Chapter 10 Anton
ANTON
It’s been almost two months since the sex club and I can’t seem to shake her. Late at night when it’s quiet, I can still smell her perfume, sweet, fruity flowers like springtime, wrapping me up in its embrace. I swear it was on my skin for days after, or at least on my fingertips.
I know it’s all in my mind, but it’s like I’ve imprinted on her scent somehow. Randomly, I’ll catch a whiff of it, floating on the breeze when I’m outside or just under my nose as I lie in bed at night. It’s like the ghost of her essence is hovering over me.
Never would I have believed such a thing were possible.
The little girl I met all those years ago at her sixteenth birthday party…
back then skinny as a rail, just all long legs and red hair.
She was just a child then and therefore, only on my radar as a member of my associate’s family. Nothing more.
Now, it’s all changed. I think about her rounded hips in my hands and the way she moaned in my ear as she came in my arms. Damn, what a difference a night can make. In the heat of passion, I told her I’d make it so she didn’t forget me. I didn’t know I was casting the same spell on myself.
It’s late right now. As per usual, I can’t sleep.
That’s becoming a habit with all that’s on my mind these days.
One of the rooms on the first floor was full of storage boxes and seemed to have no purpose, so I set Mikki to task on turning it into a home gym.
He finished that about a week ago. Tonight, I think I’ll take advantage of it.
In minutes, I’m in my sweatpants, jogging on my treadmill.
Working up a sweat is a good way to get my mind off sex.
For a few nights after I was with Natalya, I tried going back to the club when I couldn’t sleep, but there was suddenly nothing of any worthwhile interest to me outside of the voyeur room.
I saw no one I felt like playing with and no activity that appealed to me.
Shit. I think I accidentally found that drug I was trying to avoid in the first place. I hope I don’t spend my life looking for the same high.
The bottom line is that I’ve got to get her out of my system. Being with her is dangerous in every conceivable way. Especially right now with the tension between my Bratva and the Amur. I can’t afford to battle it out with two bands of Bratvas at once.
Speaking of the Amur, they haven’t ramped up things too much these past few weeks, but they have been quite active.
Word is out that we are at war. A few of my brigadiers have reported attacks on their guys and a few properties being wrecked.
We’ve returned the favor every time, but I’ve been looking for some way to cut off the head of the snake once and for all.
In the meantime, I’ve asked Mikki to find the one who actually carried out the act of killing Maksim. I still don’t know who held the knife. So far, he’s come up with a few theories, but nothing’s panned out just yet.
I need the head of the actual assassin. I need to see him bleed for his role in Maksim’s death. Maybe once I have it, I’ll mail it off to Nikolai. Let him know that death is coming for him next.
The doorbell sounds out, interrupting my workout. Who in God’s name would be visiting me at this hour? I grab a towel and wipe myself down. It’s nearly three in the morning. Someone had better be dead or dying.
The doorbell rings out again as I walk through the house.
Shit. Somebody’s impatient. I hope it’s not another injury.
The last thing I need is another of my men down.
I open the door. Standing there, stinking of alcohol, her split gash red lips spread across her face in a smile, is Kat.
She brushes her blonde bangs out of her eyes as she smiles blearily at me.
“Just the man I need to see,” she says. “Miss me?”
“No. What are you doing here?” It clicks that she’s alone and I add, “You didn’t drive here, did you?”
She pushes passed me, walking into my foyer. “Always with the fucking questions. I can’t believe after all this time, you greet me like that.”
I turn to look at her as she stands there, her smile taken down a notch as she looks me up and down like a hungry lion. “You look good.”
“It’s late, Kat,” I tell her. “What do you want?”
“You,” she says as she saunters over to me.
She reaches out to touch my chest and I bat her hand away.
“Don’t be like that, baby. Listen, this game of hard to get has been fun and everything, but don’t you think it’s gone far enough?
I miss you. I miss us. What do you say we go upstairs and make up like we used to? ”
“No,” I say firmly.
She blinks, her drunken eyes studying me for a long few seconds. “That’s it? Just ‘no’? What’s gotten into you?” She goes to touch me again and this time, I slap her hand hard. She takes a half-step back in shock.
“You need to leave,” I tell her and walk to the door. I spot one of my soldiers patrolling a few yards away and I wave him to come in.
