Kostya: A Dark Mafia Romance (Zinon Bratva) Page 3

  Ugh. Yes, I know the rumors about my boss. I try to ignore them. It’s easy enough—nothing overtly wrong ever takes place in his office. I would know if there was; I’ve been in charge of Kostya’s desk for eleven months now, and I know just about every single thing and person that comes in and out of the offices of Zinon Enterprises. So what if some shady-looking dudes swing by unexpectedly every now and then? Everybody has shady friends. And so what if Kostya doesn’t like being on TV? Plenty of people don’t. I might be the only thirty-something girl in California who doesn’t harbor secret dreams of becoming a star actress, so I can understand the desire to stay out of the public eye.

  But Kostya’s reluctance to ham it up for the cameras and the tight operation he runs in his businesses means that lines of questioning like this are few and far between.

  All of which leads me to believe that this man is the only type of person who’d be asking questions like that: a reporter. Probably one of those slimy ones from a tabloid rag, the kind who dig through trash cans and dumpsters for their “source close to” their subject.

  “I already said you’re mistaken.” My tone is ice cold. This budding friendship is over. I pick up his hand and shove it away.

  But he isn’t flustered, not even a little bit. He shifts gears so quickly my head spins, and the nice- guy act disappears like a bad dream. “So, tell me, Miss Charlotte Lowe …” he snarls, voice acid.

  Am I supposed to be impressed that he knows my name? If he knew where to find me, the leap isn’t so big to think he would also find out who I am.

  “What’s it like to work for someone who can’t go to a simple fundraiser without drawing gunfire? Do you worry for your own safety?” He moves closer to me but raises his voice as if he’s trying to make a scene.

  I ignore him and move up to place my order. As soon as I’m finished, he starts again. “You know he’s the boss of the entire West Coast Russian Bratva, right?”

  I don’t answer because nice girls—which I am—don’t say fuck you in public. I just close my eyes and dream of paninis.

  “You ever pull a trigger for him? Or are you more ornamental for Zinon?”

  Ornamental? “What does that mean?” Goddammit. I didn’t mean to ask that out loud.

  “Oh, you know—make his coffee. Count his cash. Spread your legs when he wants something warm and wet to crawl into. The things Russian mobsters keep girls like you around to do.”

  Oh, hell to the motherflippin’ no. This isn’t my first rodeo dealing with ugly reporters poking at Kostya’s fortune. Normally, I’m nice enough to firmly rebut them and send them on their way.

  But he just went way, way too far.

  I don’t give a shit if there’s even the tiniest inkling of truth to the man’s accusations. Kostya may be an asshole, but he’s my asshole to deal with, not this son of a bitch’s. And that bit about spreading my legs is some next-level grossness. Time to put him in his place.

  I whirl on him. “Kostya is a businessman. And the police said the shooting after the gala was gang-related and random. Do you want to see the report? I could fax it, or email it, or shove it up your ass, since your head is already up there.”

  When I’m finished, and I’ve said the worst I can muster with butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-my-mouth sincerity, I turn away, if only so I can better resist the temptation to take my bag and maim him with it. The last thing I need is a felony charge for assault with a deadly weapon—and make no mistake, Hermès can be deadly if wielded when full of enough female paraphernalia. Also, my mother is waiting across the dining room. The second-to-last thing I need is another lecture from her.

  The man laughs cruelly. “You stupid girl. He killed three men while he was wearing a Ralph Lauren tux. Does that strike you as businessman behavior?”

  “It was Armani, you dense shithead.” My arguments need work, but the fury racing through my veins is putting a halt to all conscious thought that should be occurring north of my eyebrows. “And Kostya Zinon is no more Russian Mafia than I am.” I give him my best cold glare and continue. “Don’t you think the cops would be a little nosier if they thought he was the Big Bad Bratva Wolf?”

