The girl makes me crazy with desire. And I don't know how much longer I can stay away from her. The only thing holding me back is myself. Her boyfriend may be bad for her. She may think he's dangerous. But neither one of them know what true danger is.
I am true danger. And if I truly want to protect her, I'll keep myself as far away from her as possible. She doesn't need to be exposed to my sick and twisted mind. Doesn't need to be brought into this crazy and fucked-up lifestyle that I live.
From the moment I step into the White Bear's basement, I get a strange feeling that something big is going down tonight. The thick air circulates slowly, thick with tension.
The table has been laid out with traditional Russian noodles and dumplings, but the guys are drinking more than they're eating. We're all here—Valentin, Luka, Igor, and me. We're just waiting for our pakhan Petrov to show up and get the meeting started. He's not usually this late.
Next to me at the table, Luka examines the barrel of a new stainless steel revolver he bought.
"Hey, you crazy fuck," says Valentin, "Put that piece away before somebody gets killed." He's the most risk-averse one of us. Since he runs the drug trade here in West Ark, he has to think that way. Has to stay paranoid, has to conceal his identity and constantly search for security leaks that could compromise the entire operation. He doesn't go for this kind of bullshit, never has.
"Putting this away isn't what I had in mind," says Luka. He reaches into his pocket, then pulls out a single round with a copper casing. "When's the last time you boys played some roulette?"
Igor and Luka roar with laughter.
"Oh, fuck no," says Valentin. He stands up and kicks his chair back from the table. "I'm going upstairs to get another drink. Fuck this. Fuck everything about this."
Everyone roars with laughter again, me included, and Valentin disappears up the staircase. Luka drops the round in the cylinder, then snaps it shut and spins it.
"You feelin' lucky, punk?" I say, busting his balls. But Luka is one crazy fuck who's always feeling lucky, and he doesn't need my encouragement to act insane.
He looks me right in the eyes. "Never doubt me, baby," he says. Then he puts the revolver to his temple and pulls the trigger.
It clicks quietly, and there's a release of tension in the room, followed by nervous laughter. Luka hands the gun to Igor.
Igor spins the cylinder. "You pussies," he says. "Luck is overrated." He puts the barrel to his temple. I hope this fucker actually blows his brains out. I don't trust him, and I don't like him being around Penny and the other girls at the club. This round of roulette could actually solve a big problem for me.
But no such luck. The hammer of the gun clicks quietly, to my profound disappointment.
He smiles smugly, then holds the gun out toward me. I'm the last one in the room who hasn't taken his turn. "How about you, Vlady," he says, staring at me with glassy eyes. "Feeling like a man today?"
There was a time in my life when I would've done it without hesitation. But this time, something slows me down. I can't get my damn mind off of Penny, and something tells me she's going to need me. I don't know how, or why, and it sounds like a fucking stupid excuse even to me, but I still think it.
Still, I spin the cylinder. This is a challenge from Igor, one I can't back down from. Guys like Igor seek out weakness and exploit the fuck out of it. I need to prove I've got balls.
I'm raising the gun when Petrov comes down the stairs, followed by Valentin, who's holding a glass of vodka. Petrov stops short upon seeing the gun, then shakes his head when he realizes what's going on. "You dumb fucks," he says, and we all guffaw with laughter.
Silently, I feel relief. This is my out. The meeting's starting, and Petrov would never approve of this game being played in his presence. I open the cylinder to unload the gun.
The single round is at the twelve o'clock position, right where the firing pin would've hit it.
Had I played, I would've shot myself in the head.
Igor stares at the gun, and he sees it too. We make brief eye contact as I remove the round, and hand the revolver back to Luka.
The corner of Igor's lip curls, and a cold feeling permeates my stomach. I look away.
Petrov takes a seat at the head of the table, and his expression suddenly hardens. "Boys," he says with a sharp edge, and we go silent.
"Big news this week."
