“I can imagine.” I found myself admiring the man and hurting for the child he’d been at the same time.
He poured me another glass of champagne and, when I reached for it, our fingers brushed. In the electric pulse of a moment, I saw the future he would have. He deserved to be the underboss of the Zolotov Bratva if not the pakhan. That much was clear.
His determination, his cunning, his ability to adapt were obvious. He’d gone from street kid in Russia to the second in command of one of the biggest mafia operations in Boston.
As I pulled my hand away from his, I saw in his hooded eyes the future that could be us. And it frightened me to ponder the power he already held over me.
“Yury was going to kill us, you know?” Arkady ducked his head down to his vodka. “Me and my brothers.”
My eyes popped wide. “What?”
He chuckled, relaxing back in the booth. “We tried to swindle him like we had everybody else. Little did we know who we fucked with.”
He shook his head. “Could have gone very badly.”
“You don’t say?”
“Papa recognized our potential. Our worth.” He emphasized the last word, and I knew he was wondering how much I was worth to him in that moment. “Yury adopted us into his own family. He taught us smarter, better, wilier ways to undertake illegal business.”
Arkady’s grammar became disjointed when he spoke so closely about his splintered past.
“You’ve taken care of so much, and no one has ever taken care of you.” My words came out, not with sympathy but with respect.
No one had ever given me a chance because I was a woman trying to navigate this male dominated world.
“Da.” Shrugging, he finished another vodka. “Could be worse though.”
Yes. I knew that firsthand.
“Yury wanted sons,” he said, spinning the glass between his palms.
So had my father. More sons.
“He had only Sasha and she cannot run Bratva.”
I almost rolled my eyes at his male superiority bullshit except I’d come up against the same prejudice myself. I clamped my mouth shut, waiting to see if he’d keep talking now that his tongue had finally loosened.
I followed the mesmerizing slip of his strong fingers back and forth across his glass, remembering what those fingers—and his tongue—had done to me.
Then he laughed. “Sasha is like a little sister.”
“Not to Maksim.” My gaze flew to his, and his irises shined brightly.
“Nyet. I told you. They hate one another like squabbling siblings.”
“That wasn’t what I saw, Arkady.”
He continued to chuckle, disregarding my feminine intuition. The two might hate one another, but they sure as hell wanted each other too.
It was surreal, sitting there in The Cat and the Sickle, laughing together. Eating and drinking and not fighting one another.
Not fucking either though.
Arkady was a remarkable specimen of pure man. He didn’t have airs except for those he had every right to claim—sexually imposing, thoroughly capable of killing, smart, calculating, and cunning.
The tiniest foibles he’d shared only made him more human. More relatable. More reachable.
He wasn’t a complete sicko monster, and therein lay the quandary.
What was he going to do to me at the end of all this?
Leaning forward, Arkady pushed the dishes aside. He claimed my hands in his and snared my gaze.
“Now it is my turn.” He laced his fingers through mine, drawing me closer. “I want to know what happened that made you start cutting yourself in the first place.”
13
Arkady
I’D GOTTEN NO RELIEF last night, and today had been filled with more torment. Perhaps I should’ve let Lucia suck me off when she’d so lewdly begged.
I’d made her come but had taken no such succor myself.
It did not help that I’d tortured both of us even more during the shooting lesson. Standing right against her, I’d already been turned on to a ferocious level by the sight of her in the polished dress and the sexy high heels that showcased the curves of her body.
When I helped her handle the gun, I imagined the weapon was my rock hard cock she palmed with such timidity before taking a firmer grip. As she finally pulled the trigger, a grunt escaped me. Her lush ass felt so fucking right nestled against me, I’d wanted to explode like the bullet from the barrel.
The filthy innuendos I darkly murmured in her ear only served to draw a taut, sexual forcefield between us.
Eating a meal with Lucia became another minefield of temptation. Her ripe lips looked so sumptuous curved around the tines of a fork and, when she swallowed, I wanted it to be my rich cum sliding down her throat.
Somehow through it all, she’d inveigled information from me about my unorthodox upbringing or lack thereof.
Now I’d all but spilled my guts to her.
I did not lament my life. Had never regretted my choices. I’d learned to be tough at a young age, navigating the mean streets of Moscow. I’d fought, stole, forced, and foraged for my survival and that of my younger brothers.
Mine was not a life defined by luck, fate, or lack of foresight.
I left nothing to chance.
Now this woman had come along exactly by chance.
I saw her as an opportunity to enrich my life and, more importantly, to enrich the Zolotov Bratva.
Above all else, Yury demanded total loyalty as he deserved. The pakhan commanded respect, which was his by rights. During his life, he’d overcome no fewer hardships than Kirill, Maksim, and me.
None of us complained.
We killed when necessary and sometimes even when it wasn’t, because everyone must know the Zolotov Bratva was the most formidable adversary, and Boston belonged to us.
I did not need sympathy from Lucia Leone and, if she thought she could save me from myself, she was dead wrong.
After I point blank asked her what had prompted her to cut her legs in such a grisly way in the first place, she yanked her hands from mine.
She shot me a look of utter hate, but I saw the despair shading her luminous irises.
Placing my elbows on the table, I would not let her off the hook. “I told you my truth”—one part of it at least—“consider this payment for your lunch.”
“I made some of this lunch!” she hissed.
So she had, and it had tasted damn good.
But I needed answers from her so I could figure out just how to go forward with her. Because, after last night, I knew danger surrounded her on all sides.
Danger . . . including me.
Her beautiful brown eyes shuttered into cold brittleness. “If anything, it’s you who owe me, Arkady.”
I stared at her intently. “When I first asked you who had caused all those cuts and scars on your thighs you told me it was no one important.” Tilting my head, I watched as she blinked rapidly. “That’s how you think of yourself? As nobody important?”
“I despise you so much right now.” She snarled.
Yet the frostiness in her eyes melted, and I saw a glimmer of tears swimming there.
Then I sat back. I pulled out my cigarettes and lit a smoke before refilling my vodka and her champagne.
As I blew out a ring, she carefully sipped her drink, watching me the entire time.