Kostya: A Dark Mafia Romance (Zinon Bratva) Read online

  This is not the type of worry I’m accustomed to dealing with. I deal with deals gone south. Liars. Cheats. Spies infiltrating my business. I know what to do with that. How to handle the unsavory details of my lifestyle and profession.

  But a kid? What the fuck am I supposed to do with a kid?

  I probably should have thought this through before I strolled into court this morning. At least arranged some sort of caretaker. Someone who knows what the hell they’re doing.

  “I have to pee,” chirps a little voice from the back. I’m four lanes left, twenty cars buried, and a good mile from the next exit.

  “Can you hold it?” That’s a question a father would ask, right? I feel awkward and clumsy, like a newborn deer that hasn’t yet learned what to do with its legs. I glance over my shoulder. She has Nat’s eyes and my hair. Nat’s grimace and my chin. The grimace says “holding it” isn’t going to happen.

  After angling and forcing, swerving and riding the shoulder, and making half a dozen new enemies in the process, the highway is a memory and I’ve pulled into a gas station. Then it’s a race inside to a bathroom. There’s a slight pause as I stand outside the two doors, one marked women and one marked men. I have no idea if this little girl can see to her own business or if she needs help. Nor do I know how to ask her.

  Instead, I run back to the counter, Tiana’s legs swinging and my arm probably squeezing too tight around her waist. But she’s giggling, so I ignore the voice of concern in my head as we race past the Ho-Hos and Ding Dongs. The woman behind the counter is short with gray hair and a frown. “She needs to use the bathroom.”

  The woman points to the space I’ve only just vacated. “Back there.”

  “Yes, I know, but …” I’m at a loss. I know fuck-all about kids or the appropriate parental bathroom etiquette.

  She rolls her eyes, an offense I don’t usually tolerate with mere silence, but this time, I need her help. I’ll allow her impudence. “Just take her in the men’s room.”

  I nod. “Thank you.”

  Again, I rush to the back of the store. I’m still not clear on the logistics of child bathroom usage, so I turn my back and wait. And wait. Until a quick look over my shoulder tells me Tiana is standing with her legs crossed and her hands fiddling and failing to unbutton her jeans. I crouch beside her and have no better luck. Little girl Levi’s aren’t made for adult male hands.

  I want to swear but I bite my tongue instead. Just as I’m about to give up and head back to the counter for a pair of scissors, the metal button pulls free and she shoves the pants down and hops onto the toilet. Thank God. I turn away again.

  When she’s finally finished, I hold her up to the sink so she can wash her hands.

  As we dry her hands, she smiles up at me.

  For one wild moment, I don’t care anymore about anything else.

  She’s beautiful.

  And she’s mine.

  As we walk out of the store, she laces her fingers through mine. “You have to hold my hand in parking lots. Mommy says so.” There’s a tremor in her voice as she says the word “Mommy.”

  “What else does Mommy say?” I ask cautiously.

  “She says … she says …”

  Shit. I hear a whimper in her voice. Like the rumbling before an earthquake strikes. I recognize it, but it is far too late.

  “Tiana, I—” I try to interrupt, but it is no good.

  Tiana stops walking and plops down on the concrete to cry. “I want my mommy!” Her shriek draws attention and I’m, once again, at a loss. She’s three. Almost four. And I have no idea how to make her stand up and dry her tears.

  But she’s a crying woman, and I have plenty of experience with those. That experience tells me to hug her. To soothe her with my voice.

  “It’s okay, Tiana. We’re going to figure this out.” I pick her up and hold her against my chest as she sobs like she … well, like she has lost her mother.

  She’s so tiny. So helpless. Her sobs are hopeless. I’ve heard them before. Have caused the same sounds. Felt the same pain.

  I say gently, “Can you come with me to my office, and we can work this out?” Big words from a guy who has no idea what he’s doing.

  I hold my breath, wondering if my little question is enough to pull her attention away from the loss of the only parent she has ever known. I can hear her sobs start to slow down, until there are a few seconds between each, and then a little longer each time. Eventually, she is tentatively calm, though whimpers strike every so often like aftershocks.

