19. Lev
“This doesn’t make any sense,” Feliks says.
We’re in my office. I’m behind my desk while he sits across from me looking relaxed, his dress shirt open far enough for me to see the Zarkov medallion he wears around his neck.
“Which part?” I ask.
“All of it. But mainly the bit where you let the mudak leave, and you brought the woman with you.” Feliks eyes me suspiciously. “The pakhan I know would have made the pizda hand over the flash drive with the barrel of a gun pressed into his temple.”
“The pakhan you know doesn’t take too kindly to being questioned by someone who is not the pakhan,” I say, my tone full of warning.
But Feliks doesn’t pay it any mind. He knows how far he can go with me before he’s crossing any lines, and it’s a lot further than anyone else would dare go. He’s my cousin. My bratva brother. My right hand. My most trusted. But that said, even he can go too far, and right now, he is dancing on the edge.
“Why not just put a bullet in the mudak and move on? There is nothing of real value on the flash drive. The only person associated with the bratva in that footage is Aleks, and he’s dead. The blowback might be a pain in the ass for us but certainly not something to worry about. Why bring the girl back—” He stops short, and his eyes widen before a mischievous grin spreads across his face. “Well, fuck me.”
“No thanks.”
“She’s a babe, isn’t she.”
“She’s insurance,” I correct him.
He stands.
“Where are you going?” I ask.
“I’ve got to see the woman who has made the great Lev Zarkov lose his common sense.”
“Sit down,” I command sharply.
He sighs as he sits. “You’re delaying the inevitable. I’m going to see her eventually.”
“Not if you keep pushing my buttons,” I warn.
He crosses his legs. “You’re so touchy. Perhaps someone needs to get laid again. When was the last time you let someone play with your pickle?”
I know exactly the last time. Brooke. And since that night, I’ve thought about her more than I would like to admit. The things we did. The way she writhed beneath me. Her moans. Those big eyes filled with so much heat as they rolled to the back of her head when she disappeared into one of the many orgasms she released around my cock.
I scowl. “If you ever call it a pickle again, I’ll shoot you.”
He waves off the threat. “All work and no play makes you a very sexually frustrated pakhan. Why don’t we hit one of the clubs? Find some pussy to worship for the night. You need to have some fun.”
I rarely have time for fun. Especially that kind.
Unlike my cousin, who is always up for a good time. Women. Men. He doesn’t have a preference.
“Or you could fuck her and send her on her merry way. Or is she proving to be immune to the old Zarkov charm?”
I’m silent, and Feliks reads that silence like a book.
“You fucked her already?” He grins proudly. “You horny old dog.”
“Enough with the old,” I mutter.
Fuck, why did I get into this conversation with him? It will only come back to kick me in the ass.
He grins. “Thank God that noose is gone.”
“What noose?”
“The no women noose you hung around your neck when you became pakhan. It’s made you a very dull boy indeed. So why her?”
“It was a momentary lapse of reason,” I say, downplaying the fact that I haven’t been able to get Brooke out of my head since our night together. “And one I have no intention of repeating.”
“So what are you going to do with her now?”
Good question.
I know what I’d like to do to her. I’d like to grab a fistful of that long silky hair of hers, yank her head back and kiss her until she sees fucking stars. Remembering her in those tiny bed shorts and tank top makes my cock throb, and I want to peel every item off those luscious curves of hers and spend the night buried deep inside her.
But that’s not an option.
“My interest in her is purely professional,” I lie. My interest in her is purely carnal, but it’ll be a cold day in hell before I admit it to my cousin. He’d just get excited about it or something equally as annoying. “A second time is not an option.”
“But maybe you should, only this time fuck her out of your system and put this all behind you.”
If only it were that easy. I don’t know what it is about this woman that has me wanting to break my own no-women rule.
“No,” I say.
I wasn’t lying when I told Feliks my night with Brooke was a momentary lapse of reason. He’s right. I should’ve put a bullet in Wilson’s head for trying to blackmail me and be done with it.
But ever since that impulsive moment when I decided to get on the plane to New York with Brooke, I’ve fallen prey to a series of questionable decisions, all of which are my own doing because I can’t get those damn snow-bunny eyes out of my head.
“There is an upside to this, I suppose,” he says. “You could always kill two birds with one stone.”
“What do you mean?”
“You need a wife. It will heal the crack that’s formed since you stepped into the role of pakhan instead of your uncle.”
I give him a pointed look that tells him I’m not interested in having this conversation again. For weeks now, he’s been at me about finding a wife and producing an heir and listing all the reasons I need to.
But I can’t deny he has a point. The crack in the bratva comes in the form of my Uncle Vadim and his ongoing resentment of being passed over as the pakhan. But despite winning the confidence of most of the Zarkov Bratva members, there are still a few of the old-school vory who share his belief that I am too young and inexperienced to fill my father’s shoes. Even after twelve months of proving them wrong and making them all richer, the crack remains, and I feel the bratva growing restless. I’ve heard grumblings from them that I put profit over family. Over the bratva. Which goes against old values.
My instincts tell me if I don’t completely repair the crack once and for all, Vadim may finally challenge me for the position.
Which I will give him over my dead body.
To avoid mutiny, I need to find a way to marry the new ways of making us all rich with the old ways of putting family first.
A wife and an heir would help convince those old school vory that I value family over the substantial wealth and power I have added to the Zarkov name in the last twelve months since I became pakhan. It would also put an heir between Uncle Vadim and the throne.
But a wife and heir have always been years in the future.
“The threat is real,” Feliks says soberly. “You need to give this your immediate consideration.”
“Don’t you have somewhere else to be other than here busting my balls?” I snap because I know he’s right. But I don’t want to think about a bratva bride or an heir right now.
I’ve got more pressing matters to figure out. Like the looming deadline for the new dementia medication ZeeMed is launching in the fall. The trials are proving very positive, the results are looking good, but it’s just not there yet, and I’m starting to get impatient. A lot is riding on this medication being successful. More than ten billion dollars’ worth of profit.
“Someone is in a particularly prickly mood this afternoon,” Feliks says, rising to his feet and walking toward my desk.
Feliks has been with me since the very beginning. We grew up together. Both sons of important men in the bratva. Together we navigated the stormy years between being horny teenagers with only one thing on our minds, to becoming men with so much more responsibility on our shoulders. When I stepped into the role of pakhan, it was only natural that he would stand beside me. I trust no one over him.
Sometimes I envy him. Before my family was killed and I became pakhan, I was the same as him. Easygoing. Flippant. Like I didn’t have a care in the world.
But that life is long gone, and that version of me is so far in the past I can’t even remember what it felt like to be him.