His Sweetest Temptation (Bratva Brotherhood #3)

Chapter 1

Jordan

In the corner of my laptop screen, my green eyes appear bright as I strain to maintain the megawatt smile for my followers, painfully aware of the camera recording my every gesture.

I spent an hour twisting my wavy brown hair into a meticulously messy bun. My colorful thrifted tie-dyed maxi dress evokes a positive mood.

If you want to succeed as a well-being influencer, you must stay perpetually perky. You can only show the plus side of things and never let the masses see your pain.

Or worse, your doubts.

To manifest abundance, you need to fake it ’til you make it. Dress for the job you want instead of the one you have.

I’ve always wanted to earn a living helping people.

To that end, I recently quit my part-time job to focus solely on creating online content.

Where did that land me? Here, sitting on the floor in front of my laptop, pretending I’m on a yoga mat I can’t afford instead of this threadbare rug.

Using the built-in camera on my outdated phone and a secondhand ring light to stream my Sunday Prep for the Week live show.

The cyclops eye of the ring light scorches the world pale and makes my skin glow.

I’m not sure if the light flatters me or if the soft illumination exposes all the flaws and doubts I’d prefer to hide, but either way, I continue beaming like an absolute dork, holding the pose for forty-five minutes until my face goes numb.

Manifest. Receive. Transform.

Six hundred and twenty-nine viewers tune in to hear me talk about abundance while I sit in near darkness because I can’t afford to run my lights.

The irony is so sharp and tangy that it feels like gargling fresh lemon juice.

I sit up straighter, clutching to the veneer of confidence I’ve perfected over the years.

“Remember, beautiful souls, the universe doesn’t listen to your words.

It listens to your being. If we only needed words, we’d all be witches. ”

The comments crawl across the screen, one by one, then nothing. Dead air stretches. I start typing, segueing to the next conversation topic. Filling the silence so no one will notice how empty the chat room really is. I don’t let my smile falter.

I have way too much practice at this.

“Your energetic space must be cleared to receive.” My arms, toned from years of yoga, sweep out, my fingers plucking imaginary cobwebs from my body.

“Blockages in your aura create resistance to the abundance waiting to flow into your life.” I keep my movements fluid and deliberate.

I’ve performed them so many times that they belong to me now.

The number in the corner of the screen doesn’t budge. I have no more viewers than I did last week.

Three years of running this channel, more than ten years of research and living the life, taking the plunge, and trusting that the universe would supply, and I’ve only gained six hundred and twenty-nine followers.

A tight, sharp ball of anxiety scrapes at my lungs.

If my channel fails, I don’t know what I’ll do. I’ve got no degree, no backup plans.

I need this. This channel. My podcast. I don’t want to return to the street.

I just don’t understand what I’m doing wrong.

My smile falters for a split second before I reel myself back in.

No. Attract abundance. I am abundance.

Deep inhale. Deep exhale.

Reset.

I inject helium into my voice. “It’s about being open to what the universe wants to send you. Opening your heart and your energy field to receive the gifts already waiting for you.”

Silence. A second later, a comment splashes across the screen.

My cat just threw up on my vision board. What does that mean??

Tiny muscles jump in my cheek. I widen my smile.

Of course.

Not How do I manifest a dream job? or Which crystal brings prosperity?

No. Cat vomit. On a vision board. If they’d bothered to read about vision boards or cosmic signs, they’d know that sometimes, crap just happens, no message from the universe intended. But no, they want me to answer every query while they do zero research.

I don’t miss a beat. “Cats can sense shifts in your aura. It might mean the universe is testing your commitment to your vision, Amber! So clean it up, but do so with intention. And give your kitty a treat!” And next time, kitty will hopefully puke on your keyboard before you ask me such a ridiculous question.

I maintain my smile even as I think that. The camera captures all. Everything in the shot, at least.

I’m careful not to show the tiny, empty apartment around me.

All three hundred square feet is set as a stage for the abundance I try to sell yet never quite manage to manifest for myself. I know I’ll figure it out soon, though. My plateauing follower count is just a minor setback. For sure.

Three salt lamps stand guard nearby, their amber glow arranged for maximum radiance while the tinfoil layered on the wall behind them reflects the light. Crystals cluster on a sheet-covered stack of boxes disguised as a table, balanced on the line between sacred and photographic.

Usually, I use a tapestry of the seven chakras as a backdrop during my live streams, the rainbow colors dripping down the wall.

Today, though, I’ve had the urge for a change of scenery and shifted my decor around.

Behind me is a large piece of calming sky-blue fabric I hung from the ceiling, and an air fern and four potted succulents surround me.

I bought them on clearance last week thanks to miniscule cracks in the terra cotta.

Even with today’s new backdrop, everything’s angled to say, abundance, authenticity, and ancient wisdom.

Nothing within frame betrays the truth…that my bank balance is always just three digits away from negatives.

My own vision board rests out of sight, just below the camera’s gaze.

Worked and reworked. Curated. All the adventures I’ve never tasted.

Skydiving through clouds, BASE jumping down a waterfall, swimming with dolphins spiraling in blue water.

