Chapter 7
Blake, the suited billionaire playboy, shows me his bloody teeth as I crack my neck and sit in the opposite corner of the ring.
Round four, motherfucker, and I smile back, knowing it makes me look scarier, my eye nearly shut because he cocked me right in the temple.
The pain motivates me. No pain, no gain.
The little bell chimes, and in walks my wife.
Finally and early, and also dressed, thank goodness.
I need to pay her no mind as I move into the center of the ring or I’ll get pounded in the face and lose, and I hate losing, especially to this little pussy in the suit, though the boy has been working out since I last saw him in the pit—ring.
He got some new tattoos, some Japanese-looking dragons and mantras. Mofo thinks he’s a yakuza. Yeah okay. I know a few yakuzas, and them motherfuckers wouldn’t be caught dead modeling for a chick magazine.
He needs to get his branding straight. I’m here to pound some sense into his head and hope he’ll get the message. This way, I don’t gotta send Ludi after him. I’m using Nikola’s man ’cause I sliced and diced mine after he betrayed me to the feds.
Safe house, he wanted.
New life, he wanted.
There’s only one life I want. The one I share with my wife, and my men, and even these billionaires I’m using to clean my dirty money.
Blake’s gaze slides over the crowd as I shake out my arms, giving him time to see my wife in there, and I watch the second their eyes meet for signs of anything and everything, because if I see a hint of intimacy, I’m gonna pound him now and dice him up later so thoroughly, nobody will find the pieces of him ever.
He smiles and lifts his arm, saying hello to her.
She’s not looking at him, though.
She’s staring at me, a horrified look on her face, both hands covering her mouth. So she’s not into violence, and that’s okay, because I’m plenty into it for the two of us.
Blake rams his fist into my nose. My world spins, darkness covering my eyes, and I stumble back, hearing him coming after me. I’m fucking blind, but I feel him, so I fake a left, pull back my right arm, and put the weight of my body into it when I slam my fist into the side of his face.
He flies across the ring at the same time I slide down the ropes and plop my ass on the floor. The floor bounces as my opponent’s body hits it. He can’t stand anymore, and I smile, blood seeping out of my fucking ear, nose, mouth.
Morgan’s shouting.
My men are shouting.
I don’t hear my wife. That’s fine too. The local patch-up guy starts cleaning me up and asking me questions I can answer—thankfully—or they’d call an ambulance I’d have to share with the billionaire, and then I might even feel bad I fucked up his pretty face like that.
He needed it. In a way, it saved his life, because if anyone ever asks him to share a bedroom with my wife again, he’ll refuse, as he should’ve refused the first time. He didn’t know better then, but now he does, so I’m saving the billionaire playboys, one billionaire at a time. I’m a fucking hero.
Laughing then wincing when I choke up on the blood, I feel two men come to either side of me and help me stand.
Water washes the blood and snot and sweat off my face, and I can kind of see again.
Viktor’s face appears through the haze first, and once I can blink a few times without getting blood in my eyes, I look for my wife, who has sat on the bench with a bucket in her lap.
My man brings her a bottle of water. So I made her sick. Great. Fucking great.
Morgan steps in front of me, hands on his hips, his thick neck bulging with veins. He’s so pissed, he’s gonna erupt like a bloody volcano. I smile and pop out my mouthpiece, then throw it at his chest. “Is he alive?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“Nothing to worry about, then. Carry on.”
“He’s a client, Mikhail. A rich client who brings in more rich clients I wanna keep. You put a dent in his face.”
“That’s gonna give him character.” Yakuzas have strong jaws like dragons. Big teeth and all. He’s on brand now.
Two men carry the billionaire over to me. He’s holding ice to his cheek that’s the size of a watermelon right now. I can’t see out of one eye, so I’m sure I’m looking just as hot as this dude. He extends a fisted hand. “Awesome.”
Awesome? God, I’m old. “Awesome.” I fist-bump him. “Did you get the message?”
“Got it, but nobody else will.”
I push aside the two guys holding me and crack my neck. “Bring them, then.”
They carry him away as he throws over his shoulder, “She’s not wearing a ring.”
I stare at him, and then curse because my eye starts twitching like crazy. I’m sure one of the nerves got pinched. I never bought her a ring, and what’s worse, it didn’t even cross my mind to get one.
My wife’s in the kitchen getting me ice while I sprawl on the couch, aching bones and all. I swear to God forties suck when one still feels twenty-five at heart. I am not twenty-five, and neither is my pretty wife, though she’s much closer to that small number than I.
