by Cole, Jagger
“Na zdorovie,” Kostya growls, lifting his.
“Na zdorovie,” I mutter. We drink. I instantly want ten more to drown out the flashes of her face in my head.
My phone buzzes as I reach for my beer. Kostya pulls his own phone out and glares at it.
“Shit. It’s Lev.”
I pull mine out and glance at the same text I just got from my brother.
Emergency meeting. Downtown office. Now.
“So much for that drink,” Nina mutters.
“You’re fucking joking me.”
Kostya’s face is grim. But my brother shakes his head. “Wish I was, but I just confirmed it.”
Another of our banking houses was hit an hour ago. This time though, they tried to hide it. This was no smash-and-grab. This was done secretly. Except Lev amped up the security on all of our laundering places after that last hit. They were in and out before our guys could get there. But just like the last time, six months ago, the Volkovs left their sticky fucking fingerprints all over the job.
Once again, they tried hacking our servers and leaving keylogging software on them. And again, Lev just had it reversed hacked to show exactly who’s behind it.
“They can’t seriously be that fucking stupid.”
“No,” Viktor growls as he stands at the head of the table. “They can’t be. Or, they shouldn’t be. That’s the problem. Yuri Volkov is not this fucking stupid. Which means either there’s dissent within their ranks, or…” his jaw clenches. “Or more probably, this truce was a way to lull us into complacency.”
He sighs heavily and drums his fingers on the old-wood conference table. “Either way, this only goes one way now. The truce is over. Now, we need to think about hitting back. Lev? Show them what we got from reverse hacking the spyware.”
My brother curiously glances at me and then stands. He walks around the table and puts a hand on my shoulder. He leans down.
“Hey, why don’t you go take a walk, man. Grab a coffee or something.”
I frown and turn to peer up at him. “What?”
“If you see a Starbucks, I’d take a—”
“Why the fuck would I take a walk right—”
“Lev.” Viktor sighs and folds his arms over his chest. “Just tell him. He’s going to find out soon enough anyway.”
My jaw ticks. My eyes slide back to my brother. “What am I going to found out anyway,” I growl.
Lev takes a breath, pats my shoulder, and walks back to the head of the table.
“Our mole in the Volkov chain of command has been silent for a few months. But I forced contact tonight after this shit and got…” he frowns. “Well, it’s big.” His eyes dart to mine and harden before he looks back at the rest of the room.
“The Volkov family is moving into some heavy, heavy laundering operations. I’m talking some serious cash flow. There’s no way it’s just theirs. They’re probably on contract with the Cartel, maybe Triads or Yakuza, too.”
I’m still trying to work out why the fuck Lev wouldn’t want me to hear this, when he drops the bomb.
“To do this, they’re using shell production companies based out of LA.” He glances at me. “Movie production shell companies.”
My hand curls to a fist on the table. It doesn’t go unnoticed that Kostya, Nina, and Viktor all glance my way.
“Movies are like construction products. You can make half the line items on a cost sheet ‘unspecified consulting fees’ and bury as much cash in it as you want. And that’s what they’re doing. The Volkovs are officially in the movie business. And they’ll be able to keep doing this unchecked for as long as they damn well please.”
“You’re telling me Yuri Volkov is a secret Martin Scorsese?”
Lev smirks at Nina. “No. The movies can’t be total shit, either, or it gets suspicious that the production company would continue to get financing.” He turns to the projector screen on the wall.
“These are the three ‘producers’ of this new ‘company.’” Lev clicks something on his phone, and a big photo come up on the wall screen. I growl lowly. It’s Vadik Rykov—Yuri’s new second-in-command, a man I don’t recognize, and… my eyes narrow. And Daniel fucking Crew.
The picture is of the three of them laughing it up in a strip club. It’s them getting lap dances, taking shots. Then there are other pictures of them shot through the windows of a boardroom—shaking hands and signing contracts together.
