Chapter 4
ZORA
I'm on my second drink and watching the dance floor move when Alisa finds me.
She slides onto the stool to my left and reaches past me to flag the bartender.
Her blonde hair swings across her shoulders as she leans over the bar to order, and I sip my third drink and wait for her.
I sent her a text to join me after Kazimir ditched me because I didn't want to waste a perfectly good night by staying home alone.
"You look flushed," she says, settling onto the stool and crossing one leg over the other. She props her chin on her hand and looks me over as she turns to face me fully. "Tell me why you look flushed."
"I had a date tonight," I tell her, and I take a sip of my drink and watch her reaction over the rim of my glass.
She sits up straight and grabs my arm with both hands. "Here? Tonight? With who?" She twists on the stool and scans the room behind us like she's going to pick him out of the crowd through sheer willpower. "Is he still here? Which one is he?"
"He had to leave," I tell her as I set my glass down. "Work thing. He got a call and had to go."
"Oh, that's dumb. He stood you up?" When the bartender slides her drink in front of her, she turns to pick it up then takes a long slurp as I answer.
"No, not at all. It really was a work thing…
But I'm okay with it. I almost went home with him.
" I feel my cheeks burning as I say that because I really would’ve gone home with him.
Kazimir is so fucking hot. Besides, I have a job to do.
My plan is to not let my emotions get carried away but to enjoy every second of this.
And if amazing sex is part of that plan, then so be it.
"Okay, describe him to me. I want the full picture.
" Alisa is grinning, sipping her drink quickly while she locks eyes with me, demanding answers.
We're best friends—we have been for ten years now—and I tell her everything, including this.
Of course, she won't know that Kazimir is a target, and eventually, I'll have to tell her we broke up or something, but for now I get to pretend I'm dating an amazing man and hear my best friend gush.
"He's tall," I say, and I turn on my stool to face her.
"Dark hair, gray eyes… Tattoos and oh, my God, can he kiss.
" The heat pulsing through my body rises a few notches as I start thinking about how hard he was as I was grinding on him.
I'm not the sort of girl who goes that fast on a real date, but I know the job.
If he's the sort of man who lets a woman move fast with him, I have to go as fast as possible.
"I'm already interested," Alisa says, taking a long sip through her straw. "Keep going."
"He runs a gym, so I figure he's probably ripped under all that clothing I'd love to have ripped off him tonight.
" I pick my glass back up and roll the base of it against the bar.
"And he is actually sort of sweet. He acted like he cared about my life, not just my body, which made me care about his body.
" I swoon, and she snickers when I press my hand to my forehead and then fan myself.
"Does he have a brother?" She keeps laughing, and I join her, though I know that's the last thing she wants.
Kazimir is a criminal, just like my brothers who quickly became members of Alisa's "list". She won’t date anyone in my sphere of influence.
I'm surprised she still wants to be my friend after learning what my family does for a living, but she has never shied away from me.
"A cousin, I think," I tell her, but I choke on the drink I'm sipping and start coughing.
"Close enough. I'll take him." She grins and stirs her drink with the straw. "What's his name?"
"Kazimir," I tell her.
She sighs dreamily as the music shifts to a new song and the lights go down to utter darkness. The room is full of all sorts of noises, chatter and movement, and then the next song starts pulsing, lights flashing, and we're thrust back into deafening volumes.
"You seem happy… It feels like you're serious about this guy. You've known him a while?" Her body starts moving, swaying to the music as she sits there, but she won't interrupt this to ask me to dance yet.
"I like him," I say, because there's no point lying to Alisa about this.
"But we'll see if it works out. Who knows?
" I instantly feel a little guilty for lying to her.
As charming and wonderful as I honestly think Kazimir is, I know it can't work out.
I'm on a mission to take him down, and my brothers won't settle for anything less.
Besides, he's a rival and we'd end up at odds eventually, anyway.
She reaches across the space between our stools and smacks my shoulder playfully. "You deserve this," she says with a grin. "You deserve a man who pays attention to you and makes you feel like you matter outside of your family's bullshit."
My chest gets tight when she says that because she means every single word and she has absolutely no idea what's actually happening.
More than anything else, I want to be independent and capable, but I do want a partner one day who can keep up with me and respect my desire to make something of myself.
Kazimir may very well be that sort of man, but the timing and the situation are all wrong.
I'm about to answer her when I catch movement over her shoulder and my stomach drops.
Yefim is cutting through the crowd moving toward us.
I knew they wouldn't leave me alone for a second after I told them I had a date with Kazimir tonight.
Bogdan probably sent him to follow me, though I'm under no illusion that it was for my safety.
They're interested in taking our enemies down, not protecting me.
Alisa reads the change in my face before she turns around. She follows my eyes over her shoulder and the second she sees Yefim, her face screws up into a scowl. Her eyes return to my face with a cold stare and she picks up her drink.