I scoot over so she can sit, my hand immediately landing on her thigh.
I grip it like the caveman I am, swiping my thumb back and forth over her smooth skin while she gently places a pack Morgan must’ve given her over my eye and holds it there, giving me one of those looks my mom used to give me when I was boy and got into trouble.
Mom used to hide me from Dad too. Under the cupboards in the kitchen.
Eh, those were some good days even when they were bad, and they were never as bad as that one day when I realized my dad and brother got with the local cartel behind my back.
Hence the scar. I took them both out, same place, same time.
Right in my paternal house and in front of my mother, who never forgave me for it. She lives in a small town in Russia with my aunt now. I send money. What else can I do?
“Do you train often?” my wife asks me.
“This was deliberate and arranged. I don’t train anymore, and certainly not with playboys like your boy Blake.”
“He’s not my boy, or a boy, anyway. Is there a problem?”
I grunt, squeezing her thigh, then realize if I keep touching her, I’ll want to fuck her and forget why I needed to make a point in the first place.
With no clear rules, this won’t work for me or her.
I have demands, and she needs to meet them.
I’ll do the same for her, so the tradeoff is how the marriage will work.
We’ve talked about nothing so far, and we can take it day by day as normal people would but I am hardly normal, so it is what it is.
I have zero desire to fit into the box of what a normal husband should be or look like.
I’m too big to fit into carefully crafted societal boxes, and I hope my wife doesn’t expect me to bend on this issue, because I won’t.
Sitting up, I take the ice off my face and lean my elbows on my knees. “Baby, are you a model?”
“A bikini model.”
Fuck my life. “Bikini model,” I repeat having an idea of exactly what that means, and it’s tripping my inner caveman something fierce that she had no bikini on in the centerfold. “I saw the magazine.”
“All right. Which edition?”
“Most recent one, I believe.”
“The Blake fragrance shot.”
“The what?”
“It’s a promo for his cologne. Men’s cologne. You have it in the bathroom and wore it yesterday, so it’s spreading. Woohoo!” She claps, all excited.
I’m gonna strangle Ivana, who bought that shit for me. “I have one fuck to give about that cologne. The fucking problem is the fact you had no clothes on. Where was the bikini on the bikini model?”
“The bikini was over my nipples and girly parts. It’s a seamless bikini that blends with my body.”
“I didn’t see it.”
“That’s kind of the point of it.” She’s looking at me all surprised and shit, as if my giving fucks isn’t coming across clearly to her, as if my nude wife in a magazine is perfectly normal.
Nothing about that shit is normal or regular or average to me, and my opinion should matter to her. “Why nude?” I ask.
“It’s a seamless bikini.”
“It’s fucking nude!”
“Okay, Mikhail, whatever you say.”
“Why?”
“Because that was what we agreed on.”
“Who is we?” I wanna bite her.
“The sponsors, editors, and photographers.”
“And Blake?”
Her eyes narrow. “There’s nothing going on with me and Blake, just like there’s nothing going on with you and your right hand, who I know is a woman.
You hired her for the money she can bring in and the arrangements such as ours she can make happen.
Blake hired me for the money, and by the way, I got paid twice my usual rate for that shot, which was pretty great.
And,” she showed me three fingers, “filled three empty slots in my schedule right after that shot was published, not to mention I’m gonna hustle while I’m on the shoot of those three to pimp my furniture store. ”
My wife is ambitious. I like this. I purse my lips and nod. “You sparred that round well.”
“Thank you.” She rubs my back. “How are you feeling?”
“Horny. But I gotta clear up some stuff with you. I don’t want the world to see my wife naked.”
Her hand flies off my back as if I burned her. “It’s just tits and ass. Half the population of Earth has them.”
“Those are my tits and ass, so only I have the right to see them. You understand?”
“I think you think you own me.”
“I do think that, and I can’t unthink it.”
She shakes her head and opens her mouth, but I cut her off.
“From today on out, there is only one we who decides on how life and what we do goes forward. That we are me and you and our people. We are ‘The We.’ The other people are they, because when push comes to shove, I wanna know you’re in my corner and I damn well will be in yours. Is that clear?”
I get up and walk away because I’ve said what I had to say and I won’t compromise. There’re plenty of models who don’t do nude or seamless or whatever the fuck this new world is turning into. She needs to set those limits for me, and I’ll do whatever she asks. Whatever. I’ll do it.