“You know the guy with the gold chain. That’s Vadik Rykov. The man with the mustache is Jim Grolsh, Hollywood agent famous for repping…” Lev’s eyes flick to me for a quarter second. “Belle Bardot,” he grunts quietly. “And the last guy we all obviously know—pop star douchebag extraordinaire Daniel Crew.”
“Tell me, though.” Konstantin, one of our newest avtoritet, drums his fingers on the big conference table and scowls. “How in the hell would these three clowns put out successful movies? Even moderately successful ones to keep the scam going?”
Lev’s mouth thins. “They… uh…”
“Because they have Belle Bardot,” I grunt, staring at my hand on the table. “Because people will see the biggest starlet in Hollywood in pretty much anything, and she’s in on the whole thing.”
Konstantin, Nina, Kostya, and a few of the other avtoritet mutter amongst themselves. But my brother is curiously silent. When I look up at him with a raised brow, Viktor sighs.
“Tell him,” He grunts.
Lev frowns and raises his gaze to me. “There’s a chance—and it’s a chance, Niko—that she isn’t necessarily ‘in on it.’”
My teeth clench. “She’s doing the fucking movies, Lev, I think that makes her in on—”
“Not willingly.”
My heart stops for a full three seconds. Lev turns and clicks to a new picture on the wall screen. When I see her face, my breath sucks in. Fuck me. Six months later, and just seeing this girl turns me inside out.
But then, my eyes drop to where Daniel is gripping her arm, tightly. Very tightly. When I spot the thumb-sized bruises elsewhere on her arm, a growl rumbles in my throat.
Lev moves to the next shot. In this one, she’s being screamed at on a film set by Vadik, with Daniel smirking in the background. But when my brother flips to the third image, I want to roar.
It’s her, at a fancy beach house, sitting in the window. She’s crying. Behind her in the room, by the doors, are men with guns.
“You’re saying she’s being forced to do these movies?” Nina says quietly.
Lev barely nods. “We think maybe.”
Kostya frowns. “Those men behind her could be her bodyguards—”
Lev flips to the next screen. I can’t help it. I snarl as I lunge to my feet. In this one, she’s being shoved into a car out in the driveway. And those “bodyguards” are snarling and jabbing guns in her face to get her in there.
My pulse thuds like a fucking engine. Fire burns in the pit of my stomach, and I see red.
“Nikolai,” Viktor says quietly. “Please sit.”
I grit my teeth.
“Just sit, please.”
“Sit the fuck down, brother,” Lev hisses.
I sit, buzzing all over. Viktor nods and turns to the room. “All Kashenko operations are on lockdown for now. I want you all prepared to move your teams in the next twelve hours to hit the Volkovs back for this hacking bullshit. We’re going to make them hurt with the return fire on this. And we’re thinking we’re going to hit them in the piggy bank with this laundering operation.”
His chiseled jaw clenches. “Play time is fucking over. So stay vigilant out there, and be ready for orders. Meeting adjourned.”
Around me, the avtoritet begin to stand and murmur amongst themselves as they file out. Viktor and Nina are deep in conversation as they leave out a side door.
But I’m just staring at the image still on the screen. It’s back to the one of Belle, crying in the window of the beach house. Something in my heart cracks. Something in my control snaps.
Suddenly, I realize the truth I’ve desperately been avoiding. Because it’s harder to process than Belle just being a liar: that it was not a lie. That everything that happened with us in that brief blink of time was real.
That for six months, the woman I’m in love with has been held captive by monsters while I sat here stewing with my thumb up my ass.
Rage throbs and surges inside of me. All this talking. All this discussing. All this planning.
But I already know a plan. I already know what has to be done.
I surge to my feet, when suddenly a hand slams onto my shoulder and shoves me back down. I snarl and whirl on my brother.
“Sit,” he growls.
“I have to go, Lev.”
“No,” he grunts, shaking his head. “I know what you’re thinking. And the answer is no.”