  Her face is tear-stained, and those bright blue eyes are rimmed with red. Her bottom lip, stuck out like a caricature, is still wobbly. I clench my fist and pray that the worst has passed us by.

  Tiana looks up at me expectantly. When I don’t say anything, I see the wobble in her lip start to speed up again. If I don’t intervene, another meltdown is imminent. She needs—fuck, I don’t know what she needs. Reassurance? Distraction? Neither? Both? She needs something, so I start rambling.

  “I have an office in a tall building,” I say. “The tallest one in the city. With big windows. You can see the whole city from there. I can show you. You can see the clouds and the birds, too. Do you want to come see? We can take the elevator to the very top floor.”

  I don’t know if I said the magic words or just got lucky, but either way, it seems to have done the trick. Her hands ease open from their balled fists; the bottom lip gets tucked away.

  She presses her cheek against my chest and I hold her for a moment. Then she pulls away and tilts her head to the side again to look at me curiously. The sun catches the smeared moisture and she sparkles. “You talk pretty,” she says softly.

  Her laughter is like music—soft, perfect music. “I’m from Russia,” I tell her.

  “Where’s that?”

  “Very far away,” I say. “Very far indeed.”

  God knows that is the truth. And right now, it feels farther away than ever before. My homeland is a world of snow, of dark, silent forests, of grim faces. Sitting on this concrete curb beneath a beating sun and blaring highway din, with a giggling little girl at my side, I wonder what the hell I have gotten myself into.

  Her smile is brighter than the sun shining overhead. “I want to talk like you.” She puts her finger against my nose and pushes, then giggles again.

  I lift her up, strap her in the car, and sigh. I’ve survived my first crisis, and I don’t mind admitting it was far more treacherous than anything the Whelans could deal out.

  The rest of the drive to the office is uneventful. At least there are no more tears.

  I can’t concentrate on a single word. Little girl shrieks rebound around the office, accompanied by the whoomp of couch cushions wheezing as she lands on them and giggles madly.

  I’m in my office, seated behind my desk with today’s reports in front of me, desperate to get some work done. But Tiana has found a second wind and my furniture has become her playhouse, her trampoline. She’s jumping from the sofa to the chair and back, giggling with each landing, good or bad. I’ve read the same page three times but have no idea what it says.

  I need just one moment of silence.

  I stand. “Tiana.”

  She looks up at me, bouncing gently up and down on the couch.

  “Just stay here, okay? And don’t touch anything on the desk.” I start to leave, then turn back. “Please,” I add.

  I stride to the door, one eye still on Tiana, yank it open—

  And run full-on into Charlotte.

  I feel the splash of hot liquid hitting my front, and hear her yelp in surprise. She was on her way to deliver my afternoon coffee. Perfect. Fantastic fucking timing. Exactly what I needed.

  I growl wordlessly and yank the door shut behind me. Tiana’s voice cuts off at once—the room is soundproofed, ostensibly to protect trade secrets and keep prying ears away from my business. But in this case, it is effective to keep my little girl’s happy noises from puncturing my eardrums any further.

  Fatherhood has been a fucking dream so far.

  I look down at Charlotte. She is splattered with coffee too, all down the front of her sheer white blouse. I note the swell of her cleavage, then lock my eyes on hers. “You should knock.”

  “I was about to, before you came barging out.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “Are you sure you weren’t just standing outside my door?”

  She clicks her teeth in irritation and whirls away, stomping over to her desk in stilettos. I stay rooted where I am and watch as she leans over her desk to snatch up the box of tissues she keeps on the other side.

  Her ass is a fucking temptation. She is wearing a long red skirt today, thin enough that I can just make out the edges of her panties pressed underneath it.

  She spins back around to face me. I wonder if she notices my eyes on her body, because she blushes and doesn’t meet my gaze again as she dabs at the coffee stains on her shirt.

  I start to say something else, then think better of it and stalk over to a closet in the corner. Yanking it open, I withdraw one of the pressed dress shirts I keep on hand for occasions just like this.