  Even as I say it, I remember the calls from men who refused to tell me who they worked for, asking about this and that package or rendezvous. I remember the training that Kostya’s outgoing secretary gave me—Never confirm or deny anything over the phone. At the time, overwhelmed by nervousness, I figured that every billionaire’s secretary got the same spiel when they started. But it didn’t take too long on the job before I started to get a little suspicious.

  Not that I’d mention any of those thoughts to this asshat.

  “Christ, you are naïve. Do you really think a man with money like him doesn’t have a couple corrupt cops in his pocket? Maybe even an assistant DA?” He bites his lip, and I really want to smash my purse on top of his head. Maybe he’d bite that damned lip off. “Tell me: does Kostya get a lot of visits from off-duty police officers? You ever see any little envelopes full of cash changing hands?”

  “Watch yourself, douchebag. If he is Russian Mafia, do you really think you should be harassing one of his employees?”

  For just a second, I wish Kostya was what this man is saying he is. I’d beg for him to shut this son of a bitch up. But as soon as I have the thought, guilt knots in my stomach. To even consider that Kostya could be a part of something so vile feels wrong. He’s shady, sure—what billionaire isn’t? But calling him a criminal is something else. I don’t like that, not one bit.

  Thank God, the clerk hands me my sandwich along with a sympathetic gaze.

  Maybe I am a fool. Maybe Kostya is everything this dipshit says he is, but my questions about him are mine alone. I’m entitled to them because of the things I’ve seen and heard while in Kostya’s employ. This douche nozzle has nothing more than faulty supposition and bad guesswork. Maybe someday I’ll ask Kostya myself about the things that don’t quite make sense, but that’s my decision if I ever choose to make it. I won’t be bullied into it by some nosy reporter.

  He’s opening his mouth to launch a new line of questioning, but I shove him out of my way and head to the dining room.

  It’s full, as usual, but I spot my mother by the window. Instead of walking toward her, I practically jog because I have so much leftover adrenaline.

  She’s all smiles. “Charlotte, I saw you talking to that man. And you’re practically glowing. Did he ask you out?” Before I can answer, she gushes on. “He’s so handsome. So many other women were looking at him, too, and he chose you.”

  Yay. Big shiny star for me.

  “I told you those push-up bras were a wonder,” she continues. She takes a hard look at my chest and frowns. “Though that one doesn’t seem to be doing much pushing up.”

  I don’t have the heart to tell her that the ten new bras she gifted me for my birthday are still sitting unused in the drawer. I just smile because anything I say won’t matter to her anyway. “How are you, Mom?”

  My mother is a force of nature. A whirlwind on a good day, a Category 5 hurricane on a bad one. She’s only fifty-five, with nary a gray hair, due in part to her weekly appointments at Alejandro’s Salon in Beverly Hills. Neither does she have a wrinkle or a frown line. She’s youthful and vibrant.

  Also, bitter and pushy. I take the good with the bad because I love her.

  “Well, to be honest, I’m upset.” She dabs melodramatically at tears that have yet to make an appearance.

  Oh God. Hurricane Gloria is in the house today. Batten down the hatches. “Mom,” I start. We’re about to have the same old argument. Well, “old” if the eleven months I’ve been working for Kostya can be considered an adequate time to be classified as such. It certainly feels like a lifetime.

  “You said you would ask him.” She’s petulant and accusatory, all the things that are sure to make this an oh-so-enjoyable lunch date. And, as always, apparently it’s my fault.

  In a moment of weakness, I told my mom I’d ask Kostya to help track down my sister Lila, who willingly crawled into a car with her new husband—a man she’d known a week, I might add—and left, never to be heard from again. Nine years ago.

  “I know, Mom, and I will.” But I’m not, and I probably won’t. Lila was of sound mind and body when she married that buffoon. Maybe not when she left with him, but she made her choice. And she chose the buffoon over her family.

  Begging my boss for help in an emergency situation was one thing, but for a sister who ran out on her own? That is a completely different ball of never gonna happen.

  Of course, I won’t be sharing that conviction with my mother.

  “Honey, I know you think Lila was a fool to leave. But I know my girl, and if she wasn’t in trouble, she would have called.”

