Page 41 of Sexting His Assistant

“He says you’ll want to hear him.”

That almost amuses me. Men who say such things rarely have anything worth hearing. But I need the distraction.

“Send him in,” I say.

A minute later, Kirill Antonov enters my office with the desperate confidence of a man who has rehearsed this conversation in the elevator. He’s forty-five, handsome in a soft, expensive way, with a watch too large for his wrist and a smile that does not reach his eyes. He made his money in logistics, lost most of it in bad debt, and has spent the last six months trying to convince me to let him touch one of my port contracts.

Behind him comes his security partner, Oleg Taran, a broad-shouldered ex-military type with a flattened nose and eyes that move too much. Oleg used to work in private protection across the Baltics before deciding there was more money in standing behind weak men who wanted to look strong.

I don’t like him. This doesn’t make him special.

A third man waits near the door: Pavel Semyonov, one of my own security coordinators, clean-shaven, quiet, too neat. He’s worked under my head of security for eleven months. Competent, by all visible measures. Men like that are useful.

They are also occasionally dangerous.

“Luka,” Kirill says, spreading his arms as if we are friends.

“We are not on first-name terms,” I say.

His smile flickers. “Mr. Kazan.”

I sit behind my desk and gesture to the chair opposite me. “You have five minutes.”

Kirill laughs, but the sound has sweat under it. “Always efficient.”

“Four minutes and fifty seconds.”

He sits.

Oleg remains standing behind him. Pavel stays by the door, silent.

Kirill places a folder on my desk. “I’ll be direct. I want in on the northern route.”

“No.”

He blinks.

He expected bargaining, a slow tightening of terms, a performance of consideration. Men like Kirill often mistake refusal for an opening position.

“It’s a strong proposal,” he says carefully. “The distribution network is already built. My people can move faster than Novik’s, and with your capital⁠—”

“No.”

His jaw tightens. “You haven’t read it.”

“I know enough.”

“You know what people have told you.”

“I know what you owe, who you owe it to, and what happens to men who use my routes to pay off their stupidity.”

Color rises under his collar.

Oleg shifts behind him, very slightly.

Kirill leans forward. “I made mistakes.”

“You made bets.”