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Copyright© 2021 Winter Sloane
ISBN: 978-0-3695-0379-4
Cover Artist: Jay Aheer
Editor: Audrey Bobak
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WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
BRATVA BOSS’S BABY
Kotov Bratva, 1
Winter Sloane
Copyright © 2021
Chapter One
“Ava, sorry to disturb you, but Charles Green and Amanda Hill want to see you in the conference room,” Gina said.
Ava Madison looked up from her computer screen. She had to get this particular report done by noon. Oh, she knew the deadline was still in three days, but she liked being ahead of the game. She studied Gina for a few seconds.
Gina could barely contain the excitement on her face. Her eyes shone, and she wore a big smile. Both Gina and she had been hired by Green and Hill Accounting at the same time. The brunette had soon moved from co-worker to best friend.
“What do the senior partners want with me?” Ava asked.
“They didn’t say, but don’t you think it’s obvious, Ava? Today’s the day they finally promote you to Senior Accountant!” Gina beamed at her.
Ava grinned. She couldn’t help but share Gina’s enthusiasm. Ava had been working her ass off for nearly five years. Gina had been content to do the bare minimum, but Ava had always been a perfectionist. She constantly strove to push herself. All those late nights spent at the office when she could have a social life weren’t for naught.
Ava straightened the creases over her sky-blue dress. She knew she wore her lucky dress for a reason today. It was her favorite because this particular shade of blue was the same color as her eyes. It didn’t hurt the fabric hugged her curves perfectly. She slowly rose to her feet, heart thumping.
“How do I look?” Ava asked her best friend.
Gina looked at her critically, then reached out to smooth the blonde hairs sticking out of her head.
“Perfect,” Gina said. “You’ve earned this, Ava.”
Ava noticed her other work colleagues giving them curious glances. It was hard to keep a secret in the office. The cubicles in the office were small and the dividers were thin.
A senior accountant, however, had his or her own office, one surrounded by glass walls. They had their own assistants, too. The day Ava had been dreaming of had finally arrived.
“Tell me everything after,” Gina said. “We can go to Rum and Monkey tonight to celebrate.”
“Sure. My treat,” Ava said. She’d be getting a bigger salary soon after all.
Head held high and shoulders straight, she marched toward the conference room. Before entering, she looked at her feet. Ava wished she wore heels instead of the black flats she usually wore.
Then again, she never got the hang of heels. She’d probably topple over while walking. Plus, they hurt. Gina never had a problem with them. Whatever. Her physical appearance didn’t matter. Her efforts were finally being recognized. She knocked on the door.
“Come in,” came Charles’s voice.
She opened the door.
“Ava, please have a seat,” Amanda said, nodding to the empty chairs around the long conference table.
Amanda sat at the end of the table. Charles took the seat to her right. Ava pulled out a chair and sat left of Amanda. Both senior partners were in their early fifties but kept in shape. To Ava, the ex-husband and wife team always looked so put-together, so polished. The smile Amanda flashed her looked a little strained, fake almost. Charles kept looking at the opened file in front of him. Should that be a cause for alarm?
“Before the two of you say anything,” she began. She took a deep breath. “I accept.”
The firm always valued employees who took initiative. Ava prided herself on being a strong and confident woman. She came from nowhere, a dirt-poor mountain town, with no penny to her name. Ava was the first member of her family to go to college and get a degree. She’d gotten a practical one, because, hey. The world always needed accountants.
“Excuse me?” Charles asked. The two partners looked at each other, puzzled.
“This is a promotion, yes?” Ava’s confidence took a deep dive as the two partners offered her looks of sympathy.
Oh, no. Had Ava misread the situation? Maybe the position wasn’t hers yet. Perhaps Charles and Amanda had a few candidates in mind and were about to tell Ava she had to compete for the job.
Well, she was ready to tackle any challenge they threw at her.
“At the Christmas party, we announced the firm had to cut costs this year,” Charles said, clearing his voice.
“What does that have to do with anything?” she asked.
“Ava, there’s no easy way to say this,” Amanda said. The older woman put her hand on hers. She tentatively withdrew from her touch, not liking this at all. The office called Amanda a shark behind her back. She didn’t offer anyone sympathy unless it was false. “We have to let you go.”
Those six words felt like lethal blows to her gut. Ava could hardly believe her ears.
“W-why? I don’t understand. I work harder than anyone else. My performance—”
“Is exceptional,” Charles finished. “However, when we looked at your file again, we discovered you received your accounting degree from a community college.”
Ava balled her hands into fists and set them on her lap. He opened his mouth and kept talking, but she couldn’t hear him. Gina, like everyone else at the firm, had graduated from a fancy Ivy League school. They came from good, solid families. None of them grew up in a trailer park, like Ava did.
“Mrs. Chambers didn’t think it seemed to matter,” Ava finally spoke up, referring to the HR manager. “Why isn’t she here, anyway? Isn’t firing staff supposed to be her job?”