  “Her girl”?

  Does her girl pay for the two hundred dollar a week salon visits?

  Did her girl spring for a trip to Hawaii after Dad died?

  Did her fucking girl even show up for the freaking funeral?

  My blood is boiling for the second time in as many minutes, but I just bite my lip and sigh, because to point any of it out would only start a fight. And after the interaction with the jerk at the counter, I’m not up for another. Especially not with someone who knows exactly which of my buttons to push to get the reaction she wants.

  I suppose it’s only fair. She gave me the buttons, after all.

  “I know. I’ll ask.” Because I’m dutiful, and responsible, and about to hear how lonely she is, it’s easy to look into her eyes and lie.

  “It’s just that since your dad died and you girls left …” Aaand there it is. “I’m all alone. I walk around that big empty house by myself.”

  “Maybe it’s time to think about selling the h
ouse. You could get a small apartment. Travel. See the world.” And, hopefully, it’ll keep her busy enough that maybe she’ll quit worrying about my selfish, irresponsible sister. “Enjoy this time you have to get to know yourself outside of being our mom or Dad’s wife.”

  “Travel alone?” she says in horror.

  Uh-oh. I messed up. Here it comes. Meltdown in three, two …

  She rolls her eyes. “How could you, of all people, suggest such a thing?” She’s one huff away from a full-blown explosion. “Especially after what happened to your boss last night. He was almost killed in a random shooting! And what if Lila comes home and I’ve moved away? How will she know where to find me?”

  I don’t point out that the shooting happened right here in LA and that there are safer places she could visit. It wouldn’t do any good. The point to this lunch isn’t selling her house or enjoying a meal.

  It’s Lila—because my mom’s whole world is about Lila. Sadly, it always has been.

  Not that I can fault her. Before he died, I was Dad’s girl, and Lila gravitated toward Mom, on those rare occasions when she could see outside her little bubble of self-importance enough to notice our mother—or anyone else, for that matter.

  And now, Mom is pouting—literally, arms crossed, eyes downcast, food-ignored pouting. “How can you be so cold when you know how I suffer worrying about her?” It’s true, she does suffer—to anyone who will listen. Daily.

  I pick up my sandwich and take a bite. I could argue, but it’s going to be a while before she’s finished dressing me down, so eating while I endure makes sense. At some point today, I still have to get back to work.

  “All I’m asking is that you ask Mr. Zinon to use his influence to help find your sister. The same sister who let you borrow her silver earrings—the earrings I bought her for her sixteenth birthday—then forgave you when you lost them.”

  I nod. Lila lost the earrings while getting frisky in Robby Wright’s back seat and blamed it on me.

  “You were always doing things like that,” she continues. “Remember the dent in her front fender?”

  Of course I remember it. She hit a parked car, then told Mom she was teaching me, her twelve-year-old sister, how to drive.

  I remember the hundred other times she lied, and I covered for her and took the parental heat.

  And then I remember the most important thing of all—Mom won’t care about any of that. Her story is her story, and there’s nothing I can do to change her mind about a single detail.

  “You’re absolutely right, Mom. I am being selfish. I’ll ask Kostya today.”

  Mhmm. I’ll also take a ride on his lap while sipping champagne and eating caviar off his pecs.

  Mom smiles as genuinely as she ever does and pats my hand. “That’s my girl. You know, I think when we find Lila, we should all take another trip. Just us girls.”

  Maybe we can do that. Just as soon as I’m done killing Lila for making me suffer Mom alone.

  3

  Kostya

  “It’s done.”

  I curl my fist tighter in my lap. “I’m on my way.” Then I hang up the phone and start the car.

  The engine purrs smoothly to life. I grip the steering wheel tightly. It feels solid, comforting. I need the tether to reality. Because none of this feels real. Nothing has felt real, actually, since the moment Yelisey dropped this whole fucking disaster in my lap. I feel like I’m floating, watching myself go through the motions.

  I’ve kept everything close to the chest. It’s how I was raised, how I was taught, and it’s how I have achieved the things I have achieved. The broken glass and roar in the car after the gala were rare slipups.

