Chapter 5
Chapter
Five
Feliks
I never answered her question. How long am I keeping her and the kid?
It makes no sense, not even in my own head, but the answer is, I’m not giving her up.
She belongs to me, and so does her little girl.
From the moment I laid eyes on her, through the plate glass window of that dingy diner, the certainty of it snapped into place.
When Zinovy lost his mind and fell for that Petal girl, I was fully confident I’d never be such a weak mess, running around putting everything on the line for a woman who didn’t even know he existed.
Now, I’ve got a woman and child I damn near kidnapped upstairs in my house and no real idea how I got to this point.
Sin- Alevtina is my employee. Not your errand runner. Get someone else to fetch your list of shit. You dumb mudak.
Dumb asshole? I’m a dumb asshole? Sanctimonious prick thinks just because he had a head start in the ‘obsessed with a woman’ race he can cockblock me. He would have shot himself in the foot and been a penniless durak a hundred times over were it not for me.
Me- Next time your investments are at risk, I am going to watch your portfolio crumble. I will curse you with poverty, brother.
Sin- You are lucky my Petal cares for your woman. I would not like her to worry that her friend is doing without. I will send Alevtina to help you. One time.
The rivalry and bickering between us might appear malicious, but such is the way with brotherhoods like ours. Zinovy is not truly my brother, not in any sense of biology. But we are Vor. Soldiers in Anatoly Balakin’s American Bratva, and fighting is bred into us as intentionally as breathing.
Me- Thank you, Avtorityet.
I tuck my phone into the pocket of my slacks and look up at the ceiling of my study.
I hear the faintest sound of water moving through pipes in the en suite bathroom and imagine it’s Hollis stepping, nude, beneath the warm spray of the shower.
My body responds, cock going hard and lengthening down the leg of my trousers.
Without clothes of her own to change into, her only option will be to wear the shirt of mine I left on the bed in the room.
The rigid bar of my erection lifting the fine wool of my pantleg is obscene, and I can’t look away from it.
Every heavy thud of my heartbeat makes it twitch as more and more blood rushes from my big head to the little one.
I can state, with certainty, that I haven’t had this much trouble controlling my dick since I was a young man and first learned what the fucking thing was meant for.
Absently, I press the heel of my hand down my length, pushing back the lust. In any normal situation, I’d have no hesitation taking myself out and handling things.
Or tracking down a willing partner to ease things for me.
Neither option appeals now that I’ve met Hollis McCrea.
Only a few hours in her presence and I already know she won’t make it easy on me.
Her list of necessities catches my attention, and a grudging chuckle slips out when I note the things she expects me to get for her tonight.
Every third or fourth item is something outrageous like ‘freedom’ or ‘a ride home,’ but some of them truly do have me wondering what exactly I’ve gotten myself in to.
What the fuck is a pop fidget unicorn, and why is it necessary?
Where the fuck does one buy bubblegum toothpaste?
Alevtina is the wife of one of Zinovy’s boyeviks, his soldiers, and when Sin realized he needed someone trustworthy to watch over the girl he was obsessing over, she was a logical choice.
Her husband, Kirill, had been irate when his wife was employed by Zinovy.
And of course, when the men are disgruntled, they come whining to me.
They foolishly believe, because I don’t immerse myself in violence as the pakhan’s bloody beast does, it’s safe to sulk in my office like petulant children.
Kirill’s tune changed quickly when he realized all of his accounts had been reassigned to his wife’s control.
What I don’t carve in flesh and blood, I exact with surgical precision on the finances of those who deserve it.
Such is my right and my duty as the Vor’s obschak.
The bookmaker. In the old days, it was a simpler job.
Amass the tributes the Avtorityet collect from businesses under our protection and bribe the government to stay out of our way.
These days, I handle much more and do it with much more delicacy. Which is why I know my threat to Sin’s finances landed so quickly. He knows the havoc I can wreak on his life without even standing from my seat.
Which is good, because I’m fairly certain if I don’t figure out how to get bubblegum toothpaste and a unicorn pop fidget into the house by the time Hollis comes downstairs, it’s gonna be a problem. I want her to agree to stay here and not fight me about it.
Because she won’t be leaving. I’m not like Zinovy. I’m unwilling to hide in the shadows while the woman I want goes about her days and I wait for some magical moment when everything is perfect to claim her for my own. I lack that patience and stupidity.
Hollis already has a kid. Which means some motherfucking balvan touched her in the past. Which is fine, I remind myself.
I’m no blushing virgin, so it’s unobjectionable that she has a past. But that’s the past. She’s mine now.
I still don’t understand what fuckery happened to turn me into some neanderthal ready to club a woman and drag her to my cave, but it is what it is.
Instincts are a motherfucker, but only a fool fails to listen.