Konstantin says, “Somebody’s going to have to take over at Vovo’s, though. What would you do if it were yours?”
I ask him, “Honestly?” He nods. “Okay.” I know I should be cautious but what the hell. I’ll tell him the truth as I see it. “I would lose most of the second-rate trade that he gets. Two-bit up and comers, street fighters and retail drug dealers. They’re all high-maintenance and low return. Hire in a star chef and take the whole thing up market.”
“And away from competing with you?”
I frown, “Those enforcers and retail dealers don’t come to me. No, I mean what I said, Konstantin. If I were someone else, opening a club a block and a half from Vassily’s, I wouldn’t be counting on a big bite of the cocktails and dance-floor trade. Trying to compete with the atmosphere, as you say, the location, it would be like throwing money away.”
He took a sip of his cognac. “And the girls?”
“My girls are the best, Konstantin.” I give him a smile but I’m still wondering where this is headed. “The girls in Vassily’s are the loveliest girls in the world. And they’re the friendliest in the world, too.” He nods. I’m still not sure what we’re doing at this point. So, I go on, “But, there’s no way you can have too many girls in the world. Right?”
He smiles. And still he doesn’t say anything. I tell him, “There’s plenty of business for Marco’s salon and for Vassily’s. Whatever goes on in that joint of Vovo’s, there’s enough space for girls to work there too.” Now I feel like I’m filling in the gap in the conversation so I stop. Konstantin is too good at this. He’s a real master. I’m determined to hold back and to let him show himself.
He takes a moment. “Would you like to supervise a relaunch? For me. As a consultant. Something like that.”
Damn. The correct and truthful answer would be, No, Konstantin, I rather chew my own arm off than do that. And I would most especially not like to do it for you, Konstantin. Even ‘As a consultant. Something like that.’
But ‘no’ is not a word to use lightly with a man like Konstantin. Not lightly and probably not at all. And ‘Can I think about it,’ would not get a very warm welcome, either.
There’s only one right answer to ever give to Konstantin. Never mind that I can’t see how he’s going to have control of Vovo’s club. Forget about what it might or might not mean to Vovo’s mystery backer. Was Konstantin the backer all along? We considered it before. I didn’t believe it then and I still don’t believe it now.
But I can’t get away from the fact that ‘Supervise a relaunch for me,’ could equally mean ‘act as a human shield’ more than as a consultant. He could be putting me into the firing line. There is still only the one right answer that I can see, though.
“Of course, Konstantin. It would be a privilege.”
As I say it, I wonder if that was really the point. Not the business about Vovo’s, but simply for him to demonstrate the power that he has right now. That if he asked me to accept a potentially suicidal mission like that, I wouldn’t have too much choice about whether I agreed.
If he hadn’t asked me that, I would never, ever have thought of moving against Konstantin. Now I feel like I have to have a plan. Because I see now that I might need it.
eeing the man Marco wants to sell me to, seeing him and knowing, stirs up a mass of feeling inside me. All of it very disturbing and all of it very unwelcome. When I first get a sight of him, I forget for an instant about the key in my hand. Forget and when his eye flashes into mine, I grip it too hard. I feel the pop as the skin breaks.
That’s a bad thing. It’s not supposed to happen like that. A very bad thing.
I try to forget about him. All the guests head toward their cars or limousines. Marco drives me out to the reception. It seems like a very long way out of the city. All the way on the drive to the country club Marco talks about him and nothing else.
His club is a palace of light in the sky. It’s the best place in Manhattan. All the girls adore working there. This Vassily is a king and a father to them. I start to wonder if Marco isn’t a little bit in love with the man himself.
As soon as we get to the country club and the reception, we step into the noisy clink and burble of the party. Marco finally lets me loose and almost immediately Irina bounds up to find me. She’s a lovely girl and I love her and instinctively I trust her, but I’ve known her less than four weeks and she acts like I’m her best friend.
At first I wondered if she didn’t have any friends, but she does. She has many. So, then I thought, well, perhaps she’s like this with everyone. Intimate and super-close all the time. But, no. She doesn’t really even seem to be that way with Karina, her maid of honor.
We met when Marco took me to Konstantin’s house. I don’t know whether he had it in mind to sell me to Konstantin, but I waited in his big lounge while the two men went somewhere else to talk. Irina was a perfect hostess, and she quickly became confidential and quite intimate.
She told me about all of her friends, and she said that they were all in ‘the life.’ It took me a while to figure out that she meant they were all involved in the businesses of the families.
“I love your style,” she told me, complimenting me for a pearl gray dress that Marco had bought for me. Then she asked if I would come with her to a fitting for her wedding dress. I had to ask Marco, of course, but he seemed thrilled.
