Chapter 2 - Mira
She hated her father—hated his guts, Mira Dostoevsky decided as she swung open the doors of the club and traipsed inside on heels so high it was a wonder anyone could get around in them without a walking aid.
Her dress was short and slinky and clung to every last one of her curves as though she’d been poured into it. Her toenails were painted the exact shade of bright red she knew was guaranteed to bring out her father’s ire, and her lips had a full, sexy pout helped along by the deep red lipstick she’d applied.
Tonight was about breaking all the rules, Mira thought as she stared around for a minute, allowing her eyes to adjust to the dark, smoke-filled room of the club.
She knew she had no business being at a club so late in the night, and she knew she had no business coming out dressed as she was—in the skanky clothes of a “lady of the night” as her father liked to call them disparagingly.
“Hypocrite,” she muttered, tossing her red, flowing mane of hair. Mira’s mother had died when she was only a few months old, and in the twenty-three years since then, she had witnessed an unrelenting, steady parade of “ladies of the night” through their home, because her father was a virile, passionate man who couldn’t keep it in his pants.
Mira, on the other hand, had practically become a nun, thanks to her father shadowing her every move and breaking the legs of every man who so much as gave her side-eye.
After four years in college obtaining a degree in cyber-security, Mira had not lost her virginity, even at twenty-five, because her father’s fearsome reputation was widespread. No man with a grain of sense wanted to touch Oleg Dostoevsky’s daughter.
Well, she hadn’t minded much—she actually liked being a virgin, because she didn’t much like to be touched. She sometimes got queasy at the occasional body contact on the streets; it didn’t bear thinking about what making love would feel like, she thought with a small shudder.
Mira squared her shoulders. She didn’t have much of a choice anymore. Her father had decided that she was to be put on the wedding block like a prized mare, with her virginity as the primary bargaining chip.
Well too bad for him—she intended to lose it tonight. She looked around for a man who seemed like he was brave enough to withstand the onslaught of her father’s anger.
She wasn’t too worried about being recognized. Most people who’d known Oleg Dostoevsky’s daughter before she went away to college would remember a small, mousy girl who always lurked behind big glasses.
No one would recognize the curvy, voluptuous woman who had returned. True, her hair was still red, thanks to her mother’s Irish roots, but she’d changed in every other way. Her breasts had grown from tiny “mosquito bites” to a full, sexy, 36D cup, and her hips were wide enough to perfectly enunciate the slimness of her waist, giving her the sort of hourglass figure most women could only dream about.
Several male heads swung her way, and many appreciative whistles trailed her as she walked. Mira dismissed all of them offhand.
She didn’t know what exactly she was looking for, but somehow she knew the man she was looking for wasn’t the cheap sort who whistled at women.
He would be tall, dark, and handsome of course. He would have a will of iron and the heart of a lion. He would have an authoritative presence that made lesser mortals cower before him, and he would be intelligent and strategic but still compassionate and kind.
I want to lose my virginity, but I don’t want to be mauled like prized beef before some starving idiot , she thought, giving almost every man in the club the once-over and then dismissing them.
“Come on, Mira, you can’t be too picky,” she chanted to herself as she looked around the club, wondering how to find a man whose touch she could withstand without shuddering too much. She wanted to get rid of her virginity, but that didn’t mean she wanted the poor man who did it to die. He had to be rich and influential enough to protect himself from her father, or at least to relocate to another continent.
She sighed as several faces peered at her. They were all starting to seem alike, she realized with a sinking feeling, and she began to admit to herself that perhaps tonight just wasn’t the night to lose her virginity.
“What are you in the mood for, honey?” the bartender asked in a cigar-roughened voice.
Mira flicked a glance at the bartender, her eyes rounding in surprise. The bartender was a study in contradictions. She was a big, burly woman with hands the size of ham, a voice that would have done a sailor proud, and yet a face as sweet and innocent as an angel’s. She was devastatingly pretty, her black hair closely cropped, and beautifully done makeup. She also happened to be wearing a frilly dress, of all things.
The entire effect left her looking like a large teddy bear, but when she spoke, she didn’t seem like a teddy bear at all. She seemed like a woman who could break the kneecaps of any man who crossed her.
Mira liked the bartender instantly. She sidled up to the bar and slid onto the stool. There was something very comforting about the other woman that invited one to confide in her.
It was almost on the tip of Mira’s tongue to announce that she was looking to get laid, but she realized that if she did, the woman might have a few questions. Then it would probably get out that she was Dostoevsky’s daughter, and then no man in the room with an ounce of self-preservation would touch her with a ten-foot pole.
Wisely, Mira let a small smile play about her lips as she said instead, “A drink would be nice. Something chilled but not too strong.”
The woman nodded with a grin as she deftly began to mix something. “Don’t have much of a head for alcohol, do you?”
Mira shook her head.
“I’m Dotty,” the bartender said helpfully.
“Mira.”
“What’s a purty lil’ thing like you doing out here, anyway?” the woman asked with an exaggerated Texas twang. “So late, and all alone? Kinda like lil’ Red Ridin’ Hood facin’ down a pack of wolves, if you ask me.”
The fake Southern accent and the fairytale analogy made Mira laugh. The sound drifted across the bar, drawing several appreciative—and in some cases, wolfish—male glances. Mira chose not to pay attention to any of them; she was too caught up in thinking about a satisfactory response to give the inquisitive but friendly bartender. Besides, her life was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a fairytale.
“I just came into town,” she prevaricated. It was mostly true, she assured her conscience. She had been out of town for some years thanks to college.
The woman’s countenance changed imperceptibly and she leaned back, her lips pursing in a disapproving frown as she busied herself arranging glasses and bottles. “And you hit up a bar first thing?”
Mira shrugged. “Just taking in the sights.”
The woman grunted dismissively before subsiding into a rather discouraging silence.
Mira took a sip from her glass, enjoying the sweetness of whatever it was the bartender had poured into her glass. She couldn’t put a name to it, but it sure was delicious—a hint of fruit and just a tinge of alcohol—enough to give her a buzz but not make her tipsy.
Just as she was considering the contents of her glass happily and contemplating her next line of action, someone slid onto the stool on her right.
He was tall and dark haired with even white teeth, smooth skin, clean fingernails, lashes so long they ought to be outlawed in a man, and of all things a dimple in each cheek that made an appearance with every word he spoke. He was devastatingly handsome, Mira allowed, letting her gaze trail his aquiline features, broad shoulders and clean-cut clothes.
Automatically, she started to smile up at him, determined to strike up a conversation even though she didn’t feel like it.
But the expression in his coal-black eyes made her draw up short and shiver. Whoever this man was, she was certain she did not want to get to know him in the slightest, because when she looked into his eyes, all she saw was rage and death.