“Hey, hold on,” she says. “Let’s just talk, all right? Please? Can we just talk?”
The soldier starts walking toward my open door, so I turn to her and say, “You’ve got about as long as it takes for Vincent to get here.”
She scowls at me. “Are you really going to have him throw me out?”
“He’s going to drive you home. You’re drunk.”
“I’m not drunk,” she says indignantly. “God, you are so judgmental!”
I don’t have the patience for any of this. “I swear to God, Kat—”
“Okay, okay,” she says. “I just… I came over because I miss you. I got to thinking about you and how good it was between us… We were really good, weren’t we? Good for each other. You were always there to look out for me and all that. You held me up when I was down—”
“And what did you do for me, Katerina?” I say. The thin thread of my patience has broken. “What did you do for me? You manipulated and lied to me—”
“I thought you were going to leave me,” she insisted as she stepped back from me.
“You said that you could never choose anything over the Bratva. What was I supposed to think? No one says that. Especially if they love someone. If they want to marry them. And once upon a time, you wanted to marry me.”
I’ve never hit a woman out of anger. It’s something that I’ve prided myself on despite the acts of some of my contemporaries.
But this time I have to clench my fists to stop myself.
“That’s over, Kat. Long over,” I tell her.
“Let me be clear so there’s no more confusion.
I do not want you. I will never want you again.
And most importantly…” I lean into her face.
“I will never forgive you for what you did to me. Do you understand that, Katerina? You are not welcome here.”
Her eyes welled up with tears. “You don’t mean that.”
“I have never meant anything more in my life.”
Her bottom lip trembles and she starts to speak, but headlights shine through my door, breaking up the moment. I turn in time to see Mikki’s car parking in front of my steps. I turn back to her.
“Get out. Now.”
She searches my eyes for something. Maybe sympathy or empathy or some rope she can hold onto so that she can stay a little longer. There is none. She burned this bridge long ago.
As Mikki approaches, she pushes past me and walks out. I turn in time to see her nearly knock Vincent over. “Take her home,” I call out to him. He nods and turns to follow her.
Mikki’s watching Vincent argue with Kat as he escorts her to his car as he comes up the stairs. He gets about halfway up and says, “Looks like you’re having an eventful night.”
“It never ends with that one,” I tell him.
We watch as Vincent gets her into his car, then drives off. Mikki snorts. “It’s not too late to tell him to drive her to the river, you know. She could be a problem later on.”
I scoff. “Kat’s a fly, annoying but generally harmless. When she sobers up, she’ll remember what the price is for messing with me.” Mikki nods and walks the rest of the way up to me. “What brings you here at this hour?”
“I bring news. All good. Shall we?” He motions for us to go inside. I nod and we go back into my home.
“I hope this is regarding Maksim’s killer if you’ve come all the way out here at three in the morning,” I say to him.
“I wouldn’t have done it otherwise,” he says. “I found the asshole who did it.”
I freeze. I can’t believe my ears. “Are you serious?”
“Very,” Mikki says. “Took a little maneuvering, but all that work I put in tracking him down finally paid off. One of Nikolai’s men has been conveniently in Russia for the past month. Not so coincidentally in the same city you and Maksim were in.”
“You don’t say.”
He nods. “According to my sources, the night that Maksim was killed, no one could account for his whereabouts. The concierge at the hotel where you were staying spotted him the night before he was poisoned.”
I have to cross my arms to hide my elation. “So, when is he due back?”
“Tonight. I had a couple of soldiers waiting for him at the airport. He’s been secured.”
I nod. This is good. Very good. “Where is he now?”
“Got him in the basement of one of Lev’s old clubs. The one that he had to close down last year because it was too close to Petrov’s territory?”
I nod. The Landing Strip, the place was called, and its proximity to Petrov’s people wasn’t the actual reason we closed it.
It was actually the first strip club that Lev had opened up, back when he had no idea how to run one.
The place was dirty and the women were far from anything remotely high-class.
There were as many bullet wounds in the walls as there were on the girls.
He’d told us that he wanted to close it because of Petrov, but we all know it wasn’t making the numbers the way he’d wanted it to.
“In any event,” Mikki goes on, “I was going to start putting the screws to him, but I figured you’d want the honor of seeing for yourself.”
I smile. “Let me get dressed.”