  I turn to face Charlotte again as I unknot my tie, rip it off, and begin to unbutton the coffee-stained shirt I’m wearing. Charlotte’s eyes are locked on my fingers working the buttons open.

  “Women are a handful,” I remark bitterly. The air between us is thick with tension.

  “Only if their men aren’t man enough to do the handling,” she retorts. She bites her lip as soon as she says it, like it was more daring than she intended it to be.

  It feels like we’re locked in a sudden dance that neither of us anticipated. But sweet Charlotte is far more out of her element than I am. I know what is zipping back and forth between
us. I’ve been picturing her naked every time she has walked into my office for weeks. Perhaps she has done the same, but I have been hard enough on her lately that I know there is an element of frustration in her, too.

  Good. She needs some edge.

  “She just needs a distraction, I think,” I say. “That, or a firm hand.”

  Charlotte rolls her eyes, but I notice the blush has deepened. “What are you going to do with her?” she asks. I’ve stripped off my ruined shirt. I see Charlotte gripping the edge of her desk hard. The toe of her shoe wiggles in the air nervously.

  “For now, I need a moment’s peace.”

  “How do you plan on that?”

  I eye her carefully—and then a plan occurs to me, already in full bloom, like it was just waiting for me to stumble across it. “My lovely secretary. How else?”

  She narrows her eyebrows. “No, no, no. Babysitting is not in my job description.”

  “Then perhaps the description bears rewriting.”

  “You don’t pay me enough for that.”

  I laugh. “No, I suppose not. But you will make even less if I fire you.”

  She crosses her arms and the pinwheeling of her toe picks up a notch. I can see her weighing her options in her head. She could refuse, and risk being fired—God knows I’ve axed others for less.

  “At the very least, just come say hello,” I add, softening just a touch. “Professional courtesy if nothing else. She is a guest in our office, isn’t she? Surely that falls in your job description.”

  Charlotte rolls her eyes again as I shrug on the new shirt and finish buttoning it up.

  “Fine,” she snaps. “But I am not a babysitter.”

  I smile and say nothing.

  We walk into the office, Charlotte first, if for no other reason than so that I can watch her ass sway from side to side as she strides in front of me. She keeps her head held high, in a posture of defiance that I know damn well she does not truly feel.

  Because Charlotte’s smile is pure joy when she looks at my daughter.

  She bends to pick up some markers from the cup on my desk. Her long auburn hair swings forward as she reaches into the bottom drawer of my desk for a sheet of blank paper.

  I watch as she takes the markers to the small table and sits on the floor next to it. Without speaking to Tiana, she uncaps a marker and begins to draw. I set down the papers in my hand and watch.

  Instead of sitting next to her or standing to watch, Tiana moves closer to Charlotte, quiet for a moment as Charlotte finishes her drawing of the sun shining down on flowers.

  “Do you want to draw?” She hands Tiana a marker and a fresh piece of paper then lets my daughter crawl onto her lap. Tiana traces Charlotte’s hand with the marker and giggles when the Sharpie skips off her paper onto Charlotte’s skin. Charlotte’s eyes widen, and her mouth is shaped like a fantasy O, and I have to shake off another quick flare of desire. She’s caring for my daughter. Now isn’t the time to imagine my assistant on top of my desk, moaning as I settle between her knees and she …

  Another Tiana giggle draws me back to the moment. It’s such a pure sound. I nod to Charlotte when she looks at me and her skin blooms red from the delicate line of her throat to her forehead.

  “What do I have this afternoon?” I ask her.

  She gently moves Tiana out of her lap, stands, and the smooths her skirt. She tries to take a step toward me, but Tiana has wrapped herself around Charlotte’s leg and won’t let go. Charlotte clears her throat and tilts her head as she drags her foot along the carpet and Tiana giggles with each step. “Mr. Rusnak would like ten minutes with you. He never tells me why. Also, you have a lunch meeting with the police commissioner at the Golden Bull, and Melanie from accounting called to thank you for the flowers you sent for her birthday.”

