Chapter 8 - Mikhail
His men were beginning to treat him with the sort of caution reserved for violent sociopaths, Mikhail thought with dark humor as he watched well-trained men, armed to the teeth, take a detour every time they saw him coming. It was no secret that for the past two weeks, he had been in a very black mood, and he’d taken it out on everyone and everything within reach. Even his brothers started avoiding talking to him. If he was honest, he preferred it like this more than their regular calls ever since Alena.
He sighed now, shoving a hand through his hair as he reclined against the lounge chair in his pool area. This was so unlike him. He never used to lose his temper in the past. Usually, he expressed anger with icy displeasure, becoming more silent and cool when he was pissed off, which made him even more deadly and hard to read.
But in the past two weeks, he could barely keep a lid on his temper. Everything seemed to set him off, and he hit the roof so fast it surprised even him. Mira was to blame for his foul temper, he knew. Ever since he’d returned to his limousine and found her gone, his blood had been on a slow boil.
He was unable to get her out of his mind. Now, instead of Alena’s sobs for Dmitri that had haunted him all these past months, all he heard in his mind’s ears were Mira’s soft cries of pleasure and wonder as he thrust into her again and again in the throes of passion.
Every time a woman walked past, he found himself unconsciously sniffing, looking for that particular fragrance of jasmine and something like orchids he had smelled on Mira.
Every time he heard a tinkling laugh, he couldn’t stop himself from looking up. He’d been neglecting all his business interests for the past two weeks and camping out at the club every night in hopes of catching a glimpse of her, but there had been neither hair nor hide of her.
Mikhail couldn’t understand what was wrong with him. What was it about Mira that affected him so much? Admittedly, she was the first woman of his acquaintance who had been a virgin, but he knew that wasn’t the appeal. There was something else going on.
He could be very sure of that, because even though he knew now for sure that she wasn’t a virgin anymore, he still wanted her terribly. Every time he thought of her soft skin pressed against his, he felt as though he were back in that limousine with her, burying himself to the hilt in her wet pussy. Every time he remembered her sweet, soft cries, he got so hard it was a wonder his men hadn’t noticed it.
Or maybe they had, he thought, realizing for the first time that all through the last week there’d been a steady parade of pretty women he had never seen before doing one chore or the other around his villa in places where they were sure to grab his attention.
Like right now—instead of his pool boy Ted, there was some curvy, buxom brunette dressed in booty shorts and a cropped top doing chores around the pool. Now that he was looking for it, he realized she was giving him a come-hither glance every now and then. Who could be responsible for this?
He looked around and spied one of his men, Vlad, in a corner standing guard. “Vlad!” he snapped at him.
The man straightened at once and hurried over. “Yes, Pakhan?”
Mikhail jerked his head in the direction of the horny brunette. “Get that woman out of my house right now. And you better tell your colleagues if I see one more strange woman in this villa again, I’ll have all your heads.”
Vlad nodded jerkily and rushed toward the pool girl.
Her feet barely touched the floor as Vlad spirited her out of there in a jiffy. Mikhail had been right. His men had decided he was horny and had been sending a steady parade of women his way to see if one of them could coax him out of his foul temper.
Too bad none of those women was Mira.
She had been very bendy, too, he thought, torturing himself with memories of her flexibility and her wet eagerness. Despite the relatively cramped quarters of the vehicle, she’d been able to twist and turn and move just right. She had driven him out of his mind with lust, and he wanted more of her.
He had never been this hard in his entire life.
He rose to his feet, his thoughts in a whirl. This was madness. He had a lot of work to take care of, a lot of responsibilities to see to, and all he could think of was how much he missed fucking a woman he’d met only once.
Two of his men burst into the pool area at a run just then, their faces twisted with worry.
Mikhail switched immediately into predator mode, all thoughts of lust wiped from his mind. His head lifted as he sensed danger. “What’s wrong?”
“Dostoevsky grabbed three of our men off the streets this morning. Word is he’s sent them into his torture chambers,” one of his men said urgently.
Torture chambers . The two words rang like an urgent alarm in Mikhail’s head. The mafia world was cold and dark and he knew its inner workings like the back of his hand. No one sent an enemy to his torture chambers unless he wanted information from them. What was Dostoevsky’s game now? What new information was he seeking about him?