I glare at my brother. “You don’t know what I’m—”
“I know she’s in Chicago, Niko,” he says quietly. “I know you know that, too. And I’m saying hell-fucking-no to what I am sure you’re thinking.”
My mouth thins. “Truce is over, Lev.”
“And we have no idea who’s side she’s on!”
“Look at the fucking pictures, man!”
“Which for all we know are faked! Staged!”
I hiss at him. “You said it yourself, she’s being held—”
“I said maybe, Niko!” He squeezes his eyes shut and rubs the bridge of his nose. “You know I wish I could green light this, brother. You know that.”
“Lev—”
“The answer is no, Niko. As your brother? Yeah, sure, I’d be right there with you. But as your commanding officer, I’m telling you to stand the fuck down until you have an order. And that is an order. Do we understand each other?”
My lips thin.
Lev looks at me sadly. “I’m sorry, Niko. I really am.” He rests a hand on my shoulder. “We’ll figure it out. I just need you to cool it for a bit first.” His eyes hold mine. “Can you do that?”
“Yes.”
He smiles. “Thank you.”
Lev claps me on the shoulder and walks out of the conference room, leaving me alone. Alone with my swirling thoughts, my thudding heart, and the lie still on my lips.
Or maybe it wasn’t a “lie.” Maybe being on the run with the most talented actress in Hollywood six months ago rubbed off on me.
I turn and stride to the big, tinted windows overlooking Chicago. I glare down at the twinkling lights.
She’s out there. Here, in this city. In my city. My jaw grinds. My hand drops to my gun. I slide it out, check the mag, and slide it back into my holster with a low growl.
Yeah, fuck this. And fuck waiting. Something was taken from me.
Now, I’m taking her back.
13
Belle
There are times these days when I don’t recognize the girl looking back at me in the mirror. Even when things were hectic, even when I felt like I was caught in the Hollywood meat-grinder, that girl used to smile.
She doesn’t so much these days. Or at all, unless there’s a camera and the hard glare of her captors on her, on a film set.
I try in the mirror. I curl my lips up and plaster the smile I give to tabloid photographers. But it’s not real. It’s scripted. Practiced. Fine-tuned to maximize likability and sexiness. I drop the fake smile and frown. I don’t even know if I remember what my real one looks like anymore. The last time I even used my real smile was…
My face clouds in shadow. The last time I smiled for real was six months ago, in a shitty little roadside motel. With a man I never should have crossed paths with. A killer. A monster.
But a monster who made me smile. A man who made me me, for the first time in forever. A man who swept me off my feet and turned my world upside down.
A man who stole my heart, if we’re being honest.
I sigh and sit back from the mirror. I stand and smooth the gown out. Then I turn to walk across the suite to the window. The one silver lining about being “back together” with Daniel is that this time around, we’re pretending even less.
Before, if we were both traveling somewhere, the press would get a big show of us sharing a hotel suite. Now, there’s less bullshit. Daniel has his own suite. So I get my solitude. There might be two armed guards outside the door who have orders to shove me back into the room at gunpoint if I try to leave. But aside from that, it’s fine, I guess.
I look out the window at the twinkling lights of the city. My heart skips a little at the sound of a motorcycle on the street below. I look down, seeing some kind of Japanese sport bike roar down the street.
It’s not him.
I close my eyes and shake my head. Then I drop my forehead to the glass. It’s weird being back in Chicago. I’ve been jumping at shadows, double-taking looks at strangers, thinking they might be Niko.
But for the hundred-millionth time, I remind myself that what happened before was a moment in time. An ill-conceived, possibly regrettable moment in time. I frown. No. Even now, months later, I can’t regret it. I’ve tried, hard. But I don’t, and I can’t force it.
I wish I could regret it. I wish I could resent him for taking that from me. But it was too perfect. It was too real, and too incredible.
I’ve thought about getting a message to him. I mean of course I have. Even after they showed me the “real” him—the bloody, dangerous version of Niko I never really saw. I know what he is now. I know he’s a professional killer—a brutal, savage hitman for the Russian mafia.
