Auctioned to the Russian Bratva (Kashkin Bratva #2)

Prologue - Misha

Two Years Ago

The charity gala is tedious.

Crystal chandeliers. Champagne I won't drink. Men in tuxedos discussing tax shelters while their wives compare diamonds. The California Cardiovascular Research Foundation's annual fundraiser—a sea of wealthy people pretending to care about hearts they've never seen bleeding out on concrete.

I'm here for Carmine Benedetti. Nothing more.

The old man holds court near the silent auction tables, laughing too loud, schmoozing donors with practiced ease.

His organization is hemorrhaging money, and he's desperate for allies.

Dmitri wants intelligence on how desperate.

So I wear a borrowed smile and play the role of interested investor, cataloging every tell, every weakness.

A few hours. Then I can leave this glittering hell and return to work that matters.

I'm checking my watch when I hear her.

"—completely backwards, actually. We focus so much on the heart as a symbol, we forget it's an organ. A muscle. It doesn't feel love or heartbreak. It just pumps blood and tries to keep you alive."

Her voice is warm, animated, cutting through the polite murmur of the crowd. I turn without meaning to.

She stands near the bar, gesturing with a champagne flute she clearly hasn't touched.

Nineteen, maybe twenty. Dark curls pinned up haphazardly, a few strands escaping to frame her face.

A deep burgundy dress that hugs generous curves—full breasts, soft hips, a body that commands space unapologetically.

Beautiful. But that isn't what stops me.

It's the way she speaks. Like she's sharing a secret. Like the man she's talking to—some gray-haired surgeon twice her age—is lucky to hear it.

"But here's what fascinates me," she continues, leaning in. "The heart compensates. You abuse it for decades—stress, neglect, disease—and it just keeps beating. It adapts. Finds new pathways. Works harder to keep you alive even when you've given it every reason to quit."

The surgeon nods politely, eyes glazing. He isn't listening. Not really.

I am.

"That's why I chose cardiology," she says, and her smile is so earnest it makes my chest tight. "Because the heart forgives. And with the right intervention, the right care, even the most damaged heart can heal."

She believes it. Every word.

I've spent seventeen years in a world that proves otherwise. Hearts don't heal. They scar over, harden, stop feeling anything at all. I know because I've watched it happen to my brother after our parents died. Watched it happen to myself.

But this woman—this bright, soft, impossibly naive woman—she looks at the bloody muscle in our chests and sees something holy.

I should walk away.

Instead, I walk toward her.

"Cardiology," I say, appearing at her elbow as the surgeon excuses himself. "Ambitious specialty."

She turns, and I get my first real look at her face. Brown eyes flecked with gold, sharp with intelligence. Full lips painted red. A scattering of freckles across her nose that her makeup can't quite hide.

Up close, she is devastating.

"Ambitious or masochistic," she says, smiling. "The jury's still out." She extends her hand. "Bianca Benedetti."

Benedetti.

The name hits me like a blade between the ribs.

Carmine's daughter. The one they keep sheltered, away from the business. The "good" Benedetti, studying medicine at UCLA, untouched by her family's bloody dealings.

I should excuse myself. Should file away this information and report it to Dmitri. Should remember why I'm here.

Instead, I take her hand.

"Misha," I say. Just Misha. No surname. No lies I'll have to maintain.

Her handshake is firm, confident. "Just Misha? Very mysterious."

"I prefer to let my sparkling personality speak for itself."

She laughs—a real laugh, surprised and delighted—and the sound wraps around something cold inside me.

Walk away, the voice of reason demands. She's a mark's daughter. She's twenty years younger than you. She's everything you can never have.

"So, Just Misha," she says, tilting her head. "What brings you to a cardiovascular research fundraiser? You don't look like a doctor."

"What do I look like?"

She studies me with unnerving directness. "Someone who's never had to worry about his heart."

If only she knew.

"I'm an investor," I say. The lie comes easily. "Always looking for promising research to fund."

"Ah. A man with money and no medical degree, looking to buy his way into saving lives." Her tone is teasing, not cruel. "How noble."

"I never claimed to be noble."

"No," she agrees, something shifting in her expression. "You didn't."

We talk for hours.

She tells me about her research interests—minimally invasive surgery, cardiac regeneration, bringing cutting-edge treatment to underserved communities.

She tells me about her professors, her classmates, her impossible schedule.

She tells me about the first time she watched a heart surgery, how she cried afterward because it was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen.

