without doing something stupidly clumsy. It was a personal record hot streak—thirteen days and counting—until yesterday, when I knocked over a cup of pens in his office, so awkwardly that I could swear he was about to ask me if I just discovered my elbows. That is a moment I’ve been dying to forget.
But, as hot as Kostya is, he is a bit of an asshole, too. When I tripped while helping him get tuxed up for the gala last night, he caught me and gave me the most sexual look that has ever been given by any man to any woman, ever, full stop. It shook me down to my core. That kind of look should be illegal. It sure as heck goes way beyond “workplace appropriate”—not that a man like him cares about a thing like proper decorum.
Then there was the whole thing that happened later. I’ve been wrestling with the call since the moment Kostya abruptly hung up on me. I may be deferential to a fault sometimes—blame my upbringing—but he went too far when he cursed at me, and before I could stop myself, I gave him a piece of my mind.
And what was all that about a kid? A dead ex-wife? I still remember his exact words: “A dead ex-wife I would have preferred to kill myself.” There was a tone in that that said he wasn’t joking. It sent shivers down my spine at the time, and as I recall the menace in his voice, I feel the same sensation again.
Shady. Very shady.
Still—he may be an asshole with a shady past, present, and future, but that doesn’t change the one enduring fact about our relationship: just thinking of him makes my panties wet.
Not a good thing when dining with my mother.
“Hey, aren’t you that girl from TV?” The guy behind me leans in to speak by my ear. His voice is low and sultry.
Oh boy. Here we go again.
I chuckle anyway because this is California, and we both know there’s a fifty-fifty chance that that line will work. Aspiring actresses want to be recognized and you can’t swing a dead cat around without hitting at least a half dozen girls dying to be the next Angelina Jolie.
Not me, though. I’m a secretary—an “executive assistant,” if you were to look at my job description, although an innocent bystander might confuse that with “indentured servant” if they happened to look at my paycheck. Either way, I am firmly in non-actress territory. “No. I think you must have me mixed up with someone else.”
He puts his hand on my arm, and my Spidey senses start tingling. “I’m sure it’s you. With that guy … the Russian mobster … Zinon. Yeah. That’s it. Kostya Zinon.” He nods and smiles as my skin flushes.
Ugh. Yes, I know the rumors about my boss. I try to ignore them. It’s easy enough—nothing overtly wrong ever takes place in his office. I would know if there was; I’ve been in charge of Kostya’s desk for eleven months now, and I know just about every single thing and person that comes in and out of the offices of Zinon Enterprises. So what if some shady-looking dudes swing by unexpectedly every now and then? Everybody has shady friends. And so what if Kostya doesn’t like being on TV? Plenty of people don’t. I might be the only thirty-something girl in California who doesn’t harbor secret dreams of becoming a star actress, so I can understand the desire to stay out of the public eye.
But Kostya’s reluctance to ham it up for the cameras and the tight operation he runs in his businesses means that lines of questioning like this are few and far between.
All of which leads me to believe that this man is the only type of person who’d be asking questions like that: a reporter. Probably one of those slimy ones from a tabloid rag, the kind who dig through trash cans and dumpsters for their “source close to” their subject.
“I already said you’re mistaken.” My tone is ice cold. This budding friendship is over. I pick up his hand and shove it away.
But he isn’t flustered, not even a little bit. He shifts gears so quickly my head spins, and the nice- guy act disappears like a bad dream. “So, tell me, Miss Charlotte Lowe …” he snarls, voice acid.
Am I supposed to be impressed that he knows my name? If he knew where to find me, the leap isn’t so big to think he would also find out who I am.
“What’s it like to work for someone who can’t go to a simple fundraiser without drawing gunfire? Do you worry for your own safety?” He moves closer to me but raises his voice as if he’s trying
to make a scene.
I ignore him and move up to place my order. As soon as I’m finished, he starts again. “You know he’s the boss of the entire West Coast Russian Bratva, right?”
I don’t answer because nice girls—which I am—don’t say fuck you in public. I just close my eyes and dream of paninis.
“You ever pull a trigger for him? Or are you more ornamental for Zinon?”
Ornamental? “What does that mean?” Goddammit. I didn’t mean to ask that out loud.
“Oh, you know—make his coffee. Count his cash. Spread your legs when he wants something warm and wet to crawl into. The things Russian mobsters keep girls like you around to do.”
Oh, hell to the motherflippin’ no. This isn’t my first rodeo dealing with ugly reporters poking at Kostya’s fortune. Normally, I’m nice enough to firmly rebut them and send them on their way.
But he just went way, way too far.
I don’t give a shit if there’s even the tiniest inkling of truth to the man’s accusations. Kostya may be an asshole, but he’s my asshole to deal with, not this son of a bitch’s. And that bit about spreading my legs is some next-level grossness. Time to put him in his place.
I whirl on him. “Kostya is a businessman. And the police said the shooting after the gala was gang-related and random. Do you want to see the report? I could fax it, or email it, or shove it up your ass, since your head is already up there.”
When I’m finished, and I’ve said the worst I can muster with butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-my-mouth sincerity, I turn away, if only so I can better resist the temptation to take my bag and maim him with it. The last thing I need is a felony charge for assault with a deadly weapon—and make no mistake, Hermès can be deadly if wielded when full of enough female paraphernalia. Also, my mother is waiting across the dining room. The second-to-last thing I need is another lecture from her.
The man laughs cruelly. “You stupid girl. He killed three men while he was wearing a Ralph Lauren tux. Does that strike you as businessman behavior?”
“It was Armani, you dense shithead.” My arguments need work, but the fury racing through my veins is putting a halt to all conscious thought that should be occurring north of my eyebrows. “And Kostya Zinon is no more Russian Mafia than I am.” I give him my best cold glare and continue. “Don’t you think the cops would be a little nosier if they thought he was the Big Bad Bratva Wolf?”
