Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Matvey
I stood at the floor-to-ceiling window, looking down at Manhattan spread beneath me.
Traffic streamed through streets where neon signs flickered and flashed.
I'd lived here for over a decade—as head of the Bykov Group, as pakhan of the bratva. Over the years, I'd crushed everything that threatened me. But it wasn't a one-and-done job. Vermin always bred in corners you couldn't see.
"Pakhan, we opened the crates. That bastard Victor stuffed drugs into the false bottoms."
See? Now Anton's message revealed new vermin.
"Thirty kilos of heroin total, split between dozens of crates."
Victor Marchetti. That son of a bitch. Using my channels to move drugs under the cover of diamond smuggling? He had a death wish.
"Tell him the partnership's done."
I loosened my collar button and typed out a line.
"And he can pick up that powder at the police station."
When would this idiot learn? On my turf, you didn't play games.
"He won't let this go. A scumbag like him is capable of anything."
Anton had a point, but I doubted he had the balls.
"Not if he wants to take a bullet."
My phone went quiet for a few seconds before Anton's message came through again.
"Understood, Pakhan."
The silence and stuffiness in the office made it hard to breathe.
Honestly, I hadn't expected Victor to be this bold. He should've known my style. I never touched drugs. And he'd dirtied my pipeline with the business I hated most. He'd better have washed his neck clean before he decided to fuck me over.
Bastard! I nearly put my fist through the glass.
Good. It'd been a while since anyone could piss me off this much. Except for Riley. The image of that soft, petite girl suddenly popped into my head. Damn it, that face always showed up at the worst times.
I hadn't forgotten Riley sitting close to that so-called colleague, the two of them laughing and chatting in the break room. When would she learn her place? I'd bought her. She was mine now.
So I'd transferred that guy to grunt work and dumped the entire quarter's worth of design proofing on Riley.
Three days' work for a normal employee. These blueprints replicated the jewelry one-to-one, but sometimes the numbers were off.
Someone careful and patient needed to check each one and make corrections.
Personal feelings aside, Riley was a good fit for this.
I knew it was childish of me. Fucking childish. But if I didn't do it, something lodged in my chest, making me irritable as hell.
Maybe I should check on her progress now.
I took the elevator down to the twelfth floor. The moment the doors opened, the anger I'd already suppressed surged back up.
The scene before me felt like a close-up shot. Riley had her back to me, leaning forward slightly, reaching for a box held by the man across from her. And standing opposite her was Adrian—that damn kid I'd already transferred to field operations.
"Let me help you with that." Her hand was already touching the box, her fingers just inches from Adrian's.
If he actually touched Riley, I thought he should be grateful my first instinct was to fire him rather than snap his hand off.
"Forget it." Adrian immediately stepped back.
Smart move.
Though he'd obviously spotted me. His eyes met mine for an instant before sliding away, and he didn't hesitate to slink off down the other end of the hallway.
Riley's shoulders sagged, her blond hair sliding off her shoulder. She looked pretty disappointed. Over a wimp like that? Give me a break. I'd only looked at him once, and he'd scurried away like a turtle pulling into its shell.
I stood behind Riley without saying a word. Until she turned around and collided with my chest. The instant that soft body pressed against me, her sweet scent flooded my nostrils. My anger inexplicably cooled by half.
"Matvey..." She looked up at me, her expression like a startled deer.
Any emotions she felt for someone else needed to be forbidden. That was the correct order of things.
"Finished your work?"
"There's... still some blueprints that need proofing." She mumbled quietly.
"Is that so?" I raised an eyebrow. "Then I need to personally inspect your progress. Let's go."
Without giving her a chance to refuse, I headed straight for her department office. Her workstation was tidy. I pulled out the chair and sat down. She stood at the desk, pressing her lower lip.
That look of restraint was killing me.
"What are you waiting for?" I leaned back, staring at her intently. "Print out the designs you've already proofed."
She walked to the computer and bent over to operate the mouse. From my angle, I had a perfect view of her backside.
How the hell had she stuffed that lush body into this damned outfit? The ill-fitting uniform was tight and small, putting her full breasts and ass on complete display while making her waist look shapeless.
But I knew what that body really looked like. Every curve.
She hurried toward the printer humming at the other corner of the desk. Every sway of her hips reminded me who this sexy body belonged to.
