Chapter 2 #2
“Ah, hell.”
“Not again.”
Ruger kicks his feet up on Alexi’s desk and leans back in his chair. “No way, boss,” he points out. “Every time you have an idea, we get shot at.”
“Or blown up,” one of the men sitting on the couch adds.
“Or tortured,” the man by the window says.
Alexi glares at them and crosses his arms over his chest. “Look, if we can pull this off, you guys will get shot at less, get paid more, and have more time off.”
All five members of his team perk up. Ruger drops his feet down off the desk and scoots his chair around so he can see Alexi better.
“And how are we going to accomplish that?” the woman asks, quirking an eyebrow at him in speculation.
Before Alexi can answer, Ulayna pushes the door open. His team perks up further when they see what she’s carrying.
“Are those breakfast sandwiches?” Ruger asks, eyeing the tray in her hands.
Ulayna nods. “I made one for everyone. There wasn’t much bacon left, thanks to Alexi, but everyone got at least one piece.”
Like a flock of seagulls descending on a dropped french fry at the beach, Alexi’s team all launch themselves at Ulayna.
“Oy! Behave, you bunch of heathens,” Alexi yells at them. “Have some fucking manners!”
“Fank woo,” Ruger mumbles his appreciation around the sandwich stuffed in his mouth.
Alexi takes the now-empty tray from Ulayna’s hands and sets it on the desk. “You didn’t have to do that, Ptichka. I don’t expect you to cook for me or for my team.”
“I know.” Ulayna leans in close to whisper conspiratorially to him, “But I wanted to.”
Ruger, clearly eavesdropping on their conversation, winks at Ulayna. “Darling, you can cook for me anytime.”
Alexi shoots him a pointed glare.
Ruger puts his hands up in surrender. “Point taken, boss.” Turning back to his other team members, Ruger raises his eyebrows and shares a knowing look with them. It’s not the first time Alexi has warned them away from Ulayna.
Ulayna struggles to hide her grin as she watches the interaction. It’s no secret that Alexi is protective of her.
With a gentle hand on her elbow, Alexi turns Ulayna to face the rest of his team. “Let me introduce you.” He points at Ruger. “Ruger, whom you’ve already met.”
Ulayna gives Ruger a small wave. He’s broad-shouldered with chestnut-brown hair and a young, handsome face. Very all-American looking.
Alexi points at the first man sitting on the couch. He’s dark skinned, with a shaved head and full lips. “That’s Shade,” Alexi says.
The man’s dark, depthless eyes seem to latch onto Ulayna’s and see inside her soul—until he blinks, and the connection is severed.
“Hawk.” Alexi points at a man sitting on the other end of the couch. Ulayna nods in greeting.
He has dark, close-cropped hair, green eyes, and a large, angular nose, giving him a rough, hawkish appearance. She can’t help but wonder if that’s how he got his nickname.
“That’s Bill.” Alexi gestures to the man leaning against the wall.
Ulayna quirks an eyebrow at the giant man in surprise. “Bill?”
With a thick beard, massive arms and legs, and a nose that’s clearly taken a punch or two, the man looks more like a mountain troll than someone who should be named Bill. The huge man’s eyes glint with humor, and he grins at her, showing several gold teeth.
Alexi shakes his head, then points at the only woman on his team. “And last, but certainly not least, that’s Phoenix.”
Ulayna eyes the woman, sizing her up. The woman isn’t much taller than her short stature and has luscious, wavy red hair, bright green eyes, and a pale complexion. She looks more like a model than a trained killer.
The two women look each other over for another few seconds before Phoenix smiles. “It’s nice to have another woman around,” she says.
Ulayna turns back to Alexi. “Where did you all meet? I assumed your team would all be Russian.”
“Let’s just say…we met abroad,” Alexi equivocates.
Ulayna raises her eyebrows at him, silently demanding more information. Unable to resist her, Alexi continues.
“We were all government employees from various nations before meeting.”
“Government employees? Like, what? Military? Spies?”
“Yeah. Bill was Delta Force. Hawk… well, we think he was CIA.” The man in question grins impishly at her. “Phoenix was British Intelligence, and Ruger was in the Russian military with me.”
Ulayna spins to face Ruger. “Wait. You’re Russian? But you have no accent, and you look totally American.”
Ruger smirks at her. “I can be whoever you want me to be, love,” he says, this time with a thick Australian accent.
Ulayna looks back and forth between Ruger and Alexi. “Can you do that too?” she asks Alexi.
He chuckles at her obvious confusion. “No. Infiltration is one of Ruger’s specialties. He was GRU before he faked his own death and joined my team. Changing accents is a fun party trick for him.”
Ulayna narrows her eyes at Alexi in disbelief. “You were in the Russian military. Seriously? But you’re Bratva.”
“Since World War II, when Stalin pardoned criminals as an incentive to join the Red Army, the Bratva and the military have had close ties,” Alexi explains.
Ruger nods in agreement, licking his fingers clean from the delicious breakfast sandwich. “Closer than the government would like to admit.”
“Some Bratva, like my father, are old-school Vors,” Alexi continues.
“They believe the men who work for the government are lapdogs. They call us Suka, or bitches. Boris was incensed by my decision to join the military, but I recognized the powerful advantages it would give me—a higher level of training, easy access to weapons, and intel directly from the Ministry of Defense.”
Ulayna looks around the room at everyone, frowning. They all started as soldiers for their different countries. But now, they’re working for the Bratva. The same organization that purchased her and other women as slaves.
She can feel her respect for them slipping. “So you were all in the military, but then you turned traitor, and now you work as some kind of hit squad for the wealthy?” Her voice drips with derision. She’s come to respect Alexi, but she doesn’t know his team, and she’s leery of them.
Ruger and Hawk visibly bristle at her judgmental words. Shade looks impassive, his expression giving nothing away.
In a soft voice, Phoenix says, “When your country starts taking advantage of your skills and asking you to do things even someone with a very gray sense of right and wrong would hesitate to do, the line between traitor and hero gets a bit blurred.”
Ulayna crosses her arms over her chest and tips her chin up defensively. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Alexi places a hand on her shoulder. “It means that even though our countries have abandoned us, we have not abandoned them. We work for the people and are not beholden to any government. Each of us had one too many assignments that didn’t sit right.
Each of us was hung out to dry when we asked questions.
And each of us still fights to protect our people. We just do it outside the law now.”
Ulayna holds his gaze for a long moment, searching for the truth in his eyes.
In a quiet voice meant only for her, Alexi says, “We may all be morally gray, but we don’t traffic women. That’s one of the many reasons I overthrew my father even though I had no desire to lead the Bratva.”
Once again, he’s surprised at the inner strength of this pint-sized woman.
Without fear, she holds his gaze and challenges him, silently demanding to know the answers to questions no one else would dare ask.
When she nods and drops her hands to her sides, relaxing her posture, Alexi breathes a sigh of relief. He feels like he just passed a test.
“Okay,” Ulayna says. “I’ve seen enough of the underbelly of the world to know that things are not always black and white. But while I appreciate the introductions, what do you need me for?”
Alexi grins mischievously and rubs his hands together. “Right, down to business.” He turns to the rest of his team. “About my idea…”