Cash, cascading like a waterfall of paper abundance.

In the dead center, I’ve pasted Authentic partnership in bold, and under that, Powerful decisive energy, the letters looped in hopeful ink.

My stomach growls. I freeze, worried the mic caught the rumble. I only ate half a grapefruit for dinner so I could save the rest for breakfast.

Not quite the sumptuous, bountiful feast I instruct my followers to imagine.

Still waiting on the mushroom tea company’s next payment, I had to postpone my grocery run. Last month, they claimed my conversion rate was “not satisfactory” and withheld my affiliate bonus.

A pulse of desperation prickles just beneath the surface of my skin. The reality of my situation isn’t lost on me.

I’m one bad month away from losing my nonexistent savings, my apartment, and the slim life I’ve struggled to build.

I exhale, picturing the desperation blowing away. I won’t let doubts or negative thoughts weigh me down.

At the Soul Journeyers conference next weekend, I’ll have a chance to get more followers. Maybe even gain a real advertiser or two. Visibility. Connections. Opportunity.

Three years. Six hundred and twenty-nine followers. And half a grapefruit.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m attracting the wrong kind of abundance. I have an abundance of empty space.

Still, I try and remember how far I’ve come. I started with nothing, and now I’ve got my own place. My own, if used, laptop. And six hundred and twenty-nine beautiful souls who watch me every week.

I refocus on the camera and the one good thing I have to look forward to. “For those of you joining me at the Soul Journeyers conference, my lecture and presentation will expand on this. In fact…”

I lean off camera toward my small bookshelf, where I’ve arranged my spiritual reference texts in a rainbow pattern. The books I actually read—all true crime police procedurals with daring female leads and mystery novels—are hidden under my bed.

“There’s a book here I think you’ll find inter…es…ting…”

My voice falters, thinning into silence.

A man-shaped hole fills my apartment doorway, reality warping around the empty space. Nothing alive should be that stagnant.

His approach came with no warning.

No protesting hinges or scuffs on the floor. One moment, the doorway was empty. The next, he appeared.

For the briefest nanosecond, my mind jumps back to my childhood, when I used to peek out from under my covers at the monstrous shapes created by the clothes hanging in the dark closet.

Then reality punches straight through my fantasy.

It’s just a man with fair skin and disheveled brown hair.

He wears a loose jacket, shirt, pants, and gloves, all in the blackest shade I’ve ever seen on a person. The layers blur together, leaving only the sharp, unyielding lines of his face and the most intriguing eyes I’ve ever seen.

Chips of pale crystalline blue, so washed-out they’re almost silver, fix on me from across the room.

Like moonstones. New beginnings. Third eye and heart chakras. They draw me in and infuse me with a strange mix of cold-heat. A shiver winds down my spine.

He gives off an undeniable force. Not gentle or cleansing like the soft, radiant hum I chat about to strangers online.

No, this is akin to standing too close to a lightning rod.

Every hair on my arms prickles with the danger that crackles through the air.

This kind of raw voltage could fry a circuit or a heart.

I know this should throw me into a panic. That I should run.

And I am freaking out. My pulse thrums in my muscles, begging me to move, scream, flee. Anything rational.

But beneath the terror lies a strange, impossible flicker of familiarity. I’ve never laid eyes on this man, not once. He’s unforgettable and built like a barbarian fighter king. Yet some stubborn, buried part of me insists I know him.

As if my soul recognizes the shape of his.

Namaste.

I force a tight, brittle smile for the sake of the camera. No matter what, I can’t disrupt my only source of income. “Oh, hang on a second.” I act like I’m fielding a spam call rather than dealing with a stranger who just materialized, silent and undeniable, in the heart of my apartment.

He glides into my tiny studio, his steps thunderous on my old wooden floor. He positions himself strategically to the side of my laptop, deliberately staying out of the camera’s frame. Each calculated movement contains a fluid, predatory grace, like a shadow slipping through a crack in the light.

His energy fills the room, pushing against my skin like a physical force.

My hands twitch. I can’t tell, though, if I’m itching to push the energy he radiates away or pull it closer, and that terrifies me even more than his unexpected presence.

When his jacket shifts, the salt lamps’ light glints off the metal at his waist.

A gun.

My throat closes.

And I suppress a laugh.

Boy, did you pick the wrong house to rob. Nothing in here’s worth more than ten bucks at a pawnshop.

He reaches out with a gloved hand, his movements deliberate and almost gentle.

I’m transfixed, rooted to the floor while begging my lungs to function. This feels like a major shift.

For the better?

Common sense tells me my live stream’s about to end whether I’m ready or not, so I smile into the camera one more time. “Well, thank you for being here today, everyone. Have an abundant, prosperous day.”

His fingers touch my laptop, and he shuts the lid with a soft click. A beat later, the USB-powered ring light flickers and dies, plunging the dim room into almost total darkness.

Only he and the salt lamps remain.

I should run. Scream. Grab my phone and call for help.

Instead, I freeze, trapped in his gaze like a mouse before a snake.