Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Rodion
Finalizing on Club Vibe without ever meeting the previous owner leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Our private investigator and lawyers did their due diligence on the previous owner and confirmed what Viktor had told us.
Darrell was dodging his taxes and needed to sell to pay his bill or face jail time.
His misfortune is our gain, and we don’t look a gift horse in the mouth when presented with one.
I spread out the floor plan documents for Club Vibe—soon-to-be Klub Chernyy—on the table in front of us.
There’s still plenty of room for improvement, but from what little we’ve learned, we know one thing. The club is popular and has become the premier hotspot for anyone of significance in this town.
What intrigues me most about this exact club is how there are two floors to it.
We plan to have the face of the club for normal clientele and the lower body of the club for elite members only, just like Viktor wants to do with The Vault.
I think he likes the idea of us creating more of a party and fight scene, whereas he will cater to more of kink fetishes and smut fantasies.
I see a lot of Yuri in him, but I’ve never spoken the insult out loud to him. Not looking to die any time soon.
If we’re going to open clubs here, we want them just like this one, and like ours back home. We can build on the foundations already been laid by the previous owner and create fucking magic. Once we know what people want and what works over here we’ll expand into bigger cities.
“You seem in a better mood tonight,” I say with a smirk to my brother.
He slept most of the day and then spent three hours in the hotel gym. I know he’s not ready to talk about her yet. Hell, neither am I.
Zahkar’s blue eyes turn to me knowingly. “I’ll be glad to get started with the club. Add in some touches of home.” He goes back to looking out the window.
“Are you missing Nikita?” I tease. “She’s flying out soon.”
I know without looking at him that he just tensed all over.
Nikita will be coming to show our new staff how we like things run.
And then we’ve promised her to Viktor for his club.
She’s discreet and damn good at her job.
She’ll be perfect to help get things moving with the darker delights part of the club.
It will also keep her mind off of us. Nikita would give anything for us to take things with her to another level, but it will never happen.
She’s a distraction and knows what we like, but it will never be more than that.
We made that mistake once before.
Our hearts belonged to the woman who ripped them from our chests when she decided to up and leave us.
Like death passing through and taking with it our souls to the underworld.
Seeing her again was like taking a knife to the gut.
How alive and thriving she seems to be without us. It pisses me off that it still hurts.
I’ve always known Zahkar was my soulmate. Ever since the first time I laid eyes on him, fate’s hands were at work. And I’ve always been content in the knowledge we may never find a woman who could fit between us like she was created for that space.
Until Alyona.
She came barreling into our lives, and changed us. We changed her too. She became a fighter. Brave, formidable, ours…
It took months before she finally gave in to us and let us fucking own her. She held out longer than most. But I knew she would be ours. It was the same feeling I had when I first met Z.
There’s something so beautiful and untamed about the way they both fight and fuck. And they were mine.
Just like every fucking time I think of her, my mind transports me back to the moments before she left. I know Z’s mind lives there constantly. He’s not been the same since.
Like a masochist needing a sweet slice of pain, my eyes close and my thoughts drift back to the past I try so hard to forget.
Her.
The past is a fucking sadist.
Two years ago…
Crashing sounds penetrate my haze of sleep, jarring me awake.
What the fuck?
I jump from the bed and open the bedside table to slip out my Glock. Blinking the sleep out of my eyes, I whip my gaze around. The sheets lay in a crumpled mess on the floor and the bed is empty.
Where are they?
Rushing from the room, every muscle tightens beneath my skin, preparing for a fight. My breath comes out in a rush when I enter the living space and find no intruder, just my half-dressed brother tearing through the place like an insane fucking patient.
“Zahkar?” I bark, tossing the Glock on the counter and stopping a few feet from him.
“It’s all gone,” he snarls. “She took her clothes, her passport, her fucking everything. There’s nothing left of her.” He’s frantic, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he paces the floor.
I’m confused at first. My brain is in a fog like I’d been on a week’s bender.
But then his words sink in.
My heart begins a slow pound as I dart my eyes across the room searching for Alyona. She’s not here. She’s not fucking here.
“Where is Alyona?” I snap, panic rising up inside me. I join my brother’s hunt to search the apartment for her.
Running his hands over his head in a defeated gesture, he says, “She’s gone, man. She’s fucking gone.”
No.
Absolutely fucking not.
She. Is. Ours.
She can’t leave.
She wouldn’t fucking dare leave us.
“Fuck!” Zahkar roars. “Why did she leave?”
She wouldn’t leave the apartment. No fucking way. She wouldn’t leave him, me, us.
He’s holding a note in his grip, his eyes scanning over the paper as he reads, crystal clear with a sheen of…sorrow.
“What is that?” I growl, pointing to his hand. I don’t feel lucid right now, like I’ve not fully woken, and this is all a fucking nightmare.
He collapses to the couch. “I can’t fucking breathe. She’s stolen the air from my lungs. She’s killing me.”
His rambling is crazed and furious and full of despair.
“Zahkar, fucking speak to me. You’re not making sense.” I drop on my haunches in front of him and clutch his knees, desperate for his connection.
He holds the paper out to me and begins counting—one Mississippi…two Mississippi… Then, his arms fold across his chest as if to hold himself together. My hand actually fucking shakes as I straighten out the piece of paper he gave me and read it.
I’m sorry. I can’t live this life.
I need to start fresh.
Don’t look for me.
I don’t want to be found.
“Three Mississippi…”