Owned by the Mob Boss Read online

  That’s healthy, right?

  Mr. Johnson clears his throat. “Do you have any history of depression, anxiety, schizophrenia?”

  I shake my head.

  “Your responses must be verbal, Miss Greene,” he intones.

  “No,” I rasp, my mouth far too dry.

  “And you have never engaged in amorous activity with either a man or a woman?”

  I shake my head.

  “Words, please—”

  “No,” I say, louder now, finding my voice.

  “You’ll have to excuse me, Miss Greene, if some of these questions may make you uncomfortable.”

  All of them do.

  “Unfortunately, they are all mandatory. Shall we proceed?”

  I nod again. He sighs and keeps going.

  Do I have, or suspect that I have, a sexually transmitted disease?

  No.

  Do I anticipate ‘absconding’ on the night I ‘begin employment’?

  No.

  On and on like that, veering back and forth from weirdly formal to creepily implicating.

  As we move through the questionnaire, he has me sign the forms with the suggestive language inside. I feel an odd pride when I am able to scrawl my name without my hand shaking.

  I’ve chosen my course. Now, I have to walk it courageously. If Mom has taught me anything, it’s that.

  Toward the end of the interview, he slides a calling card across the table. It looks old-fashioned with gold trim around the edge, like something out of The Great Gatsby. A time, an address, and a place—the place where I will sell my body and perhaps my self-respect along with it.

  For my mom’s sake, if nothing else.

  “Do not be late,” Mr. Johnson says. He drums his manicured fingernails on the table. “My clients are very specific about punctuality.”

  Thinking that that is just about the most lawyerly sentence ever spoken, I rise stiffly from the chair.

  “Miss Greene,” he says when I am almost at the door.

  “Yes?” I say without turning.

  “If you wish to back out, now is the time. Afterward … it will not be so simple.”

  I swallow past the knot in my throat. “How much do these auctioneer’s assistants typically make?” I ask.

  “Anywhere between thirty and fifty thousand dollars,” he answers.

  I clutch the calling card so hard the edges bite into my palm.

  Then I leave without saying another word.

  3

  Erik

  Six days have passed, and the pain in my shoulder still bites like a hungry dog.

  But it is a good pain, getting deeper as I bench-press the bar, sweat dripping down my face. It reminds me of what a man must always be reminded of: to be vigilant, to take nothing for granted. There are always lurkers in the dark, ready to tear down what a man has worked his whole life for.

  Anatoly is standing at the threshold when I rack the weights and sit up. He’s tugging at his scar, deep in thought.

  “Business?” I ask.

  He nods shortly. “The Bratva is still—”

  “Asking questions with no answers,” I finish. “About Radovan and Alena.”

  “Yes, but are there truly no answers?”

  “None that would satisfy them,” I say.

  “What are you doing to find their killers?”

  “I heard you mention once that you got that scar asking questions you shouldn’t.”

  “Yes.” He smiles. “I asked another man’s woman to come home with me. He was not pleased then, and was even less so when I buried him. Erik,” he says, striding forward, “this cannot go on.”

  I wave a hand. “Tell them I have dealt with it.”

  “That will not do, and you know it.” He paces over to me. “Tell me what happened. You know I can be trusted.”

  I look up at him coldly. “You are a good man, Anatoly, but you forget your place too easily.”

  He inclines his head in assent. “I will not argue, and I can only apologize. But I need to know the truth if I am to help you.”

  I sigh, running a hand through my hair. As much as I may dislike it, he is right.

  So I tell him, in a flat, emotionless voice, what happened six nights ago.

  The hotel door swinging open.

  My man standing on the other side, gun in hand. A grim reaper, coming for my life.

  And the blood. All the fucking blood.

  “Radovan,” Anatoly growls when I’m finished. “Then the traitor deserved worse than what you gave him.”

  I pick up two heavy dumbbells and curl them, gritting my teeth at the pulsing in my shoulder. The bandage is leaking, but I will not stop until the workout is complete.