She tells me about her family too. Carefully. Carmine is "in business." Her mother died when she was young. She has brothers she isn't close to. She's the odd one out—the Benedetti who chose healing over whatever it is her family actually does.

She doesn't know. Or she suspects and refuses to look too closely.

I envy her that ignorance.

"Dance with me," I say when the orchestra starts playing something slow.

She raises an eyebrow. "Do investors dance?"

"This one does."

She lets me lead her to the floor. Lets me pull her close, one hand on the curve of her waist, the other holding hers. She is soft against me—warm and real in a way nothing in my life has been for years.

"You're a good dancer," she says quietly.

"My mother taught me." The truth, for once. "She said a man who couldn't dance was a man who couldn't be trusted."

"Smart woman."

"She was."

Bianca hears the past tense. Her hand tightens on my shoulder. "I'm sorry."

"It was a long time ago."

We sway in silence. I breathe in her perfume—something floral, jasmine maybe—and memorize the weight of her in my arms. The way her curves fit against me. The way she looks up at me like I'm someone worth looking at.

"Misha," she says softly.

"Yes?"

"I don't normally do this. Talk to strangers for hours. Dance with men I just met." She bites her lip. "But I feel like I've known you forever. Is that crazy?"

Yes. It is crazy. It is dangerous. It is the beginning of something I can't afford.

"No," I say. "It's not crazy."

The song ends. We stand there, still holding each other, the crowd moving around us like water around stones.

I should kiss her. Part of me wants to—desperately, recklessly. But she is too earnest. Too innocent. And I'm already lying about everything that matters.

"I should go," I say, releasing her. "Early meeting."

Disappointment flickers across her face before she masks it. "Of course. It was nice meeting you, Just Misha."

"Bianca." I lift her hand and press my lips to her knuckles, lingering longer than I should. "Take care of that heart of yours."

She smiles, not understanding.

I leave before I can change my mind.

***

I tell myself I won't call her.

I last two days.

She answers on the second ring. "Hello?"

"It's Misha. From the gala."

A pause. Then, warm and surprised: "The mysterious investor. I didn't think you'd call."

"Neither did I."

She laughs, and the sound makes me grip the phone tighter. "That's either very honest or very smooth."

"Can it be both?"

"I suppose we'll find out." Another pause, softer this time. "I'm glad you called, Misha."

I close my eyes. Walk away. End this now.

"Have dinner with me," I say instead. "Tomorrow night."

Our first date is at a small Italian restaurant in Santa Monica. Quiet, intimate, far from anywhere her family might spot us. I tell myself it's operational security.

It's cowardice.

She wears a green dress that makes her eyes glow, and she orders pasta without apologizing for the carbs. I watch her eat with unselfconscious pleasure, sauce on her lip, and think about all the women I've known who picked at salads and pretended they weren't hungry.

Bianca is hungry. For food, for knowledge, for life. She devours everything with the same passionate intensity.

I want to be devoured too.

"Tell me something real," she says, twirling spaghetti around her fork. "Something you haven't told anyone else."

I should deflect. Make a joke. Give her a carefully crafted half-truth.

Instead, I say: "I haven't felt anything in seventeen years. Not really. Not until I heard you talking about hearts at that gala."

Her fork stills. "Misha..."

"You made me feel something, Bianca. I don't know what to do with that."

She reaches across the table and takes my hand. Her fingers are warm, slightly greasy from the bread she's been eating, absolutely perfect.

"Maybe you don't have to do anything," she says. "Maybe you just have to let yourself feel it."

I should tell her the truth then. Should confess who I am, what I am, why being with me will destroy her.

Instead, I turn her hand over and press a kiss to her palm.

"Maybe," I say.

It is the cruelest lie I ever tell.

The weeks that follow are a fever dream.

I carve time from my schedule ruthlessly, delegating responsibilities I've never trusted anyone else to handle. Dmitri notices but says nothing—just gives me long looks that I pretend not to see.

I meet Bianca between her classes, bringing coffee and pastries to the bench outside her anatomy building. I sit in my car outside her apartment at night, watching her window until the light goes out, telling myself I'm keeping her safe.

I'm keeping myself sane.

She introduces me to her world—study groups and library sessions and cheap Thai food eaten cross-legged on her apartment floor. I help her quiz for exams, reading questions from flashcards I don't understand, watching her face light up when she gets the answers right.