There's a low rumbling at the table, and I cock an eyebrow.
"We taking resources in new direction," he says. "Human trafficking." Then he looks at Igor. "Igor been spearheading effort. I let him take it from here."
Igor stands up, and launches into the details of the mystery operation he's been working on for the last few months. He fills us in on a global slave-trade network the Bratva has been developing to move people between the east and the west. It's mostly transferring sex slaves from the West to old, rich men in Eastern Europe.
"And," he finishes, "The pilot program is taking place right here in West Ark. The project I have been working on is sourcing girls from Fascinations."
His words are like a hot poker through my chest, and I instantly think of Penny being sold into sex slavery. My stomach burns with acid. I don't like this. I don't fucking like this at all.
Luka and Valentin look at each other, then at me, waiting for someone else to respond to the news.
I'm the first one to speak.
"This is fucking sick shit," I say. "Drugs, guns, hits... that's one thing. But this is sick. Innocent girls. Fuck."
Igor just looks at me smugly, the faintest trace of a grin on his face. The man has no sense of right or wrong. He'd cut his own mama's throat for a fiver.
Petrov shakes his head. "No griping. Havok, you confused? We say jump, you jump."
I grit my teeth, holding my tongue. Igor has always been ranked the same as me, held the same powers. But it's obvious that he's moving up, and has Petrov's favor right now. It's not fucking good.
"Yeah," I say. "Forget it. I'm good." Petrov cocks an eyebrow, but moves onto the next topic at hand.
All I can think about is Penny. Thinking about her being kidnapped and sold into sex trafficking makes me feel sick.
The meeting continues for a half-hour, but I barely hear any of it.
9
Penny
The next week, there's a stabbing on the club floor. A Russian and a Mexican get into it and both leave on gurneys with life-threatening injuries. Igor has to call in a HazMat team to clean up the mess, and the cops interview everyone.
A fleet of cop cars congregates outside the club, and strobing blue and red lights stream in through the open door, bathing the club in technicolor hues. The DJ has stopped the music, and a detective questions a group of us.
I'm standing right next to Havok. And despite the seriousness of the situation, all I can really think about is the magnetic field that seems to pull me toward him. He's wearing a tight black polo shirt tucked into khakis, and he looks damn handsome in it. His thick shoulders pull the shirt fabric tight over his chest, and the delicious outline of his body is clearly visible.
Me on the other hand, I'm wearing a sloppy sweatshirt and sweatpants over my stage clothes. I'm exhausted. My head buzzes with opiates and alcohol, but I'm not worried about the cops detecting it. I've been getting better and better at hiding the signs.
"Name?" says a detective to Havok.
He shuffles his weight between his feet, obviously uncomfortable. "Vladimir."
The cop looks up from scrawling on a small spiral-bound notepad, an eyebrow raised. "You got a last name, buddy?"
"No."
"Look, if you just cooperate, everything will go much easi—"
Havok cuts him off. "I saw nothing."
The detective sighs. "All these witnesses say you were standing right here, in clear view of the room."
"Something confusing? I said, I saw nothing."
"Fine," says the cop, annoyed. He jams the cap back onto his pen. "I can't
force you to talk. But if you get subpoenaed into court, you'll have to."
Havok shrugs. Then the detective moves away to question more cooperative witnesses.
His attitude is getting under my skin. And for some crazy reason, I decide to say something about it.
I turn to him, my arms crossed over my chest. "Are you always this much of a dick?"
Instantly, I regret saying anything. He shoots me a fiery gaze, embers burning behind his dark eyes. He's mad, but even an angry expression on his face is a thing of beauty. His lips are thick and full, his nose straight, his thick hair tousled and perfect atop his head.
"Are you always this much of a sweetheart?"
My cheeks burn bright red. "They're just trying to help."
"They're pigs."
"What did they do to you?" I ask him. I've never been impressed by people who talk bad about cops. Before that awful night when my father was killed, he was a policeman. And I saw how much he helped people.