When she walked toward me clutching the stack of papers, her arms squeezed them against her chest, making those two things look even bigger. I turned my chair toward her, watching her chest rise and fall with nerves.
I took the papers and flipped through them. She'd proofed them thoroughly, professionally. This wasn't the level you'd expect from an intern designer fresh to the company. She had talent.
"Don't move." I pulled out one sheet and held it against her chest for comparison.
The pale blue square gem landed right between her breasts. Too small—it was practically buried.
"Bad fit." I brushed my fingers against the two soft mounds at her chest. "I'm not satisfied. Redo it."
"But this is the lead designer's approved style." She shrank slightly under my touch, her expression tinged with difficulty. "And I'm just an intern..."
"I'm the boss. Is there a problem with me telling you to revise a design?" I slapped that blueprint against her chest, the paper nearly sinking into the cleavage between her breasts.
The moment I let go, she reached for her chest. But the paper slipped past her hands and floated to the floor.
"Pick it up." I looked at her.
She bent at the waist, straightened again, then took a deep breath and squatted down.
I knew what would happen next.
Her straining uniform betrayed her. The neckline gaped wide as she leaned forward, two pale, full half-moons crashing into my view. At the same time, the tight skirt slid up, exposing a large expanse of soft inner thigh and the edge of her black over-knee stockings.
Before she picked up the paper, pure white panties flashed before my eyes.
"I like this view." I reached out and pulled her waist toward me, squeezing her soft belly.
She pushed me away like she'd been shocked, flushing from cheeks to ears.
So all it took was a little teasing to turn this stubborn girl—who hadn't shed a single tear on the auction stage—into this.
"Sir, please stop doing such terrible things." Her voice mixed embarrassment and anger. "Yesterday in the conference room..."
Her voice trailed off.
"What? You don't like it?" I pulled the paper from her hand and set it on the stack on the desk. "Or are you ashamed to be played with by me in front of that little employee named Adrian?"
Her lips moved.
"I didn't, I just think..." She turned her head away, her gaze landing on those blueprints.
"That doesn't matter." I cut her off. "What matters is, with Adrian transferred, you can focus on work."
She looked up, the shyness in her eyes instantly replaced by another emotion.
"You didn't need to transfer him at all."
"This is my company. Here, my will is everything. I can transfer anyone I want without needing a reason."
She'd dare challenge me over some nobody? Looked like I'd been too lenient with her.
"But that's not fair." She tilted her face up, confronting me. "He just had coffee with me in the break room. He didn't do anything wrong. Why should he suffer because of what's between us?"
"He did something wrong." I stared into her eyes. "Adrian's biggest mistake was touching something that doesn't belong to him."
"I'm not anyone's thing." She frowned. "Matvey, what we have is just a transaction. I'm the bed partner you bought, but that's all. Don't I even have personal freedom and normal social interactions?"
Transaction. For some reason, that word stung.
I'd been the one to define our relationship that way. This should've been the clear boundary I wanted. Equal exchange, no messy entanglements. But now, hearing it from her mouth, I only wanted to grind that word—along with her damned stubbornness—out of her body.
That's all? I didn't say another word. I turned and pressed her down onto the desk.
"Matvey!" She cried out, lying back on the desk.
My arms caged her in the narrow space between me and the desk.
"What did you just say?" I leaned close to her, feeling her rapid breathing. "You said you want freedom? Normal social interactions?"
Her lashes trembled, her lowered eyes deliberately avoiding my gaze.
"This is the office!"
"So?" My knee pushed her legs apart, wedging between her thighs. "This is the Bykov Group office."
"Everything here belongs to me. Including you."
"I said I'm not your thing!"
"Whether you are or not, I decide." I unbuttoned her blouse, those snowy breasts springing free from the overly tight fabric. "Riley, you belong to me. Until this transaction ends, everything about you is mine—you only have two jobs: obey, and please me."
"You're going too far." She bit down, her eyes reddening.
"Too far?" I brushed her blond hair aside and leaned close to her ear. "I can go much further."
I lifted her skirt and ripped the black stockings on her thigh. Her pale, soft thigh flesh jiggled slightly, looking like a cake inviting me to taste it. The transparent traces on her panties were unmistakable. Her lower mouth was far more honest than her upper one.
I stirred the wet opening with my fingertips. Her waist immediately arched up.