  “You must be more cautious,” Anatoly says quietly, in a more respectful tone now.

  “It is Damir and Fyodor who must be more cautious,” I snarl.

  “Yes, but if you were to die …”

  “It would be a bloodbath. Two wings of the Bratva slaughtering each other to decide my successor.” I drop the dumbbells with a heavy clunk. “Yes, I know. You are becoming a stuck record, old man.”

  It is not the first time he has mentioned the risk.

  “Have you given any thought to …”

  “An heir?” I interrupt. It is not the first time he has mentioned this, either. “Who do you suggest? I wouldn’t touch half the girls in this city with your cock, much less grace their finger with my ring.”

  “And why not?”

  “Because I have seen what marriage does to a man.” I head over to the squat rack and slide on two more plates.

  “You need not marry the girl. We have plenty of women who would tear out their eyes to bear your child.”

  “Whores,” I say dismissively. “How would I even know it was mine?”

  “Choose any girl in the harem and set her up on the estate. She will never see another man.”

  “And have every man who has ever climbed between her legs leer and snigger?”

  Anatoly shakes his head. “I did not know you were so proud.”

  “Proud?” I grunt out a laugh as I deepen into the squat. “It is practicality. Men will not respect a leader if they’ve fucked his woman. I want somebody untainted, somebody …”

  “Pure?” he offers.

  “In so many words.”

  “Then what about the auction?” he asks.

  “Archangel Vision,” I mutter, turning the idea over. “When is it?”

  “This evening.”

  I smile at the old rascal. “So your visit has two purposes. Three, if you count wearing my nerves thin.”

  “Will you consider it, Erik?” he says. “A Bratva without an heir is a dangerous thing. Open any history book and see it there. Blood fills a power vacuum if nothing else will.”

  I give him a short nod. “Untainted. Innocent. Pure. Perhaps a virgin auction is just what the Bratva needs.”

  What I don’t say is that it might just be what I need: a woman unskilled in the ways of the world, completely unlike that traitorous bitch Alena.

  Anatoly bows deeply. “My thoughts exactly. But I will leave the decision with you.”

  He backs out of the room, and once again, I am alone—with my sweat. With my pain. With my thoughts.

  As my legs grind through one heavy squat after another, my mind floats back to days I thought I’d forgotten years ago.

  I remember being young—five or six, maybe, perhaps younger. Standing in the yard with my father, baseball glove in hand, learning how to field a ground ball.

  He seemed to think it was so important that I mastered the skill. “American boys learn how to do this as soon as they’re out of the womb, Erik,” he snapped. “What is your excuse?”

  I didn’t cry, though I’m sure I wanted to. I hadn’t yet learned to keep that part of me locked deep inside. But I recall how my muscles ached, how tired I was. The sun had long since set over the trees in the distance, and only the glow of a light from the porch illuminat
ed us. My father’s shadow stretched over the backyard, grossly exaggerated, like a monster of a man. Not so far from the reality.

  “Again,” he snarled, without waiting for me to answer his question.

  Then, the sharp metallic clink of his bat.

  The rustle of the ball as it surged along the grass towards me.

  The tang of fear in my heart.

  There it was, bouncing, seething in my direction. I crouched, raised my glove, tried to calculate the flight path—

  Crunch.

  Wrong move. An error, a critical one. Blood streaming from a broken nose and a split lip. Pain bursting in my face.

  The stars overhead winked at me, until my father strode over to block them out as he stood above me, glaring down.

  Even now, with the memory faded into damn near nothingness, I can still picture the disgust in his face. He looked like I’d stepped up to a crucial test of our relationship and failed. Not just a little bit, but going down like a flaming wreck. A disappointment.

  The pain in my face soon lost its initial sting, but it was the look on his face that hurt the most. It hardened me. I left something behind me in the backyard that night. Not just blood. Something much more essential.