  “Did I send nice flowers?” It amuses me that she thinks to tell me of thanks for acts I have no idea that have been done in my name.

  “You only send the best.”

  “All right. Tell Yelisey I’ll see him now. And cancel my lunch.”

  Charlotte purses her lips, and for the umpteenth time since she entered the room, I imagine them wrapped around my manhood.

  “You’ve been waiting for this meeting for a month.”

  She’s right. I need to restress the importance of police cooperation with my business. Over the last six months, we’ve lost some vital communicative channels. Two of my contacts have been fired; three were transferred. Even the guy who fixes my parking tickets retired. “What am I supposed to do with this … situation?” I indicate Tiana.

  Charlotte tilts her head, and the rush of blood to my cock ticks up another notch. If not for high-quality European tailoring, my zipper might be a goner. “Well … I could watch her.”

  I laugh. “What happened to your job description?”

  “You can add it to my seasonal bonus. Besides, someone needs to be here who is capable of ‘handling her,’ as you put it.”

  I bite back a smile. She has become far more impudent since our little call the night of the gala. But I like the fire. I hadn’t noticed so much of it in her before.

  “Is that you?” I muse.

  “I can handle anything.”

  This time I cannot bite it back. I bet you can, Charlotte, I mutter silently. Out loud, I say, “So be it. Change the meeting to the boardroom at noon and order food from the Golden Bull. I’ll handle the commissioner here.”

  Charlotte nods, settles Tiana back at the table to color some more, and strides out of the office to handle her assignments.

  Yelisey walks in right behind her and closes the door. He’s flustered, and his skin is blotched with red. There’s also a dot of blood on his collar and another on his sleeve. “Yelisey,” I say by way of greeting, and wait for him to sit in the chair across from my desk. Tiana is distracted with the marker and paper on the table. “Any word from our Whelan friend?”

  Yelisey sits back and shakes his head, then drops it into his hands. “I’ve tried all usual tricks, boss. All usual.” His accent is thick today. “He’s going to die of shock and blood loss soon if I keep going.”

  I glance to the table where Tiana is—was—coloring. She’s gone. I look around. The door is still shut. She has to be in here, but I can’t see her. I stand while Yelisey continues his story of woe. He’s never had a hostage he couldn’t break and seems determined that no Whelan lackey will endanger his record of success.

  But I can’t hear him, because I’ve managed to lose a three-year-old in a sealed room.

  I stand and walk around the desk. She isn’t under the table or the chair or the sofa, and I know because I’ve knelt and crawled from one piece to the other to check. I hear her giggle and motion for Yelisey to be quiet.

  “Kostya …”

  Another giggle, and I know where she is. Hiding behind the curtain. I leave her there and take my seat because now I can see her bright pink shoes underneath the fabric gathered at the side of the window. My heart has slowed, and now I can focus on Yelisey.

  He needs reassurance. Guidance. A steady hand.

  As I’m about to talk him around to a new bout of confidence, the giggle is across the room, flipping on and off the sofa. Again. With more fearlessness than before.

  “Should I come back, boss?”

  I’m presented with a unique problem. I have dealt with conspiracy and disloyalty, with rivals and enemies. I am decisive by nature and act without the uselessness of regret. But this is a child. Little more than a baby. I can’t very well lock her in a trunk.

  “I want results from the Whelan hostage by this afternoon.”

  He fires back, “Rub a lamp.”

  I cock an eyebrow. Friendship allows him a protection few others benefit from, but even when we’re watching a game or shooting pool, I don’t often suffer his sarcasm.

  “Yelisey, my friend, if I had a genie, what use would I have for you?”

  When I come back after my lunch meeting, Charlotte is playing a game of peekaboo with Tiana, who’s crawled under the table now.

  “Charlotte?” I say.

  She snaps to attention, a short tendril of hair falling free from the severe bun at her collar, and I have to force my eyes to remain open so they don’t fall shut and let me fantasize about pulling the pins from her hair, sifting my fingers through the long coppery curls—then yanking them back while I fuck her from behind.