Still in her wedding dress now, Irina is beautiful. She glows and she’s beaming. Underneath it she’s anxious, though, I can tell. Her nods and are a little bit quick and at the same time, it’s like she’s holding back. When she grasps my arm, it’s like she’s holding on, like she might drown. I don’t see Bruno and I wonder if that’s why Irina is on edge. Or maybe just because it’s her wedding day.
I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to get through this reception. Almost everywhere that Marco has taken me in this country, whenever there were men, at least one of them has propositioned me or tried to lay a paw on me while they thought that Marco wasn’t looking. I know that he has noticed. And he hardly ever does anything about it. He wants to sell me, pure and virginal, yet he expects me to keep the slavering men at bay all on my own. I’m capable, but I don’t understand him.
More than once he has told me how well I held them off. I thought of asking him, Why don’t you protect me? but what would be the point?
For this celebration with a couple of hundred guests, Marco told me to show myself. Present myself well. “Be alluring. But don’t give anything away,” he told me. I knew exactly what he meant. In a crowd of people this big, I don’t know that I will be able to do both things. Not without a weapon or a bodyguard.
These men in ‘the life,’ as they call it, they can do anything they want. They have no restrictions, They’re all like ultra-spoiled children. Only with guns and knives. It’s hard not to be too impressed by them. If my position were different, I might even like being among them. I don’t know.
As it is, I know that keeping a distance and staying out of their clutches could be the difference of life or death for me. When I walk into the crowd in the ballroom, I see Bruno. He turns and heads straight for me. The look on his face is like a snorting bull.
’m looking for Medved among the guests. It’s in the way of these things. If you made a move, you should first have gotten the blessing of the head of the families first. Nobody ever does. You can’t, obviously. You’d be giving your plans away. Then they would all go wrong in surprising but horribly fatal ways.
Still, it’s the form and the rule. You have to tell the men in charge, and you never do so you almost always start out in the wrong. And as often as not you can’t actually tell anyone. So, you let them know by a whisper or a nod and they act like they’re doing a big favor for you in letting you tell them when it’s too late for them to say no. So then, of course you owe them.
That’s just the way that power works. In this life, every story ends with you standing in front of the next big guy, and the punc
hline is, you owe him. So, Medved is the next person who I need to not tell about what happened to Vovo. I know Medved as a good man. He doesn’t look like one. His eyes are greedy and he always looks like he’s just been dragged out of a fight in a run-down cowshed. He has charm, but his voice is thick and guttural.
In short, Medved is one of the more reliable and trustworthy men I know outside of my own circle, even though he looks like one of the least trustworthy men you’d ever hope to avoid meeting. I know that impression goes double for girls. They all tell me that. His wife strikes me as a mean, sour woman who is permanently displeased. And he is devoted to her.
Medved is at the far end of a long room. I nod and he sees me. I’m making my way to him when Marco jumps in my way.
“Vassily. You should have some champagne. I’ll call a girl over,” and he raises his hand to snap his fingers in the air. “Champagne needed here,” and he’s about to maneuver me to one side.
I don’t budge. “I have to see someone, Marco.”
“You have to see the girl I’ve brought. Just for you, Vassily. Only for you.”
“Sure, Marco. Of course, she is.”
“She is perfect for you. You must buy her.”
Okay, it will have to be now that I tell him straight. Get this nonsense over with. I have things to do.
“Marco, I don’t buy girls. Ever. You know that. The girls in my club, there’s a waiting list. They’re screened, interviewed and hand-picked. I interview three, four, sometimes five girls for every one that I take. They work for me because they want to.”
“You have to meet her.” He leans forward and says under his voice, “She’s a virgin.”
“Marco, I’m not going to say anything to you about how you do your business. You know I don’t want to do that. So, I’ll just tell it to you again. I don’t buy girls. I don’t have to, and even if I had to I wouldn’t. It’s not me.” I lean down toward him. In as friendly and good-natured a tone as I can manage, I say quietly, “It makes no difference to me whether she’s a virgin or not.”
I fix his eye with mine. “Marco, I don’t care if she’s the Virgin. I’m not going to buy this girl or any other.”
I hope he doesn’t make me say more but I will if he presses. Marco is not an idiot. Except him thinking that he is ever going to sell me a girl is pretty ridiculous. I can’t imagine why he ever let that thought get loose in his head. He should never have said it out loud. It’s not helping my opinion of him
I move away. Medved is just a few steps inside the next room. Better yet, he’s turning this way. Then, ahead of him is the girl. Running straight at me. She’s beautiful, sure. Her curves bounce and her skin glows. At the sight of her eager eyes, my heart unzips. And inside my pants, there’s a movement with a similar aim. Her young, bright cheeks contrast to her intense and intelligent eyes. Like a woman in the body of a cheerleader.