  “I—I’m sorry, Father,” I muttered through my fat lip.

  He shook his head angrily. “Again.”

  The tattoo on my chest, Never Forget, will forever remind me of everything I learned from him.

  I am just finishing up my workout, still stewing on the conversation with Anatoly, when my cell phone rings.

  It is Fyodor.

  “Boss,” he says, “those Italian cousins won’t be bothering us any time soon.”

  I clench my fist. “You handled it?” I say, keeping my voice level.

  “It is done.”

  “Without my permission?”

  “Uh, yes,” he falters. “I thought …”

  “It is good it is done,” I tell him. “But going behind my back, Fyodor, is not good for one’s health.”

  I hear him swallow. “I didn’t mean to—”

  “Enough,” I sigh. He saved my life less than a week ago, after all. He has earned a bit of latitude. Besides, there is nothing solid yet to connect him to the rumors of mutiny that have been gathering steam in the backchannels of the Bratva. As far as I have seen, he is the same loyal, reliable second that he has always been. I have no cause to distrust him—yet. “Is there anything else?”

  “No.”

  “Good.”

  I hang up, towel off my face, and then head to the medical room to change my bandage. The blood has spread now, seeping into my shirt.

  After that, I must get ready for the auction.

  Later that night, I walk through the banquet hall with Oleg at my left and Anatoly at my right. It’s a massive room with a glittering chandelier hanging from the ceiling and throne-like seats all around. The other men are business types and they split apart before our group, some of them casting us wary looks. Perhaps they have heard whispers of the Ivanovich Bratva.

  If so, they are right to be wary.

  We seat ourselves at the head of the room. Oleg waves over the waitress for some vodka.

  “Now we can get started!” he declares, draining his first shot.

  I sip mine more slowly, sitting back as the lights dim and light opera music filters from the speakers.

  “Who picked this Italian shit?” Oleg growls. He slams a hand on the table.

  Anatoly gestures to the waitress. “Play something different before you worsen my friend’s mood.”

  She nods meekly and retreats to the rear of the room. A minute or so later the music changes, and Oleg grins from ear to ear. I allow myself a smile. Of all my men, I like Oleg the most. He is simple, loyal, and would die for the Bratva in a heartbeat.

  Mr. Johnson comes ambling over a few minutes later, all wringing hands and dour expression. I know his face from previous auctions. I’ve never purchased before, but it is my job to know what’s happening in my city, so I’ve paid visits to Archangel Vision from time to time in the past to keep tabs on my contemporaries.

  “I am so glad to see you, Mr. Ivanovich,” he says.

  I say nothing, just stare.

  The man shifts uncomfortably. “Do you and your colleagues, ah, know the procedures here?”

  “We are buying art,” Oleg says gruffly. “How many procedures can there be?”

  I grin into my drink as I watch the stuffy lawyer fumble in the face of Oleg’s bluntness. “Yes, well,” he says, “each piece will be followed by a short introduction, containing all the information about the purchase you will need. For example, ‘expressionist’ means the presenting lady in question has been, ah, used before, if you catch my meaning?”

  “I catch it fine,” Oleg growls.

  “‘Modernism’ implies that the lady will do anything you wish; ‘abstract’ means that she has only agreed to missionary …”

  I wave a hand. “I have been briefed.”

  Anatoly explained the distinctions to me on the ride over. The artists’ names, the medium, the date, the style—all of it has a special significance, a hidden meaning.

  And the explicit mention of sex is strictly forbidden.

  “Of course.” Mr. Johnson bows deeply, his lips trembling slightly. “And lastly, if I could make one suggestion …”

  I raise my eyebrows, but say nothing. My silence makes the mustachioed man shake as though I have just struck him.

  Even Mr. Johnson, who has dealt with the Bratva many times, knows to be afraid.

  “The best selection of art is slated to appear towards the end of the auction,” he says, eyes lowered. “If you wait until then, I assure you, you will not be disappointed.”

