1
RUSLAN KOZLOVA
The first time I sawhim, I was bored out of my mind sitting in an office on the top floor of a skyscraper in New York City, with a gun in my hand pointed at a weasel who thought he could get away with not settling his debt. The five men I’d brought with me surrounded him, each with their own gun aimed at a different part of his body. I took a moment to sigh away my disappointment and glanced out the large, rectangular window. Boredom plagued me, the weariness of this job taking its toll on my mind. I’d been doing this since my tato passed on to the next life. It hadn’t been my passion to run a mob, but here I was, unhappy.
That’s when I caught sight of the billboard plastered above a building withhisface gracing an ad for cologne.
His grin was wide, mouth parted with a touch of seduction, and his dark hair was combed back. Black-rimmed glasses sat on the bridge of his nose, giving him a geeky but attractive look. I wasn’t the type of guy who called another man pretty, but he was exactly that, with lush pink lips and a smile that could take even the steeliest man’s breath away—which it did for me.
I stood from the black leather chair I’d been sitting in and walked to the window, fixated on the billboard. From here, I couldn’t see a stage name, but unless he was a celebrity I didn’t recognize, it would be unusual for that to be part of the advertisement. I let out the breath I’d been holding and dropped the gun to my side.
“Sir?” Anatoly, my best friend and second-in-command, sidled up beside me. The sunshine glittered in his short dark hair, and he looked at me sharply with narrowed brown eyes. He’d been raised on Wilkes Street, same as me, and his parents were Ukrainians like mine. Unlike Tato, Ana’s father wasn’t involved in organized crime, and Ana was the first in his family to join a mob—mymob. “Is something wrong?”
“I want him,” I said, pointing at the billboard.
Ana shifted to look out the window and huffed, then began to chuckle, laugh lines creasing around his mouth and causing the dimple in his chin to become more prominent, but he stopped when he scanned my face to see if I was joking. I frowned at him. His already low brows furrowed, and he glanced from the man on the billboard to me. “Sir? That’s a model.”
I snorted. “I’m aware of that, but I want him. Find him.”
Ana shook his head. Soon enough he was holding a hand to his belly while he snickered. He was the only one who could get away with laughing at me, and only because of the years we’d spent together as friends. “I don’t know his name, Ru.”
“That has never stopped you before, has it?” I raised my eyebrows. “Find him.”
“And then what? Kidnap him?” Ana smirked and crossed his arms, the black suit he wore stretching across wide shoulders.
“Of course not. I’m a mob boss, not a serial killer. I don’t kidnap innocent people.”
Someone cleared his throat behind us, and we turned to stare at Smith, the asshole who owed me too much money for drugs he’d promised payment for, then snorted. His eyes were too big for his face and his wide nose had begged for a punch since the moment I’d met him, but it was already slightly bent, so someone had landed a few on him previously.
He offered us a smooth smile that might’ve worked on anyone else, but we weren’t clients he could woo with some well-placed words and a grin. This game belonged to us. “I could help you with that. His name—it’s Augustine Hart. He’s veryen vogueright now. He has that sweet look that’s been selling.”
“How do you know that?” Ana asked, waving his hand at one of our soldiers, who darted forward and pressed the muzzle of his Glock against Smith’s head.
Smith tensed and laughed nervously. “I wanted to recruit him. He was a big thing on Instagram for a while after some stage production he put on, but then that bastard McKay got him before I could. A real damned shame.Everyonewould know his name if I’d been in charge of him.”
I doubted that. Snorting, I smirked. “All of your models are about to lose their boss if you aren’t careful, Smith.”
He cringed.
“Now tell me more. McKay. Who is that?”
“Marcus McKay, from McKay’s Models. He’s a dick.”
“You’rea dick,” Ana drawled, and I laughed, slapping him on the back.
Smith glared, but there wasn’t much else he could do. He had multiple guns pointed at him and one pressed tightly against his temple. A wrong move and it was the end for him.
“For that information, I’m giving you an extra week.” I raised my eyebrows, daring him to argue. “But only a week. Any longer, Smith, and you’ll end up in the Hudson as fish food. Understood?”
He stiffened but nodded with a shaky smile. “Yes, sir. Thank you, Mr. Kozlova.”
I grunted in distaste, shoving my Glock back into the holster under my suit jacket, and swept past him out of his mediocre office. The receptionist darted a nervous glance in my direction but didn’t do a damned thing. She’d seen me here more than once and knew who I was, and she seemed smart enough to realize calling the cops meant getting her boss into trouble. Smith wouldn’t allow her to do that.
Ana was hot on my heels, moving swiftly, like the models who filled the room we stepped into. His tailored suit fit his muscular body to perfection and the women and men stopped talking with each other to appreciate him as we walked out the glass door of Smith’s modeling agency toward the elevator.
“So, what are your plans, Ruslan?” he asked as soon as we were out of earshot of Smith’s people. Our men followed us into the elevator, guns hidden in their suits. To anyone who didn’t know us, we appeared to be businessmen and nothing more. “And how do you plan on going about this? Should we tell flashy Mr. Augustine Hart that a mob boss wants to date him?” His eyelashes fluttered.
I snorted out a laugh. “You could tell him that a mob boss is willing to kill any of his enemies. That seems romantic, doesn’t it?”
