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Papa Dimitri was interested in selling their wares on the black market, including taking sometimes dangerous contracts. They brokered weapons deals, narcotics, even a deal on cocoa beans once—anything and everything they could get a percentage of. Sometimes Papa Dimitri’s men would provide protection on a deal, but most often now, it was all done in cyberspace and their money was spent increasingly on their server farm and equipment once Alexei saw the profits coming in. Hell, Nicholas barely understood half of what Bo spouted about the tricks he had with cryptocurrency that covered his tracks so that the Feds never had a hope of catching him.
But even though it was bringing in boatloads of profit didn’t mean Papa Dimitri liked having his crime syndicate go so digital. He liked the tangibles of the strip club, gambling dens, and the older rackets that he’d made his name and career with.
Hence the clash with Tereshchenko. Starting a turf war with another family that had been marginally encroaching on their territory…
Nicholas had no regrets that the fucker who’d been planning to abduct his now-wife had ended up as hog food at the farm in Jersey run by the Russian family loyal to Papa. But tactically speaking, he could see why Alexei was anxious about the ramifications.
All Nicholas wanted was for his own fucking wife to talk to him and stop moping around like he’d ruined her life. In fact, he was going to lay down the law when he went home tonight. Enough was enough. It was time for her to accept facts. She didn’t think what had happened to her was fair, well, tough shit, honey. Life wasn’t fair. Her story wasn’t any sadder than most.
A knock on the door had them all looking that way as it opened.
Natasha stepped in. Nicholas couldn’t help his eyebrows going up as he reached for his coffee. It was nine-thirty in the morning and yet the woman was dressed in head-to-toe leather. Leather chaps and a leather bustier, along with the crop with a wicked cat of nines at the end wrapped up and held in her hand.
“Boys,” she said, affecting a heavy Russian accent that Nicholas knew she could lose at the drop of a hat. She was only twenty-five, younger than the rest of them by several years. But she was also the most world-weary and wise of all of them put together. “Hello, Boris.”
Bo waved distractedly at her, eyes still on his screens.
A slight frown creased her forehead, but then she looked at Alexei. “I’m ready to start. If you’re gonna watch, get your asses out here now.”
Alexei mock saluted her. “Yes, Mistress.”
Natasha flipped him off and disappeared back out the door.
“Duty calls,” Alexei said.
Bo laughed. “How ever will you endure?”
“Fuck off. Maybe if you looked up from your computer some year you’d see the way Tasha looks at you.”
Bo swung around in his chair at that, eyebrows narrowed. “Don’t fuck with me.”
This time it was Alexei shaking his head. “Jesus, you’re a fucking idiot. Get your head out of your ass and look around you. There’s a whole world out here, Bo.”
Nicholas blinked, surprised by what Alexei was suggesting. Was it true? Natasha did come by the office an awful lot when she didn’t need to. But she and Bo never talked.
Nicholas had assumed it was simply a quiet safe-haven from the rest of her life. He knew it wasn’t easy for her here. Yes, she was the top of the heap when it came to the women… but that was because…
Nicholas looked at the ground. That was because she was favored by Papa. Yes, she was half his age, but that was par for the course with the man, never satisfied unless he had a young beauty on his arm. She’d arrived not long after Nicholas had come on as a soldier six years ago, not that Nicholas had known of her or noticed her then.
He’d barely been aware of that part of Papa Vasiliev’s operation. He wasn’t sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing that he hadn’t known about the girls at first. He thought they worked for the strip club willingly. He hadn’t known about… the stable. Would he have signed on so readily had he known? By the time he’d found out, he was in too deep. And while his mother might have wanted something different for him, he’d always expected to follow in his father’s footsteps. This was their world.
And once you became a soldier for Vasiliev, you didn’t leave.
Besides, Alexei had been transforming the club in recent years, making things better for the girls. He didn’t want any of his girls on anything stronger than coke—nothing that required a needle or a pipe. He was trying to incentivize them but he’d been out of his league until Natasha had come along. She had a vision for what the women could be, a vision that intertwined perfectly with Alexei’s. She’d come in with the same footing as any other girl, yet she got men to spend thousands more on her in the back rooms.