  But there are emotions burbling in my chest now, threatening to break through my barriers. If I let them out, they will overwhelm me. I have spent a lifetime keeping those kinds of things far from daylight. The task has never been as hard as it is now.

  I pull up outside the courthouse. Geoffrey is waiting for me outside of an identical black SUV. I park and get out, leaving the car running. “Keep it here,” I order him. “I won’t be long.”

  He nods curtly without saying a word. Good man.

  I turn and walk up the marble steps. The columns of the grand building stretch around me, holding up the roof. I see one crack spiderwebbing its way down to the base. I can relate—I, too, feel like crumbling under the weight of the world on my shoulders.

  But I will not crumble. I will not snap. I will not fucking yield.

  I move inside, through the metal detector. I can hear my footsteps echoing in the atrium, along with the hushed voices of lawyers and defendants and hapless jurors swirling around me. My eyes are locked on my destination. Courtroom 4, Yelisey informed me on the call.

  I see the sign I am looking for and stride towards it. Seize the door handle. Pull it open.

  Then, I pause, just for the briefest of moments, so slight that anyone watching me might not even notice.

  But I notice. I know what it means: hesitation. Uncertainty. And fear, or something akin to it, as close to fear as a man like me can ever feel. Whatever awaits me on the other side of this door is something that will change my life irrevocably.

  Natasha’s final trick.

  I swallow back the bile in my throat and go inside.

  The counselor and the court representative have been babbling for long minutes, but I have barely paid attention. Yelisey, seated to my left, earns his keep by doing that for me. I just sign when they tell me to sign, stamp my thumbprints as instructed, and then get to my feet. Sitting with my back to the door makes me uncomfortable, especially in an unsecured room. My enemies are everywhere—even in the courthouse. Only a fool thinks he is safe in a place like this.

  Finally, the counselor exits the room through a small wooden side door. My heartbeat is all I can hear, pounding like a drum in my ears.

  The door swings open again. The counselor walks back through.

  Followed by a little girl.

  She is blonde, small, with bright blue eyes. Eyes like mine. Her hands are clasped in front of her timidly, and her gaze is etched with fear. Her jaw, though, is thrust forward proudly, like she doesn’t want a single person in this room to know she is afraid.

  She truly is my daughter.

  And at the sight of her, everything I have been holding back ignites at once.

  I drop to one knee, so that I can look in her eyes at her level. She stares back at me, as uncertain as I am.

  “Hello, Tiana,” I rasp.

  She says nothing. The counselor urges her forward. Tiana takes two hesitant steps towards me, then stops again and looks up at the woman.

  “Tiana, this is your father,” the counselor whispers. “Do you want to say hello?”

  She tilts her head, considering me. “Hi,” she says finally.

  I feel the strangest clenching of my heart when I hear her voice.

  “Do you want to give him a hug?” the counselor suggests.

  Tiana hesitates again, looks up at the counselor, then back to me. A few long seconds pass. I barely notice the others in the room—Yelisey, the court representative, the counselor. I see only my child. My daughter. My little girl.

  Whatever she sees in my face must assuage her fear. Because she takes a few more steps to close the distance between us. She grabs my hand with her little fingers. She lets me pull her into a gentle hug.

  I know one thing, immediately and forever—for as long as I am able, I will protect this girl with my life.

  I will slaughter anyone who lays a finger on her head.

  I have to wonder about a system that releases a little girl into a man’s custody and bids him the best of luck, with little in the way of formal support.

  But here she is, sitting in a loaner car seat in the back of my luxury convertible while I inch down the 405 toward the office.

  A big black pickup, with wide tires and exhaust that rumbles through the interior of my car, slides into the lane beside me and I stare hard. Since the shooting last weekend, I’m on alert, checking every vehicle that passes for a Whelan assassin. How the hell this has spun so far out of control, I have no idea. But the Whelans are back and taking aim.

  And now I have a fucking daughter to protect.