Havok runs a hand through his hair, brushing it off his forehead and behind an ear. A dark expression clouds his face. "Back in Moscow, my father was murdered with a knife. The police were paid off. They did nothing."
I'm taken aback by the first meaningful thing that Havok has ever said to me. My instinct is to lecture him about how not all police are bad, and tell him about my own father, but I decide against it.
"I'm sorry," I say instead.
He turns away from me and crosses his arms, staring off into the distance as the police and the HazMat team buzz around us in the club. A couple guys in space suits spread a dusty white powder on the floor where the bloodstains have sunk into the carpet, and a chemical smell fills the room.
"I need to get away from this," says Havok with disgust. The man obviously hates cops, and nothing I say is going to change it. He steps away from me, toward the bar. It's far from an invitation for me to join, but for some reason I follow him anyway.
He goes behind the bar and pours himself a tonic water. He doesn't offer me a drink, and he doesn't make eye contact with me. I sit down at a bar stool anyway. I feel like I've offended him, and I want to smooth things over.
Or maybe I just want to spend more time looking at him up close. He captivates me like a movie star.
Havok slices a lime with a sharp, small knife and places a sliver on the rim of his glass. Then he starts to drink it, without adding any liquor.
"Don't you want some gin in that?" I say.
"I don't drink."
I'm quiet for a minute. I never expected that.
"I'm sorry about your father," I say over the bar counter.
"I heard you the first time." He looks right past me, watching the investigation unfold.
Damn. It's the first real conversation I've had with him, and I'm already fucking it up.
"My dad was a police officer," I say. "He died when I was in college. In a car crash. My mother died of cancer when I was two."
Havok looks at me briefly, then stares into his drink. "You have my sympathies."
I feel my eyes moisten, and I stare at my reflection in the mirror behind the rows of liquor bottles. "If that all hadn't happened, I'd probably be in a medical residency program by now." And not hooked on these fucking pills, in a dead-end relationship with an abuser. But I don't say that part.
Havok leans back against the rear counter and takes a swig of his tonic water. He doesn't reply.
"I don't know why I'm telling you this," I say, looking at my nails. I scratch at one of my cuticles and try to scrape off a fleck of old nail polish. But inside, I do know. I'm telling him because I have no one else to tell. No friends who'll understand me. And I sure can't tell Brock. He'd just use it as another weapon to tear me down.
And… because I feel this insane attraction to Havok, and a compulsion to get as close to him as I can.
Finally, Havok speaks. "We are all... damaged in our own ways," he says to me. He's not very good at consoling people. Then he turns his glass bottom-up and finishes the drink. He drops it in a bin of dirty dishes, and then ducks out of the bar area.
As he passes by me, he stops and lowers his voice. "Penny," he says, "Stay far away from me. I'm not safe." Then he walks away.
Around me, the noise of the crime scene investigators and the swirling lights all fade into a dull background buzz.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see that someone's watching me from the side of the room. I turn my head just enough to see who it is without being obvious.
It's the club manager, Igor.
For some reason, it sends a shiver down my spine.
10
Havok
The club closes early the night of the stabbing, and it's just as well. I have a job to do tonight. A target to eliminate.
On nights like this, when I'm stalking a target through the city streets, I normally feel no emotion. No remorse. Nothing.
But tonight, I'm distracted. Penny has been weighing on my mind, bothering me all evening. Her vulnerability, with Igor running this new sex trade. And all the things she said to me today.
Some stupid fucking part of me wants to know her better. Not just to fuck her, not just to suck those beautiful fucking nipples until she begs for my cock, but to treat her real nice and find out what kind of girl she really is.
But the honest truth is, the idea absolutely fucking terrifies me. When you let people get too close, things get… messy. And complicated. I don't like making life complicated. Blood, sweat, cash, and cum, those are the currencies I deal in now. Like a machine. Life is simpler this way. No need to throw a monkey wrench into things.