Amanda pursed her lips and looked annoyed Ava had interrupted Charles’s monologue.
Finally, Amanda spoke. “At Green and Hill Accounting, we’re a family. Charles and I see it as our duty to personally inform our staff that—”
“I don’t need to hear this bullshit anymore. I get it. You guys want me gone. It doesn’t matter if I slaved at this job for five years. Hell, if I only knew all that wasted time would lead me to this moment, I would’ve put myself out there. I’d be married and have kids by now.”
Oh, my God. Ava had broken down. She was babbling nonsense and couldn’t seem to stop herself.
“Ava, please sit back down,” Charles said. “We’d like to make this transition as fluid as possible.”
When had she stood up? She shook with silent anger. Never had she felt so humiliated.
“Fluid for you?” She shook her head. Fuck you both, were the three parting words she wanted to leave them, but she culled her temper. Despite her origins, Ava had class. “Thank you for having me for the last five years. I’ve learned a lot, but I’ve also realized it’s time for me to move on.”
With that, she strode out of that conference room, her head still held high. On the outside, she might appear strong, but deep down? Ava wanted to hide somewhere where no one would find her.
Then she’d curl into a ball and cry her heart out. Ava knew the place where she could do that. She pushed past Gina on her way to her sec
ret location. Gina gave her a concerned look.
“What’s wrong?” Gina silently mouthed at her.
“Bathroom,” Ava lied. “Need to fix my makeup.”
Gina knew her better than that. Her best friend probably knew she was lying, but Ava needed to get away. She felt many stares on her fleeing figure, but that was probably just a figment of her imagination.
Amanda thought the firm was a family? Yeah, right. Ava worked in a cut-throat environment. Every junior accountant fought for a project like sharks who scented blood in the water.
She reached the door at the end of the corridor. One that read office supplies. She yanked it open and slid inside then turned the light on. Reams of paper and stationery stared back at her from the shelves.
Whenever the pressures of her job got her down, Ava always came here to think. To clear her head. She had always loved stationery, and the smell of her paper calmed her.
Growing up in a small and often empty trailer, she’d head to the stationery store in town to pass the time. Reminiscing about her childhood made her think of her mom.
“Oh, God,” she whispered.
She slid to the floor, not caring if her dress got dirty. Tears streamed down her cheek. Ava wasn’t a crier. She couldn’t remember the last time she shed tears. When her dad left Ava and her mother, perhaps? Her mom was a saint.
Joanna Addison had worked two jobs to pay the bills and to keep Ava in school. She owed her mom everything. Half her paychecks went to her mom.
Unfortunately, after five years of being chained to her desk, Ava had become a stranger to her own mother. She hadn’t even been home since she’d started working here. Failure tasted like bitter ashes in her mouth. A tentative knock on the door made her jump.
“Ava? It’s Gina. Can I come in?”
“Go away. Please.”
Ava probably looked awful. All that stupid crying messed up her mascara and eyeliner. She probably looked like a clown. Gina, of course, didn’t listen. She opened the door, took one look at Ava, then closed the door behind her. Gina took a seat next to her. There wasn’t much room in the tiny space, and neither Gina and her were exactly small.
“Hey, you know you can talk to me.” Gina took her hands in hers. “What happened?”
“They didn’t call me in to tell me I’m promoted. They’re letting me go.”
Gina widened her eyes. “You’re joking. There must be some kind of mistake. Ava, you work harder than everyone else here. If you hadn’t helped Anton with his client, the firm would probably be in trouble.”
“Don’t remind me about Anton,” she said with a scoff.
Anton was a senior accountant Ava worked with on a project. She had wondered how he got the position because Anton never seemed to be interested in doing any work. Anton had attended no meetings with their client either.
Ava did everything. What was worse? She agreed to date that loser. She didn’t know what had come over her. Maybe it had been the loneliness and late nights talking. Either way, that relationship didn’t last long.
“Let me talk to Charles and Amanda. My parents are good friends with them. I’m sure I can get them to reconsider,” Gina said.
She shook her head firmly. “Gina, I appreciate the offer, but I don’t want to continue working for a firm that treats their employees like shit. Besides, it might only get you in trouble.”
“Did they say why they’re letting you go?” Gina asked.
Ava scoffed. “They found out I graduated from a community college.”
Gina frowned. “What does that have to do with anything? You’re more than qualified.”
“I guess I don’t fit the image of the firm.”
Some of Charles’s words came back to her. The firm had certain standards to maintain, he had said. Charles promised to write her a good recommendation, but would he still do that after she walked out of that meeting in a huff?
“Okay,” Gina said. “Today’s almost over. We can think about the future later. We’ll both get hammered at the Rum and Monkey. What do you say?”
Ava had planned to head back to her lonely apartment. To order in massive amounts of Chinese takeout and to binge-watch some romance movies with Fatty, her tabby cat. Drinking her sorrows away seemed like a much better idea. Alcohol might be a momentary cure, but she didn’t care.
