Chapter 39
KIR
The parking garage of the building that houses my office is dark when I get out of the elevator. I check my phone and grin when I see a text from Brooklyn.
Brooklyn
I was going to make a steak dinner, but then remembered I suck at cooking.
Brooklyn
So I hope this is a suitable alternative.
Brooklyn
Sir.
The next text that comes through has my cock swelling to steel in my trousers. It’s a selfie of her, sitting on the dining room table at the house, her legs spread, her skirt hiked up, and her fingers pulling the lacy gusset of her panties aside.
Yeah, fuck the steak.
“I’m a lot fuckin’ smarter than you think I am.”
I’m only slightly startled when I hear Lou’s voice from the shadows.
Mostly because he is not , in fact, smart at all.
I watched him jimmy open the emergency exit door to the garage from my laptop upstairs.
I watched with grim amusement as he drank from a flask and then prowled around until he found my car.
The only surprise is that he’s dumb enough to confront me here, alone.
This will not end how you think it will, motherfucker .
“In five seconds,” I growl, turning to face him, my eyes boring into him, “I’m going to break your face, again , then cut your balls off with my car keys.”
Lou glares at me.
“Five.”
“I know you’re teaching that little bitch,” he snarls.
“Three.”
Lou’s face darkens. “The fuck happened to four!?”
“You lost it when you called her a little bitch. Two .”
I jangle my keys loudly.
“Yeah? Well, I also know something else ,” Lou spits. “I know that fancy fuckin’ ballet company in Moscow doesn’t just care about talent.”
I pause. What the fuck is the little creep getting at.
He seems emboldened by the fact that I haven’t said “one” yet. “They also care about character ,” he sneers. “As in, they only take dancers who are classy people .”
Lou chuckles.
“Wonder what they’d think about a ballerina stripping on a fuckin’ pole. I wonder if they'd want some slut who used to grind all over men’s dicks for cash.”
Lethal fury ignites inside me. Mental images I have no interest in flood my brain anyway—images that make me want to break something.
I don’t judge her at all for what she did to survive. I know what being trapped between annihilation and the abhorrent feels like, and I’ve done much worse to avoid the former.
That still doesn’t mean I enjoy the thought of what she used to do.
I take a menacing step toward the greasy little shit grinning at me. Lou pales, backing away from me and wagging a piggy little finger at me.
“Nuh-uh,” he says. “You kill me, all of this gets sent to that ballet. Just try and— eee! ”
Lou flails as I grab him by the throat and level a withering look at him.
“I don’t have to kill you,” I growl. “I could just throw you in front of a fucking bus and turn you into a vegetable for the rest of your life, how's that sound.”
He swallows against my hand, his beady eyes darting about frantically.
“I—I have security measures in place!” he blurts. “F-for my safety!”
“Your best security measure ,” I snarl, “would be not cornering me in a dark garage.”
“If anything happens to me!” he shrieks, “someone will email proof of your obvious intentions of double-crossing him to Mr. Moskovic. Proof that you’re trying to push that little sl” —he chokes as my hand clamps down around his throat— “ Brooklyn over Inessa to that ballet. They’ll also email them proof of her working at my club. ”
He smiles smugly.
“You get what I’m sayin’ now, huh? Fancy ballets don’t make a habit of hiring girls off a pole, do they?”
“My arrangement with Dimitri is none of your concern,” I growl.
“And I don’t expect you have any idea what a company like the Imperiya Korona does or does not look for in a dancer.
” I smile icily. “Nice try, fucker. Next time, let the big boys do the real mafia shit. You can stay in your grubby office at the strip club, rubbing your limp dick as you think about women who will never, ever touch you.”
Rage rolls across Lou’s face as he sneers at me.
“Won’t touch me, huh?” he sneers. “Think I don’t know what the ballet wants?” He yanks his phone out. “How about this shit then, motherfucker!”
He taps on something and shoves the phone in my face. At first I scowl, not sure what I’m looking at.
Then my veins turn to ice and my stomach drops through the floor.
In the video, Lou is at his desk in his office, beckoning off camera.
Brooklyn walks into frame, looking scared and flat-out gaunt , like she hasn’t eaten in a week. Her whole body language is deflated, her shoulders drooping, bags under her eyes.
“Please, Lou,” she croaks quietly in a small voice that breaks my heart. “I…I really need this. I’m…” She swallows, hugging herself. “I’m in a tough spot?—”
“Brooky, Brooky, Brooky,” Lou sighs on camera. “I get it. But, look, you’re new here, and I just don’t know if this is the right job for?—”
“ Please ,” she chokes, near tears. My jaw clenches so hard I might crack a tooth as I glare at the screen.
Lou takes a slow breath. “Tell you what, kid,” he leers. “Maybe you and I can…you know… make a deal .”
When he starts to unbuckle his belt, all I see is red. When he pulls his zipper down and reaches inside, all I know is pure, venomous fury.
“All my favorite girls do this for me sometimes, Brooky.”
