7. Nikolai
NIKOLAI
I watched Yakov crate Kira out of the dining room screaming like a lunatic. She thought she was being clever.
She played it well enough that a dumber man might've bought it, but I'd been running cons since before she was born and I could spot one across a crowded room, let alone across my own dinner table.
The funny thing was I sort of liked it.
Kira had spent a few days starving herself and beating on the door, but most women would’ve folded and given up by now. They'd be depressed, not getting out of bed, falling apart.
But Kira had decided to fight back and put her feminine wiles to use. It was a smart move on her part, but not intelligent enough to really fool me.
She did impress me, though.
She was smart enough to cause real problems if I let my guard down, and I couldn't have that. Things were hairy enough as it was. I didn't need the distraction or the trouble arising from someone within my own house.
I turned, staring at the mess we'd made of dinner. When Anya walked in and hastily retreated, I saw momentary shock on her face from the mess before she realized what we were doing. I didn't like making extra work for her.
She was so loyal as it was. Straining her seemed to work against my better nature.
So I stooped, picking up a few of the spilled glasses and the wine bottle, now almost empty with a puddle soaking into the carpet and a stain setting. I set them on the table as I thought about Kira's father's response to me.
How callous of a man would he have to be to ignore the fact that his daughter was locked in my possession and to write her off as a total loss without even trying to rescue her?
And it wasn't that he knew me so well, he'd assumed her dead already.
He knew she was alive, and he knew I had no intention of hurting her because I told him that myself. He just didn't care.
When most of the mess was off the floor, I took what was left of the bottle of wine and the glass and retreated from the dining room, heading toward my office.
Having Kira here was a distraction at best and a dangerous situation at worst. If he did come for her, there'd be hell to pay, but my gut told me if he came, it wouldn’t be to save her. Still, her being here tugged at my better judgment.
It made me wonder what having her here permanently would be like. It was dangerous thinking and I knew it. She was a tool—a means to an end. And the end had already failed because her father had made it perfectly clear he didn't care what happened to her.
I still couldn't wrap my head around that. I'd called Markin expecting negotiation. Anger, threats, posturing, sure, but eventually, a deal. That was how these things worked. You take something valuable, the other side comes to the table, and you hash it out like men.
But that negotiation wasn’t going to happen now, which meant I had to switch tactics.
I'd known men like Markin my whole life—men who'd sacrifice anything to protect their pride because it was the only thing that made them feel powerful.
It was cowardice, though they pretended it was strength, and I'd always despised it.
A man who wouldn't protect his own child wasn't a man at all. He was a selfish bastard hiding behind a reputation he didn't deserve.
I walked into my study and sat down at my desk, filling that glass up to the brim.
Then I sipped the last few drops from the bottle and tossed it into the bin. It'd been an interesting night I hadn’t expected to happen.
My body still pulsed with endorphins but the wine helped coax me deeper into relaxation.
It was getting a bit old sleeping on the sofa in here.
For a second, I wondered how Kira would respond to my climbing into bed with her, but by the time my work was done and I was able to retire for the night, I had no energy left for arguing, so I hadn’t tried it yet.
Soon, maybe, but first I wanted a few minutes to collect myself.
My cigars were stashed in the top drawer of my desk. I pulled one out and clipped it and I had no more than lit the thing than my door opened and Vlad walked in with a dark expression. I was beginning to get annoyed by how often they interrupted me with bad news.
"Boss, got a minute?"
"Go ahead." I didn't get up. I just leaned back and gestured him in with the cigar. It'd become a pattern I was too used to, but tonight, I figured it couldn't be anything too catastrophic. We had no more shipments for a while and I had sent reinforcements to every store we owned.
He stepped inside and closed the door behind him, which meant it was something he didn't want anyone else hearing. Then he stood with his hands clasped in front of him and his shoulders squared.
"I just have an update from the port," he said. "Our guys down there have been tightening up like you asked. But we picked up some chatter tonight."
"What kind of chatter?" So far, nothing he'd said was damning, but my temper was still bracing for bad news.
"We heard Markin has something coming in soon. Maybe two days, maybe three. Nobody knows the exact window yet, but the volume of movement around his warehouse on the south end has picked up considerably. New faces, extra vehicles, the whole routine."
I drew on the cigar and tasted the smoke on my tongue. Markin was bringing something in through the port while simultaneously hitting my trucks and pushing into my territory.
The man was stretching himself thin, which meant he was either supremely confident or supremely reckless. Both were exploitable.
And I owned that port.
"Do we know what it is yet?"
Vlad shook his head. "Not yet. Could be product or weapons, could be anything. I've got a guy trying to get closer, but Markin's crew has been tight-lipped about it."
"Find out," I told him. "If it's drugs, I want to know exactly when it arrives and exactly where it goes. If it's guns and we can get our hands on them, we can recoup some of what we lost the other day." Markin's strike taking my shipment three days ago still rubs me raw.
Vlad grunted, jerking his chin up as if he understood exactly what I meant. He was damn good at his job, and I knew I could trust him to get this intel.
"If it's product," I continued, drawing slowly, "we take every gram of it and we make sure his people know exactly who did it."
"Understood." Vlad turned to leave and then stopped with his hand on the doorknob. "What about the girl? Are we using her now? Markin's gonna escalate."
"Let him escalate it, then," I said, letting the smoke curl upward out of my mouth. "He's already told me he doesn't care what happens to the girl so for now, we'll consider her my baggage. Don't worry about that."
Vlad scowled in confusion but he didn't ask me to clarify anything. He left quietly the way he'd come in, and I sat there with my cigar, staring at the bookshelves without really seeing them.
Markin's shipment was an opportunity, but seizing it would only deepen the war.
It was a move, not an endgame. And I needed an endgame.
Something that didn't just hurt Markin but humiliated him so thoroughly that his own people would start to question whether he was worth following.
The only way to truly take a man like Markin out was to discredit him with the authorities, with his sources and buyers, and with his own men. I'd done my share of this sort of work over the years, but nothing sprang to mind immediately.
What did spring to mind was the feeling of Kira's body wrapped around my dick so tight, it made my balls draw up. It wasn't like there was anything specifically special about her.
Every woman had a vagina worth using for my pleasure, and every woman had a rack of tits to fondle.
But Kira… It wasn’t about her body to me. Or the fact that enjoying her gave me something to look forward to the next time she mouthed off.
She was right about one thing—we had clicked.
When we were messaging, I let her see the Nikolai Dragonov who grew up in St. Petersburg with a mother who cooked hot cross buns at Easter and decorated for Novy God in December.
I had shared that with her because I wanted to sell myself, but in doing so, I'd made myself vulnerable to her. And her response had hooked into me like a fishing lure, piercing something inside me I never let anyone touch.
No way in hell was I letting that get away, not when having been seen for who I really was hadn't chased her off entirely.
She still came on to me, and well into the act of sex tonight, she wasn't faking it.
She had wanted me as badly as I wanted her, and I let her sink those talons of hers into my thoughts so deeply, I still wanted her, even after she lashed out in rage.
Kira was mine now, and I wasn't changing my mind about that. I didn't know how she would ever come around to have anything resembling a real relationship, but sending her home was off the table for good.
But what was definitely on the table now was a glimmer of hope in an otherwise inky black sky. A gunmetal grey shredded by the sliver of dawn on the horizon.
If I forced Kira to marry me and spread that announcement across this entire city, every man, woman, and child who had any connection to Xavier Markin would hear.
And when they heard that his daughter had married his worst enemy, he would have no choice but to tuck his tail and run. It would be humiliation upon humiliation for him.
So that was what I planned to do.
And I planned to do it immediately.