"I'll be out dancing," she grumbles as she slides off the stool and walks away.
Alisa's never had patience for my brothers and she's never in her life pretended otherwise.
We were only fifteen when she learned my family runs a fight ring and that Yefim and Makar run it with Bogdan's help.
Her parents made her stop coming over, though they let me visit her at their house as a compromise.
To them, people like us are dangerous and they want no affiliation.
But deep down, I think they let me come around because they thought they could save me from my own family.
They have no idea I want to lead one of these fight rings, maybe if only to prove to them and to myself that it's a sport like any other.
It's illegal, but I don’t think it should be, and the betting isn't something we control.
We just train the fighters and set the matches.
But what's done is done, and I have to respect that my best friend has boundaries. I watch her snake through the crowd closer to the speakers and feel the atmosphere shift as my brother walks up.
Yefim takes her stool without asking and doesn't order a drink or waste a second on a hello. All of them are rude like this, and pushy too.
"Where are we with the Kuzin situation?" he asks, leaning one elbow on the bar and angling his body toward me. "He left and you're not with him."
"My God, lay off," I tell him. "I had one date with him so far and he got called off to work.
What, you want me sucking his dick right here or something?
" I know I have an attitude, but being soft with these jerks gets me nowhere.
If I let them push me around, I'll end up being their little bitch, which is how I ended up in this stupid position anyway.
"Smart… Can you kill the fucking attitude, Zora?"
I roll my eyes at him and chug the rest of my drink, slapping the empty glass on the table. "He'll be back, okay? I got him hooked."
"Yeah, okay, but you need to remember who you're talking to." Yefim scowls at me, but he's nicer than Makar or Bogdan. Closest in age to me, we were practically twins growing up. If any of the three of them have a heart, it's him.
"Kazimir hasn't said much about his business yet, but I know I can coax it out of him. He said he's in charge of fights, so I'm not sure if Roman's stepping back with that new alliance we heard about or not, but Kaz is—"
"Kaz?" he snips, glaring at me. "A nickname already? Zora, don't let this fuck with you. You got it?" He grabs my knee and squeezes. " You are here as an asset. Do what you have to do to make him trust you, then we fuck with him. You got that?"
I feel the concern under his lecture and I nod.
"Yeah, I got it. Okay? I'm not falling in love or anything.
I'm just saying, the more real this seems, the more he trusts me.
I know what I have to do." Even as I say it, I feel Alisa's eyes boring into my back from her place on the dance floor.
She'd be ashamed of me for doing what I'm doing.
She thinks this is some fairytale romance or something, and what would she think if she knew I was purposefully manipulating a man to set him up for failure?
My head drops as I feel the swirl of alcohol blanket me and shame well up.
"Can you handle this?" he asks me. Though I get no sense of appreciation for what I'm actually doing—murdering my own conscience.
"I can handle it," I tell him, but my stomach rolls.
"Good." He stands up from the stool and buttons his jacket then tugs the front of it straight. "Keep your timeline tight, Zora. Bogdan's patience has limits, and you and I both know what happens when he runs out of it."
He turns and walks back through the crowd, leaving me to feel the acidic bile of my own guilt rise in the back of my throat.
One of the only reasons I'm in this position where they don't trust me to lead is because of Alisa.
They say she's been a bad influence on me, but honestly, she's the one who's kept me honest and following my heart.
I'm departing from what I know is the right thing to do by following my brothers, and that will eat away at my chest for the rest of my life.
Alisa would be ashamed. Maybe she'd never talk to me again.
And then the only real friend I have in life would be gone.
I'd have family, but the family I have isn't the sort of family I need or want. It's not what any woman wants.
"All good?" she asks me as she slides back onto her seat, winded from dancing. Her cheeks are flushed and her temples are moist with sweat.
"All good," I say, forcing a smile. The hardest part of all of this will be lying to her.
I can probably muddle through the act with Kazimir.
He makes it easy to fake being interested because I am interested.
That part won't be a lie. But lying to my best friend will challenge me and I'm gonna hate myself when this is over.
"Good," she says, and she grabs my hand. She pulls me off my stool and grins wildly. "We're dancing. Your man left and you've been sitting at that bar looking miserable, and I'm putting a stop to it right now."
She drags me onto the floor where the bass thumps up through my feet and into my legs, and she throws her arms around my neck the way she's been doing since we were sixteen years old sneaking into clubs with fake IDs.
As the music takes us and my hips start swaying again, I let the worry of what she may think fade away and get lost in the beat.
It's just a short little fake relationship, and then I prove myself to my brothers. A few weeks, maybe, a month or two at most. Then I never have to lie to her again. And I can run a legitimate club and make my own way.
I just have to hold it together a few months.