  “I am a collector of art, and a rich bastard on top of that,” I say archly. “I will purchase what moves me.”

  My men laugh. Mr. Johnson offers a deep bow. “Of course, Mr. Ivanovich, you know best in this matter. I will defer to your expertise.”

  He scurries off. Oleg chuckles loudly. “That is not a man,” he says. “Look at his little waddle.”

  Anatoly takes a small sip of vodka. “Fool or not, he knows his business. We’d do well to weigh his words carefully.”

  “Bah,” Oleg replies, dismissive. “Buy whichever whore gets your dick hard. Is that not the point?”

  We sit back and wait for the auction to begin. Oleg keeps pounding vodka shots and Anatoly taps his nails against the table. I sit almost completely still except for my finger moving around the edge of my glass.

  Finally, the lights cut out completely. A hush falls over the room and the music lowers.

  A spotlight appears in the middle of the room.

  The auctioneer, a prim-looking lady in a buttoned-up shirt, stands in the center. “Gentlemen,” she says. “Thank you all for coming to Archangel Vision this evening. I hope you are all seated comfortably. We will begin immediately. For our first piece, we have a painting done in the expressionist style, completed by the legendary Andrew Hinchcliff in 1987. Bidding will begin at ten thousand dollars.”

  A woman walks out in a bikini, a skinny, scared-looking thing dragging the stand upon which the art rests. She blinks into the spotlight like a deer.

  I take a sip of vodka as the bidding commences.

  “Ten thousand!” a drunk-sounding man roars from the shadows.

  “Fifteen!”

  “Eighteen!”

  “Look at those legs,” the same drunken man slurs. “I could make good use of ’em! Twenty thousand!”

  “Some people have no dignity,” Anatoly mutters. “If he continues bleating like a pig, I’ll give him something to bleat about.”

  I laugh. Anatoly is smart, but too particular. Never one to get his hands dirty with the riffraff.

  The drunken man wins the art and the girl moves to the rear of the room. More girls are brought out one by one, but none of them are of interest to me.

  It’s the fear in their eyes that is
most unsettling. I am not sentimental, and the devil knows I’ve had my hand in some unsavory business in my lifetime, in the kind of business playing out on stage before me. But the whole thing feels distasteful. Seedy. Like a parade of truck-stop whores, marching from eighteen-wheeler to eighteen-wheeler with singles tucked into their cowboy boots.

  The night wears on and the drunken man gets even more drunk. “Fucking whores!” he proclaims loudly. “I love ’em. Let me have ’em all.”

  More and more pieces of art are brought out—even some abstract pieces, which indicate virginity—but none of them stir me. I start to eye the door, considering an early exit. Maybe this was all a stupid idea. Buying a wife, a mother to my child? I’d be better off shoveling through cow shit and hoping for diamonds.

  Then, at the very end of the evening, she appears.

  She is tall and slender, with pert breasts and pale flesh that seems almost translucent in the spotlight. Her hair is red and flows down to her shoulders in waves. She turns her deep blue eyes around the room without a hint of intimidation, and the art piece she presents is all blocks and cubes.

  A virgin.

  Then she turns her eyes to me. The light is low, but it must not be low enough. I notice a spark of something there. She bites her lip, staring straight at me.

  For the first time tonight, I feel my manhood stir.

  “Look at this one,” the drunken man laughs. “She’d be too much hassle. Thinks too much of herself.”

  “You’re right,” she says, her voice crisp. “I’d be too much for a man like you to handle, for sure.”

  The room hushes. I nearly laugh.

  “Excuse me!” the auctioneer snaps from the side of the stage. “Disrespect will not be tolerated.”

  She shrugs, still looking at me. Fuck, this one really is different. “He started it.”

  “Enough!” The auctioneer makes to walk into the spotlight.

  “No,” I say, voice quiet.

  The auctioneer pauses mid-step. “Mr. Ivanovich?”