Chapter 1 #3
But she sent me away; didn’t want me. Even after I moved her and her svoloch' second husband to a real home, a two-story in the city center with heat and water and groceries delivered once a week.
Even then she didn’t want me.
So, this is my home now—America. I’ve built an empire on this asphalt, expanded further than I ever imagined. My reach knows no bounds. This very week I have men negotiating in China for a megatower, connecting our arms deal to the far east.
It’s what I should be thinking about, that deal, and the expansion of my holdings.
Instead, I’m picturing her. Spread out on this very table, nipples hard from the cold steel, soft skin rippling with pleasure as I pound into her over and over.
As I make her beg, for forgiveness, for more, for mercy.
Audrey Wolfe.
Dropping my head into my hands, I try to fight off the snippets of her that my mind has saved up. Later, alone in the shower, they’ll come back. I’ll fist my cock to fantasies of yanking one of those little dresses up, exposing her ass, making her cry out as the belt leaves a red mark.
She needs to be punished.
No longer plagued by thoughts of my childhood, I return to the study and pull open a drawer. Inside is a folder—one given to me by Duscha, so loyal and conniving, so jealous and ambitious.
It was she who noticed Audrey’s mistake. Not that it’s her job to check the other accountants’ work.
I never trusted her, she’d snarled in my office when everyone had gone home. She’d begged a meeting with me via Olena, who I was surprised gave in and agreed.
Women.
Always trying to destroy one another.
Little did Duscha know, she gave me the very thing I needed to bring Miss Wolfe closer. To get a tighter grip on her.
“What am I going to do with you?” I murmur, turning a page slowly to stare down at her personnel file.
Her home address is listed there, an apartment. Small, probably, but good enough. Something for her to be proud of.
“I could give you so much more.”
But first… she needs to be punished.
She needs to give me what I’m owed. Or I can take it from her.
Somewhere in the office my phone buzzes dully. I find it hidden beneath today’s suit jacket, but it’s not my personal phone; it’s my business phone.
The one with every important employee’s number in it.
The one for emergencies.
Her full name and position appear atop the message: Audrey Lauren Wolfe, Head Accountant.
The message itself… well, it has my attention. And makes it even more clear that I need to break her.
Watch her eyes fill with hate as I fill her with my seed.
Audrey Wolfe will give me what I really want.
A child.
Chapter 3
Audrey
“Are you up for going to Sottovoce? I could use something to take the edge off.”
Chrissy pauses on the sidewalk, a look of surprise on her face. “Really? You never want to go out after work.”
“Well, that’s because I don’t exactly enjoy talking about Excel spreadsheets with Jeanette, Grace, and Duscha.”
She gives me an apologetic smile and steps up to the curb to flag a taxi. Mr. Martynov isn’t an idiot; his stronghold is located on the far side of the city, away from the Italian section and Sottovoce—the bar I met Sal at.
“Do you really think Duscha had something to do with getting you in trouble?”
“Where to?” the driver interrupts as we slide into the backseat of the cab. Chrissy gives him a curt response, just enough time for me to process how to respond. She knows that Mr. Martynov was not happy with me, but I couldn’t tell her why.
Chrissy’s been my best friend since I started as a head accountant for Martynov Global Holdings a year ago.
Before that, I was the accountant for one of Mr. Martynov’s construction offshoots—a grimy job that Sal got me not too long after my grandmother died, when I was unmoored and scared I’d lose her house.
Turns out I did anyway.
Forehead pressed against the cool glass of the window, I stare up at the Obsidian Spire—Martynov’s NYC headquarters and the place we work, all the way up on the 28th floor.
Chrissy nudges me with concern.
“I don’t know,” I sigh. “I think so, yeah. I… made an error in an account, and Duscha must have caught it and told him. She gave me such a shit-eating smirk when I came out of his office.”
I wrap my arms around myself, remembering the fear and desire coursing through me as I walked stiffly back to my desk. My ankle still pulsed with a bruise from tripping, and then the strain of kneeling before him.
Submitting.
“She’s always been a bitch,” Chrissy mutters. “Although I have no idea why she’s snooping in your assignments. I wonder if she’s been in the rest of ours, too.”
The cab cuts through the back streets as Chris continues to chat, mostly complaining about the complexity of handling the Eastern European accounts and the headaches she’s been getting at night.
This is what I like most about her; Chrissy lets me just…
exist. It was exactly what I needed after Nana passed, and it was part of what made me give in to Sal’s pursuit as well.
It was so easy to give up control then when I was grieving.