And I still can’t stop myself from thinking about getting a message to him. Even if it’s to say “Goodbye, I’m forgetting you and our time now. Thanks.”
But I can’t do that. The risks are too high. It turns out, there are pictures of me—graphic, nude, horrible pictures of me. But I didn’t take them.
Daniel did.
I don’t remember that night. But that was the point. That was his plan when he was visiting me—all for the tabloids, of course—when I was filming in the Florida Keys two years ago. The point of slipping the drugs into my water was that I wouldn’t remember what happened next.
He didn’t touch me that night, thank fucking God. Not like that. And as gross as Daniel is, I do actually believe him on that, just because he’s a terrible liar.
But he did violate me. He did strip my clothes off that night and take pictures of me spread out naked on my hotel suite bed.
He may not have touched me, but he still took something from me that night. I remember waking up naked in bed and thinking I’d eaten something weird or had a reaction to the anxiety meds I was on. I know now what really happened.
Daniel is the “hacker” threatening to release my naked pictures. Now, they’re the proverbial sword hanging above my head. They’re the leverage he’s using to force me into this life of captivity.
I’ve shot two full movies and half of a third in the last six months. Which is absurd. The two finished ones are ridiculous, terribly-written and worse directed romantic comedies. Mostly they’re just advertisements for Daniel’s face and new lines of clothing and men’s grooming products.
Those two are awful. But I’m even more furious at the third one—this Russian mafia movie, ironically enough. Ironic because of my time with Niko, but also because Daniel’s connections for this new scheme I now know are actual Russian mafia—the Bratva. Not the same family that Niko works for, but still.
But that third movie is actually an amazing script from this new young writer. It’s really good. But Daniel and his crew of Russian mobsters have this no-name Ukrainian guy directing it, who I’m pretty sure they only hired because he’s actually in the Bratva.
And don’t get me started on Jim. My jaw grinds as I stare out the window. Jim who I always thought the best of, even when he was pushing me in ways I didn’t want to be pushed. Jim who my aunt never trusted. I always stood up for him. I always told her and myself that he did what he did because he was so driven to make his cl
ients succeed.
In the end, it’s just that he’s a greedy fuck who views actors as financial assets. With the current situation, he’s either turned into an amazing actor, or he really is tone-deaf enough to not see how any of this is a problem.
I roll my eyes. No. Actually, it’s because he’s been given production credits on these new projects. Which means he’s going to get filthy rich exploiting me. There’s his real loyalty.
None of them are getting rich because the movies will do well. But I’m not dumb. I know what’s actually going on here. I mean you hear about it happening all the time with crappy movies and shady foreign investors—using American films as a way to launder or hide money.
That’s what’s going on here with Daniel, Jim, and the Russians. Only they’re doing it on an industrial scale. The original deal for Daniel to give me the pictures he took of me was three movies. Then it was six. Then ten. I know now it’ll never end.
There’s a knock on the door.
“Belle!”
I glare at the door. It’s Daniel. And he sounds wasted.
The reason we’re both here in Chicago is because we’re presenting awards at this teen award show being filmed live. I should rephrase that. I’m here for the awards. Daniel’s here for the teens.
“Are you fucking ready or not?”
I turn to look in the mirror again. No, but I’m as ready as I’ll ever be, I guess. So long as I can just get him out of my head.
Niko.
But that’s just another thing I’m sure now will never end. Ever.
When the door opens onto the red carpet, I’m ready. The plastic, fake smile goes on, and I step out to laugh and grin for the million flashing camera lights. Daniel springs out of the limo to a round of cheers from his adoring, mostly young and female, fans.
I resist the urge to turn and kick him in the balls. Half because I always feel like I want to do that. But also because in the limo over here, a motorcycle drove by, and my head whipped around. Daniel spent the next fifteen minutes calling me different versions of the word “whore.”