Mikhail jerked out his phone and typed in a number. Like any self-respecting mafia lord, he’d planted a mole in Dostoevsky’s home. It hadn’t been the easiest thing in the world to do, but he had done it. Perhaps his mole could confirm what exactly the old coot was up to.
“Sam, what the hell’s going on?”
A familiar voice chuckled in his ear. “Sammy Boy cannot come to the phone right now, Nikolai. He’s too busy picking up pieces of himself from off the highway.”
Mikhail froze as the voice registered. That was Dostoevsky, and if the man himself had answered Sam’s phone then it meant only one thing—he had discovered Sam was a mole and done away with him. Considering Sam had been deep undercover for three months and had never been found out until this morning, it meant the three men Dostoevsky had captured were already singing like canaries.
His heart wrenched inside of him at the awful realization that he would have to kill three of his own men to get them to stop talking, and he would have to do it right away.
“Just try to think about how many more of your dirty little secrets I’ve found out,” Dostoevsky continued. “How many of my people have I planted around you, men and women ?”
Something about the inflection of Dostoevsky’s voice when he said the word women made Mikhail stiffen in anger and shock. That night with the redhead in the limousine flashed before his eyes. It had been too good to be true.
A beautiful red-headed virgin walking into a club alone, willing to enjoy a one-night stand in the arms of a perfect stranger before fading into the night like Cinderella—it was the stuff of fairytales, he realized now. She had to have been a spy! Dostoevsky had planted her! She’d been a wonderful actress and he’d been an absolute fool to fall for her air of innocence and wide eyes. She must have stolen something from him for his archenemy; maybe a paper, a flash drive, a picture?
He tried to remember if he’d said or done anything he shouldn’t have while he was in the throes of passion, or if he had lost any vital documents. But try as he might, he came up blank.
She had looked so na?ve and harmless. She’d been anything but. She was a cold, manipulative, and calculating bitch.
A niggling of doubt entered his mind. Could she be the one Dostoevsky meant? He had said “women” after all, and there had been a steady parade of strange women through his villa this past week until he’d put a stop to it a few moments ago.
Suddenly, a memory of Mira’s secretive smile and the way she had escaped into the night first chance she got flitted through his mind. He was almost twice her age and she’d looked at him out of sultry, lustful eyes as though he were the best thing since sliced bread. Something about her mannerisms had screamed wealth and sophistication despite the not-so-expensive dress she’d been wearing.
Oh, she was a spy alright. Mikhail could feel it in his bones—Mira had been a whole lot more than just an average young girl looking for a nice time. She wasn’t any ordinary girl; she had to be one of Dostoevsky’s practiced whores and spies.
With a vicious oath, he strode into his villa, walking so briskly that no one could keep up with his long strides.
He headed straight for the underground room only he had access to. It was one of the requirements of being head of the Bratva, there were some best-kept secrets.
He would find that redhead if it was the last thing he did, and he would take his revenge out on her. She must have leaked the routine of his men to Dostoevsky, which was why the cretin had known where to pick up the three men he now had in his custody.
Whenever new men joined his Bratva, he got Jon, his head of labs, to insert some sort of device into them as an insurance. It was a small chip that could quickly become a kill switch if any of the men tried to—or were forced to—be unfaithful. Now Mikhail was headed to the lab to activate the kill switch to keep those three men from talking their heads off any further. He was going to have to kill his own men in cold blood, and he had that redheaded bitch and her master Dostoevsky to thank for it.
A memory of how he’d needed to kill Dmitri because of Alena resurfaced, and anger tightened his insides. Once again, a woman had betrayed him. Once again, he was going to have the blood of his own men on his hands because of a woman.
Damn all women to hell and back, he thought angrily. But then he remembered his mother, killed in her prime when she’d been nothing but good through and through. Her only offense had been that she was his father’s wife. She was killed when he was only twelve, and even her corpse had never been recovered. But he could still remember her warm hugs and a kitchen that smelled constantly like cookies.
Fine , Mikhail thought. Maybe not all women ought to be damned, just a certain redhead who had unwisely chosen to go against him for Dostoevsky.
He would find Mira and he would exact his pound of flesh if it was the last thing he did!