Chapter 14
The club’s name is Posol'stvo , which translates to The Embassy.
After months of stalking Vanessa Volkov, I know the ins and outs of her schedule, including her frequent Friday night trips to one of three preferred clubs. She dances, drinks, and pretends to be a mafia princess again, rather than the Pakhan. She’ll pick one unsuspecting fool to take home for the night, work out whatever sexual frustrations and anger she’s clinging to, before sending him on his way.
Two years of studying her, with eight of those months stalking her through Moscow, learning everything I can about her life; her property, her mansion, and the best ways to get close to her. When realizing her Friday night trips have a pattern, the answer became too obvious.
Getting inside the club will be simple, but getting to her side may be a bit trickier. When I do, all this time plotting and preparing will grant me the largest payday of life.
Ursin Volkov may no longer be around thanks to Erico Rossi, so it’s now Vanessa’s turn to pay for her father’s crimes. And he’s pissed off the wrong people: the Cosa Nostra.
From across the street, I watch and wait for the sun to dip well below the horizon. Eventually, clubgoers arrive in factions, some stumbling through the club’s front door, obviously having pre-drank before coming downtown.
The path inside is simple, involving a bouncer verifying IDs. Mine will check out because I’ve guaranteed it. All week, I’d taken separate trips to the three different clubs Vanessa typically goes to and entered as a guest, like everyone else that night. It was a test, to ensure my fake identification didn’t raise any flags, since I’m entering under a different name. Zeno Mancini might be recognized by the wrong people, but Lorenzo Mattel won’t be.
This club in particular is smaller than the rest, but hopefully that works to my advantage. There’s a VIP lounge that overlooks the main floor that Vanessa will be hanging out on. Only those invited are allowed to go up, which means I’ll need to get her to notice me. To be her prey for the night.
Until the time she becomes my prey. My captive. Mine to destroy.
I wait until the familiar black sedan pulls up to the club. It’s one I’d recognize anywhere, simply from stalking it for the past few weeks. An Aurus Senat, presumably decked out with bulletproof glass windows. At least, if she was wise, that’s what they’d be. The driver gets out and heads for the back, opening the door.
A woman steps out first, blonde waves bouncing down her bare back as she scans up and down the sidewalk and over the short line of people still waiting to enter the club. There’s only one person who ever joins Vanessa on her Friday night getaways, so this would be her best friend, Elite member, one of her Spies, deadly assassin, and renowned ballerina, Anastasia Petrov. She might look delicate as glass but she is as sharp and as deadly as it too. She led the shift in changing the Bratva’s business from trafficking to brothels and manipulates her innocent disguise to take down any enemy.
Knowing what I’ll be up against is important for this job, so of course, I’ve studied the Bratva and anyone important Vanessa surrounds herself with, especially her three Elite members: Vanessa’s cousin and second-in-command, Dimitri Volkov, Anastasia, and her twin brother, Lev Petrov.
Anastasia steps to the side, waiting for the next person to exit the vehicle, and when the head of dark hair appears over the car, I smile. Vanessa nods toward her driver, a politeness I don’t expect from her knowing whose blood she shares, and walks toward the club’s entrance with Anastasia by her side.
Across the street, I step off the curb.
Let the games begin.