So easy to let someone tell me what to do, or to let them talk about their day mindlessly as I floated in the foggy loss.
But Nana has been gone for a long time now.
And it’s hitting me just how dangerous what Sal has me doing is; just how close I’ve come to burning up like a moth in a flame.
The only thing keeping me safe is the fact that Mr. Martynov wants to toy with me.
And that he wants an answer as to why I would steal close to $50K. The thing is, he’s right; normally I’m not that stupid. I did it because I have to.
The ping of Chrissy paying our fare rouses me, and I follow her out of the cab and onto the street. It’s early fall and even though the trees aren’t changing color yet, it’s darker earlier. A chilly breeze makes me shiver as we hurry into Sottovoce.
Inside isn’t much better; Sottovoce is dimly lit, a classy wine bar of leather and velvet, whispers, and trysts.
The first time Sal brought me here I found it exciting and took Chrissy here a few times after work…
before I realized that this is actually a front for Giuseppe Sartorre, Mr. Martynov’s competition, and leader of the Italian mob.
“Miss Wolfe,” the bartender greets us, “Miss Lin.”
He gives Chrissy those Italian stallion bedroom eyes, and I almost roll mine, then hope to God she isn’t actually falling for it.
The last thing I need is for her to get mixed up between crime syndicates, too, since I can barely keep myself safe.
“Two glasses of white, please,” I snap, and he eyes me up darkly.
“Mr. Imperi isn’t here tonight, Miss Wolfe. But I can let him know you stopped by.”
His words are cold.
They make my heart stutter.
I don’t want to see Sal tonight, not just because I’m pissed at the danger he’s put me in.
I’m also… scared of him.
And I hate that.
Chrissy glances at me over the rim of her glass. When the bartender moves away just a bit, she asks, “Want to grab a booth? A bit more privacy?”
I nod, carefully pick up the stem glass, and the two of us wind our way across the bar to a corner booth. Sinking into the seat, the scent stirs something in me… the smell of leather.
Mr. Martynov’s belt in his hand.
The way he bent me over the desk, lingered behind me like a predator.
I take a shaky sip, and then another. “I really, really don’t want to see Sal tonight. Sorry—is it okay if we make this quick?”
“Yeah, of course. But Audrey… it seems like things haven’t been going great between you two. Maybe it’s time to break it off?”
The wine buzzes on my tongue as I let it warm in my mouth, shaking my head. “Mm. Trust me. That would be more disastrous than just avoiding him.”
Chrissy snorts. “He can’t be that good in bed, Aud, even if he is pretty.”
That makes me laugh. “You’re right. Actually, Sal is kind of… um, selfish is the nice way to put it, I guess. Or focused. But only on himself.”
“Aren’t they all,” Chrissy mutters, and we both giggle into our glasses.
“I don’t know,” I sigh, leaning back. “It might be a bit complicated to end things with him now when everything at work is getting messy. I need Mr. Martynov to trust me again and not fire me.”
“He would never, Aud. There’s a reason you were promoted, you know.”
“Yeah, well, if Duscha can keep her job with that sour look she always has on her face, maybe I have a chance.”
“I don’t know why she has it out for you. Have you ever said anything bad about her? To Mr. Martynov?”
“No, never. Trust me, we barely talk when I’m in that office. Or at least he barely talks. I run through the report, keep my eyes on the papers, and then he gestures for me to leave. That’s it.”
Chrissy smirks.
I know what’s coming even before she says it, because Chrissy has had this theory for so long.
“I think he went easy on you because he’s got a thing for you, Audrey. You know—a little forbidden office romance on the mind.”
I can’t help smiling, it’s such a ridiculous idea.
“You’re reading too many of those books. Trust me, a man like Konstantin Martynov isn’t at all interested in romance.”
“Okay. That’s still not a problem though, right? I mean, if you just have to fuck your way out of this problem, there are worse things.”
“Chris!”
I lunge across the booth, tipsily moving to cover her mouth with my hand as she cackles. We’re drawing attention from the bartender as well as the patrons that have started to settle into nooks and tables.
The wine caught up to me faster than I realized. For starters, I’m terrified that the bartender really might’ve let Sal know I’m here, and that he’ll appear at any moment and hear Chrissy talking about me fucking my boss.
That would not go over well. Sal has been… volatile lately. And while it hasn’t escalated to physical fights yet, the last time he was over he smashed one of my Nana’s Roseville Dogwood vases. It was priceless, both in terms of actual money and nostalgia. I cried for days.