By the open doorway, she seizes my face in her hands. In a confidential voice, she breathes, “Kiss me,” and she presses me up against the wall as she stretches up against me.
She grabs at the lapels of my suit coat. Then she turns, rolling to press her back to the wall. Pulling me after her. Onto her. Her body is sinuous. Hot, in both senses. In every sense. She doesn’t really kiss me. She mimes it. But the way that she looks into my eyes is more of a charge than a kiss would have been. Her hot little breaths flutter in my mouth. She tastes sweet. Looking hard into my eyes. Damn, she mimes it well.
Her full, soft breasts and her hot, squirming hips don’t mime pressing to shape against me and dance as the soft heat of her body molds itself to mine. Her eager, yielding flesh squeezes and as she leans in, her body shapes and molds to mine so I feel her heat.
I stretch my tongue out to taste her lips with the very tip. Her eyes blaze and she slaps my face. Hard. the red sting pumps my hard, fat cock even stiffer. Through the stretched fabric of my pants, it probes through her dress and against her stomach. At the base, the heat from the tops of her thighs reaches me. Her breasts swell and images light up and catch fire in my mind.
As she wrenches herself away, peels her body from between me and the wall, her jaw sets and she scowls. Her breath carries a whisper. “Chase me,” is like an urgent sigh.
She bolts away and barges through the crowd. Unwilling and against my instinct and judgment, I have to follow after her.
She heads through the mingling guests and out to a corridor, then down a winding flight of stone steps. From the bottom of the steps, I have only the vanishing clip of her heels on the tiled floor to follow her by. The dark basement is dusty and cold.
I find her, breathing hard, backed against a cement wall. I can hardly see her. Her breath is hot and heavy. “I’m sorry.” She shakes her head. “I was wrong to do that.” She holds the lapels of my tux as she presses her lips together. “I apologize.” I search in the gloom for her eyes. Her head shakes.
“Just leave me here. Please.” In the darkness, I make out the twitch in her eyebrows. I feel the vibration in her hot breath on my chest.
The price of her thousand-dollar dress would have been a steal if only for the rustle it made as the heat of her curves swelled, wrapped, bound, tight inside it. Her scent inflames me. Her voice is a breathy scratch like broken glass on velvet.
“Leave me here. I’m sorry.”
“Are you going to be alright?”
“What does it matter? Leave me. Go back to the party.”
I step back. “I’m Vassily.” I hold out a hand.
Her eyes narrow and she practically snarls back. “I know who you are. Child soldier.”
“What?”
“It’s in your eyes. Like you were born into war.”
I could just fuck her. Her seen-too-much-eyes say that she wants it.
She says, “Marco says I should be nice to you, Russian killer. Which is a shame.”
“Why?”
“Because it might not be so hard to be nice to you if he wasn’t telling me that I had to. I hate you but you’re hot as Hell.”
“Are you incapable of doing what you’re told?”
“Depends what I’m told to do. And who’s doing the telling, Russian killer.” It sets my nerves jangling when she tells me that.
I say, “You’re not afraid of much, are you.”
“Not much, no.” Her chin flattens and juts as she looks from the top of my head all the way down until she stops, below my belt. When she gets there my cock is straightening up inside my pants to greet her.
I say, “You haven’t told me your name.”
“Marco hasn’t told you? I shouldn’t be surprised. It doesn’t matter. Maybe he’s told you the price. Maybe he’ll tell you my name when you strike a bargain.”
“Marco hasn’t told me your name. What is it?”
“What would you want it to be? Will it make a difference to what you’re prepared to pay? Why are you pretending to care?” Konstantin told me that Marco calls her ‘matryoshka,’ the Russian doll with many more dolls inside each other. Smaller and smaller, deeper and deeper. Is there anything inside that shiny exterior? If she’s the Russian doll, maybe she’s just the one on the outside. Maybe she’s empty and all the other dolls are gone.
I don’t want to call her that and something tells me she wouldn’t like it. I’m still reluctant to leave her down here on her own.
“What was it made you run at me upstairs? Why did you kiss me?”
“I didn’t kiss you. I told you to kiss me. Then I pretended we were doing it.” Her voice lowers, “If you call that a kiss then you must be even more innocent and inexperienced than I am.” Her eyes sparkle in the darkness. “And I would find that hard to believe.”
I wait. She tells me, “One of the men was going to pounce on me. Upstairs.”
Vassily: Perfect Pain - a Bad Boy Mafia Dark Romance Page 4