“I’m in,” Ava said.
She smiled as Gina pulled out a handkerchief and wiped away her smudged makeup.
“There’s my awesome girl,” Gina said.
Ava gave the other woman’s hand a squeeze. “I’m so glad you’re here. I wouldn’t know what to do if you weren’t.”
“You can always count on me, babe.”
Chapter Two
Viktor Kotov nursed a headache as his older brother Pavel rattled off more numbers. He lifted his glass to his lips, barely tasting the vodka. Viktor couldn’t think past the rage.
Anger bubbled inside him the more Pavel spoke. He didn’t need further details. Viktor only required to know the gist of what his brother was telling him. A low-life flunky had the guts to betray Viktor and the Kotov Bratva. Neil Peck was smart or stupid to rob them.
“What’s the damage?” Viktor finally asked.
“Half a million. That’s a rough estimate.” Pavel paused, watching him.
Viktor finished his vodka. He could hear the music coming from the club. They must have a full house tonight because he could hear the catcalls and whistles from the crowd. Viktor opened the security feed of the main dance floor on his computer. Nothing out of the ordinary.
He pushed the empty bottle away. Alcohol only worsened the harsh pounding in his skull.
“What’s your plan, boss?”
He glared at his brother. Pavel didn’t make it a secret that he always resented their father for choosing Viktor as the successor of the Kotov Family. Pavel and Viktor had frequently clashed over the years. For this particular case, they were in complete agreement. They’d hunt down Neil and teach him a valuable lesson he’d never forget.
“No one steals from us and gets away with it,” he said.
“You hired him,” his brother pointed out unhelpfully. “If Father was still alive or if I was the boss, I’d never let something like this happen.”
Viktor slammed his inked fists onto the mahogany desk. He wanted, no needed to break something. Anything. He breathed in and out. Smashing his brother’s smug face wasn’t the answer.
“You want to sit in this chair, Pavel?” he asked in a deceptively calm tone.
Pavel held out his hands in mock defeat.
“Peck was Motya’s cousin from his mother’s side. Motya vouched for him. We didn’t do any further background checks on him. That was our mistake,” he said.
Viktor had already spoken to Motya. The enforcer might have several faults, but Motya was no traitor. Motya’s family had served theirs for two generations. Motya had also been beside himself when he realized what his cousin had done.
“Motya’s volunteered to personally hunt Neil Peck down,” he said. “I told him to bring the fucker alive if possible.”
“I’d like to work on him,” Pavel said, cracking his knuckles.
A look of anticipation appeared on Pavel’s face. That was the problem with his brother. Pavel thought violence was the answer to everything. His brother was incapable of thinking two, three steps ahead. And Pavel wondered why their father made Viktor the Pakhan, the boss.
“We still need a new accountant,” his brother said.
“I’ve been thinking about that. We’ll hire an outsider.” Viktor had decided it was for the best.
Pavel narrowed his eyes. “Is that a good idea? What if the person we hire starts asking questions he or she shouldn’t be asking? At least Peck knew how to keep his mouth shut.”
“Peck stole half a million from us,” he reminded his brother. “We need a professional, someone who doesn’t belong to the Bratva. This individual doesn’t need to know about our other illegal businesses.
There’s something else to consider.”
“What’s that?” Pavel asked.
His brother walked around his desk. Pavel looked at the security feed, his gaze trained on the dancers on the poles, not the crowd. Pavel always had a short attention span.
Viktor clenched his jaw. It had been Pavel’s job to watch Peck. Pavel didn’t even want to admit he screwed up. His brother had been distracted by other vices—no surprise there. Viktor picked up his gun from the drawer under his desk. He fired at the floor. Pavel cursed, leaping to his feet.
“Are you fucking crazy?” Pavel demanded. “What if you hit my leg?”
“You’re not paying attention. This conversation isn’t over,” he said.
Pavel scowled, sat back down, and stared at him. “I’m listening.”
“I want you to find out if Peck did this alone or if he’s working with someone else,” he said. “I can’t have any loose threads.”
“What will you be doing?”
“Looking for Peck’s replacement.”
It wouldn’t be easy, Viktor knew. Trust was a luxury in his world. Long after Pavel had left, Viktor lingered in his office. He felt restless, full of contained energy.
Viktor didn’t want to head out to the floor or visit any of his other clubs. He grabbed his coat and left his office. What Viktor needed was a drink. To go somewhere where no one recognized him.
“Going somewhere, boss?” one of his men asked by the front door of the club.
Viktor waved him away. “I need some time alone. As you were.”
It was raining outside the club. Viktor cursed and ran across the street to get to his black Mercedes. By the time he got behind the wheel, the rain had drenched him from head to toe.
His night wasn’t getting any better. Viktor paused as he slid the key into the ignition. He felt like someone was watching him. Viktor frowned, touching the gun in his shoulder holster. He went nowhere without his gun and knives. One never knew if he’d need them.
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