Better to let her live her life, to keep her away from atrocities I commit. She can be the object of my jerk-off fantasies, and that way, we won't have to do the dangerous and fatal dance that I know would inevitably happen if we ever spent more than ten minutes in private together.
I just have to keep an eye on her, and if Igor sets his sights on her, then I'll figure out what the fuck to do.
Tonight, my target has a thirty-five thousand dollar bounty on his head. A Ukrainian who's stepping on the Bratva's toes, trying to set up a prostitution ring in West Ark.
The Bratva doesn't tolerate competition. West Ark is our town. It's not an open marketplace of competition and ideas. And when someone forgets that, we are more than happy to remind them.
It's past midnight, and my target has just stepped out of an office building downtown. My intelligence says he's going to walk to a parking garage four blocks down the street, get into a black Escalade SUV, and drive out of West Ark and back into New York City for the night.
But he's not going to make it out of the parking garage.
I follow him a block and a half behind, pursuing him quietly in the night. I'm wearing a black trench coat to stay dry in this miserable rain we've been having. My face is shrouded underneath a Russian military hat. And beneath my coat, my pistol rests against my hip, the silencer already screwed on.
I've always followed the money, and my conscience has never gotten in the way of that. Whether it's weapons smuggling, carrying out a hit, or extortion, there's always a good reason for it to happen. Nobody's hands are clean in this fucked-up world. And if a bad guy gets what he deserves, so what?
This human trafficking shit, though, it's wrong. And it's eating away at me, a constant distraction.
Across the street, my target walks into the parking garage. From a distance, I see him fumble with his wallet, probably searching for his parking voucher. There's no one in the security booth, and the streets are quiet. It's time to make my move.
Quietly, I cross the street, increasing my pace. I slip my right hand under my jacket, and feel the comforting custom ivory grip of my gun. Its cool, smooth surface helps bring me back to reality, and get my mind off of Penny, if only for a brief moment.
As I enter the parking garage, I see my target enter an elevator, the door closing behind him. If my intelligence is correct, he always parks on the top level.
I hustle up a concrete stairwell, beating the elevator to the top. Swiftly, I move across the gray concrete underfoot, until I'm standing right outside the elevator door. The indicator light shows the elevator at the floor beneath me…
...and then it dings cheerfully as I withdraw my gun from its holster. I train it on the metal door in front of me as the door slides open.
My target glances up from the cell phone he carries in his hand, and a look of sheer terror overtakes his face.
"Good night, Mr. Ovechenko," I say. My silenced pistol makes two soft cracks, and he crumples to the ground, a spatter of bright red blood coating the elevator wall behind him.
The elevator door closes automatically. I re-holster my gun, turn, and walk away.
I take the stairs.
There's a White Bear meeting the next night. The boys all gather around the table as usual, waiting for pakhan Petrov to show up and start the meeting. Everyone except Igor, that is—which I don't like at all. An image flashes through my mind of Igor abducting Penny on her way home from Fascinations. The thought enrages me.
Yeah, I can admit it to myself, I'm worried about that girl. I know it's only a matter of time before that fuck Igor gets her in his sights. Lately I've been watching him as much as I've been watching the club. And that's why I didn't react fast enough to stop the stabbing. I'm thinking too much about Penny, the tormented girl who's too good for the lowlifes who surround her. She's got a kindred spirit. She should be far away from me, Igor, and the rest of them. Helping sick people in the hospital who deserve her attention, making something real out of her life.
It's not like me to worry about a piece of pussy. Pussy is disposable.
But there's something about Penny that's very much not disposable. Something that needs my protection.
"Heard you really fucked up Ovechenko," says Luka with a grin, popping a dumpling in his mouth. "HazMat was scrubbing that elevator all morning after a little old lady found him in there."
Havok: A Bad Boy Mafia Romance Page 4