She starts to cry as he takes her hand with his free one and tugs her closer.
“You help me, I help you with the good shifts.”
He pulls out his dick and starts to push her to her knees.
…Yeah, I’ve seen enough.
In half a second, I’ve gabbed Lou’s phone out of his hands and hurled it at the garage wall. It smashes and bounces off the cement, rattling across the ground toward me, where I stomp on it with my heel until the fucking thing shatters.
When I whirl on him, ready to rip his fucking limbs from his body and choke him with his own severed dick, Lou starts to cackle.
“I have tons of copies,” he grins. “Of your girlfriend on her knees, with my?—”
He chokes, his eyes bulging as my hand wraps like iron around his throat and squeezes.
“You prey on the desperate,” I snarl through gritted teeth. “You?—”
“ Kill me and that video gets sent to Moscow !” he wheezes, his face purple as he claws helplessly at my wrists. “ If…I…die, ” he sputters, “I’ll make sure her life is ruined . That ballet company will get it. The fuckin’ tabloids will get it. I’ll post it on the goddamn internet!”
My hand drops from his throat as he wheezes for air.
I'd like to say I don’t know how I do it—but actually, I do . Because as much as I want to kill this motherfucking piece of shit predator, trading that pleasure for Brooklyn’s life getting dragged through the mud is not an option.
“Cut the bullshit,” I hiss coldly. “What do you want.”
Lou coughs violently, rubbing his throat. “When your deal with Dimitri goes through and he leaves the city…” He scowls. “I make a lot of money from him…”
I glare at him. “What. Do. You. Want .”
Lou swallows. “Five million dollars. Five mill, and that little home video goes away. The copies, too.”
He eyes me warily as he backs away, still rubbing his throat.
“By next week, Mr. Nikolayev.”
I want to break him in half, slowly and painfully. But I keep my emotions relatively in check as I eye him cooly. Relatively .
“Why wait.”
I reach into my jacket pocket and pull out a checkbook and pen.
“Where are the other copies, Lou.”
He stares at me, dumbstruck.
“ Where. The fuck. Are the other copies .”
I turn and lean against the roof of my car as I make out a check for the full five million. Then I tear it out of the checkbook, turn back, and hold it out to him.
“What the fuck is this?” Lou growls suspiciously.
“This is how the big boys do it,” I growl. “I’m not going to play any fucking leverage game with you here, nor am I going to sit around with my thumb up my ass waiting for you to make bigger threats. Just take the fucking money and tell me where all the copies are.”
Lou he reaches out and anxiously plucks the check from my fingers. He stares at it, his mouth slowly pulling into a dazed grin.
He’s an idiot. No bank in their right mind is going to let a guy like Lou waltz in and cash a check for five fucking million dollars. Especially when every bank in this city knows exactly who the fuck I am.
“The copies , motherfucker.”
He blinks and quickly looks up at me. “Oh… Yeah, hang on,” he mumbles, like he’s dizzy just from holding what he thinks is his ticket to riches. He fishes around in his jacket pocket and yanks out another cellphone.
I stare at him. “That’s it ?”
He nods.
“No cloud storage?”
Lou shakes his head. “No, I swear. It’s just right there on that phone.”
In case I needed further proof of how fucking stupid this man is…
He's lucky that I can’t touch him yet. Not until Dimitri is done with him and pulls out of New York. When that day comes, I will be finding this monster and cutting him into little chunks.
I take the phone from him and turn it on, click on the factory reset screen, then tap it. The phone goes black as I destroy another monster from her past.
“Pleasure doing?—”
“Some advice, Mr. Cassavetti,” I growl as I turn away to open my car door. “Run very far away and hide. Try, at least. Once Dimitri is done with you, I will be hunting you down. Like a dog.”
I glance back at him, relishing the way his face goes milk-white.
“Well…” he mumbles. “D-Dimitri says I could maybe work for him in Russia.”
Yeah, that’s a speed bump, not a golden parachute.
“That’s my advice, motherfucker,” I say tersely. “Run far and hide well. When I find you, I’m going to redefine words like misery and inhumane for you. Is that understood?”
He nods quickly.
“Good. Now fuck off. The next time I see you, I will kill you.”
Brooklyn looks up from her phone when I come storming through the back door and into the kitchen.
“H-hi?” she says, her brow furrowing. “Is everything okay?—?”
She gasps as I surge into her, grab her tight, and kiss her punishingly and brutally. I kiss her like I’m conquering her mouth and destroying her demons.
“ I need to fuck you ,” I rasp darkly.
Her eyes hood and her lip slips between her teeth. “ Okay ,” she breathes.
My eyes lock with hers as a devil enters my body. “I’m not going to be gentle,” I hiss. “I’m not going to let up. And you need to remember your safe word.” My eyes narrow. “Do you?”
Brooklyn nods and lets out a moan as she sinks against me, rising up on her tiptoes and letting her lips brush my ear.
“ Hurt me, sir …”