Fuck.
I press my fingers against my temples and try to focus on the laptop screen in front of me. Financial records. Bank transfers. Numbers that don’t add up. Two point seven million dollars missing from Igor’s casino operations, and I’m sitting in this shithole listening to amateur porn while I hunt down the thief.
But all I can think about is the weight of her in my arms. One hundred and thirty-eight pounds of dangerous curves and trust. The kind of woman who passes out on strangers’ couches without checking the locks. Without wondering if she’s safe.
She has no idea what kind of world she stumbled into.
This is why I need a proper apartment. Quiet. Professional. Not this fucking circus.
Not this constant reminder of what I can’t have.
The Stardust Motel—forty-nine dollars a night, cash only, no questions asked. The kind of place where cheating husbands bring their secretaries and drug dealers conduct business in the parking lot. Perfect for staying invisible. Terrible for concentration.
Terrible for forgetting hazel eyes and the taste of wine on soft lips.
My phone buzzes. Igor.
“Da?”
“Anton,moy drug, how goes the hunt?” His voice is gravelly, weathered by sixty-three years of vodka and violence. Igor Vetrov—Pakhanof the Las Vegas Bratva, my boss, and the closest thing to family I have left.
“Still tracking the money trail. Whoever’s skimming knows what they’re doing.”
“Time is not a luxury we have,” Igor says, switching to heavily accented English. The suspicion in his voice is sharper tonight. “This thief, they make me look weak. And when thePakhanlooks weak…”
He doesn’t finish, but I know what he means. Weak leaders don’t last long in the Bratva. Someone always comes to take their place.
Igor’s been getting more paranoid lately. More suspicious. He sees threats everywhere, even from his most loyal soldiers. Especially from his most loyal soldiers. The old man’s convinced that everyone wants his throne, including me.
Especially me.
Truth is, I don’t want to bePakhan. Never have. The politics, the constant paranoia, the need to watch your back every second… That’s not me. I’m a weapon, not a leader. But try explaining that to a seventy-year-old crime boss who thinks every shadow is an assassin.
“I’ll find them,” I say, because that’s what I always say. What I’ve been saying since I was sixteen, and Igor pulled me off the streets of Moscow after my father was killed.
Loyalty. That’s all I have. All I’ve ever had.
But it runs deeper than that. Igor didn’t just save me; his father saved mine first. Pulled him out of a Siberian labor camp when the Soviets wanted him dead for stealing from State coffers. My grandfather worked for the Vetrov family before that, back when organized crime meant survival, not just profit. Three generations of my blood tied to theirs. It’s not just loyalty; it’s legacy. It’s debt written in DNA.
“Good. But, Anton… be careful. This traitor, whoever they are, they have inside help. Someone feeds them information. Someone I trust.”
The line goes dead. Igor doesn’t do goodbyes.
From next door: “Oh God, oh God, I’m coming! Yes! YES!”
The woman’s fake climax reaches its theatrical peak, complete with breathless panting that sounds like she’s hyperventilating. Finally, blessed silence.
I close the laptop and try to focus on the spreadsheets scattered across my bed. Three hours of combing through numbers, and I’m no closer to finding Igor’s thief. The figures blur together; account numbers, transaction dates, deposit amounts that should make sense but don’t.
But I can’t concentrate. Can’t think.
Because every time I close my eyes, I see her.
Mary.
Wide hazel eyes, soft curves, that ridiculous hoodie sliding off her shoulder. The way she felt in my arms—warm, alive, perfectly fucking breakable.
Suka. Stop thinking about her.
